#video game plot

Roseline leaves the village behind slowly, trying not to second guess herself. She's not really planning to go far, just… far enough to see where the warriors go. Surely there is no harm in that? Still it feels like she shouldn't, like she should stay where she started from – like every other villager of Ablenshore, she should stay put.

She goes down instead, down the cobblestone street. It leads all the way down to the shore and to the sand, cutting through it towards a pier where small fishing boats sit on each side. There are people pier – villagers, not warriors – scurrying about getting them ready to set sail.

They've been getting ready to set sail the whole time she's been aware of them – but they've never actually left the pier.

Roseline approaches the nearest fisherman, just in case he might be… different. As he approaches him, the fisherman shields his eyes from the sun and sighs. "It'll be a great day for fishing," he says to her, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet and then shaking his head. "If only we can get the Stonecrabs out of the way."

"Stonecrabs?" Roseline asks. "How are they in the way?"

He doesn't answer. After a moment the fisherman shields his eyes from the sun again. "It'll me a great day for fishing," he says again and disappointed, Roseline leaves him to his loop.

The beach itself is beautiful. The sand glows golden and warm in the sun, and the ocean stretches on forever, glittering and crystalline and absolutely gorgeous. The shoreline isn't very long, about twenty meters of sand with cliffs at each side, forming a sheltered little bay – that just makes it more beautiful. On the edges, where the sand meets the cliffs, there are bushes and gnarled little trees – some of them seem to be bearing fruit.

There are few warriors by the waterline, wading into the waves. As Roseline watches from the side, they dive into the waves and come back hauling little dark grey creatures – those would be the stonecrabs, she thinks. They're picking them off from under water and throwing them out to the sand, where they twitch for a moment before rolling to their backs and staying still.

So, they're helping the fishing boats, getting rid of the crabs so that the boats can set sail. Except, of course, no matter how many warriors there are working on it and how many stonecrabs they throw out to the sand, the ships never set sail.

Roseline watches for a moment and then, shaking her head, turns back to the road. It forks just at the edge of the sand – one trail heads up to the village, and the other heads into a rocky little valley among the cliffs, vanishing behind a cliff wall. Some warriors have already ran past her on their way there and since it's the only way out of the village, she figures it's where they all head eventually.

So, after another glance around the beach, that's where she heads off too. The valley isn't really a valley at all she soon finds – it tightens into a narrow pathway and then the cliffs close about it to form a short little cave that slants upwards – through it she climbs up from the shoreline and above it to a field of grass that opens up behind the cliffs, a bit below them. Behind her the cliffs form a sort of natural wall, Ablenshore hidden behind them so well it's as if it isn't even there.

What a strange place for a village.

The field in front of Roseline isn't very big – it grows into a forest just a short way from her. The trail she followed leads through the field and into the forest, into the shadows of the trees and bushes, and for a moment she stares at it curiously. She'd seen it from the Lighthouse, but she hadn't realised it was this close.

There is a group of people at the edge of the forest, hard at work hauling heavy logs from the forest. Or at least that's what it looks like they're doing – but after a while of watching Roseline sees they're hauling the same two logs over and over, and they're never really added into their wood piles.

Curious and little disappointed, she approaches them. There are warriors there, talking to some of the people – hurried interactions after which the warriors dash off without another word, heading to the forest or to the field. As Roseline watches she can see some of them digging around with shovels and unearthing something - strange looking burrowing creatures which they then fight.

"Man I hate those Field Burrowers," one of the loggers says, peering at the field. "Making all those holes all over the place – I think I've fallen into dozen of them so far!"

"I see," Roseline answers, and ignores how after a while he repeats himself again. The other loggers talk in circles too – either about the Field Burrowers making holes in the fields, or about Wood Spiders that made it impossible to work in the forest because of all the webs everywhere.

So, this was were the things warriors sold to her came from. Field Burrower's claws and Wood Spider's fangs. It doesn't seem like this is where warriors go, though. They pass through here, or so she suspects, they fight the moles in the fields and spiders in the forest, and eventually they continue on – heading somewhere else.

After a while of watching the fields and the few leather clad warriors running about, Roseline turns and heads into the forest itself.

It's darker there, in the shadows of the trees – but not as dark as she though. Beams of sunlight screen through the leaves above, creating little islands of bright golden light in the otherwise shadowy greenery. There are flowers everywhere, growing in tufts by tree roots and she can hear the sound of water coming from somewhere nearby, a brook running through the forest maybe. The air is heavy and cool with humidity.

It's beautiful.

For a moment Roseline stands there, just enjoying this new, interesting place, so very different from anything she could've even imagined before. In the distance she can hear the sounds of fighting, warriors probably. Curious, she turns to the sound and after a moment of listening, decides to follow it.

There's a noise coming from above her, something scratching at wood bark. Startled, Roseline looks up and comes face to face with multiple red eyes, all of them staring at her. With a yelp of surprise she stumbles back and away from it, just as the Wood Spider skitters down the tree trunk, it's legs scratching violently at the tree's bark. It makes a snarling sound, mandibles gnashing, and comes right at her, fast on it's eight legs.

And then it goes past her, up a gnarled tree root and then up to another tree, completely ignoring her.

A little stunned, Roseline stares up after it, and then around in the branches above. There are other spiders there, these furry, eight legged creatures with red eyes that seem to glow in the shadows. They're all enormous, bigger than her head, and yet they move nimbly about the branches – few are even hanging from the bottom of the branches. Couple of them seem to stare at her, but… none of them come at her.

Swallowing, Roseline stands up straighter, brushing her hands over her dress to straighten it up. It doesn't seem like they're interested on attacking her. That is a relief – she has no notion of what she'd do if they did attack her. She has no weapons after all and wouldn't really know how to use them anyway.

"You guys just… stay up there," she mutters to the spiders. "And I'll stay down here and we leave each other alone."

The spiders ignore her and with an uneasy little sigh and shake of her head, she continues on.

A little further away, there is a warrior fighting the spiders. It's a man with short white hair and pale skin, dressed in leathers of course. As Roseline watches from the shadows, he whacks at one of the spiders over and over with a sword until the spider stumbles back and falls over. It doesn't get up again.

"And that's twenty. Alright," the warrior mutters to himself and kneels by the spider, prodding at it with his sword until something falls from it – a Wood Spider Fang, worth five copper. The warrior collects it from the ground and then stands up, putting his sword away. Moment later he's dashing off, leaping over fallen tree trunks and high tree roots. Soon after, he's out of sight, even the sound of his foot falls disappearing into the forest.

Roseline hesitates in the shadows of the trees for a moment before approaching the dead spider lying on the mossy forest floor. It looks smaller than the living ones do, lying there on it's furry back with it's eight legs curled in towards it's belly. It looks… a little pitiful, actually.

"Hello, little thing," Roseline murmurs, crouching down beside the spider. Then, hesitant, she reaches out to poke the spider. It's softer than she assumed, it's fur a little prickly but thick. As she reaches out to pick the spider up, her fingers almost sink into the black hair on the spider's sides.

It's surprisingly light – she can pick it up and turn it around without any trouble at all. As she sets the spider down, it wobbles little but stays where she sets it, listing slightly to the side. It looks no more pitiful right way around, though. It looks small. It's eight eyes, formerly so startling, have gone dark.

For a moment Roseline stares at it, a little unsure what to do about it. Above her there are more spiders, living ones, that skitter along the branches, occasionally coming down the just to climb up again. They ignore her – she's pretty sure they're no danger to her. Maybe it's different with warriors. Maybe it's like with the villagers – sometimes, villagers reacted differently to warriors. Maybe the spiders don't ignore warriors – maybe they attack them.

That doesn't make the dead spider any less sorry, sitting there, all crunched up.

"I wonder…" Roseline mutters and then opens her transfer screen. She runs a hand over it and then grasps one of the bottles displayed there by the neck, pulling it out of the screen. As the transfer screen closes, Roseline is left holding the potion phial, it's contents glowing golden in the shadows of the forest.

[Blessed Revival Potion x1]

[Instantly revives a dead player with full health.]

[Resell Value 10 Gold]

She's wondered if the potion really works the way it says it does. Time to test it.

Picking the spider up again, Roseline nestles it on her lap so that it's head is up. Figuring out how it's mouth worked is… interesting, but she eventually manages get past the furry mandibles and at the actual mouth part. Then, taking the diamond stopper off the bottle she pours it into the spider's jaws.

