There were plenty of stories to be heard if one woke up early enough, and that must be the case for Lena. Normally she’d have to eat breakfast alone as she would wake up when the sun was already high in the sky, and Rob would already be out tending to the fields and the old man would be off to who-knows-where. They’d never talked about where the old man would go, but the household would instead chatter away about the most random things possible. Table didn’t mind. He’d wanted to know more about the world he’d lived in the past two weeks.

  Today, the old man decided to whimsically go over the history of the town even though no one asked—like a book that just vomited worldbuilding infodumps on readers for the sake of worldbuilding.

  Anyway…

  The township of Iakesi, one of the earliest settlements in the Central Pins, was far from the strangest pce in the Kingdom of Litarpege, but it had its fair share of oddities. For one, the town square was dominated by a massive statue of a chicken, Not a noble steed, not any legendary hero, but a chicken. Legend had it that the chicken, named Cluckclong the Brave, had once saved the town from a marauding band of goblins by leading them into a pit of quicksand. Townsfolk said that chicken had once saved twenty-four children from drowning, all at once. But even if such an account was true (as wasn’t often the case with verbal scuttlebutts), there had been far more influential figures throughout the history of the town that didn’t have statues erected. Nonetheless, the statue remained, and the townsfolk (especially a certain middle-aged dy called Hage) took great pride in it, polishing its beak every Sunday and draping it in garnds during Poultry festivals. Yes, there were more than one festival dedicated to domestic birds.

  That was it. That was all one needed to know about the history of the town. Now back to pushing the plot along.

  Rob and Lena carried Table (Blorbobobobo) out of the house, each gripping one end.

  “Careful, dear,” Rob said, grunting slightly as they tried to drop Blorbobobobo on the ground. “Don’t want to scratch the new varnish.”

  “I’m being careful!” Lena shot back, though her grip on Table’s edge was anything but gentle. “You’re the one who nearly tripped over the threshold.”

  Will you two take this seriously? My LIFE is on the line here. Three attribute penalties PER ATTRIBUTE for failing to set up shop? This is not a quest. This is retribution.

  “That was one time!” Rob protested.

  One time? I’ve seen you trip over your own shadow, Robert.

  “Let me take over from here,” he said, then proceeded to hoist the table on his shoulder. Featherwood meant he was extremely light, and was hardly a problem for Rob. Lena had insisted they rent a cart, but Rob told her, “Just because we have a bit of coin now doesn’t mean we should go splurging on unnecessary expenses.”

  Maybe you should’ve fixed Lena’s habit of buying shiny trinkets first.

  “Then why don’t we just… buy a cart? We’re bound to need one,” Lena asked.

  “... Good point.”

  Lena grabbed a crate of cabbages, grumbling under her breath about stubborn husbands, and then about how she had wiped Blorbo clean just for it to get messy ter. They had shortened his name to Blorbo, which in all fairness did sound a bit better than Blorbobobobo.

  The cacophony of shouts and whispers assaulted him, and he had no way to turn them off. He wouldn’t have been able to have picked up half of what were said, but his accursed PER:11 seemed to have come with unintended consequences.

  “...and then he said, ‘That’s not a chicken, that’s my wife!’ Can you believe it?”

  “I heard the bcksmith’s apprentice ran off with a traveling bard st night. Left a note and an egg.”

  “Did you see the new stall in the market? The one with the glowing crystals? Rumor has it the owner’s a real mage.”

  That st sentence in particur piqued Blorbo’s interest. A real mage? In Iakesi? He had yet to see any magic in these parts, and it was safe to assume those who cimed to wield it were often chartans or tricksters. But if this mage was the real deal… they could answer some questions.

  Lena, ever the optimist, hummed the same cheerful tune she’d always hummed gardening at home as she loaded crates of cabbages onto a small cart. “We’ll make a fortune today, darling. Just you wait. Everyone loves a good cabbage.”

  Do they, Lena? Blorbo wondered. Do they really?

  Most commoners seemed to take a liking to Lena, chatting with her as they passed by. Their demeanor when facing Rob, though, was somewhat different. Many passerby greeted him with a slight bow. Very few of them actually spoke to Rob besides an innocuous ‘good morning’, and they always avoid eye contact. Blorbo wondered what the deal was with that, but both Rob and Lena acted as though that was a normal part of their lives, so no-one bothered expining anything.

  They set up shop. The putrid tang of alchemical potions made him feel like gagging. Potions? There might actually be a mage, or some sort of alchemist around.

  Lena arranged the crates of cabbages on its surface, while Rob hung a hand-painted sign that read:

  “Oakward’s Cabbages: The Finest in Iakesi!”

  The finest in Iakesi, huh? That’s me. The backbone of this operation. The unsung hero of the cabbage trade.

  QUEST COMPLETED: Sell Cabbages! (1)

  Reward: Nothing

  Be prepared for further stages

  Great. At least this one wasn’t so hard.

  To the left, a burly man in a stained apron was hawking enchanted kitchen knives that supposedly never needed sharpening. The stall to the right was empty, but the half-finished cup of coffee left on the counter suggested that it had an owner.

  Squawk. Behind them, a stall selling live chickens added to the chaos, the birds squawking and fpping in their cages. Cng. A few stalls down, a bcksmith hammered away at a glimmering piece of metal.

  Then something showed up.

  It was the same chicken from the wagon race (or at least Blorbo assumed it was). The bird strutted up to the stall, pecked at a cabbage, and then let out a loud squawk before taking off.

  [NEW SIDEQUEST: Observe the Chicken]

  REWARD: 1 EXP

  Accept: Yes/No

  Blorbo sighed internally. Not this again. And why is this one in a different font?

  He chose Accept as he locked eyes with the chicken. The chicken looked back at him. He looked back harder. The chicken looked back even harder.

  And…

  Congratutions. [SIDEQUEST COMPLETED: Observe the Chicken]

  REWARD: 1 EXP

  What? That easy? Everything is going a bit TOO smooth. That could only mean one thing.

  The owner of the right stall returned, and the mood of the market changed instantly as she walked. She was a tall, wiry woman with sharp features and a perpetually disgruntled face. But what caught everyone’s attention—especially Lena’s—was the crate of cabbages she carried and the sign she proceeded to hang above her stall:

  “Pinely’s Cabbages: The Finest in Iakesi!”

  Lena dropped a cabbage on Blorbo’s surface. “What... is this?” she muttered under her breath.

  Rob, who had been adjusting the sign on their stall, turned. “Uh…”

  She pced her crate of cabbages on her own table—a sturdy, if slightly worn, piece of furniture—and began arranging them with sweeping precision. All the while gring at Lena.

  Blorbo was caught in the middle of this silent standoff. This can’t be good, it thought. Two cabbage stalls? In the same market?

  Then another quest status screen popped up.

  NEW QUEST: Sell the Cabbage (2)

  Objective: Outsell the competition

  Reward: +3 END, +2 PER, 10 EXP, 1 Max MP

  Failure: -5 Reputation with the Oakward family

  NameBlorboboboboRaceAnimated Furniture (Table)CssNoneLevel2EXP8/50HP15/15MP1STR5END12AGI18PER11SkillsAppraisal (Level 1)

  Adjustable Angle (2 Degrees)