A Hand-Woven Universe

The young girl nodded and mumbled a "yes sir" before taking the ball from the man and approaching Noone.

"If you would put your hand out sir?" She nodded respectfully to Noone, under the impression that anyone being sponsored by someone like Alaviv must be incredibly powerful as well. Noone glanced at Alaviv who merely smiled and nodded back.

Noone put out his hand with his palm up, the young girl gently placing the orb in it. There was a slight pull on his hand like the skin adhering to the gla.s.s as colors formed inside of the orb, swirling about in random directions.

It only took a second of everyone watching the orb for it to begin showing words in the common language.

------ ------ -----

Race: Unknown

Cla.s.s: Unknown

Age: Unknown

No grade.

------ ------ ------

The young girls" eyes widened, as did the eyes of the well-dressed man who had come in with her. After looking at Alaviv chuckling, the man could only smile wryly.

"Well. It seems we will just have to fill out a form by hand." He waved his hand, causing a piece of parchment to appear in it as well as a pen. Noone handed the orb back to the young woman who only wanted to hide behind the manager, her face slightly red from embarra.s.sment.

"Perhaps this is a bit late, but might I inquire for your name…?" The man nodded to Noone, pen poised over paper.

After getting the go ahead from Alaviv, Noone nodded.

"Noone." He said simply, spelling it out for the sake of convenience. The man looked up, as if waiting for more. When Noone didn"t continue, the well-dressed man cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Do you have a last name Noone? A family name or similar?" Not everyone in the common realms had a first and last names. However, for the sake of cataloging, it was generally accepted that people with no last name would adopt the name of their home town for official doc.u.mentation. Noone thought about this, his eyebrow"s furrowing. Ever since coming to the surface he had never used his full name.

His thoughts began to go back to Tapestry. Although in some ways it seemed like so long ago, the events of his home were burned fresh into his mind.

He would never forget why he was on the surface. He had a mission to fulfill… the image a two orange-glowing eyes flashed in his mind. The skeletal being who took everything from him.

Finally, he snapped out of his own thoughts and looked the man in the eyes.

"Noone. Tapestry. Azelle." His birth name, his home, and his family name. His heart twisted when he said Azelle, thinking of the elder who had raised him, and who he was forced to bury. Somewhere inside of him, he wondered if the energy he had inherited from the bones of his home was just energy… or if their will lived on with him.

Alaviv looked slightly surprised at Noone"s response but he said nothing, even having a soft smile play on his lips.

"I see." The man said, playing oblivious to Noone"s obvious emotional journey. "Race?" He asked nonchalantly, however his eyes flickered slightly with interest, waiting for Noone"s response.

Before Noone could say anything, Alaviv spoke up. "Leave the race and cla.s.s blank, cla.s.sify it if you must - to save him some problems in the future." Despite having a soft smile on his lips, there was no room for negotiation in his words. The nicely dressed man looked slightly put off by this, but he couldn"t say anything against a level 17 wizard, let alone an SS-rank adventurer.

"Age?" he asked finally. Wondering if he would at least get an answer for that. Alaviv said nothing, so Noone replied with his closest guess.

"122." Noone said, giving his true age.

The man nodded but didn"t seem too surprised, filling in the line on the parchment. The young woman who stood near the wall had various expressions through the whole exchange. Not wanting to be rude, she tried not to stare at Noone, however she found herself unable to take her eyes off him.

"Now." The man said, folding the paper in half. "About the weapons?"

In a motion that was all at once very quick, and extremely slow, Alaviv waved his hand to an empty spot on the floor - and suddenly a pile of weapons began to pour out of thin air.

Ten.

Twenty.

Thirty.

Fifty.

The weapons kept flowing into an endless pile almost the size of a person, both of the guild employees looked on with wry smile on their faces.

Seventy-five.

A hundred.

A hundred and twenty.

Finally, the endless stream stopped with the sound of metal impacting metal echoing throughout the room, and Alaviv smiled innocently. By this point the young girl"s jaw may well have been on the floor. Only the man managed to maintain some semblance of professionalism.

As Noone watched the ridiculous display, he couldn"t help but feel that some of the weapons looked very familiar… His eyes narrowed, and he looked back and forth between the pile and Alaviv.

Hesitating for a moment, the man"s voice was a bit shakier when he finally spoke, a wry smile on his lips. "And I a.s.sume you have proof of the bounties you wish to collect as well."