The effect is instantaneous – the spider jerks in her lap, it's crooked legs twitching. Moment later it's flailing wildly and squirming away from her, spinning right way around and back to it's feet. Holding the empty bottle, Roseline watches the spider skitter around uncertainty, making jerky, confused starts, back and forth and from side to side. It's a little wobbly… but it's definitely alive.

"Well," Roseline says and lowers the bottle. "At least now I know it really works."

The spider makes an aborted move to climb up a near tree and then stops. It turns to her, mandibles gnashing furiously – and then makes a start at her, front legs flailing in the air as if it's intending to hit her. Before Roseline can even really startle, though, it draws back again, curling into itself a little. It snarls and hisses at her, and it sounds confused.

"Is it weird, being alive again? I've never died and been resurrected, so I wouldn't know," Roseline says and stands up, brushing her apron as she does. "I guess it must be at least a little strange. Still. I'm glad you're not dead anymore."

Looking at the empty potion phial in her hand, Roseline opens the transfer screen again and pushes the empty bottle in. When she pulls her hand back, there's something sitting in her palm in place of the bottle – a handful of copper coins. It surprises so much that she doesn't even notice the spider skittering closer until it's by her foot, biting at her boot.

"Huh?" she asks it and then crouches back down, making the spider back away a little in fright. "Look at this," she says and shows the coins to it, making it snarl at her. "I just sold my self a bottle and paid myself, uh," she stops and separates the coins on her palm to count them. "I paid myself ten copper for a bottle I sold to myself. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to work like that."

The spider peers at her hand suspiciously and then leans over – and snags one of the coins form her palm with it's mandibles. Roseline stares at it, stunned. The spider gnashes it's mandibles for a moment and then makes a weird little jerk and spits the coin out again. It snarls at the coin and bristles, affronted.

Roseline blinks at it and then grins. "Well, that's what you get for trying to eat it," she laughs and picks the coin up again. After moment of considering the coins in her palm, she drops them in the pocket of her apron and stands up. Maybe she'll figure out what to do with them later. "Well then," she says. "I think I'll look around a bit more. It's been fun, little spider. Take care now."

As Roseline heads off to see what else she can find in the forest, the spider she resurrected hesitates for a moment – and then it skitters after her. She gives it a curious look and it snarls at hers, gnashing it's mandibles.

"Well, if you really want to, you can come along," she says, shrugging her shoulders and then frowns. "No biting, though."

It bites the heel of her boot in answer.

 -

 The forest is big, bigger than Ablenshore and it's beach combined. There are paths crisscrossing all over the forest, and there are several little brooks that run down into small ponds and then continue on their way. There's one particularly big pond with a small island in the middle – glowing white glowers grow on it, visibly shining in the dimly lit forest. It's one of Roseline's favourite things about the forest, she decides, hanging by the pond just watching the flowers at distance.

She sees a warrior swimming over the water to the island to pick the flowers once – a red haired woman with a staff on her back. Roseline can't help but marvel the woman's fortitude, to go swimming with leather clothing and all. She certainly wouldn't have dared to try, even if the distance isn't great.

The forest is full of warriors. Lot of them are fighting the spiders, though there are few who are climbing up the trees to collect things from the tree branches – nuts, she thinks, or maybe fruits. Some of them are hard at task trying to destroy spider's nests, but no matter how hard they try, there seems to be no end to them. There seems to be an endless amount of spiders too.

Not one of them is like the spider following her, though. It's different, she doesn't even need to see another spider up close to do a comparison. All the other spiders are stuck to their trees, never moving far from them, and they move in certain ways, never varying from them. The spider following Roseline is far more varied and as they walk about the forest together, it grows more…

Individual. Yes, that's the word. It's an individual. Unique.

It's also increasingly curious and soon no longer just trails after her, but pushes ahead, investigating the bushes and rocks and patches of moss, even digging by a tree root for some smaller critter it saw. It never strays far, though, always returning to her side and snarling at her if she stopped for too long.

"I guess you're curious about the world too?" Roseline asks, amused, and crouches down beside the spider, poking a finger over the prickly hair on top of it's many eyed head. "The world is not getting anywhere, little one. We can take our time and really look around, you know."

The spider gnashes it's mandibles at her and snarls before suddenly freezing where it stands, as if to listen. A moment later it twits loose from her hold and dashes through near by bushes, leaving her to follow it.

The spider leads her to a small clearing that bears the signs of battle there – fallen spider fangs and bits of spider silk sit on the ground here and there, surrounding a…

"Oh dear," Roseline says and then quickly picks up the spider that had been making for the body lying on the forest floor. The spider snarls furiously and tries to squirm free, but Roseline holds on, wrapping her arms around it to keep it from escaping.

There's a dead warrior lying there – a vaguely familiar one. She has long red hair and pale skin. The warrior visited the store once, Roseline realises. It had been just a while before she'd left the shop – the woman had bought some Life and Spirit Potions, and had been one of the few people who hadn't asked for a free gift.

The warrior is dead now, though, and her staff lays broken at her side. While the spider in Roseline's arms snarls and tries to attack the body, Roseline hesitates over her.

She could resurrect the woman with a Revive Potion… if she wanted to.

There are lot of warriors she doesn't think she'd like to help. The ones she's seen being rude to villagers or other people who are stuck in loops and can't help but repeat themselves, she doesn't think she'd want to help those sorts of warriors at all. Or the people who came to her store asking for free things. However… this woman had just bought things from her – she'd been short about it, yes, but she hadn't been any ruder than anyone else. Less so, certainly, than lot of other warriors.

And surely Roseline can't judge all of the warriors the same even if some of them were rude. The warriors are more varied than that anyway. Surely there are… nice ones.

"Shush," Roseline says to the snarling spider in her lap as she crouches down beside the dead warrior. "Shush little one, it's alright."

It snarls at her but settles begrudgingly, biting gloomily at her shirtsleeve. With an amused shake of her head, Roseline opens the transfer screen. She considers the revive potions for a moment, tempted to select the lowest quality one just in case the warrior turns out rude after all… but in the end she selects the Blessed Revive Potion. She'd given the spider her best quality potion, and unless proven otherwise the warrior didn't deserve any less.

It's easier making the warrior drink the potion than it had been to feed it to the spider – but the effect is more or less the same. The female warrior's body jerks with and then she makes a confused little flailing motion, sitting up suddenly, her pale blue eyes opening wide with shock.

"Wait, what?" she asks, blinking and turns to Roseline. "What?" she asks again, a little incredulously and pats at her chest. "I'm at full health!

"I uh… yes. You should be, I think," Roseline says to her, awkward as she watches how the woman pats at herself, looking for injuries maybe. She'd doing quite a bit of self groping, the warrior. "You - you were dead and I had a revive, so…"

"I'm at full health?" the red haired warrior says and looks at her. "What the hell did you give me – don't revives just… revive you? How am I at full health?"

"It was… a high grade potion?" Roseline offers, frowning a little. Maybe she should've used the lowest grade after all. "Shouldn't I have?" she asks uncertainly.

"Lady," the woman says, incredulous. "I'm level four and you used, what, one of the best Revives on me? What the hell? I mean, hey, thanks, it's appreciated. But aren't those things ridiculously expensive?"

"I guess they are," Roseline admits awkwardly. "I happened to have one at hand, so…"

"Geez. You must be like level hundred or something, to have a high Revive like that just at hand," the warrior says and stands up. "Thanks, though. I would've lost a level without you."

"You're welcome, then," Roseline says and stands up as well. The spider snarls resentfully in her arms and she pets it distractedly. "What happened, though?" she asks, looking around. "I didn't think the spiders were this dangerous around here."

"They aren't really. I just bit off more than I could chew," the warrior sighs and picks up the broken pieces off her staff. "I thought it was a good place to do some levelling, but then my staff went kaput on me. Beginner gear, you know, what can you do?" she says fatalistically, and shrugs her shoulders. Then she looks at Roseline. "You look just like the potion seller at Ablenshore. That a custom skin?"

"Huh?" Roseline asks, startled.

"It's pretty cool," the woman nods, approving. "Must've cost a fortune."

Roseline, having no notion about what she's talking about or how to even begin to respond to it, just shrugs. "I guess. Uh. Are you alright now?" she asks, a bit helplessly.

"Yeah. I'll go find the travelling merchant, see if he'll sell me a staff – I won't aggro any more mobs here. Already got killed once," she says and sighs. "I should've gone for a DPS class after all. Ah well, too late now."

"Right," Roseline says, increasingly awkward and uneasy with the conversation. There are lot of words the woman is saying that she doesn't understand at all. "Well… I hope you'll do better in future?" she says.

