4 Loops looping

Algiore is beautiful. It is and isn't like Madeline thought it would be.

The village consists of one cobblestone street that winds up a cliff, with wooden houses on each side – and a lighthouse at the very top of the cliff. From up there, the view is spectacular, just wide open ocean as far as the eye can see, the waves glittering in the sunlight like someone spread gems all over them. Below the lighthouse there is a beach with little boats and some fishermen, busy in task of shifting barrels around.

There is a small central square in the village, just about middle of the cobblestone road. It's the only part of the village that's completely level, everything else is slanted a little upwards. There is a well there, with some children playing around it, and not far from the well there are couple of shop stalls, one of them selling fish and the another selling baked goods. There are few people standing around the square, chatting amongst themselves about things Madeline has never heard about – about lords and thieves and assassination of some highborn lady she's never heard about.

Warriors run up and down along the street of Algiore, up to the lighthouse and then down again, always in such a hurry. Although some of them don't seem to be in hurry at all. There is one woman who keeps trying to jump up to the roof of one of the buildings – another has already managed it, and as Rosaline watches she does an outrageous little dance just beside the roof ornament, laughing uproariously as she does it.

A little bit after that, Madeline watches with horror how one of the warriors actually jumps from the lighthouse and down cliff, a drop of at least sixty meters. The warrior disappears into the bushes below and she doesn't see what happens to him – she's too horrified to go out and see if he made it or not. Apparently it's nothing unusual, though, because no one else… no one else checks on him either.

Little later, she sees another warrior attempt the same feat and doesn't stick around to watch the results.

The people of Algiore, though… The villagers as she comes to think of them. There is something wrong with them. They aren't like the warriors and they aren't like her either. They're…

There are couple of elder ladies standing not far from the stall that sells fish. They wear clothes made of fabric – long dresses with tight waists an sleeves that end at the elbows. One of them is fanning herself with a paper fan, the other has a parasol she has placed between her and the sun. Madeline watches them from the shadows of the fish stall, and listens.

"Oh, poor Lady Elliot," the lady with the parasol says, shaking her head sadly. "To lose her daughter like that. No mother should have to go through something like that."

"She was so young too, the poor dear," the other answers, rapidly fanning herself. "And all for what, some pretty little bauble? The things people can do to each other, can you even imagine…"

"Did you hear, though – about that jewel?" the first asks, leaning in to whisper. "Apparently it was some old relic – worth king's ransom, it was!"

"Indeed? I know the Elliot family is fortunate, but they owned something like that?"

"And now it's all gone. No wonder Lord Elliot is so desperate to find someone to capture the thief."

The two women hum in solemn agreement and are quiet for a moment, thinking on the matter. And then the lady with the parasol speaks again. "Oh, poor Lady Elliot," she says and shakes her head. "To lose her daughter like that…"

They've been repeating the discussion ever since Rosaline sat down to watch them, the same lines over and over in endless loop, making the exact same gestures as they talk, the exact same expressions – even the tones of their voices flow the same. Over and over they go over the same discussion – and judging by the looks of them, they might've been going at it for… forever.

Every other villager is the same. Some of them don't say anything, but the ones that do speak just repeat themselves, again and again. The fish seller calls out the same sales pitches at precise intervals, over and over. The children tell the same jokes to each other, shout out the same complaints when one of them cheats, let out the same bursts of laughter… and then do it all over again.

It's like they're all stuck in a single moment, repeating it endlessly without ever knowing it.

Mostly they just ignore Madeline, though. When she approaches them, they don't react to her. And when she speaks to them, it's like they don't hear. Maybe they don't. She'd think they were all deaf and blind to things outside their little bubble of endlessly repeating seconds except she sees one of them talking to a warrior – and reaching out to him.

"What am I going to do, what am I going to do?!" the villager frets. "I'm going to lose my job at this rate, I'm going to –"

The warrior lets out an impatient noise and hurries the villager along with a winding motion and a muttered, "Yeah, yeah, just give me the quest already."

And it works! The villager stops mid sentence. "Please take care of those pesky Rose Aphids for me, before they destroy my boss' flower garden!" he says instead and a window opens in front of him. At first Madeline thinks it's a trade screen – but it's different. There are no goods on display – just text she can't read at a distance, and buttons for accepting or declining.

"Oh, thank you so much, you're a real life-saver!" the villager says, relieved when the warrior accepts. Moments later the warrior is off, dashing across the street and soon out of sight, leaving the villager behind.

Not a minute later, the villager starts fretting again, tugging at his hair and pacing back and forth restlessly. "What am I going to do, what am I going to do?"

Cautious, Madeline approaches him. "Hello?" she says. "Are you alright?"

He ignores her and keeps on pacing and muttering, "What am I going to do, what am I going to do?"

"That warrior promised to help you, surely it will be alright now?" Madeline says, a little hopeless, and again he ignores her and just keeps on pacing.

She tries again but after a while of no results, she leaves him, disappointed and disheartened. Little later, she sees the same villager repeating the same discussion with another warrior – who again promises to deal with the Rose Aphids. And after the warrior leaves… the villager starts fretting again.

Then there are the sales people.

