Starlight gracing a particular wanderer in a brown overcoat with ashen marks all over, also graced a board. Its name was in the most recent language of the only continent named Ashtrim.
"Pioneer Ramshackle; Previously named Pioneer Port Hall", read out the never named wanderer, as the brown overcoat lost some of the ash to the sea breeze.
He breathed in. Exhaled out softly.
For the youngest receptionist of the previously named Pioneer Port Hall, a nameless traveler opened the doors of the Pioneer ramshackle. The receptionist didn't bother looking up and smiling at the traveler, he kept repeating a few words to himself, a rambling monologue practiced.
The traveler could be mistaken as a wanderer but the receptionist boy never what was the difference. His rambling continued as the wanderer closed the distance to the only pieces of furniture in this ramshackle.
He waited, while the receptionist kept moving about behind the desk, rambling in a whisper. The receptionist as if had forgotten the existence of the unnamed wanderer, engrossed more into his whispers as he filed the issue requests into categories.
The unnamed wanderer waited. And waited.
Watching the receptionist for a while, as the receptionist boy gained and lost the wanderer's existence to his occupied memory.
A desk bell rang and the boy alarmed looked up. He was startled.
The wanderer smiled, "May the Lady— "
"Welcome to Pioneer Port hall, currently under repairs, hence the temporary name Pioneer Ramshackle! How may I help you? I apologise for not being able to take note of you. Please understand every youth and aged people in the city are trying their best to remember. I am sorry again for going on a rambling—", the boy, young and naive, rambled aloud shaken.
"It's all right, just help me out."
The boy exhaled his hesitation out, "sure, it's what I am supposed to do. What can I help you with?"
The wanderer, or was he a traveler, in a brown overcoat stated, "I want to get some understanding of this city, get me a comfortable place to sleep on a rent based on hours spent, and a—a pioneer tag?—I think. I do have my adventurer's tag from Ashtrim, the city."
The boy nodded, "Understood. Uh, right. My name is Sance Bladed Cleaving. May I know yours, sir?"
An hour and a half later, the wanderer had a pioneer tag made of a wood carving, handmade on the spot by Sance. He also had his brown overcoat washed and drying in the cottage on the First Street.
The entire First Street was for Pioneers and Adventurers, also it was right next to the Pioneer Ramshackle.
But the one thing that was on the wanderer's mind, a grave understanding of the city. He remembered Sance's exact words, "Remembrance is forbidden. You have to keep fighting it."
The city was plagued. A plague unseen; a plague that wrestled with the will of the city's people to remember.
As the daylight broke the horizons edge in the morning, the wanderer questioned 'should he really wake up?'
He looked at his overcoat, it seemed to rustle to him. There wasn't a wind in the cottage.
The wanderer sat up, and began his morning routine. Wide awake and remembering.
Meanwhile in the Pioneer Ramshackle, a boy with dark hair and a fair skin slept peacefully. But he was awoken by the sudden crashing of some random part in the third storey of the ramshackle.
Sance ran up mid awakening from his one hour sleep, trying to find the cause of the loud crash.
With some coughing he did reach the crash site, a hole was through the roof's western part. Several parts of the makeshift roof thrown about on the floor right below the hole, but no perpetrator or reason for the fall could be seen.
Sance spent the next half an hour finding the reason on the third storey to no avail. So the young 10 year old boy started the repair with the spare pieces of wood he could find in the third storey.
He climbed up to the roof, then looked down at the wooden pieces. Smacked himself on the forehead, and climbed down the same way he climbed.
He went down to the second storey. Finding the ladder was easy, taking it up was the challenge. So he just pushed and dragged it at times, until it reached the stairs to the third storey.
Slowly he let it get laid down on the stairs inclined folding upon itself, as he remembered it now how to. He said, "time for pushing it up, keep pushing until it's third floor. Then carry it to the hole."
He had rambled quite a few times before as well. But this time he was louder.
Through all this time there hadn't been a single ringing of the desk bell on the reception
Sance took the remaining 20 minutes more he could spend on this problem, before the early risers arrived at the Pioneer Ramshackle. To either check up on their requests or to get any new requests.
The first one still to arrive at the Pioneer Ramshackle was still the same wanderer from last night. He wanted to understand more of the city, and the kid to him seemed the best informed.
Closer to the western end of the Tide Breaker wall, in the Second Street.
Cheal was playing a game of rocks and squares. A popular gamblers game in Cleaving, that's the knowledge he had gained from the last nine victories in the same game.
Several of the people from the underbelly were surrounding this particular round of this game, they were liking it's back and forth as Cheal had been drawn into a corner.
What Cheal had bet for playing this game was knowledge only he knew, while what he had asked from the other players was simple.
The crowd sometimes whispered what he had asked the other nine losers, and the whispers were quite mundane and intriguing.
"Show me the action of fire."
"Show me the action of water."
"Show me the action of earth."
"Why is the city called Cleaving?"