Delivery boy

Kael makes his way to the delivery service building, which is around 30 minutes away from his house if he walks.

This building is about 400 meters wide with 2 stories instead of the usual 1 for most other buildings. It is located right in front of the village's main farm, where pretty much everything in the village is grown. It therefore houses the bulk of the village's resources, although some Elders have been attempting to move some of the goods to a more 'secure location' to avoid accidents. So a good number of the villagers either work there or work in the market district across the village.

He sees two carriage drivers beginning their day, making their way to their destinations. He greets them, but they ignore him.

He then enters the building, where as he walks through a few people bump into him but neither party even cares.

He makes his way to the station manager, Corel, who is currently at thefront of the counter writing somethings down.

He goes up to him, "Excuse me , sir." But Corel ignores him.

Now feeling kind of annoyed, he goes again "Ahem!" This finally gets Corel's attention.

"Hi there, I'm here to take over for my father." he says with a smile. Corel looks him up and down then says, "You're late. You're package is in the back, number 13. Sign in, deliver your package before 9 then come to my office." He dismisses him and continues working.

Kael goes to his station upstairs. He of course knows where everywhere is, as he's worked there before for a short while when his family needed the money to grow their own mini farm, a garden if you wish.

He makes his way to an empty room, everyone else had gone for delivery so he changes his clothes to the company's attire, a white shirt and black pants held by suspenders, and gets his package.

While he looks at the address on it, a girl runs in out of breath.

They stare at each other for a second, before Kael speaks to her, "Hello, I'm Kael. And yo-" She walks past him. "Oh that stings." He thinks.

He keeps trying to converse with her, "Are you new here?" But she still doesn't respond. She quickly changes to the company's attire in front of him, and picks up a package.

"That's not yours." She stops and looks at the name on it, seeing it is indeed not her's to deliver. She begins searching for hers, while trying not to scatter the place. She then looks at Kael who has been signaling her, and he points to the top of her locker where her package sat. In the company, when someone isn't not around yet they keep their package on top of their lockers so they don't get mixed up.

"Yeah, she's new." Kael thinks. While she reaches to grab it, he gets a good look at her. Long brown hair she currently has tied in a bun. She's kinda tall standing at 1.83 meters, taller than him but still shorter than Rio. Green eyes with an oval shaped head and a sharp jawline. He tried his best not to stare at 'other parts' but from the corner of his eyes he could deduce they were quite rounded but not too large.

She got her package turned back to look at Kael and said, "I'm Sara." Kael smiles, "Pleasure to meet you Sara." She then walks out the door with Kael quickly following.

Kael hurried after Sara, his package tucked under his arm. The morning sun was already high, casting long shadows across the cobblestone streets as they made their way toward the market district.

Sara walked briskly, her eyes focused ahead, but Kael couldn't help but notice she would occasionally steal glances at him.

"So, Sara," Kael began, trying to break the silence, "How long have you been working here? I don't think I've seen you around before." She didn't respond immediately, her gaze darting to the side before she finally spoke. "I started yesterday," she said curtly. Her voice was soft but carried an edge, like she wasn't used to talking much.

Kael nodded, undeterred. "Well, welcome to the team. It's not the most exciting job, but it pays the bills. And hey, you get to see the whole village, so that's something." Sara gave him a sidelong glance, her expression unreadable. "I suppose."

They walked in silence for a while, the only sound the rhythmic clop of their boots on the stones.

They then make their way to Sara's drop-off. "Well, this is my stop," she says. But Kael instead opens the door and gestures for her to go inside with a warm smile. She reluctantly enters the building while Kael follows, closing the door behind them.

The building they were in belonged to an Elder of the village, Elder Morel. He was the one in charge of the village's finances, and was hardly ever in his post as he was too busy visiting various brothels.

This was the main reason Kael decided to follow Sara, he wanted to find out why this was one of the buildings he couldn't find in the Dreamscape.

As they walk down to the clerk at the counter, Kael observes every inch of the place, calculating the size, counting and identifying every object in the room, trying to find something that could tip him off.

They both make it to the clerk, but before Sara can drop the package off, Kael stops her. Grabbing her hand, not making it visible to the clerk. He then speaks to her, "Sorry the boss said it had to be hand delivered to the other boss, your boss."

The clerk glances at him, recognizing him, and understanding his known antics doesn't bother trying to reject him. She sighs, "Through there Kael, don't take long." "We won't." he waves with his other arm, still with his package under it, while dragging Sara along.

"What are you doing?" Sara asks perplexed. "It's only polite to hand over a package this valuable face to face." He responds with his usual charm. Sara stops her protest and follows along, hoping he doesn't risk her job.

They take rushed steps, with Kael still observing every inch of the place. They reach the staircase where Kael still unconsciously grabbing onto Sara begins jogging up the stairs. She stops him, pulling her arm away, "Stop, you're hurting me." Kael realizes and immediately apologizes, "I'm sorry, I didn't realize." She looks at him with a pained expression and decides to continue walking up the stairs, with Kael now following from behind.

Before they make it to the top floor they hear sounds of rhythmic clapping. After they reach the top floor, they crack open the door at the end and the view unfolds. The elder engaging in 'rough exercises' with a beautiful woman laid on her back on his desk. Kael carefully closes it back and knocks on the door. The two quickly separate and the lady goes to his in a secret room at the back of the office. The elder gets dressed and calls out, "Enter."

Kael pushes the door open, revealing a dimly lit office. Elder Morel, a portly man with a balding head and a disheveled appearance, sits behind a large desk, at it's corners some papers and a few empty bottles.

