Sunset Conversation

The beach was empty.

It was not surprising. When designing NPC daily cycles, Yuri made villagers go to the market or to the tavern, or home to their families — it just didn’t occur to him that someone might want to just walk by the water. Ironically, it was the only thing he felt like doing now.

Yuri took off his boots. The sand was soft and warm. Yuri’s muscles were sore after a day of walking, and a long time without practice didn’t make things easier. The warmth slowly rose up from his feet, releasing some of the tension.

He stepped into the water. Stood for a moment, letting the freshness wash away the rest of his soreness. Walked back out, getting sand grains stuck on his feet. Small things. Rare things.

Yuri walked for some time before finally coming upon someone. A lone figure sitting on the sand with cup in hand, watching the skies.

It turned out to be the Elder. In plain clothes, without his red long coat, he seemed mesmerized by the sunset and didn’t notice Yuri’s approach at first.

But when Yuri got close enough, he flinched, threw a quick glance at him, made the cup in his hand disappear, and straightened his back, adopting a more dignified look.

“My wares are the best wares in… Heartwood!” he exclaimed when Yuri came by him, and slowly turning his head, continued, “Oh, young adventurer. I didn’t notice you there. How fares your day?”

Remembering what Ada said to him, Yuri tried to be polite.

“I sure love it when the sand is… good.” he said with a forced smile. This felt so stupid, “I mean, good! My dare fares food! I mean… You know what, I’m not good at all with all these formalities. You seemed to be enjoying your drink, let me not bother you.”

“Of course, adventurer! I do enjoy my cup of goat milk in nature, ho-ho! Pleasant evening to you!”

“Yeah… I’m gonna go…” said Yuri and even took a step back, but looking in the face of the Elder, which displayed even more thinly veiled awkwardness, than Yuri’s, he lingered, “Listen, I don’t know what all this all is about, but I’m not really an adventurer, and don’t care about appearances. So, you don’t have to… you know.”

The Elder looked at him with the same unchanging expression for an uncomfortable moment, and then dropped it all, as a cracked mirror in the dumpster.

“Well, shit,” he said in a lower and rougher voice, with a completely different intonation, “You startled me. I usually got this all ‘yo-o-oung adve-enturer’ thing figured out. What’re you doing here? This place is usually empty.”

“You know,” slowly said Yuri, a bit confused by a sudden shift in persona, “Contemplating.”

“What a stupid thing to do. C’mon, sit. Since you already know my secret, let’s have a chat.”

Yuri cautiously took the invitation, thinking that he could see from whom IYNH took his forceful personality. Like father, like son, as they say.

“May I ask a question?” said Yuri.

“Go for it.”

“…why?” muttered Yuri, after a moment of getting his thoughts together.

“What? All this?” Elder made a wide gesture, pointing toward his face, and laughed, “I’m just giving people what they expect. See, I didn’t choose to be the head of the village. Everyone just agreed that I’m doing the job, and I didn’t complain loud enough.”

“Must be though.”

“What are you talking about? It’s perfect! I just play the part of an old wise Elder, and in return, I get to boss everyone around, and nap in my shop half of the time.”

“But don’t you get tired of being fake?”

The Elder looked at the sun, which was almost touching the water, and frowned a little.

“How should I explain it? Listen, boy, you know how you sometimes get an urge to punch someone in the middle of the conversation? And then punch again, and then throw down the nearest stairs? And you don’t? Same shit here. You may call it being fake, I call it being considerate. Besides, I love these idiots, and this stupid place.”

“I see,” said Yuri, and added under his breath, “God, you’ve got a really inconsistent characterization.”

“And you’ve got a stick up your ass. C’mon, relax!” reacted the Elder, overhearing, and hit Yuri’s back with the force of a train. He was stronger than he looked.

Then the Elder got a cup and bottle of something that most definitely was not goat milk, poured himself some and offered the bottle to Yuri.

“I don’t have… Eh, wait,” said Yuri, and opened his own inventory. He remembered that IYNH had dropped something there. Maybe there was a cup or something.

There were. Cups. Thirty-seven of them.

Also plates and spoons and brooms and buckets and stones and sticks and god knows what else. Yuri sighed and touched the cup icon.

[Inventory SFX]

It appeared in his hand. The Elder poured some wine in it, and touched Yuri’s cup with his own.

“So, what’s your deal?”

“My deal? Well, I’m sort of lost.”

“Aren’t we all?” said Elder in his wise old voice.

“Sure, but I think I’m literally lost. I don’t know how to get home.”

“That can be a problem nowadays, right. Where are you from? I’ve traveled a lot, maybe I’ve seen it.”

