Author Note: Yay! I have finally gotten to a spot in the game where I could save! It took me four chapters to get to a point in the game where I could save, I had been though the intro of the game so many times by now. Anyway, thank you to all people that give reviews, they make me happy. =D I'm glad you guys like how I portrayed Noe, seeing as how he has no real meaning in the game. I based him off of Harvest Sprites in DS Cute because you could read their personalities so much easier. So now on with chapter four! I'll begin writing chapter five as soon as I can.
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Chapter Four:
The Merchants.
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I wiped the sweat from my forehead and plopped myself down onto my bed, the bed gave out a groan of protest to my sudden weight and my butt sank a bit into the mattress. I held my head up and back and smiled a bit to myself, "Done." I whispered to myself and let out a long breath of air after it.
I looked around my small home, five days and I was finally starting to feel like a was settling down here. The small house I now called home, I had just finished the last repairs on it. I had wiped and sweeped the dirt and dust out, polished up the window and floors until they shown, beat the dust out of the green checkered covers and small door mat, wiped down and polished up the small wood table that sat in the center of the room, I had even learned how to read the fading words on a calender that I had found hanging on the wall. The place really was starting to look like a real home now, and I didn't do to bad a job of cleaning it up, if I do say so myself!
Taro and his family were doing well as well, but with the three of them their house had been cleaned up and repaired a lot faster then mine. Taro was even keeping to his word of showing me how to farm, I had found some old tools and Taro had showed me how to get the rust off of them, sharpen the metal blades on the ax, scythe, and hoe, fix the handle on the hammer, and plug up the small leaking hole in the watering can. Then of course he taught me how to use and swing each one properly so that my hands wouldn't slip or that I used up to much energy and tire myself out too quickly. It had taken me a while to get a feel for it, but eventually I managed to get myself into the movement each swing of the different tools took.
And Noe was even helping me too, he had helped me start clearing the weeds from the field, showed me where some berry bushes and edible grasses could be found, he had even helped me to try and catch some fish after Taro had found an old fishing pole and choose to let me have it. But I did worry about over working the little Sprite, even though he would always complain that he was just fine and could work much harder if I would just let him, but it was hard enough asking him to do any work at all. It felt like I was some over strict mother making her child do to many chores. It's hard asking a tiny person that looks like a child to do farm work. Just didn't seem right; so I had been trying to do as much of the work on my own as I could.
A knock came to the door and I quickly got to my feet "Coming!" I padded my way to the door, some of the wooden boards creaking under my feet, and opened my door to find a smiling Taro. "We've got some new arrivals!!!" Taro said, or more of yelled, before I had a chance to greet him, but my eyes widened "Really!?" I said my excitement already almost reaching a boiling point. Taro nodded, "Let's go down to the beach and meet them!" I nodded and hurriedly followed the man out the door trying to keep myself from making a mad dash down to the beach.
People! Someone actually came to the island! It's almost like a dream!
When I made it to the beach everyone was already there, I saw the boat before I saw our visitors. I nearly jumped out of my soaks in a fit of happiness, a boat meant we finally had a way to get into contact with the outside world! I noticed I had stopped and quickly made my way over to the others to finally meet the new people that had arrived.
"What took you so long? Slowpoke!" Taro scolded me, I muttered a 'sorry' before turning to see our new arrivals. A man and what I guessed was his son stood near the dock.
The man was dressed it what looked like a Chinese type clothing, he himself might have been of Chinese origin, it was a purple colored vest that reached down a little past his waist, with a lighter violet purple trimming, and there was belted made with with a strip of red cloth. Underneath the vest was a plain white long sleeved shirt. He had simple brown pants and tan leather boots. He wore a gray-brown colored strip of cloth on his head, it was long enough that it left two tails after the tie off.
He looked to be in his early thirties, with a full head of black hair and a full, but neatly trimmed, beard, he even had a bit of hair tied up in a bun near the top at the back of his head.
His son looked to be maybe seven to nine years old, more or less. He was dressed in a similar way to his father, in Chinese type clothing only a little different. He wore a regular brown vest that had a small tie that was tied together near his stomach, he wore a light green long sleeved shirt with purple trimmings, he had blue sweat pants on and a pair of reddish-brown shoes. Like his father he had a gray-brown strip of cloth tied around his head and the same raven black hair.
"Ah, you must be Chelsea. I'm Chen, and this is my son and apprentice, Charlie. We're merchants. Pleased to meet you." The man named Chen smiled, "Yeah, ditto! How's it going?" Piped in his son Charlie. I couldn't help but smile at the word 'merchants', I had some wonderful ideas with that word. "It's nice to meet you two too, Chen, Charlie." I smiled in greeting. Chen smiled warmly, "I just sold my old shop I the city. I felt like it was time for a change of scenery. I was looking to open a shop on one of these islands. And I think this island has the most potential." He looked around for a moment and gave a small smile. "I know the island's deserted now, but a hear it used to be quite a bustling town. Now that's you're here, I think a lot of businesses will start coming back."
