In one of the poorest neighborhoods of the city of Eaglesville, Vermont, an apartment door opened nearly silently. A single figure stepped through the open door and quietly shut it behind him. 

The figure was casually dressed. He wore jeans and a simple t-shirt, the easy to acquire "uniform" of the small store at which he worked. He was on the shorter side, standing perhaps five feet and three inches tall. He had messy blonde hair and he was tanner than most of his neighbors because he had worked a variety of odd jobs to stay afloat in the post-pandemic economy and had even worked to get people registered to vote during one of Vermont's hottest summers in living memory. 

He locked his door behind him and began to turn to head to work. As he did he heard the familiar and unwelcome noise of his cellphone going off. He sighed and continued to walk towards the elevator that'd allow him to quickly reach the ground floor of his apartment building while he reached into his pocket and pulled out his old, but reliable, phone. 

The screen flashed to life as he pushed a button on the side of the old galaxy phone. As it did he saw the notification that had caused the thing to beep in the first place; an email. As he reached the elevator and tapped the button to call it to his floor he clicked on the symbol representing his email and the phone's screen temporarily went white while it loaded the message for him. 

The phone was slow but it got the job done. At the same time as the elevator let out a loud noise to alert anyone nearby that it had arrived, the phone finished loading the email and when Andrew glanced at it he let out an angry sigh. The subject of the email let him know everything he had needed to know; "A Late Fee Has Been Applied To Your Account".

He stepped into the elevator even as its doors were still opening and he softly banged his head against the cold metal of the elevator's walls, even while he clicked on the button to signal the elevator to take him downstairs. The doors began to shut almost as soon as they had fully opened, and a second later he felt the floor beneath him rumble while the elevator began to journey down to the bottom floor of the building.

In the vibrant heart of Eaglesville, Vermont a creature that looked like a kindly old man stood in front of an abandoned, bankrupt cafe. The creature grinned, his mouth a perfect replica of this universe's version of humanity. He rose one of his withered old hands and channeled his infinite stores of arcane energy. 

The man was completely alone and his array of omnipotent powers made it quite easy for him to fabricate what he wanted to create; a simple tent, at least on the outside. The tent immediately came into being, fully set up and everything, right in front of the abandoned cafe, and the strange creature stepped into it. 

The inside of the tent defied physics by being much larger than the exterior dimensions of the thing suggested it should be. Fortunately for the creature creating such a tent was something that even mundane magicians could do without much difficulty, and so was effortless for a creature was mind-bendingly powerful as it was. 

The odd entity rose its other hand and watched as a number of tables and lights began to blink into existence all around it. As they did, the creature lowered one of its two hands and reached into its pockets. He rummaged around in the pocket for a second before pulling his hand back out of his pants and gazing at the object he had just pulled from it. The object was a bottle filled with a bright red liquid, an "Essence" that he himself had made. 

"The essence of the warlord to start us off huh? How exciting." The creature whispered, darkly. His eyes narrowed as he studied the object in his hand, before placing it down on one of the nearby tables. He had a lot of essences to place on his many tables because he knew that he'd be getting the customer he had come here for sooner rather than later.

"How do I write this damn email?" The store clerk asked himself as the bus he was on drove deeper and deeper into Eaglesville. It had been a few minutes since he had first discovered that he'd need to work some extra hours in order to pay off the late fee he had been tacked with. 

The bus he was on zoomed through the city, quickly leaving behind the less developed parts of the place and entering into the more upper-class sections of the man's adopted home. As he glanced out of the window he saw buildings, schools, and stores all whizzing past him. They were little more than colorful blurs. 

His fingers were on his phone's virtual keyboard but he couldn't bring himself to type anything. He was quickly growing frustrated with himself as he tried to make some headway into this email, but he just couldn't. Like many people he was working a job, this wasn't a "career" to him. The thought of spending more time in that store was something he couldn't really stomach. 

The closer he got to his place of employment the more he felt sickened by the thought of asking for extra hours there. He didn't hate his job, but he also couldn't really stand the idea of having to spend more time there than was necessary to get by. At the moment there was a quiet war brewing within him, one where on one side stood the part of his mind that knew that he needed the extra money so he'd have to work, and on the other side stood the part of him that wondered if it was worth continuing to work at that dead-end job. 

His bus was, unbeknownst to him, getting closer and closer to the site where the strange human-like creature had set up his shop. As he got closer and closer a strange, and seemingly alien instinct told him to get off the bus. It spoke to him in a loud "Voice" and it sincerely wanted him to stop the bus and get out. He ignored it at first and continued to stare at his phone, helplessly. 