"Yeah, I'll be fine," she says, waving a hand. Then she hesitates. "Uh… should I pay you back for the revive?" she then asks. "I don't really have that much but still – it must've been expensive."

"No, no, it's alright. Really," Roseline says hurriedly. "Please don't worry about it. I was the one who decided to use it – you have no obligation to pay me back."

"Well… if you're sure," the warrior says, little awkward and relieved both. "Thanks again, then. Really, I appreciate it."

"It's no problem," Roseline says.

The warrior nods and then turns to leave before stopping. "Hey, what's your name?" she asks. "I'm Sienna,"

"Roseline," she answers and then bites her lip, not sure if she made a mistake or not. She's not entirely sure if people knew her name before – if she even had a name before she left the shop.

"Cool," Sienna says. "Thanks, Roseline. Maybe I'll see you sometime. And that's a sweet pet, by the way," she says and, with a wave of her hand, she dashes off

Roseline stares after the warrior, a little stunned by her sudden departure. The spider snarls softly against her arm and she looks down at it. Then she looks back to where Sienna ran off. After a moment, she sighs. "Warriors," she says. "Always in a hurry."

Still. Her first real interaction with a warrior outside her store – and it had gone rather splendidly. Now, if only she could figure out what most of the things Sienna had said were, she'd be off to a rather good start.

"Shall we see what else we can see around here?" Roseline asks the spider, who snarls at her and then squirms around in her arms. Moment later it crawls up her chest and to sit on her shoulder, settling firmly there with all eight legs gripping tight. Roseline tilts her head to look at it, and it flashes it's mandibles at her.

"Well then," she says and pets the creature. "Lets go exploring, see what mischief we can get into."

- - - -

This was surprisingly hard to write. But hey, interactions. And a spider. Because reasons. That relate to previous original stories. 

Many many thank yous to everyone who’s commented and reblogged and been generally supportive, this is totally for all you guys.

Banner typography by vennith, potions by me.

It's not at all like she thought it would be. The sun is high in the sky and so bright. It casts a glow on everything it touches, setting it alight. It's nothing at all like how it is indoors, where everything was in the shade. Outside it's so bright it's nearly blinding.

And then there is the space. Her door opens to a cobble stone street lined with patches of flowers and tufts of grass – and all around her, there is space. Above and on each side – it's so much bigger outside than it is in her store. Of course it would be – she knew it would be. But knowing and experiencing are two very different things. The open space above carries on forever and it's enough to make her a little dizzy.

Careful, Roseline steps away form the door, and then looks behind her. It's something she's never thought of before, but now that she has the opportunity she's almost desperate to see what her store looks like from the outside. What is it that draws the warriors in?

From outside her store isn't that different from how it is from the inside, really. It's wooden and somehow cosy looking, with murky windows and wooden window frames. Above the front door hangs a wooden sign with simplistic potion painted on it in green, and nothing else. Her store doesn't seem to have a name.

There is a sound of sudden running steps and turning around quickly Roseline watches how a warrior – a man with long white hair and staff at his back – dashes down the street. He's running at incredible pace and he passes her by without so much as a glance at her direction, continuing on without a pause and vanishing behind another building at the bend of the road.

Warriors. Always in hurry.

The street slants slightly upwards, lined on each side with buildings much like hers. They're all small and wooden, with blurry windows, and rooftops lined with dark wood shingles. Not all of them have signs – most of them don't, in fact. The few signs there are resemble hers, simple wooden plates with simplified images painted on them.

Curious, Roseline turns to the store that sits across from hers, the one she's stared through the window many times and known nothing about. It too has a sign – a simplistic sword standing upright. So… a weapons store? Is it where people buy their swords, bows and staffs?

Hesitating for a moment, Roseline glances over her shoulder at her own store. Then she squares her shoulders, and steps away from it and to the street. And then, a little more confidently, she walks over the cobblestone street and to the other side.

The weapons store is and isn't much like hers. It's all wood, rather small and quite cosy inside. Of course there are no potions on display. Instead there are swords, shields and spears, with a couple of bows sitting on the table in the middle, and on the wall on a rack there are number of staffs.

None of them look much like the swords, bows and staffs she has seen, though. These are different – some of the swords are much bigger, their hilt designs varying – some of them are smaller. There are even few with blades so slender they look like needles. The bows are much more impressive than the ones warriors usually carry, with complicated designs along the length of the wood, and the arrows laid beside them have special, colourful fletching she has never seen. And the staffs are even more different – nothing like the simple wooden staves warriors have. No, these ones are from different types of wood and they're carefully carved and polished – one of them has a glowing gem set into it, sitting in a basket carved into the wood.

"Welcome!" the sales person greets her. It's a man with dark skin and eyes, his head completely bald. He has a nice, welcoming smile – and he doesn't wear a leather jacket like warriors do. He has a leather apron with soot and burn marks on it, but underneath it he has a cloth tunic and trousers, both of them little burn marked.

"Hello," Roseline says hesitantly, looking him up and down, not sure at all about what to do. The curiosity she had about the shop across from hers had been an idle feeling, one she hadn't though she'd ever actually satisfy. Now that she's here, she isn't sure what to do, what to say. She isn't a warrior, she isn't interested in weapons. All she wanted to do was…

Talk to someone.

"My name is Roseline," she says, and steps forward carefully. "I'm from the store across the street. I sell potions."

He doesn't answer, just smiles at her welcomingly and… blankly, somehow. He's not quite looking at her either, she realises. It's more like he's staring at the air just between them – staring at nothing.

"Hello?" Roseline asks, and steps closer. Slowly she waves a hand over his face, over his eyes – and he doesn't react in any way. It's as if he doesn't really see her. Or like… he doesn't care at all what he is seeing.

So. He's like she was, before she… wasn't like that anymore.

A little dismayed, Roseline looks down at the counter between her and the weapons seller – so much like the counter of her store, wooden and firm under the hand. She leans a little on it and looks around the shop, taking in the similarities and the differences. Do warriors ever try to take the weapons on display? Can they?

Can she?

Thoughtful, she reaches out to the nearest one – table with the bows on display. The wood feels solid under her hand, solid and real, and as she wraps her fingers around it and pulls, it comes loose. Lifting the bow, she turns it in her hand, wondering not just about it – but her own, reoccurring reservation about picking things up. Why does it feel like things come loose when she touches them? They aren't actually affixed to anything. Aren't they?

"I think… I shouldn't be able to lift this," she says to the weapons seller, turning to him. "Does it ever feel to you, like the world is… glued together? Like things are stuck and nothing is supposed to move?"

He doesn't answer – just stares at the air between them – and shaking her head Roseline turns her attention to the bow. She doesn't know much about weapons, but she knows how bows approximately works. She has a vague impression that there had been a warrior with a bow in her store once, trying to shoot the bottles on the shelves. She's fairly sure they never managed to do any damage to anything in the store, though.

Wrapping her fingers tighter around the bow's middle, she lifts it and then pulls at the string. The bow resists her strongly and she can't pull the string back much – but she can pull it back little. When she releases it, it twangs in the otherwise silent show loudly. It's a real bow, then.

"Do you sell a bow like this?" she asks curiously, turning to the weapon's seller. He doesn't react and with a uneasy little frown she tries again. "I uh… I want to shop?"

"These are all the wares I have available," he answers automatically, and a transfer screen opens in front of him just over the counter – and it's not hers.

A little wide eyed, Roseline sets the bow down and then looks over the list in fascination. Instead of potions, there are weapons listed on the screen. Not only swords, bows and staffs, but daggers, axes, shields, scythes, spears, hammers, and other things, all of them quite splendid to look at. And the prices. The things the weapons seller has listed on his transfer screen are a bit more expensive than the wares she usually sold – even the cheapest sword has the price of twenty silver.

What made a sword more expensive than a potion? Where did the prices come from anyway – what set them? She certainly didn't. "I suppose potions are cheaper because they're consumable," Roseline muses, leaning onto the wooden counter. Then she looks over the transfer screen at the weapons seller.

He's still smiling at her, his face utterly void of any real emotion. She knows that smile well – it's just like her own smile.

"You… don't really know I'm here at all, do you? You're just a…" Roseline looks for a word and shakes her head. She doesn't know what to call it – a void of… interest maybe. Void of feeling. Void of consciousness. "Why aren't you like me? Why am I not like you?"

He doesn't say anything and with a sigh she looks back at the screen between them, wondering if she can take things out of it the same way she can take things out of her own transfer screen. She doesn't test it – she wouldn't want anyone testing something like that on her, and though the weapons seller isn't… like her, she still doesn't want to do something like that to him.

