《The sages inn》


 Introduction

    This is Agreki, a world with various intelligent species. My location is on the continent of Estrabu, which is a feudalistic society. I am, or rather I was, a knight. In the service of Earl Canter under Duke Leeki I was sent to investigate a ruin uncovered by some serfs in the eastern part of the dukedom. It was uncovered when they were removing some trees on the border of the nearby forest to reclaim the land for farming. I was sent solely for the reason to set the peasants and serfs at ease since this ruin allegedly had a ¡°gloomy¡± feel. in my openion the stupid superstition of the lowborn was not a valid reason for me to take a 2 week ride out to nowhere. But my Lord felt different, and as any loyal subject I of course took my orders seriously. Who would have known that this ruin would change me, and then the world. The short version is that I went to the ruin with my squire Hans. I used the time on the way to train both myself and especially Hans, since there were no real duties on such a peaceful journey. When we arrived at the ruin I was just about ready to yell at all the lowborn idiots for their superstitious nonsense. But when they showed me the entrance the words got stuck in my mouth. The entrance itself was nothing but a hole in the ground, but the feeling¡­ The feeling was nothing i''ve ever experienced before. I don''t know how to describe it exactly because it was not a dangerous feeling like on the battlefield where bloodlust, despair and mania roam free, it was more along the lines of reverence. Like it would be a mistake to travel on this ground. I suppose the closest comparison would be hallowed ground. There was however not a trace of the same feeling you get in churches, though that feeling might just be the grand buildings and have nothing to do with gods. Regardless of my feelings, as the Lord ordered I had to investigate, though due to the feeling, and the lowborn around us, I had Hans stay outside watching the horses and supplies.


    The inside was, well to be frank, disappointing. The moment I stepped inside the feeling vanished and i was left standing feeling stupid for my weak thoughts. There are no gods, no magic so why would I fear or even anticipate anything of the like. Well, I went in and found it was simply a cave, there was a small pool of water along the outside of the cavern making a horseshoe shape. In the very center of the cavern there were a few old stone benches and something like a lectern with a book on it. I figured this was an old abandoned wiccan shrine, it simply didn''t have the look of the demon worshippers of old. There is no difference between the 2 if you ask me, but I learned the hard way that not only the lowborn but also the highborn see the 2 in very different lights. Well they don''t like either, but the wiccan way can be useful since it''s often just knowledge of herbs, where the lowborn think it is magic, but it''s simply the herbs effects when mixed. The lesson that taught me the importance of belief made me take out a piece of linen and wrap the book to bring back. I was not afraid that touching it would do anything, but some superstitious imbeciles could claim that by touching it I broke the so-called ¡°magic¡±. There was still the chance that excuse would be used with me just moving it from here, but I knew if I went back without it and told the Lord to go to this faraway place to look at a book in a hole in the ground, I would be in for at least a few months of hard labor or horrible work details. Upon my exit the feeling was gone and the villagers were very impressed by my apparent exorcism. I let them believe what they wanted and told them to keep the cave open and investigate the water source. If the pool was a spring, it could definitely be used for farming or the like, since there was quite a distance to the nearest well. After making sure nothing was missed and ensuring the village that they could now again go about their business I left to deliver the book to the Lord.


    The journey back was again uneventful, I had somewhat expected something odd to happen due to the transport of this book, a raid, an old cult wanting it back, something, but no. 2 weeks later I arrived at the Lords estate and presented the story and the book. He invited the local scholar and they looked it over then and there. Since I might be needed to explain what I saw at the site I was commanded to stay. The book was odd, first off, it was in remarkably good condition, even if we discount that we don''t know how long it''s been buried, it was in an underground cavern with a pool of water. Yet no mold of any discoloration could be found. That was the 2nd thing, no color whatsoever on the pages, here including ink. The book was blank, not even a title. The cover was a nice dark marine blue with simple decorative etchings.Since nothing could be learned it was deemed an odd artifact and to be stored away, probably to be given as a gift from the Lord at some noble gathering. Curiosities like this were rare, useless, but rare, and seems to be regarded highly by the highborn. Therefore a servant brought a lectern to the estates main hall and I was to put it up for display on my exit. That should have been the end of this little tale, but as I took the book from the scholar I blacked out. According to the Lord I made it 2 steps and then stopped mid-stride. I was apparently frozen in the state for 2 days. I''m guessing the Lord started by cussing me out for ignoring him, but luckily Earl Canter is not an excessively arrogant lord, after noticing my frozen state he must have sent some servant to try and poke me. Well whatever happened the Lord decided to let me be and see how long it would take.


