The musty shop that Jordan found himself in was by far one of the most unappealing establishments that he had ever stepped foot in. As he took in the sights of the poor lighting and inhaled the strange musty smell, he shook his head, knowing he would generally avoid a place like this if not for the cat wearing a naturally smug expression sitting on the counter.
"Your letter said that you wouldn't be here for another week. I never figured that John and Nikki's kid would be early for anything," she said with the snark that he was accustomed to. Jordan didn't bat an eye at the talking cat, having known Lucy and other talking animals for most of his life. Beastfolk were on a wide ranging spectrum, and Lucy was almost entirely on the cat end of that spectrum, with her intelligence and ability to speak being the one of the only differences between her and an overpriced house cat.
"I ended up having to leave home a little early, and I was hoping an old family friend would warmly welcome me," Jordan said as he scratched her head. She rolled her eyes, but her uncontrollable purring gave her mood away as Jordan smiled at her smushed face. "So do you have them?" He asked while she hopped down from the fur covered counter and briefly dipped out of sight.
"Of course I do Jordan, helping you is most of the reason that I'm in this god forsaken town in the first place," she said as she pranced around the corner. Jordan's eyes began wandering across the various knickknacks on the shelves, and he nearly reached out to pick up a snow globe that contained the image of what appeared to be a scale covered giraffe before Lucy returned with 2 cloth bags atop her back. He could barely contain his laughter as the tubby feline laboriously jumped back onto the counter with a thud, dropping the bags beside her before she aggressively started licking her leg. Jordan walked back over and opened the larger of the two, revealing a glass orb roughly the size of a melon.
"Dat first one is a viewing stone-"she said while continuing to lick. "it has a map of Genzai and will let you talk with udder people dat have one. Dat tiny village dat you're from probably didn't have too many of these, but der becoming fairly common in most larger cities," she said with roughly a pound of fluff in her mouth as Jordan nodded his head and returned it to the bag that he had been given.
He proceeded to open the smaller bag, revealing a brown leather bound book, and laid it out flat on the table. The wear on the spine and cover would indicate that it was quite old, though as Jordan flipped through the pages, he could see that the ink was still perfectly legible. However, what stuck out to him was not the legibility of the ink, but rather the handwriting of its author.
"My mom wrote these first few pages at least, although it looks like dad had a few notes that he added," Jordan said, a small smile coming over his face as he continued to flip through.
"That's right, John and Nikki were both meticulous in the journaling of their adventures," Lucy said, audibly purring as she looked over the notebook with Jordan. "They wanted you to have it before you left, and they've had me hang onto it for a while since the information inside is sensitive. They probably didn't want their problem child eating it or something," she said, causing Jordan to playfully flick her on the forehead without looking up from the book.
"What's sensitive about the fact that…they saw a big whale on the way to Jofuko?" Jordan asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Not all of it, smart ass," she said as she slapped her paw on the page that Jordan had flipped to. "But this part is a good example."
Jordan looked down and saw an entry dated from 20 years before, which seemed to detail a trip that his parents had taken to Tenkumachi to deal with a group of Kuzukare Reavers. "This is the first time they went to Bovine Bounties, which is a good place for you to know about if you need to make some quick gold. A lot of the other info is going to be outdated, but it'll be a good place to start from whenever you go to a new place," she said as she flopped on her back. Jordan began rubbing her belly as he continued to leaf through the journal, randomly flipping from trip to trip as the cat continued to purr. Eventually he closed the book, his smile growing in size as he looked forward to the thought of seeing what the young versions of his parents thought about the world that he was entering into.
"How much longer will you be in town for, Lu?" Jordan asked as he removed his hand. After a meow of protest, she reluctantly flipped back onto her paws, loafing on the counter as Jordan stored his new items in his bag.
"Not too much longer, this town isn't exactly a hub of business," she said in an annoyed tone. "The halfling that owns this space rents it out for dirt cheap, and I can see why. You and two low level mercenary groups are the only business I've gotten in this town in two weeks."
"Well that makes sense, you're not exactly the most welcoming host," Jordan said bluntly. An immediate scratch on his hand elicited an apology from the half elf, and Lucy flicked her tail as she began pacing on the countertop.
"The actual reason that I don't get any business is because the Red Knuckles took over the town and sent it to an early grave a few months ago," she said with attitude as she glanced out the window. "Mori Town used to be lively, even for how small it was. The strong timber that grows around here along with being located in between 3 major cities made it fairly active, but ever since Forest and his thugs came through, business is pretty much at a standstill," she said with a hint of sadness.
"Oh, he's the little guy who just paid me," Jordan said as he gave a couple of pats to the sack of coins in his bag.
"You fought in the tournament?" She asked, looking up and down at Jordan with doubt.
"Yeah, it was pretty easy," he said as he recapped the events since he entered town, from the initial encounter with the Red Knuckles at Jeremiah's tavern to the tournament itself.
