For the last time, I sat down on this crumbling wooden porch.
As usual, it groaned at what little weight I had. This time it would act as a final farewell and good luck for finding a new home. This splintering wooden construction was attached to an even older Orphanage.
Dark, dirty and just as welcome; this building made almost entirely of abandoned ship parts fit right into the town of Tyrants Rest.
Piss and unkept fish filled the air with the welcoming scent of another night spent drinking away the never-ending problems of an overtaxed settlement on the brink of falling apart. The only source of income that kept this crossroads town afloat was the traffic of curious travelers passing through.
"Do you ever feel like the world is working against you?"
All I could do was talk to myself and pray someone would answer my never ending questions.
For as long as I could remember, I was told I was a 'Blessed Child'. If only being blessed meant I was lucky, then maybe it would live up to the name.
What a joke.
To be blessed is to have a power bestowed upon you by the spirits, beings who saw through the very hearts of others in service to the world. Rumor had it most noble children were granted such powers thanks to their parents' deeds.
For some being 'Blessed' meant a way to see through the very hearts of others, influence souls or even identify others with a single spoken word.
To me, I could feel the intent of anyone I looked at.
On the surface that sounded great.
The ability to tell when someone wants to pull something shady, lie and cheat to my face, it can be a life saver. However, those 'feelings' didn't reveal the deception itself. I often found myself in more trouble for speaking out about what I knew than if I'd not said a thing.
An unnamed orphan telling off some Merchants Guild tycoon? My word was nothing more than the shit attached to their carriage wheels.
First names meant a legacy to which your deeds would be recorded down in history, and last names meant you were part of something greater. Most importantly, it meant I wasn't nothing, that my life wasn't worthless trash to be discarded with everyday waste.
I tried to find a family, be granted a name, only to face reality. I was left alone and abandoned for a reason. Once upon a time I had the chance of apprenticeship and adoption, but threw that chance out the window due to my own negligence.
And now I was sixteen, I would leave this orphanage and pathetic town behind.
In our overcrowded Orphanage we have an unspoken rule to make sure everyone remains fed, or at least as much as possible.
Leaving before the end of Harvest would still leave plenty of opportunity to earn food for the rest of the kids and Sisters.
Sometimes it was hard to keep track of our own age, we didn't have the luxury of celebrating something so basic, so instead I tallied every Harvest, and my markings would be left under the very plank squeaking its farewell.
Winter is fast approaching and food would have to be rationed. Stale bread and vegetable scraps had been the extent of my pallet for the sixteen years. Just enough to get by, not enough to grow more than muscle, skin and bone.
Mother Zoe, the head of our Orphanage, refused to turn down anyone in need. Thus, every year, those that could be considered 'adults' had to leave.
Meat was prioritized to Beast-kin children as some races happened to be completely allergic to eating certain food. The Sisters played it safe, as they knew little of any race that wasn't 'Human'.
Every night the floor was littered with sleeping bags and hammocks hung from the roofs. Any space we could use, was used. Continuously cramped rooms and a higher number of kids that needed a home led to the food shortages and our unspoken rule.
Stay and add to that burden or run away, no other choices. Better off I left without saying a word. Just one more teenager taking a stroll at night never to return, only this time dawn was about to break.
"Food, shelter, work. That's all I need. One step at a time"
Not exactly a perfect plan, but it had all the important stuff. First, I'd check a few of the stores on this side of the river, mainly a baker, fishmonger and second hand equipment shop.
Come on, get up
Mother Zoe told us not to run away, that she was working on something that should help. That something never came, at least not yet. I still held onto hope that she would find that help someday, unfortunately it was too late for me.
Maybe that was the point? To give us a little bit of hope, it would be just like her.
As a woman of the black and gold cloth, she had traveled all over the world when she was young in a pilgrimage. She made friends and connections wherever she went. At night she would often tell us about these stories, even if those stories often repeated night after night.
Zoe cared for us, even as her memory started fading, the stories of the people she met never changed. Remembering every adventure as if it were yesterday.
"I'm going to miss this place... thanks for everything"
It was all I could muster under my breath. Saying nothing would leave me with the feeling of a knife in my gut. The unrelenting love from the Sisters despite knowing that someday they'll never see us again, was something I admired.