Is her screen even there anymore – or is it back at the store? Turning away, Roseline tries to open it – and it appears, just as it always does, listing twenty two different potions and their prices. So, she is a sales person even outside her store, then.

"I wonder if there are other sales people in Ablenshore," she says to the weapons seller. "Do you know?" he doesn't answer and with a shake of her head she closes her transfer screen. "I think I'll go and see. And… I'll be back, later." The weapons seller doesn't answer and with a sigh, Roseline nods at him. "I'm done shopping," she says.

"Thank you for visiting, please come again!" the weapons seller says, automatic and cheerful.

Roseline's shoulder slump a little. "Yeah. Maybe… maybe we could talk, then," she says. "Thank you. This has been… different," she adds and then leaves without looking back.

 -

 Ablenshore is beautiful. It is and isn't like Roseline thought it would be. The village consists of one cobblestone street that winds up a cliff, with wooden houses on each side – and a lighthouse at the very top of the cliff. From up there the view is spectacular, just wide open ocean as far as the eye can see, the waves glittering in the sunlight like someone spread gems all over them. Below the lighthouse there is a beach with little boats and some fishermen, busy in task of shifting barrels around.

There is a small central square in the village, just about middle of the cobblestone road. It's the only part of the village that's completely level, everything else is slanted a little upwards. There is a well there with some children playing around it, and not far from the well there are couple of shop stalls, one of them selling fish and the another selling baked goods. There are few people standing around the square, chatting amongst themselves about things Roseline has never heard about – about lords and thieves and assassination of some highborn lady she's never heard about.

Warriors run up and down along the street of Ablenshore, up to the lighthouse and then down again, always in such a hurry. Although some of them don't seem to be in hurry at all. There is one woman who keeps trying to jump up to the roof of one of the buildings – another has already managed it, and as Rosaline watches she does an outrageous little dance just beside the roof ornament, laughing uproariously as she does it.

A bit after that, Roseline watches with horror how one of the warriors actually jumps from the lighthouse and down cliff, a drop of at least sixty meters. The warrior disappears into the bushes below and she doesn't see what happens to him – she's too horrified to go out and see if he made it or not. Apparently it's nothing unusual, though because no one… no one checks on him either.

Little later, she sees another warrior attempt the same feat and doesn't stick around to watch the results.

The people of Ablenshore, though… The villagers as she comes to think of them. There is something wrong with them. They aren't like the warriors and they aren't like her either. They're…

There are couple of elder ladies standing not far from the stall that sells fish. They wear clothes made of fabric – long dresses with tight waists an sleeves that end at the elbows. One of them is fanning herself with a paper fan, the other has a parasol she has placed between her and the sun. Roseline watches them from the shadows of the fish stall, and listens.

"Oh, poor Lady Yarkenew," the lady with the parasol says, shaking her head sadly. "To lose her daughter like that. No mother should have to go through something like that."

"She was so young too, the poor dear," the other answers, rapidly fanning herself. "And all for what, some pretty little bauble? The things people can do to each other, can you even imagine…"

"Did you hear, though – about that jewel?" the first asks, leaning in to whisper. "Apparently it was some old relic – worth king's ransom, it was!"

"Indeed? I know the Yarkenew family is fortunate, but they owned something like that?"

"And now it's all gone. No wonder Lord Yarkenew is so desperate to find someone to capture the thief."

The two women hum in solemn agreement and are quiet for a moment, thinking on the matter. And then the lady with the parasol speaks again. "Oh, poor Lady Yarkenew," she says and shakes her head. "To lose her daughter like that…"

They've been repeating the discussion ever since Rosaline sat down to watch them, the same lines over and over in endless loop, making the exact same gestures as they talk, the exact same expressions – even the tones of their voices flow the same. Over and over they go over the same discussion – and judging by the looks of then, they might've been going at it for… forever.

Every other villager is the same. Some of them don't say anything, but the ones that do speak just repeat themselves, again and again. The fish seller calls out the same sales pitches at precise intervals, over and over. The children tell the same jokes to each other, shout out the same complaints when one of them cheats, let out the same bursts of laughter… and then do it all over again.

It's like they're all stuck in a single moment, repeating it endlessly without ever knowing it.

Mostly they just ignore Roseline, though. When she approaches them they don't react to her and when she speaks to them, it's like they don't hear. Maybe they don't. She'd think they were all deaf and blind to things outside their little bubble of endlessly repeating seconds except she sees one of them talking to a warrior – and reaching to him.

"What am I going to do, what am I going to do?!" the villager frets. "I'm going to lose my job at this rate, I'm going to –"

The warrior lets out an impatient noise and hurries the villager along with an winding motion and a muttered, "Yeah, yeah, just give me the quest already."

And it works, the villager stops mid sentence. "Please take care of those pesky Rosecrabs for me, before they destroy my boss' flower garden!" he says instead and a window opens in front of him. At first Roseline thinks it's a trade screen – but it's different. There are no goods on display – just text she can't read at a distance, and buttons for accepting or declining.

"Oh, thank you so much, you're a real life saver!" the villager says, relieved when the warrior accepts. Moment later the warrior is off, dashing across the street and soon out of sight, leaving the villager behind.

Not a minute later, the villager starts fretting again, tugging at his hair and pacing back and forth restlessly. "What am I going to do, what am I going to do?"

Cautious, Roseline approaches him. "Hello?" she says. "Are you alright?"

He ignores her and keeps on pacing and muttering, "What am I going to do, what am I going to do?"

"That warrior promised to help you, surely it will be alright now?" Roseline says, a little hopeless, and again he ignores her and just keeps on pacing.

She tries again but after a while of no results, she leaves him, disappointed and disheartened. Little later she sees the same villager repeating the same discussion with another warrior – who again promises to deal with the Rosecrabs. And after the warrior leaves… the villager starts fretting again.

Then there are the sales people.

One of them sells clothing and armour – leather jackets, trousers and boots, yes, but also armour. Chest plates and graves and gauntlets, and robes the likes of which she's never seen before. They're being sold by a cheerful female salesperson who recites the same lines as the weapons seller did, and who doesn't otherwise react to Roseline at all. Another sales person who sells jewellery – necklaces and earrings and rings and bracelets, all of them, beautiful and quite expensive. She doesn't variety from those old patterns either. Neither do either of the sales people on the square, really, not aside from their occasional sales pitches that they shout at set times, like clock work.

Aside from the warriors – and her – everyone in Ablenshore is stuck in little loops. It's confusing and disheartening and a little terrifying. Especially since she knows that she was like them – like every other sales person here, she too was stuck on a loop. It had once been natural to her too.

She has no idea why it isn't anymore, but looking at it from the outside is extremely disconcerting and she has no idea what to do about it. Or what to do about herself.

So she sits in the central square in the shadows of the fish stall and listens to the lady with the parasol and the lady with the fan talk about Lady Yarkenew's daughter who had died, and the jewel that had been stolen, wondering. Were Lady and Lord Yarkenew stuck on repeating loops too? Is it just the people Ablenshore that are like that – or is it the whole world?

A warrior runs into the square, talking to himself. "- just wasn't there, I'm telling you," he says at no one as he goes, past her. "The NPC just wasn’t there. I don't know, a bug maybe. Nah, I'm not gonna bother, let someone else report it. Just head up to the crossing, get some pots from the travelling merchant, alright? I'll check in my quest for the lighthouse…"

Roseline looks after him as the warrior runs up the road, towards the lighthouse, soon too far for her to hear him. Frowning, she look between where the Warrior went – and then at the ladies talking about lady Yarkenew.

Why aren't warriors like that – what makes them different? They come and go wild and free, and aside from physical features that occasionally match, they rarely act the same. Not outside those interactions they go through with villagers and salespeople. Outside those little transactions, the warriors behave wildly different. Not to mention how they move.

Only warriors run in Ablenshore. And they run so fast too. Like nothing could ever tired them out. And in the mean while villagers are all stuck. Like they're glued in their places, moving only to return to where they started from.

"I don't get this," she murmurs to herself, rubbing at her forehead. "I don't get this at all."

Maybe… maybe it had been a mistake to leave the store. Maybe she should've just stayed. At least things made sense there.

The warrior that ran up to the lighthouse soon runs back down, passing her by again, never once slowing down. She looks after him, tired and confused. Why are the warriors always in such a hurry? And where are they going? Not one of them seems to have any intention of staying – and they obviously don't live in Ablenshore. They came from somewhere, and then they just left, like the village was barely a pit stop.

After a moment of weighing her options, Roseline stands up and heads down the road and away from the square. Her own shop is just little below it. She stops there to look at the store front – so strange and so familiar from the outside. Then she heads to the other side instead, to the weapon store.

