"Move your stones!"
A loud shout reached my ears not that long after the ringing of the tower’s bell stopped.
And it just had to happen pretty much right as I ntally prepared myself to spend several hours just standing around doing nothing but holding the straps of my charcoal-heavy backpack to keep it from sliding off my back.
"Move your stones!"
Before long, a young man appeared from beyond the corner of the street, carrying a huge, wooden pole with what could only be the sign of Greg’s smithy poorly painted on it.
"Move your stones or lose your turn!"
Like ants swarming from under the ground, adventurers suddenly ca from every corner, nook and cranny of the street, each quickly lining up by their personal queue stones and then waiting for the smithy’s worker to reach the very end of the line.
Which turned out to take several minutes longer than I thought, given how he would stop here and there, talk with a custor, swipe a small pouch of money out of the custor’s hand and give him sothing else in exchange before continuing on his way.
Even with those delays, though, I barely managed to get bored by the ti he reached our position, just a total of seven queue mbers away from the queue’s end.
"I require haste," Selia announced, right as the young, no older than fifteen years old kid was about to pass her.
"That will be..."
The kid turned his head and looked up, his already extending arm suddenly stopping in the middle of its motion.
His eyes opened wide while his mouth opened before mouthing sothing that I didn’t quite catch.
In response, Selia rely nodded her head.
"Understood," the young kid in my eyes and a young adult in the eyes of this world held on to the sign with just one of his arms, using the other to first salute by striking his chest and then fish out a different kind of waiting stone from the inner pocket of his otherwise simple robe.
"Please, enjoy the service of our master, Greg the Dwarfsmith!" the kid announced, only to offer Selia a bow before returning to his task.
And just a few monts later...
"Move your stones! The queue now shifts!"
Selia first grabbed her stone before stashing it back into her pocket and then grabbing by my arm and quickly pulling out of the orderly line of people.
"What?" I rely managed to ask before I saw several other queue mbers step off to the side, only for everyone to then advance the few steps they could with the decrease of the number of people waiting ahead of them.
Then, as the queue tightened once more, so rustling sound ca from the queue’s very back.
By the ti I turned my eyes back to the side, the sound already reached the area where we just stepped out from, allowing to watch how a middle-aged adventurer reached out and tapped the right shoulder of the young rchant in front of him.
The young rchant then did it to the person in front of him...
"Let’s get going," Selia said, dragging forward before I could fully see what was this strange ritual for.
"You know, you can just ask if you are curious about sothing," Selia protested not even a minute later, once she saw just how much I focused on the queue to our side, still waiting to see what was all that tapping for.
"There are tis when it’s best to witness sothing with your own eyes rather than to be fed the answer," I shook my head. "It’s not like I’m not grateful for the sentint, but..."
I cut my sentence in half, snapping my eyes to the queue when I spotted so movent.
This ti, it wasn’t so random tapping.
Instead, people just moved ahead as soon as they got the chance, only to then stop, wait for a mont and move again.
This whole back-and-forth continued for the next few minutes, pretty much all the way to when we finally reached the outskirts of the town’s walled-off area where the densely packed buildings gave way to a considerable chunk of open, undeveloped space.
It was then that I saw another wave, this ti of people putting their stones down, turning round to nod at the person behind them and then... just leaving in all directions, each heading to their own tasks.
All in all, the whole stone-changing process lasted no longer than three minutes. And for so reason, rather than participating in it all, Selia continued to press ahead, across the open stretch of the ground, past so kind of a vegetable farm and then all the way to where Greg’s smithy sat upon a small hill.
It was only there that I’ve managed to truly appreciate the length of the queue.
’Not to get too ahead of myself... but it wouldn’t be all that strange if this queue stretched out not into hours of work for Greg and his n but days, maybe even weeks and then even months worth of it!’
And Selia... skipped all of it, reaching as far as the small fence that surrounded the periter of the smithy, where she was finally stopped by a well-ard guard.
"Priority ticket?" the man asked in a grumbly tone, as if it was a slight to his entire lineage to deal with poor peasants daring to step upon Greg’s divine realm.
"That’s right," Selia didn’t appear to be bothered by the cold welco, fishing the stone from the kid right back out before offering it to the guard on the open palm of her hand.
"Let see..." the man muttered, reaching out for the golden stone lying on her palm.
"I would rather kill you than let you take it," Saintess countered without any hesitation.
But, having nowhere else to go, that hesitation went straight into and that foul, provocative mouth of mine.
"Should it go sothing along the lines, I would rather die myself than let you have it?" I asked, pushed by nothing but this weird, nagging feeling.
In front of this massive thug... I sohow didn’t feel intimidated at all.
And surprise surprise, the guard’s face finally relaxed, even reaching sothing one could, with a fair dose of restraint, call a smile.
"Good," he nodded his head before turning sideways, his huge palm pointing at the small gate hidden within the side of the fence, away from the smithy’s main entrance. "Welco to the Greg’s smithy, under the drunken dwarf’s ass!"
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