The Fall

"So, this is a winter coat," Mei-wan said as she looked at Emilia's work. They weren't pretty or anything complicated, but they were surprisingly warm for the thin material they bore. With little design, it didn't look like much until it was closely inspected. There were small slivers of red inside the fabric that confused them. Emilia huffed at Mei-wan's surprise and continued with her current project – Some light shirt that didn't look worn out at all.

"Say, Ms. Emilia, how do you make these so warm?"

"I weave the flowers you brought into them," She answered, "As long as you wear them in the cold or dark, they will warm up."

Mei-wan gave a small noise of understanding before she continued on with looking around the small shop. The clothes were much different to the ones that the people wore, with some even tied up into sacks for some reason.

"People around here don't buy new clothes very often – As long as they still serve their purpose, they like to save money for other things, like books. This town looks cluttered, but that's because we've been saving money for over 10 years," Emilia sighed.

"Ten years?!" Elizabeth said. Everyone agreed that the boys would go with Rhys to find a weapon for Ater while the girls would go in and get some clothes for the group. It seemed to be a good idea as Hai-rong insisted that she used to mend clothes and was able to differentiate good quality clothes from bad quality ones. Mei-wan insisted on going with Hai-rong and Elizabeth just wanted to tag along with anyone who wasn't William. The other boys insisted that they would look for a weapon for Ater, and maybe everyone if they could.

"That's a long time."

The room they were in was made of a stone brick and covered with some type of stick roof. There were a lot of shelves that had clothing neatly folded on top – there were even some baskets on the ground for them. The room wasn't huge, but it was big enough to contain a small rickety bed in the far corner. A bed, far too small for Emilia, was set up and on it was a small red book and what appeared to be a worn-out pen with some strange blue markings on it.

"We've almost reached our goal, and then we'll be able to upgrade everything; Life will get better from that point on." Emilia stood up and picked at the shirt she was sewing before she shook it a little bit and continued on it. The threads were pinkish and there was a huge spool of thread following. It looked similar to sewing except the parts of the shirt were laid out without much care and some parts didn't look completely symmetrical.

"How much does this cost?" Mei-wan asked, raising a rather pretty looking light pink sweater with moderately clean stitching, "Hai-rong says it's good enough."

Hai-rong was sifting through the pale colours, trying to find something not too thick, but warm. Her fingers checked the thread type and texture. She didn't want the person wearing it to feel hot in it, she didn't want to risk anyone getting cold.

"It's a pretty one too. A lot of the clothes here are quite pretty," Mei-wan flipped through some racks.

"That one is fifteen Rode Kameliers*, but you really don't have to pay for them," Emilia said, "Mr. Bryne sir is very generous to us."

Elizabeth made a sputtered noise of slight disagreement. She didn't think someone giving a small village barely enough money to buy an apple was being generous.

"He is, it seems small, but we're apart of two different factions, and to us, one Den'gi is a piece of gold to them," Emilia gave a disapproving glance to Hai-rong.

"F-factions?" Hai-rong peeked up from where she was, "What do you mean by factions? Like armies?"

Emilia shook her head as she bit her lip for a small mistake, untying some bits before she restarted an area. Her fingers didn't seem used to the activity upon first glance, but to the group's amazement, Emilia had deft fingers that treated the soft fabric that she was holding like it was as precious as diamonds – not so much after she was done with it as it lay on a pile behind her.

"The church faction and the nobility faction," Emilia said sighing. She didn't usually speak this much to people, but she believed that it would be cruel to let some outlander just head into the world knowing nothing, "Mr. Bryne sir is apart of the nobility, although he, himself, isn't a noble. Nobility is really just a term for people who don't believe in the Deus*. But to us, Mr. Bryne sir is more of a Deus than whoever Deus is. He gives us enough Den'gi at his own personal risk – he might risk getting fined for illegal actions on foreign territory and stuff – and it's quite enough money."

"How so?" Mei-wan asked, genuinely curious on the situation, "He doesn't seem to give a lot of money."

Mei-wan recalled how the other smiled as he gave away the money, if it was out of happiness from helping or happiness from messing with the small village; she wasn't sure. All she knew was that he was giving money, not a lot of money, but enough money to elate the people of Murret Stilhed.

"I expect that he has told you about the true value of a Rode Kamelier?" Emilia put down the sweater she was making, "The value of a Rode Kamelier is basically a tenth of a Den'gi. It's so devalued that it's worth less than an apple in Mormio, an apple. Here we eat granaries, like Hvede* and Byg*. It's very cheap because they're easy to grow here.

"So, because Lucas wants to build better homes, you've been nearly starving for ten years?" Hai-rong simplified.

The small Sileonian village, Murret Stilhed*, that was located in the Lykke area felt the crunch of the sudden modernization that Mormio had. Its sudden increase in factories, buildings, and just things modern made it difficult for smaller towns like Murret Stilhed to become better as they sucked resources away from others – buying crops from the church faction as a trade. Near the costal lines of Mormio overlooked Kholod, whose freezing situation only brought its banking ingenuity that caused a close alliance to be formed. Kholod was nicknamed the frozen island for its temperature, but somehow it managed to stay afloat – mostly due to their similarity in faction and the fact that the largest bank was located in Kholod.

"No, not starving, just preparing," Emilia waved towards the clothes, "All this is preparing, preparing for the future that Lucas sees in this dump."

