Erott.
The last time Trent had ever heard of Erott, it had been from his uncle while he was telling the young warrior tales of his battlefield adventures. Bartholomew had explained to Trent that Erott was a very small, quaint, old town that had never once exceeded a population of two hundred. It was rumored, though, that beneath the town laid the body of an ancient and powerful general of Rukafelth's army. Both sides came crashing down upon the site in order to fight for rightful claim to the land; the demons wanting to resurrect their general and the Graphians wanting to banish the soul forever. In the resulting bloodbath known as "The Battle of Greene's Hill", the title coming from the hill that Erott sat upon at the time, the Graphian forces were just barely able to repel the Spire after a grueling four-day battle in the town and surrounding fields.
Looking at it now, though, Trent was beginning to wonder just how much of the story was true… mostly the part about the "small town". The city presented before him was nothing short of massive, in fact. The main road was lined as far as the eye can see with shops of all sorts: grocers, gold traders, weapon stores, general stores, liquor stores, magic stores, woodworkers' stores, metalworkers' stores, down to the numerous street-side vendors of various, miscellaneous finds. Past that, as he worked his way into the settlement, was a grand, six-leveled fountain surrounded by various statues of what he assumed to be important political figures from the town. The statues were placed within equal distance of one another in a perfect circle around said fountain, which stood in the dead center of the market plaza nearly a football field in size. In short: this was a big place.
"When the hell did this happen?" Trent thought out loud, gazing in awe at the sheer quantity of people around him, busying themselves with the hustle and bustle of their mercantile system. For every one that came out of a store or away from a street vendor, at least three went to see another, and somehow the opposite seemed to be true as well.
"When did what happen?" Jiece inquired.
"This! These! Them!" Trent was all but having a seizure attempting to gesture at everything at once. "This is supposed to be a small town! This place is almost as big as the capital!"
Jiece looked at Trent, confused. "Erott hasn't been a small town ever since the Battle of Greene's Hill… pretty much every home from the original town has some story about the fight, and it grew as a giant tourist trap. Have you really never been here?"
Trent shook his head.
"But it's so close to the academy, how can you just not come to Erott?"
Trent shrugged.
Jiece, a bit of disbelief still in his voice, decided to keep things moving. "Alright, well, we've got to hurry up and get a map and supplies already… what should we do?"
"I believe we decided on…" Trent whipped out the "battle plan" and read from step two. "Temporarily becoming street performers."
"Let's think then…" Jiece stroked his chin in thought, "How about we split up, see what damage we can do, and meet back here in say… two hours?"
"Fine by me."
'.'.'
All was not fine by Trent, though, as fate had granted him but one skill that he could call forth to raise money for his cause. He stood alongside one of the city's canals, just left of the bridge which connected the merchant's district to the residential quarter, with an open backpack at one foot and a large mallet next to the other. "Come one, come all! Forty gil says you can't knock me out with this mallet in one shot! Help me get a hot meal and stable my horse by taking a whack at it, literally!"
Not a single person gave Trent a second thought as they walked by in the hour following. The plan, it would seem, had sunk. Besides Trent's impeccable endurance of pain, he couldn't think of any significant skill he had… he had thought of just challenging everyone he'd come by to a fight with a cash prize for the winner, but he then figured that they were even less likely to go for something like that if they wouldn't even pay money to smack him with a hammer. What do the other vendors have that I don't? I'm on the street, I'm selling… something… that's all there is to it, right? What else could there possibly be?
"You're selling yourself to the wrong crowd." A voice spoke out from a little ways behind Trent.
