Peter and the group arrive at the general store. While Courtney haggles over the vendor trash the rest of them take a look around the store with Peter as their guide. Nothing too shocking, though much of the food available differs from their starting kingdom. Back there the people had a lot of rice, but it was more based on spicing the rice while it cooked. Over here while rice was a common dish it seems to be served plain with heavily sauced vegetables or meat.
As they fall into the new variety of spices Courtney finishes up with her haggling. In the end she sells all the random drops as well as Jason’s harvest. Both the first harvest and the second one he had squeezed out just before they got to town. All added together each of them got a gold coin and three silver while Jason received 32 silver more.
Finished with the general store, Peter guides them to the subsidized inn. He points out a couple of swankier places but the group declines as the kingdom wouldn’t pay for their night. Peter shrugs, “fair enough. Though do note that the free night is just that, a single night. The crown only covers a quick stop on your travels and not you settling down.”
Courtney nods, “we hadn’t planned on staying more than the night anyway. We’ve been here for a couple months and are a bit behind the curve.”
Peter shakes his head and sighs, “you travellers fly through the early levels. Not all of you, but more than reasonable. Anyway, if you’re leaving tomorrow do you have an idea of when? There aren’t any quests to go that direction at the moment.”
Courtney shrugs, “likely after sunrise unless either of you have a reason for a different time?” And she turns to the other two. Jason shakes his head and Rosha says she doesn’t care as long as they have breakfast first.
Courtney turns back to Peter, “sounds like sunrise then. Though I would like to know why you’re asking about it.”
Peter laughs at her obvious suspicion, “don’t worry. I just plan to head that way as well. My next question was going to ask if you would mind me tagging along. My husband, Gregor, is a few stops thataway and I haven’t seen him in a while. Figured I would drop in and surprise him. Plus with what you want you’re going to need someone to vouch for you so having me along would help. After all, you don’t seem like the types to want to wait around a couple of months.”
With a harsh glare Courtney stares him down, but Peter doesn’t flinch. As they reach the inn, she sighs and looks away, “whatever. Meet us here tomorrow and we will let you know our decision. We have to discuss this.” And the group enters the inn without Peter. He just shrugs and wanders off.
Inside the inn, the group books their rooms for the night then settles down at a table. After ordering the soup of the day and some rice with lamb for ten copper each, they sit there silently. The food arrives and they eat in silence as well. Not that the inn is quiet. While there aren’t any caravans leaving in their direction tomorrow, one is heading out in the other direction. Being free the inn is filled to the gills with guards, haulers, and even a few fellow travellers.
Rosha is the first one to break. “So are we going to let him come with us?”
Jason sighs, “I don’t think we have a choice. I couldn’t tell how strong he was. It is making me wonder if I am some sort of magnet to eccentric high level locals.”
Courtney laughs at this, “unless you’ve met tens of them you’re doing all right. While people with over a hundred levels are not that common. It also isn’t that rare, partly because they live longer. If I had to guess there should be three or four people who are past the seventh bottleneck in this place. The lizardkin George, Peter, maybe someone with the caravan which is staying over, and Gold-Fur’s father.”
“This comes mostly from where we’ve been so far. It has all been on the borders of the various kingdoms. While higher level locals do tend to be sprinkled throughout, the majority are in the capital and on the borders. If you had gone a handful of days deeper into your starting kingdom, it would have been hard to find someone with 50 levels under their belt, let alone 100.”
“As for Peter? I’m not getting any bad vibes from him, though I’m not getting any good vibes either. That’s the thing, really. He just happens to be one of the first people we met once we left the forest. It makes sense for that to happen too. He seems to be known by the local leader, Gold’s father, as well as being high enough level to keep us in check if we got rowdy. Him going in the same direction as us isn’t that hard to believe either. There are only two roads out of here.”
Rosha shrugs, “at this point I don’t think we can avoid him. Unless we change where we plan to go we will be going in the same direction and he knows when we plan to leave. Combined with the fact he can apparently wipe the floor with us, I think it is better to keep him in our sight.”
Jason sighs, “once you catch the attention of someone like Peter it is shockingly hard to drop them. We probably have a tail all the way to the bamboo city. Though that brings up the question of what the city’s actual name is.”
Courtney rubs the bridge of her nose, “no choice it is than. Tomorrow we let him follow us. Now there isn’t much time till night but if either of you need to do something in a town, this would be the time.”
Yeah but this is the first strong person Jason has run into that was relatively normal, everyone else was either a bizarre build like his first two encounters with an energy user and a poisoner or absolute monsters that could level kingdoms by themselves and in one case a literal monster so powerful (probably lv499) that she drove away biomes, and even this guy and his husband are actually not all that normal due to
having a piece of the literal void in their house.
so while players running into powerhouses may be normal he specifically is a magnet for the weird and monstrous likely due to his nature as both a reincarnator and as someone who pursues the eternal path.
Not the path to become eternal but the path itself being eternal and that is what makes him so special, he will never settle, he will always push onwards, and he will never stop, while simultaneously inspiring those around him to also keep pushing forward and that kind of person will always attract their fellow oddballs, it just so happens those same oddballs either die early or become absolute monstrosities.