One of them sells clothing and armor – leather jackets, trousers and boots, yes, but also armor. Chest plates and graves and gauntlets, and robes the likes of which she's never seen before. They're being sold by a cheerful female salesperson who recites the same lines as the weapons seller did, and who doesn't otherwise react to Madeline at all. Another sales person who sells jewelry – necklaces and earrings and rings and bracelets, all of them, beautiful and quite expensive. She doesn't variety from those old patterns either. Neither do either of the sales people on the square, really, not aside from their occasional sales pitches that they shout at set times, like clockwork.

Aside from the warriors – and her – everyone in Algiore is stuck in little loops. It's confusing and disheartening and a little terrifying. Especially since she knows that she was like them – like every other sales person here, she too was stuck on a loop. It had once been natural to her too.

She has no idea why it isn't anymore, but looking at it from the outside is extremely disconcerting and she has no idea what to do about it. Or what to do about herself.

So she sits in the central square in the shadows of the fish stall and listens to the lady with the parasol and the lady with the fan talk about Lady Elliot's daughter who had died, and the jewel that had been stolen, wondering. Were Lady and Lord Elliot stuck on repeating loops too? Is it just the people Algiore that are like that – or is it the whole world?

A warrior runs into the square, talking to himself. "- just wasn't there, I'm telling you," he says at no one as he goes, past her. "The NPC just wasn't there. I don't know, a bug maybe. Nah, I'm not gonna bother, let someone else report it. Just head up to the crossing, get some pots from the travelling merchant, alright? I'll check in my quest for the lighthouse…"

Madeline looks after him as the warrior runs up the road, towards the lighthouse, soon too far for her to hear him. Frowning, she looks between where the Warrior went – and then at the ladies talking about lady Elliot.

Why aren't warriors like that – what makes them different? They come and go wild and free, and aside from physical features that occasionally match, they rarely act the same. Not outside those interactions they go through with villagers and salespeople. Outside those little transactions, the warriors behave wildly different. Not to mention how they move.

Only warriors run in Algiore. And they run so fast too. Like nothing could ever tired them out. And in the mean while villagers are all stuck. Like they're glued in their places, moving only to return to where they started from.

"I don't get this," she murmurs to herself, rubbing at her forehead. "I don't get this at all."

Maybe… maybe it had been a mistake to leave the store. Maybe she should've just stayed. At least things made sense there.

The warrior that ran up to the lighthouse soon runs back down, passing her by again, never once slowing down. She looks after him, tired and confused. Why are the warriors always in such a hurry? And where are they going? Not one of them seems to have any intention of staying – and they obviously don't live in Algiore. They came from somewhere, and then they just left, like the village was barely a pit stop.

After a moment of weighing her options, Madeline stands up and heads down the road and away from the square. Her own shop is just little below it. She stops there to look at the store front – so strange and so familiar from the outside. Then she heads to the other side instead, to the weapon store.

Nothing has changed there.

"Welcome to Shining Weapons!" the weapon's seller greets her from behind his counter.

"Hello again," Rosaline nods to him. "I came back," she says and then, when he doesn't answer, speaks again. "I looked around in the village. There are a lot of people here. Did you know that Algiore is built on a cliff? It arches around it and there's a lighthouse on top. I didn't know about it before. And I didn't know we had a village square either."

Of course, he doesn't answer, but that doesn't matter. He listens. At least she hopes he does. Looking around the shore, Madeline talks, just unloading what's she's seen and realized. It's not much, but it's something and it was more than she knew before, stuck in her own store. It's what she wishes someone would've told her earlier.

"I'm not sure what's wrong with the people," Madeline says then, soft and sad. "Or maybe there's something wrong with me, maybe I'm… not supposed to be like this. No one seems to find it odd at all, how the villagers are. The warriors, they don't seem to care. I don't think they're from here but they don't think there's anything strange about it, so maybe… maybe it's like that where ever they came from. Maybe it's like that everywhere. So maybe it's just me, but…"

She trails off, looking down at the bows on the display. Then she turns to look at the weapons seller. "What is your name?" she asks him. "Do you know your name? Could you tell me?"

He doesn't answer and she looks away, towards the window beside the door. Through it she can see a store front. Her own. "I probably should go back to my shop," she says, wondering if the weapons seller ever looks at her store – if he's ever curious about what it looks like inside. "Someone has to sell potions. But… I don't think I'm going to."

Shrugging her shoulders, she takes a deep breath and then slowly releases it. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do, but… I'm going to do something. I'm going to try and see if there's… if there's answers to this stuff," she says and turns to face the weapon's seller. He's smiling at her, welcoming and bland. "Hey," she says, inspiration striking her as she runs a hand over her apron. "Would you like a gift?"

From the pocket of her apron, Madeline takes out the Blessed Revival Potion she's been carrying and sets it on the table between them. The liquid inside the crystal bottle glows golden in the dim light of the store. "I don't know if it's any use to you, but… you can have it. It's yours," she says and pushes it over, smiling. "I want you to have it."

With that done, she turns to leave, carefully ignoring his complete lack of reaction to her gift. "If you ever leave the store… be sure to check out the lighthouse," Madeline says over her shoulder. "The view from up there is really something special."

-oOo-

"Hey, the Customer Service just informed us there were several emails complaining about a glitch in the system. Something about Algiore's Potions NPC being missing."