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Carnelia: Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of Carnelia, found in The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky.

To Obtain: Speak to Rhett in his home next to Abend Bar after Training: Retrieval.

 

The Imperial Chronicle

I stood there, upright in front of the revolving door, scuffing the heels of my boots against the ground. Pulling slightly on the color of my trench coat, I dropped my chin and gazed at my partial reflection in the curved glass. Aside from my short cropped-hair, I wore a modest-looking double-breasted leather raincoat and a pair of special order, steel-reinforced boots, both of which at first glance appear to be the most common of common apparel. Yet, they were in fact, much more than the naked eye could detect.

My ordinary, average appearance-- it was of just as much importance today as it had been any other day in times past.

Not far off, the sound of footfalls rhythmically like a steady beat of a pendulum swing back and forth, as the throngs of those coming and going moved quickly along the cobblestone avenue, enveloped and tinged silver by the morning mist. At times, the calling voice of a street peddler disrupted the steady flow, but as soon as the hawking cry faded away, it would resume its course.

Each morning that I found myself setting foot in the Imperial City, I also found my surroundings to be unchanged and stained by the same somber tone of grey. Snatching up a magazine from the underarm of a street vendor, I tossed a few mira into the left hand poised expectantly behind his back.

The Imperial Chronicle; the magazine I read so often that even the ink bleeds were familiar. Roughly flipping open its cover, I scan the headlines along the top of a monochrome pages. Then suddenly, my breath caught in my throat.

At the very bottom of the local news page, I found those letters, that sequence of characters which I had not heard nor seen since the time of that life-changing incident. My eyes instantly gravitated to the spot, and for a time, remained fixated.

'Ein Selnate.' the very meaning of those letters became lost to my senses as I stood motionless, my gaze fixed on the same line of text, until it all seemed to coalesce into a single blotch of ink. After a few seconds of blank comprehension, my vision settled and I wrenched my eyes to the beginning of the article. As I began to read, my memories verged on a single point in my past, and then slowly started to run in reverse, heading for that fateful event three years prior when his name was first introduced to me.

It was on an afternoon all those years ago, on a day not unlike this one, where the capital was overshadowed by its typical gloomy aura. I was a little younger than now, a twenty-two year old boy who stood silently in front of the boutique door as usual, double checking his appearance before lightly treading over to Micht's Imperial Factory.

It was on this day that it had been arranged for me to receive a new job from Micht, the shop owner, himself. Although he was a drab middle-aged man, I, being the orbment enthusiast I was, had found myself as one of his few regular customers.

I headed down a dank alleyway and after passing through a partially rotted wooden gate, I could see the soft glow of the flickering orbal light just outside the entrance of the factory whose structure was halfway below street level.

I first began receiving jobs from Micht about the time when dissension began to occur in society over the Hundred Days War. It was during this period that relations between the Liberl Kingdom and the Empire were at their worst and the importation of orbments had become almost non-existent. Conspiring with underground elements and planning a smuggling operation, Micht made me out to be his accomplice in the crime. For the job which I received by his hand, was none other than that of the courier.

Being nothing more than a commoner in my teens at the time I met him and a juvie devoid any connections in life besides, I naturally jumped at the opportunity without a moment's hesitation. Yet, even after relations with Liberal had returned to some degree of normalcy, I realized I was in no mood to give up my specialty which focused mainly on the delivery of stolen goods. The reason being: there was no job out there we could bring in the kind of mira this one did.

With and unrefined and inconspicuous appearance, I had countless times before, hidden items of various sorts in my hat and trousers and made my way hither and thither between the borders of the neighbouring nations. And though to my delight, my wallet had become increasingly laden with a bounty of monetary rewards, I have routinely changed my alias as a precautionary measure. So much in fact, that these false names had built up into quite a list over the last few years. I had been known as Phil, the frivolous Rooney, the trickster, and even Kris, the coward. However, Micht has always called me by one name: Toby. This was the identity I had used for my initial job, and the one I liked above all the others.

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