After reading through one shelf of books, it's the drawing of a map that captures you next. A thin, fragile paper in your palm. The sketches are faded and smudged, ink tracing a river's mouth and mangroves tangled in brackish waters, fed by springs flowing from a distant mountain range. Far upstream, at the furthest point from the estuary, there's an illustration of a structure carved into the trunk of a gnarled, overgrown tree, but there is nothing else to go by, and you can't recall seeing the mountain range from memory either, after all, you've gone too far inwards to be anywhere near these geological features.
In your other hand is a cup of tea, momentarily forgotten, suspended in the thought that, if you wanted to head to the location in the map, have any cartographers completed circumnavigating the continent? Without confirming the authenticity of the map, tracking down this relic in the likelihood that it is fictional will be too bitter a feeling. In any case, you'll need to head back into town to answer that question, and the thought alone sours your expression.
You set the cup aside along with your thoughts and bring the fountain pen to your journal. The once polished, sterling silver is dark now, patinaed from use. You copy the map line by line, then tuck the original into the last pages of a book, glimpsing shortly, the description of a woman's appearance you copied months ago. Turning the page, a fingertip traces the elegant script with the same longing as you had back then, a desire to witness people of their appearance. The night darkens around you, as the light of a taper candle illuminates the pages you're reading.
The book, or rather journal, is the most frustrating book to read on the shelf because the author's notes are random and separated from their context, and it's unlikely you're able to understand any fragmented words and misspellings. You read what you can and cling to every clue but there's nothing about the map, what the relic is for or the direction it can be. Piece of shit. You sigh, smothering the candle's flame with your fingers and fall asleep on the desk. It's useless, at most, the relic may loosely associate with trade between neighbours and foreigners who you're unsure are even human. Notes about the author's goods for non-human appendages, grooming one's fur, polishing one's scales and what not.
In the nearly four months you've lived in the old home the owner has not once returned, which will be regretful in the unlikely case they happen to return when you're absent. You won't be there to meet face-to-face, instead, they'll read the letter on the countertop you wrote in their native language. Welcome home Yllari, a foreigner saw your home and stays, he abandons his belongings, late return home. You don't know how it sounds, and you doubt it's correct, but it is something in case the recipient returns too soon if at all. The past people's disappearance still haunts you to this day. You shoulder your knapsack, not packing everything though. In a corner, you'll leave behind the cache, spare boots and chainmail.
Mitten gauntlets and greaves with sabatons click over your wrists and leather boots throughout the burrow of the old home. On the countertop, there's now a few pots of pickled vegetables and dried fruit, and baskets for herbs and fibres you'll spin into cordage on the adjacent floor. The books are returned to their original places, though the desk has new ink stains, smudges and wax puddles. Behind the kitchen, you enter the washroom and collect an empty pail to fill with water when you return. Wards harmlessly hum in your head, and shortly after, you find yourself outside the barrier once again. The empty pail hits the ground, but after a bit more precaution, you conceal it inside a bush. No reason to draw attention here. You used to camp outside the barrier for a night or two each week, hunting and gathering before facing the ward's pressure to come back inside, but you'll be away for months this time.
A week passes in the calm of nature. A longsword and two mitten gauntlets smear into steely light, resonating down the fuller when the point exits the water of a shallow river. You reach into the bloom of blood and grab two pieces of a fish, both bleeding profusely in your hands. On the gravel bank, a crackling pit still burns with ember and smoke, where two smoked fish already rest beside it. You butcher the two portions, tossing away its innards and dry rub the meat with a copious amount of salt and pepper seasoning, then rummaging a pile of skewers, you pierce the meat and lean them into the smoke. Now you rest comfortably, drying your wet, bare feet and pants next to the fire, eating the cooked fishes slowly. No sightseeing, that's one regret on this trip, but you'd rather finish your business as soon as possible than be swept into the Old World's clutches again.
After dinner, you begin to practice your longsword on the gravel. At a slow pace, you draw out the principle of each feint and cut as your lower body, spine and shoulders create the structure and balance for mechanical advantage, stability, and fluidity when transitioning between movements. Faster, and now your intentions to either feint, cut, stab, parry and bind blend into an incomprehensible blur. You walk, flourishing the longsword close to your body, feet steady throughout every stance and leap, sticking every landing and never faltering your intense swordplay.
Two more nights quickly pass in the same manner, as had every night passed since you departed, gradually forcing your body to remember it has purpose beyond study. The only change now is the appearance of families cultivating farmlands near the river. Their hospitality towards strangers like yourself is an attitude you don't understand, and with cool indifference you insisted on walking in the undergrowth parallel to the river. The annoying thing is this child who's following you, obviously trying to scam honest people like yourself.
"Scram." You might've wished to sound awe-inspiring but, after not talking to people in so long, your speech is monotone and quiet.
The child giggles and says, "Sir, if you may repeat that please?"
Damnable brat. You snort, and with a helpless feeling, leap over the undergrowth several times.
"Ah, amazing! Wait, Sir, please don't run away!"
Their voice recedes into the torrent of whistling winds and rustling leaves. Still, the emotional damage the child inflicted sticks to your soul. Never again. You make a mental note to diligently rehearse some lines to save yourself from embarrassment in the harbour town, or rather city as they seem to be calling it nowadays.