I nodded again, things sure seemed to be heading in the direction now. Already Taro's family and myself had made some progress with making the place look a little more "homely", clearing out weeds, sweeping off some of the dirt that had covered the stone pathways, I had used my new attained hammer and ax to chop and break away some stray stones, and of course fixing up our new homes, though we hadn't yet had the time to get to some of the other old houses, so we still had a lot of work to do, but it was a little better then when we first arrived here.
"Chen's even arranged for cargo ships to make regular stops on this island!" I snapped my head in Felicia's direction, Regular...Cargo...Ships?!, my heart filled with a sudden warmth. Felicia smiled, "It's wonderful! Now we can ship and sell any crops that you grow, Chelsea!"
Taro held his head high, "See? I knew things would work out!"
Chen turned to me, "And since you'll be farming, I'll be sure to stock plenty of seeds in my store."
Now Taro was really beaming. "That's great! I admit, at first I wasn't quite sure how we'd make this work. But now that Chen's here, you've got everything you need to start farming, Chelsea!"
I was a bit shocked at Taro's confession, so even he, the man that seemed like he saw everything in the most positive light possible, had his doubts? I guess he was Human.
"But if you want to start a ranch, you'll need some animals. I know some animal sellers. I'll see what I can do." Chen added in. "That's perfect! Thank you so much, Chen!" Taro seemed be in a rising good mood. "No, no. Thank you!" Chen said with a laugh. "If you hadn't moved here, I don't know where I would have set up my new shop. Felicia, the boat can take you into the city today if you'd like."
"That'd be wonderful! I can start finding buyers for Chelsea's crops!" Felicia was clearly just as happy as her father, I wasn't even growing crops yet.
"Okey, then. Now we just need to find a good spot for our store." Taro nodded, "This way then!"
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Taro lead Chen and Charlie to one of the first houses we saw, it was one of the ones we had chosen to make our first on the list to clean up, after we had cleaned up our own houses of course. But so far the most we had done was a bit of dusting. So it was still a bit of a cleaner-up-er, that needed a bit, well maybe more then a bit, more work. "This is perfect! We'll have this fixed up in no time! Let's get started, Charlie!" Chen said taking on the look of Taro when he looked at positive thinking. Charlie made a face and clasped his together in a way that made him look like he was about ready to punch someone, though I was sure it he got it from a movie and was just doing something that he thought made him look cool or tough. "Hey! You haven't even told them about what I can do yet! Sheesh!" He huffed and Chen looked a bit embarrassed. "If you can bring me the right materials, I can enhance tools and make accessories. If you bring me Wonderfuls, I can equip them on tools to enhance them. And if you bring me Orichalc, I can make some cool accessories!" I was a bit surprised he made such a claim, when I was his age the most I could make were my dolls fall in love and sometimes food when I was really hungry. And what were "Wonderfuls" and "Orichalc"? Maybe I should ask Noe later, he might know.
"We may get some Wonderfuls in during Winter. Keep checking our stock. Anyway, it's time for us to get to work. Please come by when we open!" "Glad to have you here, Chen and Charlie. Good luck!" Welcomed Taro before we all headed back to our homes and left Chen and Charlie to begin settling in to they're new home, I made a mental note to visit they're store as soon as I got some money. Now I could begin shipping things and buying things. I had to tell Noe!
"Noe Noe!" I said rushing into my farm, the little Sprite was pulling up weeds he suddenly let go and fell over onto his back. I laughed. "Don't laugh! It's your fault for surprising me like that, now why are you yelling!" He huffed and I laughed again because now he was yelling. "Guess what, Noe! New people just moved in, and their merchants!" The little Spirit's face lite up in an instant and his eyes widened, "Really!?" he said excitedly floating up towards me to we were eye level. I nodded. "Yippee!!" He yelled as he soared up into the sky holding his arms up and then doing his little twirling dance.
"Merchants! Merchants!" He chanted. "Merchants! Merchants!" I joined in finally unable to hold back how happy I was.
"Oh we have to hurry up and get started then!" Noe said suddenly. "What do you mean?" I said calming down a bit. "Well we have to go foraging and fishing so you can start earning profit of course! Your going to need money to help you properly get this farm running. Now come on!" "Whoa!" I yelped as Noe suddenly pulled me forward by the hand with greater strength then I thought he possessed.