He turned to find quite the peculiar sight. Sitting on the bridge's railing, legs dangling over the side, was a boy not much older than Trent. He looked shorter, though, by about four inches, and had long, straightened, black hair that flowed past his shoulders. He wore a faded green vest over his strikingly whitened button-down shirt, and a form-fitting pair of black pants, complimented by his equally dark wingtip shoes. Over it all was an old greatcoat, which had faded into a lighter shade of what Trent assumed what supposed to be black as well. He held a gleaming pocket watch in one hand, attack to a long, silver chain that led into the pocket of his coat, and was playing with the hands with his free thumb while he spoke, not once looking up at Trent. "The people here aren't looking to test physical strength, and they don't want to watch other people do it, either. They're all merchants, artisans, gamblers… people who work with their hands and minds for money-making purposes rather than violent ones. You'll never sell 40-gil hammer-swings to them."
Trent looked to the ground foolishly, wondering why he didn't think of that before he'd started yelling out across the canals. He looked back up to the young man. "Well I need to make some money somehow. What should I do?"
"Humph, what am I, the master of the monetary? I don't know much out of my own field, sir. I just thought I'd give you that advice."
"Oh… well thanks, then." Trent picked up the mallet and shoved it into his backpack before slinging it over his shoulder, defeated. Suddenly a nagging thought struck him, and he turned around. "What is your 'field' anyway?"
"Me?" the man inquired, closing his pocket watch and looking for the first time at Trent. His eyes were almost instantly noticeable- a hypnotic blend of green and blue that created a light, clean turquoise. "I draw and distribute maps of this area and other, surrounding ones."
Bingo! "Oh man, that's great to hear! My friend and I were looking to buy a map here."
"Really?" The man cocked an eyebrow. "Coincidence. But if you had money to buy something already, why are you on the street selling off your endurance?"
"Well, I mean," Trent was exhibiting an odd mix of happiness from finding a mapmaker and embarrassment from realizing how stupid his idea had been as he tried to stutter out his sentence, "I have a little bit of emergency funding from our combined pocket money, but it's not enough for anything major, so we just needed some more from the street performer thing."
"25 gil worth of emergency funding?"
Trent sighed. "Only 20… never mind."
The young man tapped a finger to his chin thrice and thought for a moment before jumping up and walking the length of the bridge's rail down to where Trent was standing. "I can't just leave a fellow salesman on the street like that when he's so close to getting what he came here for. I'll dock it down to 20 gil, just this once." He nodded happily as he finished his statement.
"Are you serious? Thanks…" Trent looked expectantly at the mapmaker and extended his hand to him.
"Pallov." The man said, taking Trent's hand and shaking it one, solemn time. "Nikolas Pallov."
As they walked down the street that ran alongside the canal, Trent described the requirements that his specific map had to meet. They weren't very numerous, the main concern being that the path from Erott to Gagazet was defined clearly enough to be read at glance. Other than that, it had to be written on something that wouldn't tear easily, and in an ink that wouldn't smear in the rain.
The conversation continued as the two neared the end of the road, marked by a small store on the corner. "This sounds like quite the journey you're embarking on. Luckily for you…" Nikolas said as he drew a rolled-up sheet of parchment from an urn outside the shop, which displayed several of a similar fashion, "I've been complimented on more than one occasion for the ease of use and durability of my maps. I take good pride in my work."
Trent held out his hand, waiting for Nikolas to place the map in his grasp. However, he was left wanting. The man cleared his throat. "You'll forgive me if I'm reluctant… I've sold my merchandise to some who turn tail and run instead of paying more than once, and I'd rather not repeat those instances. It's not that I don't trust you specifically, sir, it's just that I do not want take the risk…"
"Oh, I completely understand." Trent fished in the depths of his pocket for a few moments and pulled out two ten-gil coins. Handing them to the mapmaker, he promptly received his end of the exchange.
This was where things took a turn for the worst. Upon opening up the map, Trent merely found it to be a silhouette of Nikolas as he last saw him: handing Trent the roll of paper. Trent put the so-called "map" down to compliment his salesman on a well-executed prank, only to find him gone. Completely and totally gone- vanished into thin air. He looked to the left, and then to the right; into the open doorway of the shop, and then to the area all around it. Nothing was to be seen of the man as far as Trent's gaze would take him. Did I… Trent thought to himself, did I just get conned out of our emergency funding?
