Departure

It all started today, and what a day it's been!

Daddy Dad said that he was happy that I was finally getting a chance to go out and experience the world by myself, but he sounded really worried when he said it. I don't know why he was so concerned! Nothing bad happened to me today, and I'll be careful!

Still, just to make him feel better, I took his advice and didn't travel too far from home at first. Azure Watch seemed as good a place to go as any.

It's funny — even though Azure Watch is less than an hour's walk away from our home, I hadn't been back since The Crash. I suppose I wasn't fully in my head in the aftermath of that, but I do remember frenzied panic and a lot of confusion. Maybe that's why my dad and I had never wanted to visit it once we'd settled in the Exodar? But it's been a year and a half since that happened, so I figured things must be better there now.

Well, things were better, but they still were pretty hectic. There was certainly no shortage of work to be done; but the first job offered to me was by someone in a great deal of fur clothing who'd apparently noticed the crossbow I was carrying. He identified himself as Aceton, and asked if I was proficient with the weapon.

I probably wouldn't have even brought it with me if I didn't know how to use it! Dad taught me how to use a crossbow (and a few other weapons) when I was younger, saying that if I ever had to leave civilization I'd probably need to find my own food, and that I should also be able to defend myself. I should hope I don't need to defend myself any time soon! Anyway, I told Aceton that I did know how to use it, and he told me that he'd be willing to pay me if I brought him back some meat from beasts he called "moongraze stags."

It seemed like it would be easy enough, and so I agreed to help him. But before I could turn to leave, he asked if I was really going to go out hunting without more armor than I had on.

Maybe these things were more dangerous than I'd thought? When I'd been hunting with my dad, nothing we'd killed was much of a threat — the big challenge was finding and catching up with our game. But he seemed pretty convinced that I'd need more armor, and pointed me toward a merchant in the town.

Well, this job might turn out to be tougher than planned, I thought, but I'd still be able to handle it. I'd brought some money with me and it couldn't hurt to have another set of things to wear.

The armor merchant identified herself as Kioni, and the leather she was selling was cheaper than I'd expected... and it did look to be a bit better quality than what I'd come to town wearing. If nothing else, it would be interesting to study later to try to improve my own craftsmanship. I bought the new set of armor.

Here I am, showing off the new armor to Kioni. Of course, she probably already knew what it looked like without me showing it to her — after all, she sold it to me!

So, newly clothed, I left town in search of the stags.

I think Aceton was overreacting. The stags were certainly bigger than I'd expected, but they didn't give me too much trouble. What concerned me more were the corpses of stags that I didn't kill left around; it was obvious that they'd been slain by a sharp weapon, so someone else was killing them. That itself didn't bother me, but they'd left perfectly good skin on the animal after taking the flesh. I'd always been taught not to waste — if I was going to kill a beast, I should at least make its death worthwhile by using anything I could from it. Well, I hadn't been responsible for all of these animals, but there was no way I was going to leave them alone; so in addition to the meat that I delivered to Aceton, I came back with significantly more leather than I expected.

Aceton paid me for the meat, and even taught me how to cook [Roasted Moongraze Tenderloin]; I might go out tomorrow and get some meat to cook for myself.

Later that afternoon, I went for a walk through the forest to attempt to get a good feel for the land that I didn't manage to see while hunting earlier. While I was doing so, I met up with a very odd girl.

I was investigating some object on the ground that had caught my attention (it ultimately proved uninteresting), and she approached me as I was bent over doing so. When I heard her, I looked up to see a child (but one that wasn't too far from being an adult) smiling down at me. "Run!" she yelled.

I didn't know why she'd want me to run; I didn't see any threats, and indeed, her happy demeanor seemed to indicate that she didn't either. Perhaps it was a game? She seemed a bit old for that style of play, but I didn't have any good reason to say no to her, so I stood up. She immediately dashed away, but made sure to always remain in my sight, and I ran after her.

This chasing game continued for quite a while. It certainly seemed odd that someone as old as she was would be enjoying such child's play, but then again, I have to admit that I was having fun too. Then, just as quickly as the game had started, she ended it by informing me that she needed to go home. The girl, whose name I never caught, seemed uninterested in an escort, so we parted ways.

By the time I ultimately returned to town from my walk, dusk was beginning to set in; I guess I spent more time out than I'd expected to!

I secured myself permission to stay at the inn overnight, and set to trying to do something useful with the leather I'd stowed away in my packs. Ultimately, I decided that crafting an entirely new set of armor would take longer than I was willing to commit to at this point — I'd just bought new armor today anyway, and there was still plenty of work I could do in this town if I found myself bored. I settled on using some of the leather to reinforce my new armor.

I'm very tired, but in a good way. Today was a good start to whatever I ultimately end up doing with this excursion; for now, I think I'll stay around Azure Watch for at least a few more days before deciding what to do next.