“We found them, sir.”

“Where are they?”

“Nafrius. No one seems to realize who they are… it doesn’t even look like they know.”

“Is she with them?”

“She’s nowhere to be found. With all due respect, sir… what are you going to do, now that we know where they are?”

“We’ll send ‘Zuradu’ after them; he’s worthless in trying to find her, but if he knows where he’s going he might be able to do something.”

“You know they have a lot more power than one man can handle.”

“But do they know that? There’s no use in wasting resources if we’re capable of handling them now. Go on, get on with it—it’s best to squash this little problem as soon as possible.”

“Yes, sir.”

…

{-Llewel-}

“Llewel! Get back here!”

All the shouting did was make him go faster. He didn’t want to get caught. He’d seen what had happened to others that couldn’t avoid Fininri’s wrath and he didn’t want to be one of them… even if it was hard to believe that he’d be given the same kind of fate.

“You know how it is,” he dared to call back, given a moment to catch his breath. He clutched his stolen goods closer to his chest, looking back to see Fininri once again getting a little too close for comfort. He started running again. “Gotta eat.”

Right as he made the sharp turn into the alley, he heard the response, “You know I’m not following you because I’m worried about my products!”

It didn’t matter, it all felt like a threat and there wasn’t a single moment to try to stop the response of fleeing. Maybe they could talk about it later but, if it was like anything else, then they wouldn’t even see each other until the process repeated.

Llewel took the opportunity of the nearby railroad track to make his escape. A train would be coming soon, and at that point, Fininri would’ve left his shop unattended long enough that he’d be forced to return to it. So Llewel, trying to override the new set of anxious feelings and thoughts, darted across the tracks right before the train blocked the path.

He allowed himself another moment to breathe, watching Fininri every time there was a gap in the cars; he’d stared back too, for a moment, before Llewel saw him walking away again. He was safe. At least for a little while—and by then it wouldn’t matter, since he would’ve long disappeared from the more bustling parts of the city.

For a little while, he walked along with a kind of calm confidence, before some other unknown paranoia caused him to fear something. Half the journey to the abandoned building was done in a brisk and nervous walk, always looking over his shoulder.

They didn’t live in the abandoned building. No, that old thing looked like it could fall apart any minute and he wouldn’t for a moment consider letting his sister sleep there. They lived in a small area beside the building, in a makeshift tent made of whatever other people didn’t want. One man’s trash… well, in this case, it was another man’s entire way of life.

Myr appeared to have just come back from her own daily task, all the coins she’d found laid out in front of her. She smiled and pushed back some of her brown hair when she saw him.

“I thought you’d have been back before I was,” she remarked. She gestured to the coins in front of her. “It’s a lot, isn’t it? Idihu gave it all to me for helping clean up around the inn.”

“You know you shouldn’t spread that out so openly,” he sighed. “Someone else is going to notice it, then we’re not going to have anything.”

“Come on, Llewel, no one comes around here! I think the last people I saw were a couple of players who got lost, months ago. Wasn’t a whole part of the reason you chose this place was because absolutely no one ever comes here?”

“Yes, but anyone who wants it won’t stop until they find it.” He sat down across from her, splitting the loaf of bread more-or-less in half and giving her what clearly looked like the bigger half. Before he started eating, he pushed the coins aside and under a cloth. “It’s barely enough as it is, we don’t need anyone going around and taking it.”

“That’s barely enough? But there’s so many of them!” Myr’s mouth was full, though, meaning most of the words just turned into an odd jumble he was surprised to understand.

He gave a disappointed look and mumbled, “Manners, Myr-Myr. We may be homeless but we’re not uncivilized.”

She swallowed, nodded, and muttered back, “Sorry.”

They both finished their humble meal before the coins were brought back into focus. Llewel pulled them back out and began counting them.

“You know, I thought… maybe we could try pitching in a little more often,” Myr said in a near-whisper. “Even if it’s not a lot, it’ll all stack, won’t it? So if we do more for people, we might actually be able to go somewhere.”

“That would be a wonderful idea, if there was ever anyone willing to give us something to do,” he pointed out. “They’ve got players to give coins to—they’re supposed to give them to the players, not us. We’re at the bottom of the list whenever no one else wants to do it. At the rate we’re going now, it’s going to take a long time until we're able to afford the equipment we need to travel.”

“Not with that attitude we aren’t.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing, just… you keep saying that we can leave soon, that eventually we’re finally going to be able to see something other than the streets of Nafrius. But you also keep giving excuses on why we should just stay here.”

“I’m just trying to keep us both safe and alive. You do realize there’s tons of monsters outside of the city, right? We’d be dead in a second with the way things are now.”

“Well, we’re also not going to get any less likely to die until we try to do something. Sitting here and wasting our time isn’t going to make us any better at fighting! Actually fighting will!”

He sighed and pointed to the maps, the travel books, and the sketches of the other regions scattered across the tent. “And which one of us has actually been doing all of the preparation? You’ve got to trust me. I know what I’m doing. I know you want to get out, and so do I. But I’d also like to stay alive long enough to enjoy the fact that we’re out.”

Her shoulders slumped and her gaze wandered around the tent. Eventually she took one of the drawings of the plains—no wonder she chose that one, with its flowers and wildlife, a rare sight in the city—and asked, “What if we both worked really hard? How long do you think it’s going to take..?”

“It all depends on what everyone else does.” He let out a bit of a cynical chuckle. “If all the players magically disappear, then we can probably get everything we need in a few days. With new ones coming in and snatching our only chances before we even realize they’re there… it’s probably going to take a lot longer. I don’t think there’s even a way to guess how long it might take us.”

“But you promise it’s going to happen eventually, right?”

He smiled. “I promise. No matter how long it takes, we’re going to see the world.” He slowly got up and walked out, gesturing for her to follow. “But as you said, none of that is going to happen if we don’t do anything. It’s getting late, so let’s go see what other quests the players didn’t accept.”

She bounded behind him, only stopping for a moment to properly collect all the coins and put them in Llewel’s pouch. They didn’t have anything else of value in there—they’d sold the few valuable things they’d found almost as soon as they found them.

Llewel led the way through the alley until they made their way back to one of the main streets. They were soon accompanied by the sounds of nearby trains and the sales pitches of all kinds of night vendors; he had to keep an eye on Myr to make sure she didn’t run off, knowing she’d believe anything the salesmen tried to tell her.

Two players were arguing in front of the quest board at the town square. The woman had shoulder-length green hair, wore a color variation of the [Swordsman] Class attire, and was quite short compared to the man beside her; he had short purple hair, glasses, and a duller version of a [Mage]’s standard clothes. Llewel hated the thought of having to interact with them, though Myr was more than happy to strike up a conversation.

“Are you new here?” she prompted, smiling, alerting the two of the twins’ presences. “Hi! I know I probably don’t look like it, but I’ve been around here a while. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Uh-huh, nice to meet you too. Do you have a quest or some—” The woman moved from Myr to Llewel, instantly recognizing him. “You! You’re the guy Fininri was chasing earlier, you have to be the one who has what we need! Hand it over, now.”