Nothing has changed there.

"Welcome!" the weapon's seller greets her from behind his counter.

"Hello again," Rosaline nods to him. "I came back," she says and then, when he doesn't answer, speaks again. "I looked around in the village. There are a lot of people here. Did you know that Ablenshore is build on a cliff? It arches around it and there's a lighthouse on top. I didn't know about it before. And I didn't know we had a village square either."

Of course he doesn't answer, but that doesn't matter. He listens. At least she hopes he does. Looking around the shore, Roseline talks, just unloading what's she's seen and realised. It's not much, but it's something and it was more than she knew before, stuck in her own store. It's what she wishes someone would've told her earlier.

"I'm not sure what's wrong with the people," Roseline says then, soft and sad. "Or maybe there's something wrong with me, maybe I'm… not supposed to be like this. No one seems to find it odd at all, how the villagers are. The warriors, they don't seem to care. I don't think they're from here but they don't think there's anything strange about it, so maybe… maybe it's like that where ever they came from. Maybe it's like that everywhere. So maybe it's just me, but…"

She trails off, looking down at the bows on the display. Then she turns to look at the weapons seller. "What is your name?" she asks him. "Do you know your name? Could you tell me?"

He doesn't answer and she looks away, towards the window beside the door. Through it she can see a store front. Her own. "I probably should go back to my shop," she says, wondering if the weapons seller ever looks at her store – if he's ever curious about what it looks like inside. "Someone has to sell potions. But… I don't think I'm going to."

Shrugging her shoulders she takes a deep breath and then slowly releases it. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but… I'm going to do something. I'm going to try and see if there's… if there's answers to this stuff," she says and turns to face the weapon's seller. He's smiling at her, welcoming and bland. "Hey," she says, inspiration striking her as she runs a hand over her apron. "Would you like a gift?"

From the pocket of her apron, Roseline takes out the Blessed Revival Potion she's been carrying and sets it on the table between them. The liquid inside the crystal bottle glows golden in the dim light of the store. "I don't know if it's any use to you, but… you can have it. It's yours," she says and pushes it over, smiling. "I want you to have it."

With that done, she turns to leave, carefully ignoring his complete lack of reaction to her gift. "If you ever leave the store… be sure to check out the lighthouse," Roseline says over her shoulder. "The view from up there is really something special."

- - - - 

Aaand a second chapter. I am so not sure about this - so much introspection. Argh. Well, I hope it lives up to the last chapter, lot of people seemed to like it and I really don’t want to disappoint. Pls let me know what you think, feedback is always welcome.

Banner Typography by reilyk, potions by me.

Her name is Roseline. She lives in a small costal village named Ablenshore. She sells potions. She never leaves her store.

"Welcome!" she calls, cheerfully smiling, as a customer enters the store. They're all the same – warriors in rough leathers. Women, men, young, old – all in the same type of clothes, carrying just about the same type of weapons. Be it a bow or a staff or a sword, they're always identical.

They buy the same things too. They never browse, never look around – they rarely hesitate. They just walk up to her and do their business never once looking around.

"I want to shop," the customer says. A warrior in leather, just like all the times before. She's carrying a sword, identical to all the swords Roseline has seen before. Her hair is short, white and tied with little baubles in front of her ears. Her skin is as pale as her hair and her eyes are golden.

Roseline has seen that too.

"These are the wares I have available," Roseline answers, and opens a transfer screen between them. It hangs sharp and faintly glowing in the air between them just over the wooden counter, the available potions and their prices listed in precise lines. From [Low Grade Life Potion] which costs fifty copper coins to [Blessed Revival Potion] which had the price of twenty gold coins.

The white haired warrior eyes the list for a moment and opens another screen a little to the side, considering the items displayed the there – hers are on a grid of square boxes rather than in lines, though most of the slots in the grid are empty.

Without saying anything, the warrior drags something through the air into the transfer screen.

[Silverbell seed x24 ]

[Perhaps you can plant it?]

[Growth time 10 min]

[Requires Green affinity to be used]

"You get one silver and twenty copper for your Silverbell seeds," Roseline tells the warrior automatically. "Would you like to sell something else?"

She does, selling [Oak Splinter x12] for sixty copper coins and [Wood Spider Silk x46] for two silver and thirty copper. Roseline transfers the money for the items and they vanish into the transfer screen.

"I want eighteen low grade life potions," the white haired warrior then says.

"That will be nine silver," Roseline answers. The warrior accepts the price without argument and once she has transferred the money over, Roseline answers by transferring the requested potions back. "Would you like to buy something else?"

"I got all I need now," the white haired warrior answers, and her screen vanishes.

"Thank you for visiting, please come again!" Roseline says and bows her head in farewell that is just as automatic as everything else about the meeting. Without another word the warrior leaves. The transfer screen disappears and the door closes after the warrior with a click.

The encounter was, all told, exactly like the hundreds and thousands that came before it and the ones that would come after would probably also fall into the same pattern. Roseline knows the pattern well. It's all she does know. And now that the motions have been played through, she stands behind the counter, stares at nothing at all and waits. And waits. And waits.

After a while, when no customers appear, her eyes begin to wander a little.

Her shop is small. Or at least she thinks it is small – she doesn't have anything to compare it to. It's all wood from floor to ceiling, and Roseline thinks it is quite cosy. There are tables in the middle with potions and empty phials on display – under the window, there are bundles of dried herbs. No one's ever bought them – or even much looked at them. Through the window she can see a blurry store front.

She has no idea who owns the other store or what it sells. She's never visited it. She's never left her own store.

Roseline stares at the other store through the blurry window curiously and wonders if the person managing it is like her. Maybe they haven't ever stepped away from their store's counter either.

 -

 There is another customer – another warrior in leather, this one carrying a wooden staff on his back. The exact same staff as all the other staffs Roseline has seen. His hair is red and short and his eyes match the colour. His skin is dark, darker than the leather jacket he wears. It's another common look.

He's talking to himself when he comes in, and completely ignores Roseline's greeting. But then they all do, more or less.

"… yeah, yeah, I'll be there in just a sec, just let me gets some pots," he says to no one as he marches up to the counter. "I want to shop," he says to Roseline and then continues to talking to someone who isn't there. "Hey, you need anything while I'm at it? I don't have much money, but I can get you a few."

Roseline blinks and opens the transfer screen. "These are the wares I have available," she says. It's not unusual for the warriors to talk to themselves. Lot of them do it, speaking into the thin air as if there's someone there – someone other than Roseline – listening.

"Mm yeah I can't afford a Revival, they're too damn expensive. It's like, one gold for the lowest type. Yeah. Hmm…" the warrior says at nothing, while running a hand over the list of potions. Then he suddenly laughs. " W-what, really? No way, man. Hey, take a picture, alright? What – really? Oh man, I gotta see this – just gimme a mo," he says and then selects what he wants to buy. "Ten Low Grade Spirit Potions and five Low Grade Life Potions."

"That will be seven silver and fifty copper," Roseline says, and transfers the potions over once the warrior has accepted the trade.

The warrior turns to leave, and then stops, reconsidering. "Three Low Grade Antidotes," he says then, and she sells them for single silver and fifty copper.

"Hey, do you know if there's a place to buy better gear anywhere here?" he asks suddenly and Roseline blinks with surprise. No one's ever asked anything like that from her. Or anything other than for potions, really.

She opens her mouth to say that she doesn't know, unfortunately, but before she can… he speaks again.

"Oh. Right, well – that's just level above what we are right now?" the red haired warrior says. "Sweet. I'm all for free stuff. Right, I'm done here, just hang back for the moment – is the chick still there? Excellent. Be right there, then. I'm done shopping."

"Tha… thank you for visiting, please come again," Roseline answers, and watches him leave with odd mix of astonishment and disappointment. Right. He wasn't talking to her after all, but to… whomever he was talking to. Why would he talk to her?

For a moment she stares at the empty air in front of her like she always does, a smile plastered on her face like it always is. After a while, though, the smile slips off and her gaze lowers to the counter in front of her.

No one talks to her. No one has ever talked to her. All they do is come in and buy potions and nothing else. Sometimes they sell her things. Seeds and wood splinters, rocks and metal fragments, pieces of jewels, fabrics, thread, silk… sometimes they sell her bits and pieces of animals. The fangs of Wood Spider or the claws of the Field Burrower, things like that. She… isn't entirely sure where the things they sell her go after they've put them into the trade screen.

