It wasn't too long before Shini, Kiddo, and Chris had reached Windrell City, where the librarian was located. Along the journey, they had all made pleasant conversation, and, having opened up to the idea of being friendly, Chrisbopherd had asked them to call him Chris.
Windrell, also known as Turbine Town, was a newly sprawling industrial city. A small portion of the people placed a high value on education and academia, so things like libraries and research labs were very common throughout. However, this earlier stated sample of academics was only a small proportion of the population. Their needs were satisfied only because they held power, but the general populace didn't live the same luxury. Under the leadership of these academics, gangs and subsequent violence broke out throughout the town, and the smart people just had no idea why.
Our intrepid heroes climb out of a sewer grate in an alley downtown. "Oi," a man standing outside the grate mutters threateningly, "What the hell is this?" Shini exits after Kiddo, standing up straight. Her sword is easily visible in her left hand, "Ah-" the man's voice wavers a little. His bravado is lost slightly. He turns around and speed walks out of the alley.
"We gotta go," Shini starts walking the other way, and Kiddo follows. She quickly turns right down another, connected alley, then right once more into the open street. She stops cold, and turns back immediately, "I forgot where it is."
"Can we ask for directions?" Kiddo continues to follow her, "Is it really better to travel through the alleys?"
"You used to be bullied?" She asks. Kiddo nods, slightly uncomfortable, "So you understand the idea of laying low: to not raise attention to yourself."
"Ah," he mutters as they march forward, "I think I understand."
"You might," she remarks. It didn't really matter to her whether he did or not, just that he listened to her in the moment. All the same, she noticed that Kiddo felt hurt. It seemed as though her coldness may have sapped some of his warmness away. "I've had a similar experience to yours. It'd be rude to speak for you, but I'm sure it was similar," Shini adds after a good amount of silence, trying to strike up a kinship with the man.
"You might have," the reply comes from behind her, dejected, "but it's not nice to compare."
"Usually I'm not one for being nice, but I agree," Chris speaks up now, "I bet we've all been through some hardship." They continue to shuffle along, turning here or there. Tentatively, Shini knew where she might be going. It had been a long time, and she struggled to admit fault when it came to intellectual matters.
Kiddo's vaguely sad tone seems to dissipate, "And what would that be? For you, Chris, if you don't mind."
"Nothing too fresh. Just lots of bad luck, lots of rotten people I've met," he sighs, "That's more than I'm used to telling people."
Then we're one in the same, Shini thinks to herself, and Kiddo says aloud. She hoped there was some sort of link between them, for whatever reason. She hoped that this bound them in some way, even though she had not shared her sentiment. Maybe they understood without her saying it. Maybe her omission of words was enough in its own right to prove that she was the same. She could only wonder.
Elidon waits outside the hospital building in the arena. Waiting bored him, a unique characteristic to him, he thought. He began to wander the lobby as he grew even more, and uniquely, bored. It would be a long while before Ghizh would be fit enough to leave the arena. As Elidon found himself so unequivocally- and uniquely- bored, he sought fit to do something. A marvelous idea, by his standards. Like an artist looking for inspiration in the mundanities of the real world, Elidon searched for inspiration for his restaurant in the lobby of the arena. Why was it that people would eat grilled fruits and fried meats while watching bloodsport? It seemed like, on a purely texture basis, that those would be incompatible with the visual content of the fights. And popcorn, what was so special about popcorn? Why did it seem to come up for any spectator event- it couldn't just be because of its convenience and ease of salt and butter delivery. There, no, there had to be more. There had to be something Elidon was missing. He turns to one of the concessions counters "One popcorn-" it's the same one from earlier, and there is still no employee, "Damn it all!" But there had to be somewhere he could obtain popcorn. He needed to investigate it, in as detailed a manner, and as soon, as possible. He strolls out of the arena, and into downtown Gohushu. "Excuse me, ma'am," he taps a random person's shoulder, "do you know where I could be some popcorn?" She turns slowly, revealing a bulbous, warted nose and nothing else of much importance to Elidon.
She sucks in deeply on some sort of small, ornately designed, mechanical stick, and blows some gray smoke into Elidon's face. It smells just okay. "Nope. Got mud, though."