    Because I woke up 2 days later none the wiser. The first thing I did was continue my walk and put the book on the display. After putting it in the display I turned to excuse myself from the premises and was surprised to notice all the people in the room staring at me, the Lord among them. I of course asked if i had done something wrong and was told what happened after I picked up the book. To say I was scared and surprised would be an understatement. Hans was sobbing at the side of the room, relief and worry evident on his face. I felt no different so there was really nothing I could tell the Lord about the event. He sent several servants, quivering with fear, over to try and look in the book, but nothing happened, it was still a blank book. I went over myself and picked it up and this time i was awake for what happened. The book burned away in my hand leaving a single piece of parchment, on it was the following text which I read aloud for the onlookers.


    The stories of foreign lands have now been passed on.


    The sage given this honor is asked to use the knowledge as he sees fit.


    The Council of 6


    I gently placed the parchment down on the display and turned to look at the Lord and his reaction. He just watched me back and waited for.. something. Well I felt no differe¡­¡­. And the world went MAD. stories started to pour into my head, stories of dragons, magic, worlds with glass and steel buildings going into the sky, of jungles and deserts filled with the most horrifying creatures I have ever seen. The stories kept pouring in, and I blacked out, there was perhaps quite a bit of screaming. I awoke in the infirmary with my senses all over the place, I couldn''t understand where, nor even what I was. What followed was a few months of mild madness, the reason I call it mild is because there was no violence involved, in simple terms it was a misinterpretation of time and space. I could not differentiate the stories from each other, the main issue being that my life in Agreki was seen as just another of the stories. It took me a few months before I found a solution. In my mind I set this world, Agreki, as being the main world and all other worlds or stories, as being secondary. It did not fix my issue but it helped a lot by making me able to focus on the present. When I found my mind working somewhat like it should again I was bombarded with questions from the scholar and his colleagues, who arrived during the last month. To my luck they believed me when I told them about the stories being forced into my mind. After a lot of back and forth and a few stories about dragons they came to the conclusion that nothing harmful happened, this was luckily agreed upon by the local physician. The conclusion about the book was that it was some form of ancient magic way to deliver knowledge, and the reason for it being in such a small and unimpressive cavern was because it was filled with fantasy tales. Interesting they may be, but still fiction and useless in the more practical sense. So a week longer letting them examine me and asking a lot of questions in the hopes that they can reinvent the way to deliver knowledge, because anyone can see the benefit in having a book deliver knowledge to you in a way so fast and permanent. It remained unsaid that this was also dangerous if the wrong knowledge was given, I believe that was the reason for the extended stay at the end. Making sure I was not influenced by anything¡­ evil, or the like.


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    At the end I was summoned by the Lord and I was quite honestly afraid of what might become of me. I hoped I could ask for a leave for a year''s time and then resume my work as a knight. The Lord however had another opinion. The meeting with him was brief. I was consequently informed that ¡°due to the unforeseen event of the book putting stories in your head and the following madness I as the Lord of this area can no longer with good conscience have you under me as a knight since your judgment may be impaired. However it is our belief that you do not pose a danger to your surroundings and with your previous service in mind you are paid 1 gold coin as a token of our benevolence and in the hopes that you can find another way to assist in this land''s prosperity. In addition I grant Hans the choice to choose whether or not to stay by your side or to become a squire for another knight under my banner. We thank you for your service and even if you are no longer a vassal you will always be welcome in my territory.¡± After that speech I was summarily escorted out by the servants. Outside I found Hans who was told of the entire ordeal to make a decision. I was a bit surprised that he actually got the full story, but that might just be a way to reassure me and the people in the area that I really was no threat to anyone.


