The Power Of Radiation 11 Brambleton

As the sun slowly rises into the sky, a large oak tree seems to stretch out toward it in greed. The surroundings gradually begin to brighten which awakens the man sleeping under the oak tree. Mark feels an all too familiar feeling of exhaustion which would normally come from practicing his powers for too long but instead comes from the nightmares he experienced last night. The bags under Mark's eyes and his almost depressed demeanor are understandable considering his poor but sheltered childhood in a mega city. Besides the economic problems and therefore low social status of Mark's family his childhood as relatively happy. His family loved and appreciated him and he loved to spend time with his grandfather, who was full of wisdom from his travels, when he was younger.

Mark thinks that his trip since starting in the VR world is similar to this but considering the death he saw yesterday; he wondered if his grandfather's stories also had these kinds of problems that, as a child, could not be told to a younger Mark. Mark then gets up and proceed to head onward from where he left off yesterday on the dirt road. Mark hopes it will eventually lead him onward to the Doctor's city or at least another traveler that can point him in the right direction.

Mark continues walking along the path for a couple hours until the path ends at a clearing with a sign and a road which looks much better maintained. This new road beyond the clearing is still dirt but looks better maintained because of how packed the road is from human use and not just the occasional animal. The sign reads in a barely legible scrawl "Brambleton" and the words "Stone City" with an arrow pointing north out of the clearing. Mark's mood brightens at the thought that he can finally offload the items from the bandit encounter and get some information from the real people up ahead. As Mark pa.s.ses through the clearing with the sign the road opens to a large dirt circle which seems to be the small village's town square with around 20 small shacks scattered about and more off into the distance surrounded by pastures, gra.s.s and farmland. Three specific and odd buildings stand out from the shacks with one being the biggest and being made of what seems to be clay, the second being larger than a normal shack and having a garden outside and the final building being the only one with two floors.

Mark looks across this village of Brambleton with a now much more subdued excitement as the slums in the mega city are not even as run down as this. Mark can only imagine that someone of the small shanty towns on the outside of the city would look like this from the many descriptions people have told him over the years. An old man in a rocking chair next to the shack with a garden looks up at him with his eyes only half open and look that says "I could care less about what you want" in only mild curiosity. Mark responds to this old man with a bright smile which is not as bright when contrasted with his messy hair and the bags underneath his eyes. Mark then asks, "Excuse me, This place is called Brambleton?". The old man eyes seem to open only a fraction of a centimeter wider as he replies in an almost intelligible mumble, "That's what the sign says". Mark, in the exasperation of the old man being content to sit there and doze off without elaborating asks "Who should I talk to about directions?" The patient old man doesn't even regard this as worth an answer and points at the clay house with his cane, and proceeds to close his eyes fully this time. Mark glances at the clay house and back at the old man who Mark thinks is lazy and shouldn't be sleeping when it is halfway through the morning. Mark resigns himself with walking over to the clay house with his bundle of swords and valuables clanking on his back as he gets closer, and proceeds to knock on the door in an almost hesitant fas.h.i.+on.

The door is opened by an older middle aged man who has a head of white hair well before his time when Mark looks at his complexion. The man is startled by Mark's new face and the bundle on his back and asks, "Can I help you sir?". Mark finally smiles at the first friendly response he has heard and asks about directions to Doctor's city. The man then replies very politely with "I do not know of any Doctor's city but the closest city is Stone City but it's almost 50 kilometers farther north. We are the closest village to the Ever wood Forest south of here." The man replies. Mark sighs at his poor luck and how he thought he would be able to immediately start his time in Doctor's city once entering the VR world.

With a sudden grimace of remembrance of yesterday Mark explains in a low and sad tone of the events that seemed to occur and how Mark wanted to give the weapons and valuables to the village for any family the guards left behind. The middle-aged man is shocked by Mark's response and asks in rhetoric "You are not from around here? Are you?" he then continues with "Any loot or spoils gained outside of a village or town is considered spoils of war and become the property of whoever stakes a claim first.". Mark is surprised by this and asks about anyone in the village being related to or knowing any of the men who he encountered. The man responds with "I'm the village elder here and sometimes the mayor, those men were probably bandits with the guards being wandering mercenaries hired to guard the merchant's goods. The village elder the explains that the two-story building is the village Inn and the larger house with the old man is Bramblton's doctor and cleric. The village elder also explains how the Inn doubles as a general store so Mark's best option is to sell his "spoils" there or wait and go to Stone City for a better price. At least one person from the village seems to regularly go to the city at the end of every month to sell their produce in the two carts owned communally by the villagers. The next trip is in two days and this would be Mark's only option unless he wanted to walk the whole 50 kilometers north to the city over the course of a week.