“I don’t think you have. I…” Yuri paused. It was the first time he actually thought about how he would come back home in a practical sense. Sharing his thoughts with a random stranger (though in some sense, a very familiar stranger) seemed weird. But Yuri didn’t have a reason to not share either, “Well, the thing is that travel from where I've come to here is considered impossible. A-and I don’t remember how I actually got here. I just woke up today in the middle of the forest near the village.”

“Hm…” only said the Elder, stroking his beard. He once again looked directly at the sun. Yuri followed his gaze, and touched the edge of the cup with his lips.

At this point, the sun was setting slowly, but visibly. If you had the patience, you could follow its descent. It was a magnificent image, and it had completely absorbed Yuri.

He looked at the light, heard the gentle waves, and smelled an elegant fragrance of the wine. His thoughts were supposed to be anxious, but for some magical reason his mind was calm.

The Elder spoke again, when half of the sun passed over the horizon.

“If you got here, that means that your impossible is possible. There should be a way back.”

“Wait, you believe me? My amnesia and that I just woke up here?” said Yuri, and looked at the Elder.

“Why wouldn’t I? A stupid question. God, why do people always ask me stupid questions?”

“I’m not from here,” reminded him Yuri, turning back to the sun.

The Elder chuckled.

“You lazy-asses all say that. Anyway, everyone here has some sort of memory stuff or another. You’re not so special. Do you think I remember how I got there?”

“But you said that you traveled a lot?”

“Well, sometimes I do. And sometimes I forget my own name. Everyone has some shit like this going on. We just don’t like to talk about it.”

“Oh…”

Yuri had no idea. Was this something he as a creator of this world was responsible for? Should he have made full backstories for every NPC in the game?

“There’s a legend,” continued the Elder as the last drops of sun slowly disappeared in the water, “about a place they call Top of the World. It’s from there the world was created. It’s supposed to be the point, in which all the possibilities collide.”

“But that’s just a story,” answered Yuri. At least, it was for now. He wanted to make an end objective for the player, in a game with not a lot of main plot going on. So, he made up some random stuff about the Top of the World that could grant a wish for those who will find the road there. But the truth was that Yuri had never gotten around to designing this place, or even making any concepts.

“Yes, that’s just a story that I tell the young adventurers who are going out to find their first adventures,” said the Elder in his old voice. But as the last bit of the sun went away, casting a shadow on Elder’s face, he spoke again in his usual voice, “And I never tell them one thing — I was there.”

“What do you mean? How?” asked Yuri, almost jumping in place.

“At least I think that I was,” said the Elder, finishing his cup in one go, and dropping it to return to his inventory midair, “I remember a flat white field full of snow. Endless stars above. Banners, horses. I was not alone. I was with a party. No, with the band. An army. I remember that feeling. That everything was possible. That fate of the world laid at my fingertips.”

For a moment, Yuri heard the cold wind and trampling of the horses. Somehow this felt genuine, this felt real. Even though Yuri never wrote anything remotely close to this when making the game. His heart trembled.

“How can I get there?”

“The shit should I know? It’s a piece of a memory. I told you, everyone has some strange shit going with their heads. Go up, and maybe towards the center? I don't know.”

“Maybe you know who I should ask?”

“Again with stupid questions. Remember I told you about wanting to punch someone? Well, right now I’m being very considerate! Stop asking questions. Stop ‘contemplating’! Go do something, for shit’s sake.”

Yuri was too overwhelmed by the new information to be hurt by Elder almost yelling at him.

“You know, you say ‘shit’ an awful lot,” he said, almost without thinking.

“And you’re ugly,” replied the Elder in a calmer tone, “Okay, go away now. I want to sit in peace until it’s not too dark.”

Yuri didn’t have a reason to object. He rose up, brushed some of the sand from his pants, and turned back, to the physician’s home.

“Thank you,” he said before walking away.

“Good night.”

As he walked back, he thought about how all this “Top of the World” thing could have been nothing but rumor. Or that the Elder could have simply lied to him. But even if so, that was the first lead he had. It would be stupid not to act on it. It would be stupid not to act.

At least in one thing the old man was absolutely right. This whole day until now, Yuri was little more than an observer. He was being led. And even if it worked for now, his luck could run out at any moment. If he wanted to find his way home, if he wanted to be of help to others, if he wanted to not be a burden — he had to take action.

Everything at the house was in order. Rootier and Marie were reading near the fire. Ada and the girl were hunching over something and talking. Yuri noticed some cloth dolls on the table near them. It looked cozy. Yuri couldn’t help but smile.

He wanted to spend some time with them, but even if he was feeling recharged and in high spirits, his body demanded rest. Ada showed him to his room. It was nice. With a lot of wood, decorated in green cloth and paint, and with the view on the lake.

Yuri opened the window. Sat on the bed. Took his clothes off. Lied on the back, looking on the wooden ceiling. Took a deep, deep breath and fell to a restful sleep.