    Hans to my delight did not hesitate to leave with me, We have been together for about 10 years now and hes been with me since he was a young boy so it is not wrong to say that I see him as family, maybe not a son, but that annoying kid your brother had that keeps pestering you, yes that analogy feels correct. So now I have arrived at a crossroads. I do not know where to go from here. My life was a bit like Hans¡äs actually. I was born 32 summers ago between a knight and a local woman. As long as I can remember I have followed my father and learned from him, in some sense i skipped a lot of the normal procedure to knighthood since my father passed away to a disease and on his deathbed he asked the Lord for me to take over after him, since I already had the training needed there really was not a reason to deny the request. So being a knight is all I have ever known. I always had something to do, somewhere to go, and if not, someone to ask for tasks. Now¡­ I was only me, and Hans. I figured I could always find some guard duty somewhere, but afraid that the story about my circumstances would hinder my options I decided to leave for the nearest Dukedom and head for the nations 2nd largest city, Jekas. I was actually not worried that the story of the book event would spread, I knew it would. Bards are, even if sometimes annoying, rather talented in fishing up tales from here and there and within an unexpectedly short amount of time spread it around entire kingdoms. Well it seems like i already chose my first direction, it might be best to take things as they come, in the meantime a long relaxing journey might be best for me to get my head in order.


    As a knight I have very little in the terms of possessions, luckily I served long enough that my armor and weapons were my own property, here including my 2 travel horses. Since my duty often took me around the earldom I had very little in the terms of friends, a lot of acquaintances though. And my mother passed away a few years before my father so no family either. The trip, which I expected to take a few months at a relaxed pace, would be used for some real training for Hans now that there were no other obligations, and some mental training for myself. Finances wouldn''t be a problem since we forage nearly all our meals, the only real expenditure was the occasional inn to get a bed and some extra feed for the horse to make sure they keep in good health. During the first week, well during the first hour actually, Hans asked if he could hear some of the stories I got from the book. And well I couldn''t see why not. This brought along a revelation for me. Telling tales of the foreign lands helped me distance them from this world, so every night I would share some tales. This was to Hans¡¯s great delight since I was apparently a good storyteller, at least according to Hans. a week in the journey I discovered another fact about the stories in my head, as I was telling tales I often got very specific. An example was when I described a recipe for seasoned and grilled dragon filet with garnish from the electric sea, the recipe was recited with not only the ingredients but the amounts and in many cases their origin. Not always in a geographical sense but in an environmental sense. The example here was the electric sea, it is a phenomenon in which the inhabiting species all has developed a thunder attribute, to the extent that the sea itself becomes electrifiing. In the foreign land of Murim there is a sort of science called alchemy, it is quite unlike what we understand of alchemy here in Agreki. There they use what''s called inner force, or ki, to reinforce and change the properties of the plants they concoct into pills and elixirs. Some of these have miraculous effects and I can recite quite a lot of recipes. Other times my knowledge was very vague, for example, some of the recipes I could recite had a very specific root with a specific age, while other times it was a earth attributed root with an internal power of above middle. Or some meat was described as any poultry meat that has ascended twice. Right now I am not sure what these things mean exactly but I believe it will be explained once I get a better hold of all the information in my head.


    At about the halfway mark Hans came to me with a plant he found while foraging and asked if I knew what it was, apparently the reason he took it was because of the delightful scent. I have absolutely no experience with herbs and the like, I know what to forage for and the most normal poisonous plants, but that''s it. Despite that I knew it was a herb known, well in the foreign land, as a klyde root. The reason being that while the top of the plant is somewhat similar to a lavender, the large root underneath is an excellent spice when ground up and dried. Not trusting this information entirely we packed it up and decided to ask about it in the nearest town that had a herbalist. It remains to be said that Hans became even more fascinated with the foreign lands the longer vi traveled. At some point during the last few weeks Hans began to pester me to teach him the ways of the Murim world, a martial arts.


