"What?" asked Avere.
"I am not part of the challenge, though I did do a small trade in exchange for being allowed to do my job" the man declared, a hint of deep pride hidden beneath his every word, and a bit of apathy and hate towards whatever his job entailed.
"Might I ask what your 'job' is?" he asked, feeling slight fear of whatever answer could possibly await him, coming from the unknown man dressed as a messenger.
"I am the messenger." he said simply.
"You are a messenger?" he said, " a messenger for who?"
"I am the messenger, simple as that." he explored that simple wording further.
"What?" Avere asked, repeating his question for the third time now, still not understanding, perhaps still being slightly confused by what had happened with the Sekaria that was now supposedly back inside his subconsciousness.
The messenger sighed for a moment, throwing his stretching his back and looking upwards, his puch made of an unknown being's leather swinging wildly.
"I am the messenger, the very archetype of a messenger."
Avere still did not understand, hesitating to further the question and ask another of fear what the man's reaction might be.
"When all began there were made archetypes of all beings, of destroyers, of liars, of sleepers, of the wake, of magicians, of warriors, of watchers, of truthtellers, of soothsayers, of bakers, of bikers, of flyers, of diggers, of slaves, of masters, of players, of creators, of hiders, of finders, of the enders, of the beginners." he said, still not really making that much sense.
"I have been there since the beginning, I am the very concept of a messenger, and I am the messenger, I am a messenger, I am only a messenger, my name is a messenger, my life is that of a messenger, my purpose is that of a messenger" at that he sounded slightly upset and angry, " I am the messenger, so please, do not question my very reason for existing..:"
"Okay..." he did not fully understand..." so there's a destroyer that destroys, there is a liar that lies, there is a creator that creates, there is probably also a feeler who feels, and you are the messenger who brings over messages?" he asked to make sure, intent on ripping a rather dark joke after confirming the rough idea.
"Indeed, " the messenger nodded, " there are many of us, and we are all more powerful than you, aside from the weaker ones who claim to be weaker, so don't try shit." he paused, pointing at the boy, " got it?"
"Is there also a jokester who jokes? Is there a r#pist who r#pes? is there a glutton who eats? Is there a assaulter who assaults? Is there a seducer who seduces? Is the-" the joke got lost in his own mind.
"There is everything you can imagine and more, there is even a strongest, though he is not the true strongest, kind of ironic when one thinks about it, perhaps just a pompous title he partially gave to himself..." he muttered in the end.
"Nevertheless", he returned to his previous self, " I've been paid to deliver three items to you, together with an important message and a few pieces of information..." he uttered aloud, grabbing into his pouch and taking out what seemed to be a small slab of metal with a fin placed atop, about as big three inches wide and one and a quarter inches long, decorated with a golden compass and covered in golden plates, something fixed at the bottom to allow it for both better grip and do something else, there being numbers along the fin in a half-circle.
"A sun dial?" Avere asked, not understanding the purpose of the seemingly completely random item, also slightly, subconsciously mocking the messenger for some reason he did not quite understand, perhaps because he had lately always been the one who did not understand anything an-
"I'm sorry, " he added.
"Don't worry, they already told me you are a bit stressed and to ignore the way you talk and perhaps subconsciously mock me... actually, they told me word for word the words you just told me..."
"Who told yo-" Avere asked, feeling confused to an even greater degree, still looking at the golden plated sun dial, seemingly made out of brass as he now realized, almost subconsciously.
"Sorry, he asked me to do this as an anonymous, and he scares me to a much greater degree than you could ever try to achieve..."... he took a small break, letting it sink in...
"But either way, this sun dial is one aligned with the golden city, with lady crisis's cathedral, the one closest to the place your real body is currently... buried... for lack of a better term..." he loudly announced, though he whispered the last part, still audible to Avere.
Avere just had more questions despite what the messenger was telling him this entire time.
"Ok, I see you are not following, so let me just explain how these dials work, okay?" he said, hesitating for a small moment after the question he had just asked, but quickly restarting his explanation.
"Back when the first cities were founded in the forsaken realm, and yes, there are cities there." he looked at Avere who was about to interrupt him from what he had found out within the forsaken realm, his own experiences, " The people required a way to find the cities after straying from their paths, finding new islands and adding them to maps, using them to gather food from the beings trapped there, using them to gain actives in some rather rare cases, such as, perhaps one day, yours." he added, looking at Avere.
"They cleverly utilized the fact that the islands worked seperetely, all using the very sun from their home worlds as it shone onto them before they were put where they now are, all of them being special and having a different magnetic wavelength, the same going for all pieces of land taken from there." he pointed at the sun dial.
"Inside this one, on the sun dial itself, on the compass and it's needle, on the fin, there is brass and gold taken from the golden city, and it will lead you there, a city also known for having a rather normal passing for time compared to the outside of the forsaken realm." he finished the explanation that was more akin to a small story as Avere now held the apparatus, about a pound, in his hand, playing around a bit with the fin before he put it down on the bench, praying it wouldn't fall through the empty space between the wooden planks.
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