Flow of Existence

It was busy in Ashen village, people were out and about and the academy was closed for today. Everyone was busy because there were outsiders today.

Outsiders were incredibly rare in Ashen village, not many people had interest in visiting a rural village close to a volcano after all.

Ashen village wasn't exactly accommodating to outsiders either, there were no inns or other spots to sleep at for tourists. So even if people wanted to visit the volcano it was not very easy to get a bed here.

The outsiders this time were, of course, the traveling merchants who rarely came to visit. They came here mostly to buy, villagers didn't have a lot of money to buy stuff from so they would hardly sell stuff.

But the money the villagers earned from selling their vegetables could be used to buy some luxury goods. They had no other uses for the money so this is where they would be spending it. 

So the merchant caravan was more of a trading caravan here, except the villagers would get money that they would trade in for other goods instead of directly trading.

Kes was excited for the caravan too, now that his Paenese was better he would try to talk with some merchants about what was happening in the world.

But that wasn't the only reason he was excited, he hoped his parents would spend some money to buy some good food too. He couldn't wait to get a taste of the stuff the merchants sold.

He was currently carrying a large basket of potatoes and walking together with his father. He was on his way to where the merchants were staying.

Kes grunted and glanced at his father. "Do you think these will sell dad? Don't they have farmers in Paena?"

Yosen, seemingly having no trouble with the full baskets of potatoes, thought for a while.

"I've heard potatoes from the volcanic areas apparently get sold as a luxury product in the big cities. Actually not just potatoes, all vegetables grown in volcanic soil get sold for much higher prices there, I wonder if it actually tastes that different."

Kes thought about it for a while but he had never tasted any vegetables grown in normal soil.

'Well, they have to taste better than they do when mom prepares them.'

He didn't say that out loud because he wasn't in the mood to receive a basket of potatoes to the face.

Yosen still seemed to have noticed something because he shot him a glare.

'Flow reading really is scary.' Kes shuddered.

Together they arrived at the temporary merchant market.

It wasn't very professional, there were multiple carts with goods inside them but there weren't many tents or stalls set up. The caravan wasn't very big either, the trip through the mountains was very dangerous, and thus was done with a small group of merchants.

Kes knew they would only waste one day and night here before leaving and moving towards what he imagined to be the next village.

Together they walked up towards a merchant who was buying up a lot of vegetables. He clearly had already made quite a haul today as his cart was loaded with all kinds of unions, carrots and potatoes. His stall also stood out because it actually had some kind of tent set up behind it.

Yosen walked over to the merchant to decide on a price. Kes had no concept of money as a person living in a rural village, so he decided to just let his father handle it. 

He was sure his father would not get scammed either, he had more knowledge of the big cities than the average villager, and he could also read the other person's Flow really well.

Kes wondered how proficient the merchants were in suppressing their Flow and emotions, he could imagine it was really important for their jobs. Being a merchant was all about making money after all, if the other party knew when they would compromise they would always win negotiations.

After a little waiting he saw his father approaching once more, he had apparently struck a decent deal because he seemed pretty happy. 

But on the other hand the merchant wasn't showing any sad emotions either.

'Like I suspected, he must be really good at hiding his emotions.'

Kes had decided on which merchant he would go talk to later, but first there were more important things to worry about.

"You seem pretty happy dad, did you strike a good deal?"

Yosen smiled. "We earned quite a bit indeed, all our hard work farming didn't go to waste this year."

Kes gave a malicious grin. "If it went to waste or not depends on what we buy now, come on let's go buy some good stuff."

A couple hours later they had visited pretty much every merchant that had come to the Ashen village, they had bought a whole lot of stuff.

They had bought vegetables and fruit that weren't from here, Kes had no idea what they were called, but they seemed delicious.

They had also bought spices, this really was a luxury product so they couldn't afford much with their meager potato income, but they could also be used all throughout the year until the next caravan came, they wouldn't easily spoil.

Kes looked at their purchases with a gleam in his eyes, he was going to be eating good in the next couple days. "Just need mom to stay away from it."

'Oops, I said that out loud this time.'

He quickly felt a fist land on top of his head.

Yosen shook his head. "Your mom tries her best, you should really give her some more respect."

Kes caressed the painful spot on his head. "I know, my bad. Oh by the way, I still want to talk to some of the merchants before I come back home. Is that alright?"

Yosen nodded. "That's fine, just be sure to be home for dinner today."

