By the fourth morning, Kargoth city had begun to move with a rhythm that now seemed… predictable.
Anvil already even woke up before the big sun fully lit the streets. The thin walls of the old lodging allowed him to hear the harsh and ragged sound of someone coughing two rooms over, in the quiet morning. Peeping outside, he saw a cart rumbling past the street, the hooves of the tired horse clattering against the uneven stones of the street. His body though, it still ached in familiar ways. The back pain was still there, he could still feel the sting in his knees, and surely, the dull feeling of hunger was competing also. But today, these feelings felt lighter.
... Like he was now getting much more familiar with the muscles of this body.
'Scary.'
That scared him slightly of course, because it meant he was adjusting to a new life, a new world. And worse still, he had no way if getting back to the original world.
Accepting his fate, he rose carefully and tried to move slowly. He was aware of every tendon and joint that protested his movement. The oversized sleeves of his scavenged tunic hung loosely over his hands, and he tugged at them repeatedly, trying to ignore how ragged the fabric looked.
After washing his face and looking at his pitiful horrible face, he stepped outside the lodging into the street. The lodging of course, apart from food, was something else he spends his money on. He needed to pay daily to refresh his stay in the room.
'It's cold.'
The air outside though, felt cooler today. Not so cold, but less suffocating than the stifling heat on his first day as a begger on the roadside. Anvil saw a few laborers walking past, hauling empty wooden barrels and wooden crates to the market square ahead, their boots scuffing the stones. They were about to start their daily business of carrying and lifting loads and crates. Anvil joined the group too. He walked along with the labourers to Kargoth market square. This was his only means of survival by the way. And his only job.
---
Getting to Kargoth market square, he followed three other labourers to a stall and collected a crate filled with woven bags of goods. He adjusted the crate he had just collected, feeling its rough wood press against his palms. Looking ahead, he joined the line of labourers lifting the loads to a far distance deep into the market square. This routine went on and on for hours. To him, each successful delivery was like a moment of test. It was like a small victory. And today, he decided that he would notice everything. Everu detail.
---
It was then that he saw something.
He stopped mid-step, adjusting the crate on his shoulder, and stared at it.
"Huh?"
The light from the morning which was still low and golden on the cobblestones made his shadow stretched far ahead, as it should.
But as he shifted his weight and leaned slightly to balance the crate on his shoulder, his shadow didn't move immediately... for a fraction of a second.
... Before it followed normally as it should.
He frowned.
He binked twice, and then he took another careful step forward. The shadow hesitated again with an almost imperceptible lag, before snapping perfectly into place. Anvil though, could sense that it did.
His stomach suddenly twisted. He wanted to laugh to shrug it off his mind, or tell himself that it was as a result of fatigue, hunger, or the leftover dizziness from yesterday. But it was wrong. Something was actually off.
"Stop it," he muttered under his breath, convincing himself that it was his hazy mind paying an effect on him.
... But his instincts told him this was no joke! His shadow did lag for a second just now!
Looking around, he saw that nobody else seemed to notice. The people around kept walking as usual, their voices didn't change like they noticed something strange, and the clink of counting coins among the negotiating merchants continued... the world continued, unaware. Which meant that no one saw what he did. It must have been his hazy mind. Perhaps he needed to take the day off today. He would consider that later.
The close passersby not noticing anything strange with his shadow meant that it was either a normal thing in this strange world… or it was just him noticing.
And if it was just him, that alone was terrifying.
---
He hauled the crate forward, slower this time. His attention was now close on the shadow cast by him and the load on his shoulder.
By midday, the market had fully awakened, and one could see stalls of cloth, metal, and food line the streets. Merchants shouted over each other, trying to advertise wares while keeping an eye on the coins in their hands. The clatter of wheels on stone, the hiss of venting steam from blackened metalworks, and the occasional neigh of a horse created a cacophony of sounds that were almost hypnotic to the ears in their consistency.
Anvil balanced the crate as he moved through the crowd. He had memorized the rhythms now—he knew which merchants cheated, which ones paid on time, which guards were inattentive, and which streets had the most traffic. The city had now seemed to have a pulse. And today, it felt different.
He then saw a priest among a small crowd.
A small crowd had gathered near the market square, not blocking the path entirely, but drawing their eyes like moths. The priest at the center was putting on dark robes with a white collar bow. He also wore a single necklace around his neck. The pendant of the necklace though, was not cross this time–the one he knew with christian priests in the real world– the pendant of this necklace was two overlapping crescents. The faint glint on the pendant made him notice it almost immediately he sighted the priest.
"So there's faith here too. Those two crescents... do they represent the two moons? They worship the moons?" He muttered to himself.
However, the priest's voice travelled far without even raising it.
"Order is not imposed," he said. "Order is revealed."
His phrasing seemed careful, and abstract. It seemed beautiful in a way that made Anvil tense for no reason.
'Like he memorized from a book, haha.' Anvil smirked, amused. But he knew it was not that way. It was so for preachers and priests, even in the real world. He was not someone religious but yet to him, these priests sound like they read directly from one form of holy book.
The priest continued.
"Beneath the noise of the industry, beneath the smoke and coin and iron, there is structure. There has always been structure."
He stopped hauling for a moment, shifting the crate onto his shoulder again. He looked around him. People were paying attention to what the priest was saying.
'Wha... I don't even understand what he's saying.' He smirked. Anyway, he slow down his pace a little and pretended to listen so as not to act odd among the crowd, he believed.