He looks up, his eyes narrowing as he recognizes Kael. "Ah it's you, ha, back to delivering dog shit." Kael responds, "Yeah, here's yours." Pointing at Sara's package as she forgets to hand it to the elder, standing there looking confused.

Kael then says, "By the way, how's your wife and daughter? Hope their doing okay." "This little shit knows." Elder Morel says internally. "Their quite alright." He says with a forced smile. Kael keeps going, "How are you sleeping, hope your nightmares are only as bad as everyone else, *whispering* absolutely fucking terrible."

The Elder extremely pissed but doesn't show it because there's another person in the room, "I'll have you know that I slept quite soundly last night, unlike your father. Now get out of my sight." Kael snatching the board from Sara's hand, "You have to sign this first." Morel twitches but calms down, "Fine, hand it over." Kael follows with, "It's also company policy that I witness you open it sir-" "GET OUT!" the elder yells at them, mostly Kael. So they leave immediately.

As they walked back down the hallway, Sara finally broke the silence. "What was that about?" she demanded, her voice a mix of anger and confusion.

Kael glanced at her, his expression unreadable, for once, "If you really want to know, then I'll explain later," he said quietly. "I'm sorry for all this." he apologizes. She acknowledges but doesn't respond.

He then begins making his way to his own drop-off point, and is genuinely surprised Sara continued to follow him. "I really want to know," she says firmly. "Okay. Meet me at my place tonight. It's at the far west side of the village, at the left side of the old mill. It shouldn't be too hard to spot, *whispers* it's a blue house," Kael informs her. She nods in agreement, and they continue their journey, reaching their destination, making the dropoff, this time without any occurrence or complications and return to the delivery service building for their next assignments.

After work Kael goes home. He lays on his bed and takes a nap. Though he enters the Dreamscape he decides to rest and not move. At dusk, someone knocks on the door. He jolts up, leaves his room and goes to answer the door, thinking it's his friends, he completely forgot he was supposed to meet with them.

When he opens the door he's surprised to see Sara in front of him. She has her hair cascading down reaching the middle of her back. She wore a forest-green tunic paired with knee-high leather boots.

"Hey," she said. "Hey," Kael responded, a bit stunned, not sure of what to say. After a few seconds he finally says, "Come in," moving to the side.

Sara walks in observing his house, "Nice place." "Thanks you too-," Kael realizes what he just said and almost puked from embarrassment.

Just then, his father, Garren, comes down the stairs, he wanted to answer the door, and sees the two of them. Kael thinks "Oh thank you." Relieved his father showed up, he finds his senses and introduced them jovially, "Father, this is Sara my... co-worker." Sara greets him "Hello sir, it's nice to meet you." Garren observes them with a straight face, nods and goes back upstairs.

Kael looks around and says, "Why don't we go upstairs, I'll tell you everything there." So no one walks in on them again. Sara agrees, "Alright."

He leads the way with her closely following. He takes them to his room and sits her down on his bed, while he goes to get something.

She notices how organized his room, and pretty much every other part of the house is. He returns with a box a bottle of wine and a smile.

Opening the box and revealing... cookies. "You hungry?" "Um, sure," taking a cookie and eating it, while Kael just stares at her. When she's done with it, he finally starts speaking with a serious tone, "Okay, so about this morning-" But just then, Layla and Rio come barging into his room, "Hey weren't we supposed to-" Layla spoke but then saw the unfolding scene. "Oh, so this is the monster that looks like Elliott." She says with a mischievous smile.

Sara confused by the statement asks, "What?" she turns to Kael hoping for an explanation, "I'll be totally honest with you, I completely forgot I was supposed to meet up with you guys." "Yeah, we totally understand." Layla says looking at Sara. "So introductions?" she asks Kael. "Oh right, Sara this is Layla and this is Rio, my two best friends. Guys this is Sara, my... co-worker." Sara simply waves at them.

Layla keeps suspiciously staring at Sara making her feel uncomfortable, so Rio nudges her to the side, and begins conversing with Sara. "Nice to meet you, when did you guys meet." Sara replies, "Today at work," which eases Layla's suspicions of Kael. "I don't deserve you Rio," Kael internally cries. Rio continues, "I hope we weren't interrupting anything." Kael responds, "Well actually I wanted to tell her about my beef with Elder Morel." Layla exclaims, "Hehe, for a second I thought you were telling her something else," She looks at Kael to be met with a straight face. Understanding his intentions pulls him and Rio outside the room, "Sorry Sara can I borrow your boyfriend for a second." "He's not-" Sara tries to defend herself but they had already left the room.

Layla then addresses Kael, "You want to tell her about what we're doing here." Kael responds, "Can I-?" "NO!" Layla tersely rejects the proposal. But quickly calming her voice, "Do you really have a good reason for bringing her into this, what we're doing breaks at least seven laws. If we get caught we could all be banished or worse- ... do you really want her to be a part of this?" she asks seriously.

Kael thinks seriously for a moment, then replies, "I guess you're right. I'm sorry, it's just... a little tiring. Keeping all this to ourselves, and she didn't seem like someone who would tell anyone about something like that." With Kael looking defeated they try to cheer him up, Rio tells him, "Maybe in the future, you could, but for now there's too many factors at play. We need to understand everything first, otherwise we'd be putting her in unneeded danger." "I understand." Kael acknowledges their words and they go back into the room.

They catch Sara eating another cookie, she can't help but feel embarrassed about it. Kael then smiles and sits next to her, "So about the elder, you see... *breathes in and out* I can navigate in my dreams." Both Layla and Rio facepalm.