"You're selling mud?" Elidon asks blankly. She takes another drag, blowing the smoke in his face once more. She nods, gesturing towards her cart of mud. "Okay," Elidon scratches her head.
"Why'd you scratch my head?"
"It was an accident," and it was. He meant to scratch his own head, but he got nervous. He gives her a coin, and takes some mud, "Sorry, I'll be going."
"You took too much," she grabs his arm, "That's too much mud for one-" she looks at the coin, "hey this ain't legal tender."
"Sorry? It isn't?"
"No, no this is some counterfeit shit," she throws it into the mud, "now it's part a the mud."
Elidon is offended, "Well now why would you do that? Throw away a perfectly good Elidoin? I made that, made it with my bare hands, and it'll be the universal currency some day!"
"I'm honored," she blows more smoke, "but anybody who knows anything about general economics knows that universal currency isn't feasible- especially not in this day and age."
"Why, but of course. In this economy?" Elidon shakes his head. He knew what she was talking about. "That's what makes the venture of making a universal currency more exciting," he ponders the idea fondly.
"Look, pal, it really is impossible," she blows more smoke in his face, waking him up, "unless you united all of Grela. And even then, getting every person to agree on the value of every good," she scoffs, "Forget it."
"I don't see why that's so hard," he says seriously, "It's non-fungible, does that help?"
She looks him in the eyes, then looks down and shakes her head, "I don't know what that is, but I don't think you do either. Just give me back that mud. Needs selling to a proper customer."
"But why would someone want to buy mud? Is this really the best use of your time?"
"You tried to buy mud. I don't really know why. As a customer, you should answer that question."
"I felt bad. I assumed that nobody would want to buy mud, so I wanted to help out." He also wanted an easy way out of the conversation, but didn't feel the need to say that. Also, the need to leave the conversation was overridden by the need to defend himself.
"Well that's exactly why I'm selling it."
"Why not just- I don't know- ask for money? You know, beg?"
"That would be charity," she smooths over her mud.
"Exactly!"
"Charity's not allowed," somebody grabs a scoop of mud, and tosses the lady a silver coin, "I'd be breaking the law." The person immediately throws the mud on the ground. The mud seller picks it up and throws it back on the pile.
"That's not true."
She sighs, "Do you think that I, a registered business owner, would not know the laws around this stuff?"
"I just think you're misinformed."
"Well, I'm not," she puffs some smoke, "People were using charities to embezzle. The king banned them outright."
"Since when?!" Elidon hadn't heard of this.
"Couple months," she pokes at her mud, "now if you want to talk about all the restrictions on the homeless-"
"I broke the law!" Elidon gasps, "I am a criminal- I was begging earlier."
She shushes him, "Why are you saying it out loud?! I didn't ask in any way."
"But I'm just- oh, I'm just worried about-"
"I made no motion to make it seem like I cared," she finally takes back the mud, "now get out of here."
"Wait," he sticks his hand out. It's covered in mud, so he wipes it on the ground. It doesn't really help, "What if you worked for me? I'm trying to start a restaurant, and you seem like you're pretty knowledgeable."
She stops, and turns back to Elidon, "Would you pay me?"
"Of course!"
"Where is it?"
"Well, I haven't built it yet."
"Then why would I work for you? If you don't even have the restaurant yet."
"Well because I would pay you when I made it."
"I'll stick to mud for now."
"But-"
"For now. Mud sells more than theoretical food."
Elidon looks quizzically upon the woman. She was certainly rude to him, but she certainly wasn't stupid, no. Was this her best case scenario right now? Something about it made Elidon deeply, and ever so uniquely, sad. He hadn't realized that this was the state of things here, and it made him wonder if this was the state of things everywhere. Maybe a restaurant, in the traditional sense, wasn't so much a good idea.
Shuffling through the windy and winding alleys of Windrell, Shini and her companions approach the back of a large brown building near the middle of town. Not downtown, but the outskirts of downtown, before you get to the real outskirts of town. Shini slowly creaks the back door open, and glances around the room. She shuts the door slowly, and turns to Kiddo, "Can you hold him for a second?" she whispers.
"What? No, there's no way."
"Why?"
"Look at me," he gestures to himself, "I'm just a little guy, y'know?"
