Goodie tentatively held his package as he struggled with its weight. He was only halfway back to his place and the burning sensation overtaking his arm muscles was not filling him with confidence.

He had bought things before, but they were mostly ready-made products from the street stalls, or non-perishable, miscellaneous items. This was the first time he had experienced what it was like to buy some of the day to day needs as one of the locals would experience it. It was…different to what he would experience back home. The city or earth.

He had gone to the market to purchase some meat. He had thought of getting some other things, the knowledge of how limited his funds were filling him with the urge to just spend it all in one shot to get it over with already, but the whole affair at the butchers, however, had put him off the idea.

It was not extraordinary by this world’s definition of the word; for the butchers themselves, they were probably the events of an average day.

Despite its size, the service areas had been built up to cater to far customers than small village could actually provide, the reason being the large road that ran past the village served as one of the main travel routes to and from the city. The number of travellers dropping in from time to time, still exceeding the maximum of what they could from time to time.

Which was why Goodie was so surprised when he first saw the butcher shop. More warehouse than anything else, the building was located at the south end of the market area, which apparently attested to how wealthy it was, or so Eric had told him.

The sounds of livestock had greeted him when he approached it. Squealing livestock would have been how others would have described those sounds. Goodie would have said screaming. Sounds that promised horrors. Sounds that spoke to the nature of those who would work at such an establishment.

One could have described it as an adventure. He would not have done so, but others could have.

He knew he was being hypocritical, as he himself had suffocated a few million rats just for a few upgrades for him and Her Majesty, but he was only human.

He approached an open-air counter set in the side of the building, placing his order with the man present behind it, but was told that a morning rush, presumably the waggon train, had bought out the shop’s supply of meat. So they were in the midst of…restocking.

Goodie flinched as an ear-splitting screech burst from the back of the shop, a moment later a second, smaller squeal emanated from the same direction as whatever had made it was finished off. Apparently, these people had not heard of the concept of a clean kill.

Thankfully…or not, he was told that an animal had already been bled dry. He did not know what that meant, but he was eager to leave the house of horrors, so he took what he could get and left.

The package itself was a smooth, square stone plate with a large lip surrounding the edges to keep everything from sliding off. A clean piece of cloth covered it, a piece of twine to keep it from slipping off. The man had told him that he could get a small discount on his next purchase if he returned the plate.

He could understand why. Elementalists may have ensured that earth-based goods were cheap and easy to make, but that did not mean that they were easy to deal with. The transportation costs alone must have kept more than a few shop keepers up at nights.

The limited supply of wood, and thus paper, meant that even the businesses within the city only had the luxury of being able to purchase grass-based papyrus for their goods. Good enough for use in most cases, but he never trusted anything stored with it, especially food, on account that it had a funny smell. His meals either being provided for by Ms. Kolsin, or eaten at one of the many French-style cafes that had been introduced into the city.

Eating out being one of the few, small luxuries that he had allowed himself, aside from his Tuesday visits to the theatre.

Her majesty settled back into her usual position around his neck. He had sent her on a scouting mission earlier, before having her keep watch over him while he went about his business. Last night’s confrontation had left hum understandably paranoid about acts of retaliation from the mayor and the town guard. Petty vengeance was not just comic book cliché, it was practically a way of life for a self-important prick. Especially those with any measure of power.

It was strange that while he would have been freaked out just thinking about using Her Majesty to spy on some random nobody, after last night’s encounter, it was like some line had been crossed or a switch flipped. By targeting him, that lot had taken themselves off the list of the potentially innocent, leaving Goodie free from most of the social restrictions that he had been conditioned his whole life to believe in.

It was strangely reassuring as, even though they may well have been out to kill him at that very moment, for once in his life, he not only knew what he needed to do to deal with the oncoming shit storm, he could actually do something to avoid it. Okay, Her Majesty would do the doing. But still…

It was just after he had entered the market, that his natural instincts began wearing down his newfound confidence after Her Majesty had alerted him to one of the guards that occasionally wandered round the area. Within seconds, he had begun falling into a panic as he saw the guy checking him out, his insecurities invading his mind in full force.

Things then got a bit weird when he had realised that the guard had in fact been ‘checking’ him out. It was creepy as fuck, as the guard in question was more than ten years his senior. But the fact that someone had found him attractive was…new.

He had lost a lot of weight over the past year, but without social contacts, or ‘friends’ as some would call them, there was no-one to mention it to him, let alone someone whom he would believe was not just trying to be that artificial ‘nice’ that guidance councillors and those superficial B.F.F.s were prone to.

Body issues aside, he had never been interested in the whole ‘the race must continue’ game, to begin with; not only had he not seen any real evidence of ‘twoo luv’, the divorce rates and high incidents of spousal abuse did nothing to justify people’s obsession with the practice.

At least for the woman. Men seemed to get the sweet end of the deal most of the time. And yes, he may have possibly benefitted from such an arrangement since he was technically a man. But issues of morality aside, he was a five at best. If he could not land a seven, then what was the point?

The guard that was eyeing him could have been considered a ‘local’ seven, but he wasn’t gay, so he high-tailed it out of there, not interested in finding out whether or not that guy knew the meaning of the word ‘No’. Despite what some frat boys might think, it did not mean ‘Maybe’.

It was a good twenty minutes before he had come within sight of the campground, his mind turning to the next step in his plan for the day when he was suddenly waylaid by an unknown man.

A guy of average build, with blond hair and brown eyes; He began talking to Goodie without introduction.

“Goodie, with everyone else arriving, we’re going to have a briefing tomorrow afternoon. About what everyone can expect from the journey ahead, the supply points, what dangers to expect, that sort of thing. So you have to come, but try to get there a bit before noon, okay?”

The man then rushed off, presumably to harass someone else.

Goodie turned to see if any other people were about to approach him. There were none. He turned back to watch as the man rushed off into the distance.

“Who the fuck was that?”

Someone knowing his name, or nickname rather, was not entirely odd. He had introduced himself to enough people that word would obviously have gotten around. But that guy had talked as if he and Goodie knew each other. His memory was bad at the best of times, but even he would have at least had an inkling if had already met someone.

Staring at him for a moment longer, Goodie turned back towards the camp, his thoughts now on what tomorrow would bring.

Okay, so he had some type of meeting tomorrow. It had sounded important, so of course, he would attend.

“Shit.”

It would mean that his schedule would be messed up. He could have probably planed around it if he knew what he was doing, but he barely had a plan at all.

“Shit.”, he repeated.

“Screw it!”, he said, after a moment’s thought.

If his schedule was already screwed up, there was little point in constraining himself to it. He would just get through as much today as he could.

Goodie headed for his truck-waggon.