Things vanish and appear out of nowhere in that thing. There are endless amounts of potions there, that come from nowhere, and when things are put into it… they cease to exist. At least Roseline thinks so. She isn't entirely sure.

She's never actually thought about it before.

She's thinking about it now, and is still thinking about it when another warrior comes in. This one is a big, voluptuous figure, so tall her head touches the top of the door frame. Her skin is fair, her hair is long and light grey in colour and her eyes are pale, pale blue. Aside from that she's just like all the rest, dressed in leather, carrying staff identical to the staff the red haired warrior carried.

Roseline welcomes her to the shop, and she ignores it.

"I want to shop," she says, coming to the counter. She's brisk about making her purchases – the warrior buys ten Low Grade Spirit Potions and ten Low Grade Life Potions, and five Low Grade Antidotes – and after paying Roseline twelve silver and fifty copper for her purchases, she ends the business with, "I'm done shopping," and then she leaves before Roseline can even thank her.

Roseline looks after her over the still lingering transfer screen. It's not uncommon – the warriors are always in hurry, and they always pay her. No matter how rude they sometimes seem to be, no one has ever tried to just take their purchases and run. She appreciates that, at least.

Though… perhaps they couldn't even do something like that. After all, the trade happens in the transfer screen – the warriors can drag things into it to sell them, but they don’t seem able to take anything out. Not unless Roseline allows it.

The transfer screen is still there, and just before it would disappear, Roseline puts her hand on it – and it stays, no customer in sight. Not entirely sure what to do or why she wants to do it, she takes the screen by it's sharp edges and turns it more to her, looking at it.

The screen, she knows, is what makes her a salesperson. It's what makes her… anything, really. The things in the shop don't seem to matter to anyone, the bottles on the tables and shelves are worthless even as decorations – no one looks at them. No, it's the things in the screen they want. Things in the screen which they come to get.

There are twenty two types of potions on the trade screen. Five types of Life Potions from Low Grade to Blessed, and five types of Spirit Potions with similar scale. Then she sells Antidotes, just the one type. She sells Holy Water, but only few people ever buy it, same with Smelling Salts, Mandrake Draught, Rejuvenation Tonic and Eye Wash. Then there are three types of Regeneration Potions – just the Regeneration Potion, the Great Regeneration Potion and the Blessed Regeneration Potion. And then there are the Revives, the first of which, Revive, costs one gold, then the Great Revive Potion which costs seven gold, and the Blessed Revive Potion which costs twenty gold.

No one's ever bought that one. In fact no one has ever bought any of the more expensive potions – couple of times people bought the Mid Grade Potions which were twenty silver per potion, but mostly it was just the Low Grade ones they bought. No one could afford the more expensive ones.

After a moment of eying the potions and their prices, Roseline reaches out and grabs one of the crystalline phials from the screen. When she pulls her had back, she is grasping the bottle by it's neck. It is… heavier than she thought it would be, and far more solid than she'd assumed.

It is, she realises, the first time she's actually held a potion. She's sold them for as long as she could remember, and yet she'd never once touched one.

Slowly, she sets the potion down on the counter. It's a beautiful phial, the surface cut and fractal like precious gem, glittering in the light. The cap on it is also crystal, a delicate diamond shape. The liquid inside is golden and when the light hits it, it glows.

Blessed Revival Potion, worth twenty gold, sits on the table and no one paid for it.

After a moment of consideration, Roseline pushes it to the side, to the corner of the counter. As the transfer screen closes the potion phial remains, sitting there for anyone to take.

 -

 Twenty customers later, the Blessed Revival Potion is still sitting there, on the counter. No one took it. No one really even noticed it.

They're always in such a hurry to get their things and leave, they never much looked around. Still, the potion is rather noticeable – it's not much like anything else displayed in the store. Surely someone should've at least noticed it. And yet…

Roseline eyes the Blessed Revival Potion with something like dismay and then looks around the store. The things on display look like the things she sells – at least, some of them. There are potions that look exactly like the Low Grade ones she sells, even the empty phials match the phial types used in them. On the shelves there are bit more expensive potions – Revivals and various cures and Regeneration potions. No one's ever tried to grab any of them.

She's… not entirely sure why.

After a moment of though, Roseline looks down and then, slowly, pushes herself away from the counter. Slow, almost meditative, she steps around it – and then, finally, away from it. It's easier than she thought it would be – so easy she's not sure why she didn't try it before. Surely she could've, if she had just tried.

Shaking her head Roseline steps to the nearest shelf and then reaches out. There are five of Great Regeneration Potions standing in a loose line there, and when she reaches out to touch them, they feel real. And when she wraps her fingers around the bottle neck, it comes loose without trouble.

She's not sure why, but it feels like she's doing something wrong, something… impossible. It feels like the bottle should've been immobile, and yet it wasn't – it sits in her hand, heavy and real.

Roseline stares at the bottle in something like fascination as the door opens. "Welcome," she greets the customer automatically, turning away from the shelf. It's another warrior, of course – a man with long pink hair and pink eyes, with clothes made of leather and sword at his side.

The warrior who stepped in looks first at the counter – and then at her, blinking. He looks a little puzzled for a moment, but then he shakes his head. "I want to shop," he says.

Roseline knows the answer to that – but she usually says it behind the counter. So, after a moment of hesitation, she walks back behind the counter, sets the Great Regeneration Potion down beside the Blessed Revival Potion, and then she smiles. "These are the wares I have available," she says, and opens the trade screen.

From there the transaction goes like it always does – the warrior buys Life Potions and a few Antidotes, shifting them from the transfer screen to his own screen. As he rearranges the items on it, shifting the potions on top – something lot of warriors do – Roseline eyes him curiously.

"Would you like a gift?" she then asks – a variation from the pattern that makes him pause and look at her in astonishment.

"W-what?" he asks, blinking.

"Here," Roseline says, and takes the Great Regeneration Potion, holding it out. "You can have this. On the house."

The warrior stares at the potion with astonishment and then reaches out to take it. "Whoa," he says, putting it into his inventory. "That's a… oh man, that's a really good potion," he mutters, leaning in and tapping a finger on the potion.

[Great Regeneration Potion x1]

[Heals 50 life points every second for 30 seconds]

[Resell value 3 Gold.]

Roseline waits to see what he does, not entirely sure what she's expecting. She's never done something like this before, and she hopes… hopes it will be something new. Something… good.

The warrior stares at the screen for a moment and then turns to her. "I want to shop," he says quickly and Roseline opens the transfer screen again, too surprised to even say her usual line. The transfer screen sits on top of the counter, and the warrior looks at it for a moment, deep in thought. Then the pink haired adventurer takes the Great Regeneration Potion she just gave him…

And he drags it into the screen, to sell it back to her.

"You… get three gold for your Great Regeneration Potion," Roseline says, absolutely stunned.

The warrior grins. "Score," he says and accepts the trade. The money appears on his inventory, taking the numbers of [0, 11, 65] G up to [3, 11, 65] G. The warrior shakes his head in amazement. "Man, I didn't even know there was an exploit here," he mutters, and then looks around.

His eyes land on the Blessed Revival Potion.

Before he can reach for it, Roseline takes the potion and drops it into the pocket of her apron. "I am sorry," she says, and somehow her voice manages to stay level. "This store is now closed."

"Figures," the pink haired man mutters and then shrugs his shoulders. "I'm done shopping."

Roseline doesn't answer, her hands squeezed into tight fists at her sides as the warrior saunters out of the shop, whistling happily over what he probably thought was just good fortune. As the door closes after him, she leans her head back and drags a deep breath, her whole body tense.

She's never really thought about it one way or the others. The customers – like the shop, like the potions, like the transfer screen – are just things that… are. It's how it's always been to her, this place, these encounters. She's never really thought about it, not before now. And now that she does…

Roseline isn't sure she much likes warriors.

 -

 Suddenly, more warriors appear at Roseline's store – and some come again, something that happens only very rarely normally. It starts with the pink haired man, who returns after a couple of hours and pokes around her shop for a moment, as if testing everything. And while Roseline is happy that finally, finally someone is actually looking around in the shop… there is something odd and wrong about this.

The first thing the pink haired warrior says to her that time is not the usual, "I want to shop," but instead he asks, "Can I have a gift?"

Roseline is so confused and dismayed that she can't think of anything to say – and so she says nothing. He makes a face at her and prods at the Great Regeneration Potions on the shelf for a while. Ten minutes later he leaves, apparently disappointed – only to come again in an hour.