Alaviv smiled at the man, and an unmistakable playful glint could be seen – like a child who is about to do something naughty and instead of shying away from it, chooses to revel in the chaos. At this moment, everyone in the room had a sinking feeling, including Noone as he pieced together where the weapons were from.

Alaviv smiled and waved his hand at a different corner of the room away from everyone.

Suddenly, and without ceremony, a lone severed head appeared in the air and plopped on the floor with a fresh icky thud. Then another. And another. The sound of skull impacting skull as they fell on top of each other played the sickening cacophony of a ruthless battle. Noone could only close his eyes. Inside he only groaned, but he knew he could do nothing to stop the old man.

The well-dressed guild employee finally couldn"t maintain his neutral façade and his jaw dropped open with his eyes bulging.

However, he still handled the sudden exchange far better than the young clerk who, upon seeing the endless pile of human heads which now numbered seventy and counting, immediately fainted.

"I a.s.sume you can handle this?" Alaviv spoke casually, standing from the couch he sat on and motioning to Noone who quietly stood and followed behind.

Without giving a chance for the man to respond, the small wizard said that they would return in a few hours, and then left the room with Noone.

Noone couldn"t help but glance back at the man, offering him an apologetic smile before disappearing.

"I guess this is what you can do when you get strong enough." He thought with a sigh. He wondered whether or not the small gnome just liked to cause trouble.

As they walked down the stairs, Noone noticed a familiar party huddled around the front-desk of the establishment, talking with one of the clerks.

It was the party Feylin had been getting to know, a group of young cla.s.sed adventurers who were just being sponsored into the guild. Each one had a broad grin on their face, and they filled out paperwork to complete their group as a party.

One of them noticed Noone and Alaviv coming down the stairs and pointed him out to the rest of the group. Everyone turned to look. Noone only gave them a single nod before following Alaviv out of the building and into the busy streets, attracting the stares of many adventurers on the way.

The small gnome walked with a purpose, so Noone followed along while quietly pondering his own thoughts.

"When did you manage to gather all of that… stuff." Noone transmitted. Hesitating on what to call a pile of weapons and a stack of heads.

Alaviv flashed Noone a smile. "After your little escapade with your girlfriend and that vengeance paladin. I wasn"t going to say anything unless you brought it up, but I may have followed you three to the bandit encampment that night." He responded without missing a beat. Noone frowned, had he been watching over him? Or was he spying on him?

Alaviv glanced back before chuckling. "You don"t need to look at me like that." He snorted. "If I wanted to spy on you would I bother revealing it all like this? I was merely curious about what was happening. And after I heard what you were going to be up to, I decided to watch from the sides. See how you fight. That kind of thing." He shrugged as if it was no big deal.

Noone didn"t know whether he believed the gnome 100%, but he didn"t feel Alaviv was lying either, so he said nothing.

After a few moments of thought, Noone finally found something to say.

"What did you think?" Noone asked, curious for the perspective of a two-thousand-year-old wizard.

"Of?" Alaviv played coy, turning so Noone would be unable to see his face.

"You know what of." Noone said, refusing to give the gnome the satisfaction of his exasperation.

Alaviv nodded his head with a smile. "Yes. I do. You did well for your level, although we still have a lot of work to do if you"re ever going to be strong."

"We?"

The gnome"s usual playful demeanor for the first time turned solemn. In his mind there were thousands of thoughts being processed every second, drawing connections in the world that Noone could never know or understand.

"You"ll know soon." He said quietly.

Noone"s eyebrows furrowed, however even after a few minutes Alaviv didn"t respond. Noone decided to let it go, for now.

Another few blocks pa.s.sed Alaviv turned into an inn which was tucked out of the way from the busy main street. The entire structure reeked in a silence as though it had not been disturbed since its inception. It was quiet but well maintained, and it seemed to Noone that not many people must come here. Noone and Alaviv entered a tavern-like front hall, full of tables and a bar. Apart from Noone, Alaviv, and a pleasant looking bartender, no one was there. It was completely empty. He wondered if this was normal, or just related to the time of day.

"I was wondering if we could reserve a room for the night." Alaviv stepped forward with his usual springy gait that seemed a consequence of his small size and perched himself on the bar.

"Not a problem." The woman behind the bar said evenly, pulling a key out from under the counter. "One gold."
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Alaviv already had the gold piece in his hand, pushing it across the bar to the woman.

The woman looked down at the coin, and after affirming that it was real, handed the key over to Alaviv.

"Third door on the right." The woman said casually, not bothering to pay any more attention to Noone or the gnome. Noone found this whole business odd, but he only shook his head, a.s.suming that the gnome was up to something.