He was lucky that he was one of the only people on the bus. Had he not been, he surely would have been looked at strangely, because he was visibly grimacing as he studied the phone in his hand. The other strangers on the bus were all seated on other ends of the public transit vehicle and they were too lost in their own stories to notice the emotion visible in Andrew's face. 

The young man sighed as he put his phone away. He turned and began to stare out the window as it zoomed towards his place of employment, and into the area known as the beating heart of the city; its gorgeous downtown district. As it sped into the heart of the city, the alien voice in Andrew's head grew more and more insistent that he get out of the bus. The young man audibly sighed and he reached up and lightly tugged on the yellow line that stretched from one end of the bus to the next. As he did a loud sound filled the bus for a split second and the overhead display near the front of the bus lit up. 

Andrew waited as the bus driver looked for a place to stop and let him out. It only took a few moments for him to find a number of empty parking spaces downtown that he could use to stop the bus and let out the young cashier. When the bus slowed to a stop Andrew silently got up and walked to the door in the middle of the bus, which was the one closest to him.

It slid open with a hiss and he stepped through it and onto the sidewalk. The door hissed shut and the bus almost immediately began to move again. Andrew was on a nearly empty sidewalk and he began to walk in the direction of his job. 

"Well... I guess I'm getting my cardio in." He said, to no one in particular. It was a cool autumn day and the weather was perfect for this little excursion. Off in the distance, Andrew could barely see a lone tent pitched in front of an empty store. As he began to approach it he let out a long sigh. 

"It could always be worse..." Andrew reminded himself as he began to get closer and closer to the tent. Since it was early morning in September there was almost no one on the sidewalk beside him and he slowly made his way towards an area in which he could see more details of the tent. 

The thing was a simple tent, the sort one might expect to see if they went camping with a minimalist. And right as Andrew began to get close to it, the thing's single flappy entrance opened and a kind-looking old man poked his head out. The man looked around and studied his surroundings before seeing Andrew and beginning to visibly brighten. 

"Hello!" He shouted, his voice much deeper than Andrew would have suspected. The human-like creature seemed overjoyed to see Andrew, which confused and creeped out the young man. He intended to just walk past the figure, but the man wasn't done talking. 

"Are you here to be a customer of my pop-up shop?" The old man asked, his voice filled with an undeniable, almost charming level of enthusiasm. Andrew was closing in on him, and though he considered shaking his head and just trying to walk past the figure a small, quiet voice told him that he wasn't an impulsive shopper or someone who was bad with money and that he should be polite. After all, it wasn't his fault that he was late on his rent, it was because his boss wasn't giving him enough hours in the first place. 

When Andrew reached the tent and stood beside the figure whose head was poking out he actually stopped. He hadn't responded yet, which was a bit rude on his part, but he was considering what to do here. He was still for almost a quarter of a minute, debating what to do about this strange old man and his "Pop-up shop" before he spoke. 

"Hey man, what are you selling in there?" He asked, mostly to be polite but also because he was a bit curious. The man smiled at him and retreated into the tent, leaving the flap open behind him. Andrew paused when he saw the man's head fully vanish, as the tent was quite small on the outside and shouldn't have been able to seemingly consume the man so thoroughly. 

Andrew hesitated for a second, unsure of what to do. He then looked up and down the street and saw that no one seemed to be paying attention. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the time. He still had an hour before he needed to clock in at his job. He then decided to be brave and to see what sort of baubles and curiosities the "store" might hold and steeled himself. He silently knelt down to examine what laid beyond the flap leading in and out of the tent. What he saw made him gasp in surprise. 

The tent was somehow bigger on the inside than on the outside, and the inside of the thing was a rather large and dimly lit storefront lined with tables that held countless bottles. The bottles were plain but they were filled with bright liquids, and in front of each bottle of essence was a tiny card that listed the names of the potions and what attributes they'd grant whoever was brave enough to imbibe them. 

The figure who had invited Andrew into the store was now standing tall in front of one of the tables and he was grinning at the young man. His eyes were bright and filled with an intense light, a sort of light that Andrew had never seen before. 

"Well, come on in Andrew. I think you'll like what I have for sale." The man uttered, his voice filled with a staggering amount of excitement. Andrew had only heard that sort of excitement from a child who had been about to get a new toy. And yet Andrew couldn't help himself, he wordlessly crawled through the flap and found himself inside of the store, his eyes still scanning the large room before him. 

HandyHelper

Trying out something with this story. I've also created a Google Doc that I'll be using to reveal and link whatever choose your own adventures and jumps I incorporate into the story. Here's the link.