Kes gave a nod back and quickly took off.

He quickly made his way towards the interesting potato buying merchant from earlier. Luckily he still found him at the same place he was standing at earlier.

The merchant was clean shaven and had neatly combed brown hair, he looked very out of place in a rural village such as this. 

He was wearing a formal black coat, probably of good make. Black pants and neat black shoes, he didn't seem like the traveling merchant type at all. Kes wondered what a neat looking person such as him was doing in the village.

Unlike a lot of the other merchants they had bought from he didn't recognize this merchant from earlier caravans either.

He stepped towards the weird merchant and tried to greet him in Paenese. "Hello."

The merchant raised an eyebrow. "Oh, little child you speak Paenese? Or is hello all you can say."

Kes continued talking in Paenese. "Little child, isn't that a little rude? I'm not that little am I?"

The merchant was clearly amused. "Your Paenese really is good, I can barely hear the accent. With that appearance I assume one of your parents aren't from around here, your mother I presume since I saw you with your father earlier and he looked like the average person from around here."

It was Kes' turn to raise an eyebrow now. "Oh, so you do remember me then. But my father spoke Paenese too, so is it really that surprising I would be able to speak it too."

"It's a merchant's job to remember every good customer." The merchant replied. "And a gray haired father with a sand brown haired child stands out quite a bit too."

Kes nodded. "I guess that's true. And because we were such good customers, I would like to ask you a couple of questions."

The merchant chuckled. "I'm pretty sure I already paid you for those potatoes though? But since you are interesting I will hear you out."

Kes raised two fingers. "I have two questions, where did you come from? And where is this caravan going?"

The merchant nodded. "Alright, that's quite simple. This caravan came from Venar. We traveled through the mountain pass from village to village to buy and sell goods. We will continue down the mountain pass going from village to village until we reach Paena. Here the caravan will end up in Stamen where everyone will sell the goods they acquired in the villages and Venar. Does that answer your questions?"

Kes shook his head. "I think you misunderstood my first question, I was asking where you came from, not the caravan. It doesn't take a genius to understand that you aren't usually a traveling merchant. Also your Flow proficiency is way too high, I've visited almost all the merchants in this caravan today and none even come close to you. So I was just curious about your origins."

The merchant's expression suddenly became warry. He wanted to say something but before he could someone stepped out of the tent behind the stall, it was seemingly a guard.

Kes froze. This wasn't just the average guard he could sense this person was strong, very strong. He would probably be among the top hunters in the village. And Kes wasn't good enough at detecting Flow to really recognize the difference between them yet.

The man was large and bulky, he had very short black hair and looked a little rough. He exuded physical strength but didn't seem very smart, but Kes knew better than to judge by appearance. He wore a cream colored uniform with black accents. 

The bulky guard started talking. "I think that's enough questions kid, shouldn't you be going home to your parents or something."

Kes stood his ground. "I'm just interested in the big cities as someone from a rural village. I want to move there in the future so I just thought it would be interesting to hear about it from someone who actually lived there."

The bulky guard snorted. "Look, we are trying to run a business here, we don't have time to indulge your childish fantasies little kid."

The tent opened again this time revealing a woman. 

Kes didn't feel the same pressure from her as he did from the bulky guard but he wondered if that was because she was just that much stronger than him, like the village chief or Cantor. It made him more wary of her than the bulky man.

The woman had short cream colored hair and blue eyes. She wasn't especially beautiful but she looked quite good. 

She was wearing the same cream colored outfit as the bulky guard, Kes assumed it must be a guard uniform. He wondered if the outfit was cream colored to match the girls hair color, girls had strange preferences after all.

"Calm down Boris, nothing wrong with telling the kid a little about the cities right?" The female guard said. Her voice was a little raspy but not necessarily unpleasant.

The bulky guard, who was apparently named Boris, snorted again. "You have always had a weakness for kids Linda. But alright I'll let it go, you two go talk to the kid I'm not babysitting him."

The female guard, Linda, smiled. "Why don't you enter the tent? We can talk inside, it's more comfortable there. I was getting bored anyways, and I think you are a very interesting kid."

Kes thought about if anything bad was going to happen to him inside the tent, but decided the merchant and his guards had no reason to make enemies out of the whole village just to do something to him.

He nodded, accepting her invitation and stepped into the tent.

He wondered what kind of interesting things he was going to learn from the strange trio.