"That boy is stealing my merchandise!" Trent suddenly heard a voice come from the window of the apartment above the mapmaker's store. The man in the window, Trent saw as he instinctively looked up, had a distinctive familiarity about him… something he couldn't quite put his finger on. He was pudgy, short, old, and had most of his upper body covered in a thick, grey beard, but something just looked all too familiar. "Guards, guards! Come quickly!"
Trent snapped back into the here and now. "Whoa, whoa, sir, there's a misunderstanding here, I wasn't-!" He was stopped by the spear-point threat of the two guards who had come to defend the mapmaker's store, both dressed in an assortment of brown leather covering their shoulders and legs, and a worn grey chainmail over their heads and chests. Slowly, Trent rolled the sheet of parchment back up, and leaned down slightly to place it back into the urn, then putting his hands up again in surrender.
"We don't take kindly to theft in a merchant town, son. You're going to come quietly, or you'll answer to the pike, here. Got it?" One of the guards said.
Trent nodded and began to walk in pace with the two, each holding on to one of his arms. Defeated, he looked back to the mapmaker's shop at which he'd been framed and saw the portly, bearded man again. His eyes were then noticed by Trent, as he would expect they would be noticed by anyone else. They were a hypnotic blend of green and blue that created a light, clean turquoise. Trent would have found the color to be positively stunning if he hadn't come to a sudden, jaw-dropping realization. Oh you have got to be kidding me.
'.'.'
Meanwhile, a royal carriage was rushing down to the very city that Trent and Jiece had come upon. Its defenders were some of the military's finest, riding on the backs of armored chocobos. Its design and quality was of the highest level, costing well over the life earnings of one of Erott's wealthy elites. Its passenger, though, was much more valuable. In an attempt to create a stronger relationship with more populated areas across the human continent, the king had sent the three great heroes of the latest calm to cities all across the land. They were to mingle with the common folk, give a speech at the city hall, or just generally give whatever location they were visiting some free publicity. Whatever would serve to remind the public of who to thank for the calm, and thusly who to thank for guiding them: the king.
"I don't want to do this; I'm just going to say that right now." One voice spoke to another inside the carriage.
"Y-yes sir, I know sir. But the king decreed that all three heroes will v-visit different cities across the continent to-"
"Yeah, I know about the decree… but when it's only been three towns and I'm already bored out of my wits, I know I'm going to have a problem with this. I'll do it for the king, for all he's done for our cause… but I'm not doing it for fun, I can tell you that. Where are we going, anyway?"
"Erott, sir."
"Erott, eh? Isn't that where 'Greene's Hill' is?"
"Sir, yes it is, s-sir."
"You think that spire general is still down there somewhere? I'm itching to bust a few more demon heads, that miasma wasn't long enough."
"S-sir, surely you can't mean that."
There was a short silence. "I do. Ever since I helped Nero kill that bastard of a demon lord, Alucard, I haven't had a good fight. I don't think I've had any fight, now that I think about it. There hasn't even been a single random encounter that we've run into throughout the whole time we've been traveling. It's enough to make me want to kill a man… or an army."
The weaker voice quieted down upon hearing this, obviously petrified.
"What's the matter, cat got your tongue? When you've been through as much as I have, you forget that others haven't. Sorry about the 'kill an army' thing."
Another, more commanding voice sounded from outside of the carriage. "We've arrived at Erott, sir. Please wait for the carriage to come to a complete stop before-"
SMASH!
The door was blown off of its hinges as "sir" barged out, eager to get out of the cramped atmosphere of his transportation. "Alright, then, thanks." He said to the guard who'd just been silenced, stretching. "I'll take it from here." He looked over to the front gates of Erott, about to be closed for the night just as the afternoon was coming to its end. He cricked his neck with a loud "crack" and sighed with relief before he began to walk. "Let's see what Erott can do for good 'ol Leo."