Chris laughs, "That's a silly phrase. I'm just a little guy as well."
"Right, yeah," Shini turns back to the door, and opens it even slower than she did before. It'd be pretty hard to sneak inside, what with the person on her shoulder and all, so she'd need to be extra careful, and extra slow. She takes one step inside, and opens the door fully. Something sweeps her legs out from under her, and she slips to the ground. She gets herself under Chris, and catches him with both hands to soften the impact. She places him on the ground, and grabs her sword before 4 seconds are up. She turns to face what swept her legs, and sees a strange stone monolith. Chris, now away from the calming cloak, begins to scream in pain. Shini glances down to him, and begins to tell him to stop. She hears stone shifting from above, and glances back up. The monolith has taken the form of a small stone giant, and is swinging down on Chris. Shini rushes in front of the blow, and blocks the force with her sword. The giant pushes down further and further, placing more and more weight on Shini. She holds her sword up, and tries to think of a plan. As long as the monolith keeps pushing on her, she can't move, as Chris would be crushed.
Kiddo takes a step into the doorway after seeing and hearing the commotion. He sees the stone golem, and Shini fighting against it. A door opens in the far end of the room, and a large troll, wearing glasses and a black apron, walks in holding a spear. A look of concern and anger almost immediately melts into joyful surprise, "Plinth!" He shouts, the golem turns to him, "Enough," he gestures to Shini, "friendly." And to Kiddo and Chris, "And them too, I'm guessing," Plinth eases up on Shini, and takes a step back, "Shini," the troll speaks. Shini starts to stand up, and looks down as she does so, "Oh, Shini. It's so lovely to see you. It's been quite a while."
"Yeah. Sorry," she takes off the calming cloak, and tosses it to Chrisbopherd. She's immediately overwhelmed by so many things, and Chrisbopherd stops screaming. She starts breathing heavily, and lowers back down to one knee. She thinks about how long it's been since she's seen Robahg, if he would be mad at her. What would he say- what would he say? He wouldn't be angry? Yeah, he would. He would, right? It had been-
"It's okay," She feels a hand on her shoulder, and shifts her head towards it, then up to meet the eyes of the troll, "Shini, it's okay," she sees Robahg now, the owner of The Labyrinthine Library, and someone who she knows well, smiling warmly down at her.
But he could be faking, maybe. He might be, maybe, or he-
Robahg brings her into an embrace, and she wants to cry. She hugs back and sniffles. They hold there for a solid 15, a well established, top notch hug length.
"Now that's a solid hug," Chris mutters on the floor, "good timing on that one. Nice," Plinth nods in agreement.
Shini lets go, and picks up her sword. Robahg sighs, sniffles, and wipes tears from his eyes. "Oh, saints, it's so- so- lovely to see you," Shini smiles meekly, and looks down. "Come on, let's go sit," he rolls up his sleeves and starts walking, "Let's help your friend here," he gestures to Chris as he walks by, "Friends!" He stops. He turns back around, and approaches Kiddo. He holds out a hand, "I'm Robahg, the troll librarian," Kiddo shakes it, "I've known Shini for quite a while now," Robahg keeps shaking Kiddo's hand, smiling, "Do you want something to eat? Maybe a beverage? A book? Oh, I've got lots of those. If there's anything you need, just ask, alright?" He lets go.
"Thanks," Kiddo rubs his hand, "I go by Kiddo."
"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you. Now," he starts walking back to the other door, "Plinth, could you pick up Shini's friend here?" He stops and points to Chris. He squats down, "we'll have to introduce ourselves when you're more conscious."
"Charmed," Chris holds out a hand, cocked at a 45 degree angle, "I'm just a little guy, here on the floor," he says.
"Wonderful!" Robahg shakes his hand.
Shini goes to help Plinth, but they quickly scoop up Chris before Shini can get there. Shini thinks about apologizing, but thinks better of it, since Plinth seems kind enough to not fault her for her awkwardness. She follows Robahg. Plinth glances back for a second, perceives Kiddo, and scoops him up onto his other shoulder.
"I can walk fine," Kiddo mentions to Plinth, who doesn't respond, "but thank you." Deep down, Plinth smiles, and he follows Shini into the next room.