    After a few days of wondering, and pestering from Hans, i decided that no harm could follow since the first step in the martial art i believe would suit him was the internal accumulation of ki, which means that when no ki accumulates he realizes that there is no such magic and move on from this boyish fantasy. I of course tried this myself about a few weeks into the trip, the reason being more or less the same as the reason for Hans learning. The next 10days went with Hans meditating on the ki pathways I taught him. The technique, which is a specific way to train in martial arts, is called the peaceful wanderer. It is safe and has a fast growth compared to other techniques, it does however have very few external techniques under it. Meaning that it is a technique with the sole object being strengthening the body and gathering ki. Other techniques often have some killer moves following the technique which uses and often consumes some of the ki in the pathways to force a specific result. For example making your fist fly faster than normally possible during a punch. Hans took to the training with surprising vigor, normally he would use the funniest and dumbest excuses to get out of at least some of the training. But it seems like this meditation, if not actually working, might do his mentality good since he seems to ponder deeply over something while meditating.

 Jekas

    Reaching Jekas southern entrance in the evening we stabled the horses and asked around for a decent inn. There were several choices due to the size of the city, we were getting used to there only being a single choice in the many small villages along the road. We chose The Broken Goose due to its reputation sounding good and it not being too expensive. The finances were fine, we still had the gold coin and some spare change but before we found a new way of earning coins this was a dwindling number. That evening we found out why The Broken Goose had a decent reputation. It was not really that clean and the rooms were very small, the beds were decent tho and the meals were excellent, if you like goose, because that was literally the menu, ¡°goose of the day with water or ale¡±. As stated, the food was excellent and we went to bed afterwards. In the morning I chose to start with verifying whether or not the Klyde root Hans found was what I suspected it to be. Finding a herbalist in a city this big was not a problem, the conversation with him was somewhat disappointing though. He confirmed that it was not poisonous and that he knew it as the klyde flower, but that was it. Apparently some use the flower for bathwater due to the nice scent. Since that was not really a confirmation of my knowledge I decided to try asking the innkeeper to borrow the kitchen this afternoon and try a recipe. Fortunately there was a simple recipe for stir fried goose with mashed potatoes that included the klyde root. I was never the best cook, but I was convinced that I wouldn''t ruin any recipe that mainly focused on frying. With all the traveling i''ve done, frying is often the way to go. Boiling is also good but frying is better if you make more food than you need for that 1 meal, this is especially relevant if you caught some game. Well me and Hans walked around the town looking at the shops and sites to pass the time, it was also a learning experience for Hans. I have never been to this specific city, and it is larger than what ive seen before, but a city or a town, on the surface it''s mostly the same. And we don''t plan to see anything but the surface. That afternoon I looked for the innkeeper, who turned out to be a nice middle aged woman called Madam Freya that ran the place. A rather plain woman with her dirtbrown hair to her shoulders, and I was free to borrow the kitchen with the stern message that anything broken was coming out of my wallet. She even let me use her pantry, as long as I paid for the items taken. Her 2 daughters ran the kitchen and were, in my opinion, too excited to welcome me. It seems this goose business was a bit of a family pride, so if a new good recipe was to be had they wanted it. The 2 daughters were around Hans'' age and were very pleasant to be around, very lively and cheerful¡­ I think exuberant fits them well. So much so that I ended up having one of them, Carrol, running back and forth after the ingredients while I prepared them. I have the suspicion that they wanted to glean the recipe if it turned out good. Not that I exactly minded since this was a rather plain recipe compared to some of the other food from the foreign lands. The recipe was simple, called for stir frying the pieces of already boiled goose in a herb mix primarily made of ground up klyde root, this should give the meat some crunchiness. After that was done I made a simple sauce in the pan using the remainder of the hermix and added a little bit of milk to make the sauce milder on the tongue. The final dish could have any kind of greens on the side but for my testing purposes I only made the mash, goose and sauce. Since the daughters were so pleasant to be around I asked if they wanted to join me and Hans in eating, while also warning them that it was an untested recipe so I made no promises on the taste.


