The war was raging. The world was ending. And most villages and towns in the Bohar Plains had been abandoned. But that didn’t mean that all was terrible for everybody. A young child was walking through the field, looking for anything that might help her. Her clothes were ragged, she had no shoes, and the most valuable thing she had was her old satchel that she had gotten from the trash and fixed. Despite her poor state of clothes, she was relatively clean and her hair wasn’t too messy. The thing that stood out most about this child was the fact that she had two sheathed daggers at her belt. One was short, clearly meant for throwing while the other was longer. Her eyes were cold and brown, indicating of the harsh years of her life. Most children spent their days playing, learning, or cleaning to their parents. Some kids spend their days begging, fleeing, and hiding for survival. She spent her days fighting, scavenging, and doing anything that will get her out of the pit of poverty and into the higher life. A chill ran up her spine as she felt the cold breeze hitting her harshly.
Off in the distance she could see the tops of a few homes and began to head towards it. If it was a village then it might have some resources that she could use. There was a possibility of an Eldritch Monster or two being there but the front lines were far off fighting the main groups. As she got closer to the village, she could see the wretched state it was in. Windows were smashed, doors were knocked down, and many buildings had deep scratch markings from the Eldritch beasts that used to be there. The livestock who couldn’t be rescued had been slaughtered long ago and now their corpses had almost completely rotten away. Dala wondered if there would be anything worth keeping amongst these destroyed houses and stores. The child approached the first house of the village that was clearly hit first. The door had been broken into pieces and the little girl had to step carefully to avoid getting splinters into her feet. If it wasn’t for the windows, Dala wouldn’t have been able to see much. The firepit held no flames and there were no candles to light the way. She continued entering the house and saw that there was a living room with a kitchen and next to it were stairs leading up to the second floor. She went around the living/kitchen room to look for any supplies or food. In the broken cabinets there was a bag of wheat seeds, a rotten tomato, and an empty jar.
She reached up and managed to safely bring down the bag of seeds and the empty jar. After closer inspection of the bag of seeds, she saw that it was molding too. Dala took the bag of seeds and emptied it, keeping the burlap sack and putting it in a purple bag that would hold an endless amount of items. Turning to the jar, she put it in her purple bag as well. All these items would sell well in market places after the war since many people’s homes and items would be destroyed. The survivors would need replacement items so Dala planned to get them those items and to make a profit. With a smile, the child went over to the fireplace to check for unused wood. She found two logs that were untouched by the rain and took it. Everything that she found counted towards survival. Dala found a few more items from that room such as bowls, spoons, and an old coat. There was also furniture but most of it was too large to carry or was too damaged to be of any worth.
The child headed over to the stairs and began climbing up them. At the top, she found a small hallway that led to two doors. She decided to open the first door on the left and she walked into a child’s room. There was a small bed with a chest next to it and a box in the corner of the room that clearly used to hold items. In the middle of the room was a small rag doll that some child must have owned. Dala walked towards the doll and kneeled down to pick it up. The doll had red hair made up of yarn, two green buttons for eyes, a little sewn brown dress with an apron, and had clearly been stuffed with some sort of cotton. The little girl inspected the doll and began to wonder…things. Was this the type of toy that she would have gotten if things had turned out differently? Would she even enjoy such a small plaything? In another time, in another life, would she have been ignorant of the world and how it worked? The world wasn’t all evil or all good but it seemed very simple to be able to ignore the complicated parts of the universe and to just…play with a doll. Dala stared at the object as though it was a completely foreign thing to her.
“Yvette, is this toy worth anything?” Dala mentally asked.
“It might be worth a lot to the child who owned it.”
“The likeliness of me finding the kid who left it is slim.” The child mentally replied, “Still, it might be worth something to poorer parents who can’t afford making or buying fancier toys.”
Dala ended up keeping the doll and left the room after seeing little else to scavenge. Her next target was the parents’ room. She entered the room and saw it was a mess. The other rooms were in messes too but this was clearly a room that somebody had tried to leave quickly. The bed had been stripped of only half of its blankets, the wardrobe was still filled with a few clothes, and a jewelry box had been dumped onto the ground and its contents were scattered across the floor. A small smile appeared upon Dala’s face as she realized that this was the best part of the house. The jewelry were clearly cheap and made up of dead flowers so they weren’t that valuable. It was the blankets and clothes that would bring in the most profit since Glaciem was on its way. She picked up some of the jewelry but focused on getting the rest of the blankets and clothes into her purple bag. Once she was done, the child left the house satisfied with the loot she had gotten. Dala continued raiding the abandoned homes until she got to a small abandoned tavern. The child smiled and entered the tavern, bursting through the already weakened door and began to look for one thing and one thing only. She wanted all the alcohol this abandoned tavern could offer. Alcohol was disgusting to her but it paid a pretty price so it was worth going through the trouble of getting. Most of the tavern had been destroyed due to the monster attack but Dala knew that most of the building was useless to her. There was only one place that she was looking for. It didn’t take the child long before she found the door that would lead to the cellar but it was locked. Sighing with impatience, Dala went through her bag until she found her lockpicking kit. Taking out two picks, she began to work on unlocking the door. Her first attempted failed miserably, so did her second, and her third. It wasn’t until her fourth attempt that she was able to unlock the door. After cleaning up her lockpicking kit, she slammed the door open and ran down into the cellar. There were dozens of wine, beer, and ale bottles just waiting for somebody to take them all. Dala began bouncing up and down, clapping her hands with glee as she rushed over to take a bottle. She didn’t even bother opening it or looking at it, instead she stashed it into her purple bag that could hold anything and everything.
“The goddess of luck is with me today!” Dala exclaimed excitedly as she went to take another bottle off the shelf.