Some people were nodding. Some were even rolling their eyes, seemingly apprehensive of the priest's words, and some others were merely passing by. Someone even shouted,
"Stop deceiving us here, priest. We both know your evil plot behind this whole scheme. You deceive people into believing your religious shenanigans and joining your Church, before extorting countless doshes from them. If only you could command your 'blessed moons' to have pity on us and make the poor rich and the rich poor for a better balance, only then will I dedicate my life to follow you and believe in your preaching."
As the man spoke this, some crowds believed in what he said and abandoned the priest, while some listened on to the priest.
Some merchants around laughed at the merchant that just spoke. They seemed to be of the same cohort. "Haha, old man's angry."
"Say, why not go ahead and deal the priest some punches?"
"Yeah, you could punch the stupidity out of him, hahaha."
"Go away, priest. We do not need anyone dictating our lives for us."
The priest, seemingly impervious to their tantrums, continued his words with measured rhythm.
"The Moons, Vaelis and Myrrh, watch over us. Alignment is not mere coincidence. Harmony exists in all that seems disorderly."
Anvil's wasn't paying full attention before, since he was splitting his attention on the load on his arms and the now distant words of the priests, since he didn't stop but only slower down his pace. But his somach suddenly lurched as he heard the priest's words.
'The crescents.'
A strange instinct suddenly brushed against the edge of his awareness. It felt like a vague warning.
He shook it off though, and hastened his steps. He left the priest's scene behind.
'Survival first. Always survival.' He said amidst his hushed breath.
But then, he saw a merchant observing the scene of the priest far away quietly. Among all merchants he had known, this one seemed... different. He was well-dressed, and his face was calm, and calculating. His eyes flicked over the crowd, over the priest... before suddenly flicking down at Anvil who was close by, as if weighing him against something invisible.
Another faint glint caught Anvil's attention again. This one was a reflection from a silver and simple ring, but the ring was patterned in faint crescents.
'Similar to the chain.'
He blinked though, and looked away. It wasn't important to him. Not yet... or not at all.
'Anvil. Focus, move, deliver the crates, and don't get too involved in this world. Think of how to get back home.'
He changed his path and heading toward the corner near the meat stalls.
And then again, something flickered in the corner of his eye. A shadow just moved by, but the angle felt wrong. He looked closer again.
'Nothing.
Was it a stray cat?'
He exhaled with tiredness, "Must have been imagining things."
Then someone bumped into his shoulder. Or he bumped into the person. That, he didn't know. "Watch it!"
Anvil quickly mumbled an apology to him and kept walking, but that feeling still lingered. Something invisible moved just out of sync with everything else.
'Something's wrong again.'
It was afternoon again. The sun was slightly away from the center of the sky, and heat was radiation from metal surfaces and bricks.
The the world was subtly feeling wrong to him today. Even the streets, the people, the carts and markets moved in perfect patterns that somehow didn't make sense.
He tried to ignore it, burying his attention in the crate again, but tiny hints of wrongness followed him: a bell that chimed slightly early, a merchant who moved with an extra precision that made him hesitate, and a child who stared at him for a moment too long and then vanished into the crowd.
But then again, he ignored these suspicions. He was tired afterall, and so he didn't need to overstress both his body and mind. He needed to make his mind as light as possible.
By evening, the shadows had grown long as usual.
The market was now calmer. Some vendors had begun packing up. Steam hissed from the metalworks of the forging industries ahead, with the usual smell of burning coal sharp in the cooling air.
And suddenly again...
Hushed voices emerged near the alleys. They were like whispers carried like the wind directly into Anvil's ears.
"…alignment…"
"…rests uneasy…"
"…must stabilize…"
Anvil abruptly stopped. He could hear his heart hammering heavily. A chill spread across his back as his instincts were now screaming wrongness.
'W-wrong. Something is wrong. Where did those voices come from?'
He didn't understand what was going on. And he didn't actually want to, because his instincts told him attention was dangerous. He even began to become extra wary of his environment. Had he stepped into a forbidden place?
He finally glanced at the two harmless and pale moons hanging above the dimming world like silent watchers.
The strange whispers echoed faintly in his mind again, "Alignment… measure…"
He shook his head, muttering with confusion, "Measure what? Who's talking?"
After some moments of confusion, he finally came back to his full senses. The street now has few passersby. The vendors are now few in the market. But the merchants were still around. Coins kept exchanged hands, and crates kept getting carried. Smoke still drifted lazily from the chimneys of distant houses. Life still went on.
Except… that the shadow had lingered just slightly longer than the last step before snapping into place. He didn't notice though.
And for now however, he dismissed it all.
The lessons were clear now. He was learning better. The world had layers he could not yet see. Survival, to him, was the only certainty he had at hand. Curiosity on the other hand, could wait.
He adjusted the crate he had dropped on the ground again, his muscles screaming pain in quiet protest.
He continued his lifting of crates, step by step, step by step.
And though the market carried on with its usual clamor, he felt the first and small tug of unease that hinted there was more beneath it all in this strange world.
---
By the time he returned to his lodgings, Anvil's hands were already blistered. His stomach were empty, and his hazy mind were buzzing. The shadows. The crescents. The words. What were these incidences? Something sure is beneath the whole thing. He just couldn't figure it out.
However, he made a silent vow to himself again.
"Only observe, survive and learn in this world. And when the world shows its teeth, don't be caught unready... Anvil."