I just wanted to focus on anything but the thing, that related to the thing, that related to the thing, which, after a few more things, would bring my thoughts to that false god. And luckily for me, a peculiar thing happened which managed to draw my attention for a moment.
"Oi, watch it!" the wagon driver yelled, as his horses reeled, causing the cart to jerk.
I sat up, confused as to what was going on. I peeked over the box I was leaning on, to see what was happening. And as I did, I heard a shout back.
"Shut it, you stupid Human! I go where I want!"
There was a slight accent to the voice; it was male, and clearly rougher than even the roughest Human men I’ve met, and there was a certain inflection to it which made it sound serious and not so serious at the same time. Unfortunately for me, I barely got a glance at the man as they continued down the road in the direction we came from. But what I managed to see told me a lot.
The first thing I noticed was that whoever it was, was not driving a wagon, or even a car. He was on what looked like… a scooter? Or a bike. But with three wheels instead of two, with a black and gold color scheme to it, and it was emitting a lot of white gas from its back.
And while the plume of smoke obscured the driver slightly as they got further and further away rather quickly, I could make out their figure— the second thing I noticed— even still. They seemed short, stocky, and— well, there was no point trying to make out the rest of his appearance, since he was quite clearly a Dwarf.
Blinking, I watched as the Dwarf drove into the distance, as our wagon resumed trotting down the road at a much slower pace than him. "...was that a Dwarf?" I asked, turning to the driver.
The man seemed to consider my question; he craned his neck up, then around to face me. He looked me dead in the eyes, and spoke slowly.
"Get. Out."
Right, he told me he would do that if I spoke to him again. Forgot about that.
And then I watched as both the wagon and the Dwarf disappeared into the distance.
At least I don’t have to pay him, right?
It was a net gain for me, since not only did I not have to pay that jerk of a wagon driver, but he was apparently so irate, he did not realize how close we were to the city of Locke before he kicked me out of his cart. So as I passed by the man who was stopped to have his wares inspected at the gates, I made sure to give him my sweetest smile and my most heartfelt thanks for the free ride. Then I ignored his outraged complaints as I entered the city without an issue.
Maybe I was being petty; he did let me on his cart, after all. But it took quite a bit of convincing, and even then, he chastised me over every little thing. He scolded me for sitting wrong, for God’s sake!
I understood what it was like to be an awkward passenger who did not want to speak to their taxi driver; if speaking rudely to me was all he did, I would not have been so vindictive. Maybe he was having a bad day, but thanks to him I was having a bad day as well.
Relative to the last few weeks, of course. I had far worse days than being yelled at by some grumpy middle aged man just because I was a kid. But I was just repaying him in kind— objectively speaking, I did say ‘thank you’, did I not?
Whatever the case was, I was inside of Locke as the sun just left the highest point in the sky. It was an hour or two after noon, and I wanted to find an inn quickly to keep my belongings in. So I made my way to the nearest inn— nothing fancy, I currently had no reason to splurge on something as unnecessary as luxury when I still had no stable income.
After getting a room, dropping off my stuff, and answering the usual questions I got such as ‘where’s your parents?’ and ‘are you sure you can afford it?’— which was par for the course— I finally began my search for a place to acquire my mask.
As mentioned before, Locke was a city. A proper city, even if it was not too big. And unlike the Free Lands which was slightly technologically behind the rest of the world due to the embargo between most of the Free Cities and the Holy Xan Empire, this place actually sold stuff.
I passed by a Tinkerer's shop, and stopped by their open display; they had a variety of items out in view, including a little music box playing a nice relaxing tune. It had a small mana crystal at its wooden base instead of a protruding metal cylinder to wind it up with. It played its music nonstop, and the little figurine in the center never stopped dancing.
It seemed to remain active until you turned it off, since it was powered by mana. Considering this, I had expected such an object to be rather expensive, so I was surprised to see that it was only being sold for two silver coins.
That was hardly a significant amount— I had to pay even more than that to simply enter the country. Up until this point, I was under the impression that mana tools generally cost a lot of money; I had expected anything that was made using mana would require gold coins. In fact, ignoring what I had seen