"We'll all miss you Kid, promise you'll visit sometime"
Sister Naji, a pale blue Daemon, fitted in personally adjusted gray robes, poked her head out of the side of the dirty Orphanage as I got up. An ex-adventurer who lost her party, joined our home about four years ago.
It was an oddity for such a race to be a woman of the cloth. She wore a grey robe indicating zero affiliation with any pantheon, same with the rest of our house. The robe was a pledge to serve others, instead of a god, although she did modify it to be vastly more revealing.
'Once a monk, always a monk', she'd say. She often complained that the traditional dress restricted her legs too much.
Some say her thighs are 'the pride of Tyrants Rest' right before having their lights knocked out and learning some things are best not said within earshot of who it was about.
She pulled out a cigarette, no doubt wrapped by herself, and hovered it over my face as she leaned on the pathetic excuse of a railing from the outside.
Out of respect, I reached out with three fingers like I was mimicking a bird beak and cast Sparks from my fingertips. A beginner level spell that created tiny streaks of flame for the purpose of starting a fire.
"I'll try"
"You're an odd kid, that's why I won't stop you. People without a home tend to find people and places they can call that anyway. You know... I'm pretty sure you're the only one here that never complained about my smoking, why is that?"
"I don't know, I guess it doesn't really bother me. I'll catch you later Naji"
"One last thing, I hear a pair of famous travelers might be passing through. If I were you I'd try get some work out of that blessing"
With nothing but the ragged clothes on my back, shorts held up by string and falling apart leather shoes to my non-existent name and set off.
Not that I was very appealing in the first place. Brown hair, navy blue eyes and a mole under my left eye. Bland and boring, nothing more, nothing less.
Naji's advice was always worth listening to. Despite her long and messy deep purple hair and ever-present dark rings under her pale yellow eyes, she'd always help me whenever she could, even in ways I could never have expected.
It felt kind of funny how things turned out; I'd worked more jobs than most would in a lifetime. I knew how to succeed in each and every profession within our river crossroads town, and it still wasn't enough to get adopted.
I didn't exactly excel in any of the jobs I worked, but I wasn't bad either, just perfectly in the middle. Problem was that in the middle did stand out, and only those that shone brightly got adopted into families.
When I was younger I dreamed of being an Adventurer. Freedom, exploration, never being tied down to the world, fighting monsters and having your name cheered by common folk. All a mirage in the desert of reality.
Maybe it was Mother Zoe's stories?
On days when I couldn't find work, or train with the guards, I talked to the travelers hanging out in the Guild Hall.
I can't remember the first time I was rejected by the Adventurers guild, I was too young. And yet, that motivated me to learn everything I could about the profession.
Sometimes I practiced magic or learnt from the guards when they trained.
Outside of the basics of magic, there wasn't much anybody could teach me. The ability to instantly cast basic spells wasn't uncommon, although everyone started by chanting the spell to learn it and the more complicated the spell the longer it took to cast.
With enough practice, any beginner to advanced spell could be cast instantly, and what people referred to as 'mastering a spell'.
Crazy thing was that it wasn't really true mastery, not even close if you ask me. That came with being able to manipulate the spell. Size, speed, strength, range and the like, it could all be changed, and I had gotten rather good with basic spell alteration.
"Maybe I'll just go to the bridge then..."
Naji's words are best not ignored, she's odd like that. I could always check in with the stores later.
A large river flowed through the middle of town, while a paved stone road ran perpendicular. Each side of the wide river was connected by a single large cobblestone and cement bridge.
High enough to let large boats through underneath with a lowered mast, while built nice and wide to be used as a major trade route between the free port of Concordia and magic city of Dragons Mort, although past a certain point it was much faster by carriage.
Our Orphanage was on a muddy road a single turn off from the stone highway. Made through an ancient recipe combining strange crushed green stone and yellow clay, it was dubbed 'Roman Cement', the Eternal Empire's old name.
Thanks to an explosion that shaped the area itself, our town was built with the combination of rubble and terrain shaping magic. Obviously, Tyrants Rest was named as an insult to the one that caused so much destruction, the Tyrant of Powder.
As the perfect middle ground between kingdoms, stone walls were erected and it became a strategic checkpoint. However over the course of many years, all but a few sections had completely collapsed.
As I walked along the paved road towards the bridge, I passed an old destroyed smithy. A workshop that lay in ruins. It always brought back memories of the past, thoughts of the woman that had once made me a promise, and her unique circumstances.