After that, other people come to do the same. It takes Roseline a while to figure that the word of her gift had spread somehow, and now the warriors want to see if they too can get something for free. And though she could've easily given them any number of potions with very little trouble on her part, it feels… wrong. It feels hollow. She wanted interaction, she wanted someone to talk to her, to say something new to her, but this…

She didn't even know this was a possibility and she doesn't want it.

"Can I have a gift?" another hopeful warrior asks, looking at her expectantly. This warrior is a slender woman with dark green hair pulled up on a pony tail and blue eyes. Her skin is suntanned, the colour of her leather jacket, and on her back she has a bow and a quiver. Same as all the rest, really – same as all the people who'd come in lately asking for gifts.

Roseline doesn't answer – the smile on her face, normally as natural as breathing, sits stiff and uncomfortable on her lips.

The warrior waits for a moment before sighing with disappointment. "Maybe it's a special timing thing," she mutters and then shakes her head. "I want to shop," she says, and buys a couple of Low Grade Life Potions before leaving.

There is also one warrior who hangs around the shop for nearly half an hour, just waiting and watching her. A tall male with dark skin, spiky yellow hair and pale blue eyes, he just sits on one of the tables and watches her. It's the longest Roseline thinks she's ever been in the presence of another, certainly the longest anyone's spend just looking at her and she doesn't really like it. Her smile grows more and more difficult as time goes on, and she rather wishes she could just… not be there. Or just somehow make the warrior leave. She just doesn't know how.

The relief when the warrior leaves, never once buying anything, is so strong that she staggers a little. And the dismay when another warrior comes in not much after is very nearly as powerful. Though the second warrior – female with long red hair and bright red eyes, skin as pale as snow – leaves not much after coming, Roseline realises something that doesn't bode well for her.

She's a salesperson – and every time a customer comes in, she wishes desperately that they hadn't.

She doesn't want this. This is not at all what she wants. If she'd known she never would've given the potion to the pink haired warrior. And she wants it to stop. The thought forms slow but definite in her head, a true desire, even a little desperate one.

She wants this to stop.

Maybe she can just… lock the door. It's right there, it has a lock. It should work, shouldn't it?

When there's a small break between customers – a blue haired woman who got her spirit potions and who thankfully left after asking for a free gift only once – Roseline quickly goes around the counter and marches up to the front door. It's the furthest she's gone from her desk – the shelf she got the Great Regeneration Potion from was barely a couple steps away. It's oddly liberating. It's the most she's ever done.

She reaches for the door handle, intending to pull it shut and then reaches for the lock. But instead of doing any of that, she instead places her palm against the firm, dark wood, just below the door's blurry window. Through it she can see the front of another shop just across from hers – the one she knows nothing about. And an idea pops into her head.

Her stomach twists with feeling so intense that it makes her shiver and she stares for a moment at the other store and then down the door handle, terrified and exhilarated. It's just there and she can move it, she knows she can move it. She can pull door shut and lock it – that would be easy. But then she'd be locked inside. It would be just her in the shop – and as much as she wants the appeals for gifts to stop… she doesn't want to be stuck alone indoors either.

Maybe if she leaves she won't be a potions seller anymore. She would be outside the shop and one needs a store to sell things from, after all. Maybe outside…

Can she? Is it even possible?

Slowly, she pushes the door open.

- - - -

Okay now I’m satisfied that this is a finished chapter x3 And now I have approximate chapter length to work with. Hooray.

Banner Typography by reilyk, potions by me.

I’d like to use different banner designs for each chapter. If other people want to do banner designs, here’s bigger version of the potions - you can change the image length and width and whatnot, but keep it banner-like :3

Her name is Roseline. She lives in a small costal village named Ablenshore. She sells potions. She never leaves her store.

"Welcome!" she calls, cheerfully smiling, as a customer enters the store. They're all the same – warriors in rough leathers. Women, men, young, old – all in the same type of clothes, carrying just about the same type of weapons. Be it a bow or a staff or a sword, they're always identical.

They buy the same things too. They never browse, never look around – they rarely hesitate. They just walk up to her and do their business never once looking around.

"I want to shop," the customer says. A warrior in leather, just like all the times before. She's carrying a sword, identical to all the swords Roseline has seen before. Her hair is short, white and tied with little baubles in front of her ears. Her skin is as pale as her hair and her eyes are golden.

Roseline has seen that too.

"These are the wares I have available," Roseline answers, and opens a transfer screen between them. It hangs sharp and faintly glowing in the air between them just over the wooden counter, the available potions and their prices listed in precise lines. From [Low Grade Life Potion] which costs fifty copper coins to [Blessed Revival Potion] which had the price of twenty gold coins.

The white haired warrior eyes the list for a moment and opens another screen a little to the side, considering the items displayed the there – hers are on a grid of square boxes rather than in lines, though most of the slots in the grid are empty.

Without saying anything, the warrior drags something through the air into the transfer screen.

[Silverbell seed x24 ] [Perhaps you can plant it?] [Growth time 10 min] [Requires Green affinity to be used]

"You get one silver and twenty copper for your Silverbell seeds," Roseline tells the warrior automatically. "Would you like to sell something else?"

She does, selling [Oak Splinter x12] for sixty copper coins and [Wood Spider Silk x46] for two silver and thirty copper. Roseline transfers the money for the items and they vanish into the transfer screen.

"I want eighteen low grade life potions," the white haired warrior then says.

"That will be nine silver," Roseline answers. The warrior accepts the price without argument and once she has transferred the money over, Roseline answers by transferring the requested potions back. "Would you like to buy something else?"

"I got all I need now," the white haired warrior answers, and her screen vanishes.

"Thank you for visiting, please come again!" Roseline says and bows her head in farewell that is just as automatic as everything else about the meeting. Without another word the warrior leaves. The transfer screen disappears and the door closes after the warrior with a click.

The encounter was, all told, exactly like the hundreds and thousands that came before it and the ones that would come after would probably also fall into the same pattern. Roseline knows the pattern well. It's all she does know. And now that the motions have been played through, she stands behind the counter, stares at nothing at all and waits. And waits. And waits.

After a while, when no customers appear, her eyes begin to wander a little.

Her shop is small. Or at least she thinks it is small – she doesn't have anything to compare it to. It's all wood from floor to ceiling, and Roseline thinks it is quite cosy. There are tables in the middle with potions and empty phials on display – under the window, there are bundles of dried herbs. No one's ever bought them – or even much looked at them. Through the window she can see a blurry store front.

She has no idea who owns the other store or what it sells. She's never visited it. She's never left her own store.

Roseline stares at the other store through the blurry window curiously and wonders if the person managing it is like her. Maybe they haven't ever stepped away from their store's counter either.

 -

 There is another customer – another warrior in leather, this one carrying a wooden staff on his back. The exact same staff as all the other staffs Roseline has seen. His hair is red and short and his eyes match the colour. His skin is dark, darker than the leather jacket he wears. It's another common look.

He's talking to himself when he comes in, and completely ignores Roseline's greeting. But then they all do, more or less.

"… yeah, yeah, I'll be there in just a sec, just let me gets some pots," he says to no one as he marches up to the counter. "I want to shop," he says to Roseline and then continues to talking to someone who isn't there. "Hey, you need anything while I'm at it? I don't have much money, but I can get you a few."

Roseline blinks and opens the transfer screen. "These are the wares I have available," she says. It's not unusual for the warriors to talk to themselves. Lot of them do it, speaking into the thin air as if there's someone there – someone other than Roseline – listening.

"Mm yeah I can't afford a Revival, they're too damn expensive. It's like, one gold for the lowest type. Yeah. Hmm…" the warrior says at nothing, while running a hand over the list of potions. Then he suddenly laughs. " W-what, really? No way, man. Hey, take a picture, alright? What – really? Oh man, I gotta see this – just gimme a mo," he says and then selects what he wants to buy. "Ten Low Grade Spirit Potions and five Low Grade Life Potions."

"That will be seven silver and fifty copper," Roseline says, and transfers the potions over once the warrior has accepted the trade.

The warrior turns to leave, and then stops, reconsidering. "Three Low Grade Antidotes," he says then, and she sells them for single silver and fifty copper.

"Hey, do you know if there's a place to buy better gear anywhere here?" he asks suddenly and Roseline blinks with surprise. No one's ever asked anything like that from her. Or anything other than for potions, really.

She opens her mouth to say that she doesn't know, unfortunately, but before she can… he speaks again.

"Oh. Right, well – that's just level above what we are right now?" the red haired warrior says. "Sweet. I'm all for saving money. Right, I'm done here, just hang back for the moment – is the chick still there? Excellent. Be right there, then. I'm done shopping."

