Word From A World | Commence - Book 1

✧ Four | How Far the Path Roams ✧

I knew that a place like this would never exist back home, knowing that Earth had long-awaited peace. But the balance of good and bad and right and wrong was necessary.

The village seemed to be right on the coast of a large body of water with mountains behind it, enlightening the scene with an astonishing waterfall. I had never seen such a landscape with wonders deterring the village from other inimical activities.

The upbeat music and fortuitous village had enthralled me, and so I made it my first destination in this world.

When I had finally brought myself into the village, I walked along the path with open eyes that observed every confounding movement. The size of the village didn't appear too overwhelming or underwhelming. It was "just right" as Goldilocks would put it. Yet, the buildings' unique architectural structures was a distinct story itself. They gave off a cozy feel that made me feel like I was walking the streets of a fantasy book. The quadrilateral shape of the majority of the buildings reminded me of the shops in Diagon Alley from Harry Potter. The color schemes of the old and fragmented buildings with overgrown vines reminded me of cities from Ancient Greece and Rome. Despite the festered and oddly structured buildings, the village seemed to thrive on its own.

The main attraction for me was the village's residents. In my own foreign eyes, these people were not ordinary. The physical features that they possessed were like ones of animals with ears on their heads and tails on their rears. My mind did not want to process the fact that these half animal people had exceptional features that in my world were only acquired via special effects like in movies. Were they even human?

It was possible, but to my Earthly eyes, they were not of the human species. They were alien, or maybe I was the alien.

In my opinion, this was kind of cool and creepy. For goodness sake, I was standing in a village of furry people. And yet there were also the ordinary looking humans. The ones whose figures were complementary to mine.

At least I knew I wasn't completely the odd one out. The wonder of this world had just taken me by surprise.

I approached what had looked like the merchant area of the village. Wooden food stands were set up line by line and closely across from each other. It was almost like the outdoor market areas like in some parts of Asia back home.

I strolled by with customers searching for the material or food to consume while merchants from every corner were chanting and promoting their products.

A fruit stand stood proudly in the middle of other food stands with the owner waving a foreign fruit in his hand. I picked up the pace and grinned at the man with a piece of fruit in his hand. Large signs were hammered to the stand, so I leaned over to read them. I muttered the words that were carved into the wooden sign, "One appalorsh for the price of two coilicie each."

Like the language that the people spoke, the sign was also written in English, so I was able to read it with no equivocations. I would suspect that on a different planet, the language spoken would be different, but that was not the case. The words "appalorsh" and "coilicie" were quite strange, but I had some context of the sign to decipher what those items were. I came to the conclusion that an appalorsh was the strange fruit the merchant was holding. It was shaped like a peach with a hard outer skin like an apple. The fruit was strangely a lilac color with a beige stem peeping from the top. And for the other word on the sign, I just had to substitute it with the word "dollar" to verify that it was the currency of this world.

I picked one up and reached for the pouch attached to my belt so I could pay the man. He nodded as I handed over the coins. I gave a small wave and continued my jaunt around the village.