Her hand abruptly fell as she sighed dramatically, "No one comes and visits except Mr. Bryne sir and he's our Den'gi provider. He's not even supposed to give us money." Emilia's rough looking nose made her look more tired than she already was. It was illegal for visiting factions to donate money as it could be a sign of instigating a rebellion. It could rupture the thin balance placed in-between the two places.

"So, all of this-" Elizabeth waved at the light colorful clothes, "- is apart of Lucas' project? What if it fails? What if something happens?" Emilia smiled at the mention of the issue, as if it didn't matter at all. There was no reason for her to be worried after all.

"Why're you smiling?" Hai-rong's facial feature smothered into confusion.

"It doesn't matter," Emilia said, "We're apart of the church faction and they believe in communal effort, communal effort as in working together to form a better place altogether. I don't believe in the Deus, but it's sometimes useful when things get really tough. I don't think there's enough time to worry about offerings and all that."

She huffed and picked at the shirt. The church faction was based on the agricultural system that was brought by the fear of weather issues and crop failure, barely anyone really believed in the Deus.

"So, you guys are basically farmers," Mei-wan explained, "Just farmers and all you do is farm, give some of your crop to the church and continue?"

"What did you think we were, engineers?" Emilia snarked back, irritation present on her face, "We aren't from Mormio or Kholod or Rikugun*. We're from Murret Stilhed, in the province of Lykke. There aren't enough monsters here to trade with anyone anyway." Emilia bit her tongue.

"Monsters?" Elizabeth asked, "You mean that there aren't a lot of monsters here?"

Emilia nodded. The monsters that surrounded the arable lands were not a huge threat to the citizens of Mormio, who had guards everywhere, but to the small villages that had little protection, they were quite dangerous. With a few slimes and the rare insane wild animal, the people were usually far away from any monster in the province of Lykke. It was these factors that made it so successful in agriculture – a lack of monsters that would attack the villages and farms.

"There are plenty of monsters in the area if you look hard enough," Emilia said, "Recently, there's been a slime somewhere near a lake. I'm not too sure how far it is or what type it is though." Slimes were all to common everywhere, they manifested out of leftover raw mana, and while there was very little raw mana in Lykke, there was still enough to create a few slimes.

"Like a Langsam?" Hai-rong asked, much to the curiosity of Mei-wan and Elizabeth, "We got to see a Langsam today, ran away from it."

Suddenly, Emilia's bottom lip immediately quivered as she dropped whatever it was she was holding. Her face turned white and her hands shook with such a fury it appeared to ghost in and out of reality.

"Ms. E-Emilia?" Elizabeth asked as Emilia continued to quiver like someone with a stroke before fainting, eyes rolled up in shook, "Shit."

Elizabeth, Hai-rong, and Mei-wan ran over as the large burly woman lied on the ground like a dead dog. Arms splayed out, and movement completely frozen as she slumped onto the ground. Her legs were still somewhat sat upon as she fell to the side. Her face was stricken with something horrible and her face surprisingly cold while also having copious amounts of sweat on it.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit."

"She's heavy," Hai-rong said as she tried to pull her up, "I'll try to get some help." Hai-rong ran outside to find someone as Elizabeth and Mei-wan were left with Emilia's stocky body on the ground. Her thick arms lay on the ground as Elizabeth tried to carry one up, her thin weak arms failing to get them off by even a centimeter. Mei-wan huffed and tried to heave her legs up.

"How heavy – huff – is this woman?!" Elizabeth said as she tried to lift Emilia's arms up again, "Aren't things – huff – supposed to be easier with the strength stat?!" Mei-wan only made a small noise of approval as she tried once more to lift Emilia's legs before stopping and dropping in frustration. Elizabeth managed to get an arm up before Lucas ran in with some thin gaudy man with thick glasses that enlarged his eyes to a level that was similar to an owl. Hai-rong ran in after that.

"What happened?" The gaudy man cried, "What happened to Emi?" The older man's face quickly morphed into semi-horror as he saw Emilia on the ground, pale as a ghost. Her arms were on top of each other, with one on Elizabeth's shoulder as she tried to pull her up.

"Don't move!" The gaudy man shouted, "I'll… I'll… I'll get Mr. Bryne sir!" The 'sir' ended up sounded far squeakier than the man wanted as he ran off to find Rhys, who was helping Ater pick between swords at a nearby rundown smithy, saying that it as fine for now.

"We'll have to get Landon at this rate," Lucas clicked his tongue as he walked around the still body, "He's the only medic on site. Mr. Bryne sir isn't a healer after all." His hands shifted as he attempted to get close to Emilia before shying away, as if the sight of an unconscious body was unappealing to him.

"Yes, yes, we'll have to get Landon. I'll find him, you two… stay here." And as abruptly as the gaudy old man, Lucas left with a few steps, leaving Elizabeth and Mei-wan alone.

"Did they seriously just leave us?" Mei-wan muttered as the stopped bothering with Emilia's leg, "This sucks." Mei-wan was of shorter stature compared to Hai-rong, but had a fiercer attitude. Her eyes were sharper and she didn't seem to wander around as much as Hai-rong. Hai-rong was more pessimistic, but Mei-wan was aggressive in a manner that disturbed Elizabeth. So, the three sat in silence, unsure as to what to say.