"Tha… thank you for visiting, please come again," Roseline answers, and watches him leave with odd mix of astonishment and disappointment. Right. He wasn't talking to her after all, but to… whomever he was talking to. Why would he talk to her?

For a moment she stares at the empty air in front of her like she always does, a smile plastered on her face like it always is. After a while, though, the smile slips off and her gaze lowers to the counter in front of her.

No one talks to her. No one has ever talked to her. All they do is come in and buy potions and nothing else. Sometimes they sell her things. Seeds and wood splinters, rocks and metal fragments, pieces of jewels, fabrics, thread, silk… sometimes they sell her bits and pieces of animals. The fangs of Wood Spider or the claws of the Field Burrower, things like that. She… isn't entirely sure where the things they sell her go after they've put them into the trade screen.

Things vanish and appear out of nowhere in that thing. There are endless amounts of potions there, that come from nowhere, and when things are put into it… they cease to exist. At least Roseline thinks so. She isn't entirely sure.

She's never actually thought about it before.

She's thinking about it now, and is still thinking about it when another warrior comes in. This one is a big, voluptuous figure, so tall her head touches the top of the door frame. Her skin is fair, her hair is long and light grey in colour and her eyes are pale, pale blue. Aside from that she's just like all the rest, dressed in leather, carrying staff identical to the staff the red haired warrior carried.

Roseline welcomes her to the shop, and she ignores it.

"I want to shop," she says, coming to the counter. She's brisk about making her purchases – the warrior buys ten Low Grade Spirit Potions and ten Low Grade Life Potions, and five Low Grade Antidotes – and after paying Roseline twelve silver and fifty copper for her purchases, she ends the business with, "I'm done shopping," and then she leaves before Roseline can even thank her.

Roseline looks after her over the still lingering transfer screen. It's not uncommon – the warriors are always in hurry, and they always pay her. No matter how rude they sometimes seem to be, no one has ever tried to just take their purchases and run. She appreciates that, at least.

Though… perhaps they couldn't even do something like that. After all, the trade happens in the transfer screen – the warriors can drag things into it to sell them, but they don’t seem able to take anything out. Not unless Roseline allows it.

The transfer screen is still there, and just before it would disappear, Roseline puts her hand on it – and it stays, no customer in sight. Not entirely sure what to do or why she wants to do it, she takes the screen by it's sharp edges and turns it more to her, looking at it.

The screen, she knows, is what makes her a salesperson. It's what makes her… anything, really. The things in the shop don't seem to matter to anyone, the bottles on the tables and shelves are worthless even as decorations – no one looks at them. No, it's the things in the screen they want. Things in the screen which they come to get.

There are twenty two types of potions on the trade screen. Five types of Life Potions from Low Grade to Blessed, and five types of Spirit Potions with similar scale. Then she sells Antidotes, just the one type. She sells Holy Water, but only few people ever buy it, same with Smelling Salts, Mandrake Draught, Rejuvenation Tonic and Eye Wash. Then there are three types of Regeneration Potions – just the Regeneration Potion, the Great Regeneration Potion and the Blessed Regeneration Potion. And then there are the Revives, the first of which, Revive, costs one gold, then the Great Revive Potion which costs seven gold, and the Blessed Revive Potion which costs twenty gold.

No one's ever bought that one. In fact no one has ever bought any of the more expensive potions – couple of times people bought the Mid Grade Potions which were twenty silver per potion, but mostly it was just the Low Grade ones they bought. No one could afford the more expensive ones.

After a moment of eying the potions and their prices, Roseline reaches out and grabs one of the crystalline phials from the screen. When she pulls her had back, she is grasping the bottle by it's neck. It is… heavier than she thought it would be, and far more solid than she'd assumed.

It is, she realises, the first time she's actually held a potion. She's sold them for as long as she could remember, and yet she'd never once touched one.

Slowly, she sets the potion down on the counter. It's a beautiful phial, the surface cut and fractal like precious gem, glittering in the light. The cap on it is also crystal, a delicate diamond shape. The liquid inside is golden and when the light hits it, it glows.

Blessed Revival Potion, worth twenty gold, sits on the table and no one paid for it.

After a moment of consideration, Roseline pushes it to the side, to the corner of the counter. As the transfer screen closes the potion phial remains, sitting there for anyone to take.

 -

 Twenty customers later, the Blessed Revival Potion is still sitting there, on the counter. No one took it. No one really even noticed it.

They're always in such a hurry to get their things and leave, they never much looked around. Still, the potion is rather noticeable – it's not much like anything else displayed in the store. Surely someone should've at least noticed it. And yet…

Roseline eyes the Blessed Revival Potion with something like dismay and then looks around the store. The things on display look like the things she sells – at least, some of them. There are potions that look exactly like the Low Grade ones she sells, even the empty phials match the phial types used in them. On the shelves there are bit more expensive potions – Revivals and various cures and Regeneration potions. No one's ever tried to grab any of them.

She's… not entirely sure why.

After a moment of though, Roseline looks down and then, slowly, pushes herself away from the counter. Slow, almost meditative, she steps around it – and then, finally, away from it. It's easier than she thought it would be – so easy she's not sure why she didn't try it before. Surely she could've, if she had just tried.

Shaking her head Roseline steps to the nearest shelf and then reaches out. There are five of Great Regeneration Potions standing in a loose line there, and when she reaches out to touch them, they feel real. And when she wraps her fingers around the bottle neck, it comes loose without trouble.

She's not sure why, but it feels like she's doing something wrong, something… impossible. It feels like the bottle should've been immobile, and yet it wasn't – it sits in her hand, heavy and real.

Roseline stares at the bottle in something like fascination as the door opens. "Welcome," she greets the customer automatically, turning away from the shelf. It's another warrior, of course – a man with long pink hair and pink eyes, with clothes made of leather and sword at his side.

The warrior who stepped in looks first at the counter – and then at her, blinking. He looks a little puzzled for a moment, but then he shakes his head. "I want to shop," he says.

Roseline knows the answer to that – but she usually says it behind the counter. So, after a moment of hesitation, she walks back behind the counter, sets the Great Regeneration Potion down beside the Blessed Revival Potion, and then she smiles. "These are the wares I have available," she says, and opens the trade screen.

From there the transaction goes like it always does – the warrior buys Life Potions and a few Antidotes, shifting them from the transfer screen to his own screen. As he rearranges the items on it, shifting the potions on top – something lot of warriors do – Roseline eyes him curiously.

"Would you like a gift?" she then asks – a variation from the pattern that makes him pause and look at her in astonishment.

"W-what?" he asks, blinking.

"Here," Roseline says, and takes the Great Regeneration Potion, holding it out. "You can have this. On the house."

The warrior stares at the potion with astonishment and then reaches out to take it. "Whoa," he says, putting it into his inventory. "That's a… oh man, that's a really good potion," he mutters, leaning in and tapping a finger on the potion.

[Great Regeneration Potion x1] [Heals 50 life points every second for 30 seconds] [Resell value 3 Gold.]

Roseline waits to see what he does, not entirely sure what she's expecting. She's never done something like this before, and she hopes… hopes it will be something new. Something… good.

The warrior stares at the screen for a moment and then turns to her. "I want to shop," he says quickly and Roseline opens the transfer screen again, too surprised to even say her usual line. The transfer screen sits on top of the counter, and the warrior looks at it for a moment, deep in thought. Then the pink haired adventurer takes the Great Regeneration Potion she just gave him…

And he drags it into the screen, to sell it back to her.

"You… get three gold for your Great Regeneration Potion," Roseline says, absolutely stunned.

The warrior grins. "Score," he says and accepts the trade. The money appears on his inventory, taking the numbers of [0, 11, 65] G  up to [3, 11, 65] G. The warrior shakes his head in amazement. "Man, I didn't even know there was an exploit here," he mutters, and then looks around.

His eyes land on the Blessed Revival Potion.

Before he can reach for it, Roseline takes the potion and  drops it into the pocket of her apron. "I am sorry," she says, and somehow her voice manages to stay level. "This store is now closed."

"Figures," the pink haired mutters and then shrugs his shoulders. "Oh well. I'm done shopping."

Roseline doesn't answer, her hands squeezed into tight fists at her sides as the warrior saunters out of the shop, whistling happily over what he probably thought was just good fortune. As the door closes after him, she leans her head back and drags a deep breath, her whole body tense.

She's never really thought about it one way or the others. The customers – like the shop, like the potions, like the transfer screen – are just things that… are. It's how it's always been to her, this place, these encounters. She's never really thought about it, not before now. And now that she does…

Roseline isn't sure she much likes warriors.

- - - -