    Apparently very curious to the food but unsure due to the new unknown spice the sisters chose to join but waited for me to begin first and observe, for some reason Hans still trusts me 100% and begins eating immediately as we sit down. Considering his very expressive face, I partook shortly thereafter. The food was like nothing I had ever tried and I ended up more or less inhaling the food. The sisters did the same since when I was done and looked up both Hans and the sisters were already done eating. All 3 kept switching their stare between me and the empty plates, then as if breaking the spell the innkeeper opened the door. The following conversation was a first for me, the 2 daughters tried what they could to make me sell them the recipe or stay here and work in the kitchen. I did not see any reason not to just give them the recipe but before I could speak, Hans of all people, broke into the conversation and stated that we will think about it and that he needed to talk to me in private, all the while staring at me, as if to get some point across. Walking to the room I considered how I should handle this since Hans has never done anything that would take him out of my shadow, and I''m not sure what brought about this change. ¡°Master I don''t believe we should sell that recipe!¡±. I was surprised and waited for him to continue, he looked apprehensive for some reason. ¡°The reason you tried cooking with that recipe was to check if the stories you now have have any truth to them, this proves that it has. I also believe that the Peaceful wanderer you taught me is real. I feel the ki you told me about.¡±. That bomb shocked me, because yes I used the recipe to check if any information in my head was useable, but from a herb and recipe being correct and claiming that the Peacefull wanderer works¡­ The repercussions if that technique, or the other techniques are real is immense. That could tilt this world in a big way. I also realized that while I am still Christian Clifford, the book event had changed me. All those stories and their morale, or lack of, has given me another perspective on life. As a knight it was easy, follow orders. Simple and elegant, well depending on your lord it could also be simple and horrible. ¡°Hans you have a point, but claiming that the Peaceful wanderer works is too soon, we need you to reach the next stage if we want to make that conclusion. And I see no harm in giving, or selling a recipe that has nothing new but a herb, that knowledge could have come from many places, it could be someone used it in a remote town or even from some wiccan book. Unless there is another reason that I overlooked there is no reason to keep such a thing from them.¡± Hans spent a few minutes mulling this over and seems to come to a conclusion about something and asked ¡°What is the plan now, what do we do or go from here? If you don''t have anything planned I might have an idea.¡± I considered for only a second and answered honestly ¡°Well I have no idea, with my perspective on everything changing day to day and my head sometimes confused as to what world I am in. So let''s hear it.¡± Hans mumbled the first part, but I heard. ¡°So that''s why you seem far away sometimes¡­Ehm. I suggest we open a shop of some sort. Use your stories to get clients. You have a lot of stores and knowledge in your head that may or may not be reliable in this land. So let''s use it to make our shop special. A restaurant, a drinking place, a place to tell and hear stories. Anything really goes. It could give us a base and some roots so I can focus a bit more on training and you on setting yourself straight. Figure out what you really want to do with the stories, especially if these techniques turn out to be usable. And if we end up with some kind of eatery selling the recipe would be dumb.¡± The room got silent and after some time I spoke. ¡°I think that''s an excellent idea Hans. But even if the Lord was nice and gave me a whole gold I don''t know if it''s doable. So let us talk to the innkeeper and make a few plans, then check things out more thoughtly tomorrow and see if that is feasible at all. I personally like the idea of either an inn or a restaurant, I rather enjoyed the time in the kitchen. Don''t know if I have a talent for it since I have never really cooked for anyone but you. You never complained but I am not sure that can be counted as praise. The first question would be where, it doesn''t necessarily need to be here in Jekas. It was just meant as a way to get away from the earldom and the route to here happens to be completely safe so I had time to get my thoughts organized. Let us think and make a plan today and then investigate our options tomorrow.¡±


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