"You and those parents of yours are all complete freaks of nature," she said while shaking her head in disbelief.
"Yeah, neither of my parents like chocolate, I don't even know how we're related," Jordan said while he attempted to smack away a fly that was buzzing near his face. "So is Forest's little shindig stealing all of your customers or something?" Jordan asked while he walked back toward the shelf and started to rifle through them.
"Be careful, the majority of that stuff is at least a little poisonous," she said, causing Jordan to back his face away, though only slightly. "And to answer your question, kind of. Did that bartender by the town's entrance tell you about how his tournaments got started?" She asked.
"Yeah, he mentioned it to me, which is unfortunate because I actively try to avoid small talk," Jordan said as he meandered back to the front counter. "How did you know that I talked to him, by the way?"
"Jeremiah's one of the only people in town with both a business that the gang wants to stay open," Lucy said, her involuntary purrs providing a funny background noise to her voice. "Plus, he's a retired Jifu Rider and would be a huge pain for them to keep in line, so I've been down to his place a few times. I figured you would go there first since most other places in town have been closed for months. I met him when I first moved into this dumpster fire, and he told me everything. Apparently, the Red Knuckles came into this town last year, promising huge cash prizes from the very beginning. The gang put some of their own members in of course, but several of Mori Town's strongest fighters participated as well. The Red Knuckle Gang were a relatively small crew at the time, mainly known for hosting illegal fighting rings and not much more, so no one thought too much of it. But eventually, after participating every week, all of the town's fighters eventually were exhausted and injured," Lucy said, as Jordan listened intently, stopping his random meandering as he sensed her tone start to become more serious.
"The gang used this window to take over the town, capturing all of the fighters and forcing every other villager to work 18 hour days cutting lumber that the gang then sells and keeps all of the profit for. If they don't work, the gang throws them in with the other fighters they have captured. It's absolutely brutal, and awful for business, so I'll be packing up in the next couple of days or so. Speaking of which, I need to go get that process started," she said as she hopped down and began prancing toward the back room. "It was good to see you Budge, make sure you write to your mom consistently. Otherwise, they'll make me come check on you," she said with a wink before disappearing into the back room.
Jordan thanked his old friend before leaving the shop with his new supplies in tow. While he had never quite gotten the details of how they met, he did know that his parents met Lucy when they visited Mizudone for the first time 20 years prior, making her one of their oldest family friends. While he did not necessarily approve of her shady business dealings, she cared deeply for her friends and family, which was enough for him to not ask for details on the small bandit groups she had met with.
Outside it had shifted from evening to night, and Jordan caught his first sight of people who lived in the town besides Jeremiah. About a dozen young men and women, covered in dirt and scrapes, were slowly filing in from the forest on the outskirts of town. As he walked closer, Jordan winced at the smell and sight of them. Each person's clothes were in tatters, with most of them limping or massaging an injured limb, and he would guess that it had been several weeks since any of them had even seen an average night of sleep, let alone a good one.
His head swam with what Lucy had told him, and the environment of the town became impossible to ignore as walked through the streets. Trash littered the ground, most buildings had either broken windows or front doors that were hanging off of the hinges, and each group of villagers looked more exhausted than the one before them. As he watched the last of the groups that came into town, Jordan stopped in his tracks once he noticed that several children and elderly people appeared to be amongst the overworked villagers. As he saw them coughing and shaking on their way back to their homes, Jordan looked down to see that he had involuntarily begun clenching his fist. He released a deep breath before he relaxed his hand, then immediately turned toward the direction of Forest's home.
Pivoting in the direction of the massive building that overlooked the town, he continued to see more evidence of the gang's presence as he walked through the streets. The members of the Red Knuckle Gang seemed to mostly hang around near the hill, turning the surrounding neighborhood into a constant fight pit. Gang members were paired off in different makeshift boxing rings, beating the life out of each other until one fell to the ground. The look of disgust that came over Jordan's face was involuntary when he saw an unconscious orc being fed a healing potion, simply so he could stand and continue wildly swinging at his half giant opponent. Despite the brutality, crowds had gathered around each fight pit and were screaming their lungs out.
As he approached the gate that led Forest's home, he felt a chill run down his spine once he saw the front yard. Piles of bones, bloody armor and weapons were scattered atop the lawn. He had figured that the relatively organized cage matches like the one that he participated in were mostly to make money, but the depravity around him made him realize that violence seemed to be the purpose of why the Red Knuckles did anything. The gate opened as he came close to it, opening inward as he hastily made his way to the front entrance.
"Go meet up with Lucy before you go, it'll be fun they said," Jordan muttered to himself as he approached the massive house's front door. "Now I'm walking over skulls to speak with a gang leader/potential employer. You can't tell me I'm not a go-getter, mom" he whispered as he knocked on the massive wooden door.