A seemingly normal village

When the village came into view, you were far from impressed. Gone were the days where you could feast lavishly in your massive banquet hall before sleeping in your magnificent bed room. Hell, it feels like this dump is barely the size of your castle. Naturally, you're smart enough to not say it out loud when Alice hauls you past a small wooden fence. Walking along a small dirt trail, she waves and greets anyone she happens to see, making it clear that this small village has a strong sense of kinship between its residents.

Near the end of the trail is a small house, though it may be better described as a shack. The dilapidated wooden walls were damaged in several areas, and you're pretty sure you saw a hole in the ceiling. Unfortunately, this seemed to be your destination, as a little girl with identical brown hair as Alice ran out of the house and leaped into her arms while laughing. "Alice, you're back!" She cried in joy.

"Yes, yes, I'm back Mina," Alice says with an exasperated tone, clearly used to it by now, as she rubs her little sister's head. "Run along and tell mom we've got a visitor," she says, pointing to you. Meanwhile, you're still trying to think of a polite excuse to get out of here and not spend a night in this shithole, but you're all out of ideas, so the best you can muster is a smile and a nod of your head.

"Home sweet home," Alice says, turning to speak to you, "I know it's not much, and I'm sure you've been to much grander places, but this is the best I can offer you..." her voice trails off as she blushes in embarrassment, no doubt at the sight of her house.

"Nonsense, after days of travel I'm just happy to have a roof over my head," you say, and it wasn't a complete lie. You haven't camped in the wilderness ever since your artifact hunting days, and that was a lifetime ago. You give what was hopefully a reassuring smile at Alice, and follow her inside. The interior is just as shoddy as the exterior would suggest, but you do smell a nice aroma wafting presumably the kitchen. A quick peek inside nets you glimpse of a middle age woman, once again with the signature brown hair, humming as she stirs a pot. From your left, Alice walks walks into the kitchen to give her a mom a quick hug, before saying: "sorry mom, nothing again today." You think for a moment before you realize she was talking about returning home empty handed after a hunt. Tough luck.

"It's okay sweety, there's always next time," her mom responds, before turning to look at you. "I heard from Mina that we have a guest today? Don't let her talk your ears off now, it's okay to refuse her," she says with a grin, purposely ignoring her older daughter's pout as the younger one giggles.

You give a quick bow, and introduce yourself: "My friends call me Crow, I was traveling in the area looking for work when your daughter kindly saved me for a pitiful ****. I apologize for intruding into household, ma'am." That should do. While you never needed proper etiquette, it was still something you learned, and it seems to have definitely came in handy in this situation.

"Oh my," Alice's mom says with a raised eyebrow, "aren't you a polite one, far more so than our previous guests. But there's no need for any of that ma'am nonsense, I'm not that old am I? Just call me Addy," she says as she pours some soup out from her pot and into the waiting bowls. "Come on now, take a seat, we'd never let a guest go hungry in this house."

With dinner prepared, the four of you sit down on a cramped dining table. There's so little room you're constantly bumping elbows with Alice, who seems used to it and has already told you to stop apologizing. The food was honestly good for soup made from unknown scraps of vegetables and questionably old bread, but it was the banter between Alice and her family which gave you pause.

"Now, before my little Alice starts interrogating you on the great unknown-" Addy says before Alice interrupts her: "mom, I don't interrogate anyone, I just find it fascinating how different the world is outside the village!"

"More like how hot the guys from outside are right?" Mina chimes in, causing Alice to blush crimson and you to almost **** on your food. "Why you little-" to ward off her embarrassment, Alice pushes her little sister to the ground and begins to mercilessly tickle, all the while Addy watches with a smile on her face. It was a stark contrast to your family dinners in the past. Cold, silent, and lacking anything resembling familial love. Alice is the type of person to sacrifice anything for her family, even her greatest dream of leaving for the outside world, and this is why. Unlike you, who gave no second thought to killing your older brothers at the first chance you got. Perhaps, if your family had been something like this, the path you would've taken would've been different as well.

You're snapped out of your reverie by Alice, who asks if you wanted seconds, and politely refuse. After all, they likely only had barely enough to feed themselves, and you had no intention of imposing on them any further. Reaching into your pouch, you take out a gold coin from your era. Obviously the coin is not in circulation anymore, but the gold within the coin is pure, and is certainly to be of use to them. "Thank you, ma'am- I mean Addy, for your hospitality. I may not be able to repay you in kindness, but I can repay you in coin," you say, offering her the coin. Back in your day, this coin was a month's worth of pay for a peasant, and you doubt much has changed. However, based on the reaction on their faces, you may have misjudged. "No no no, we couldn't possibly accept that," Addy says, "I'm sure it's taken years of hard work and life risking for a mercenary like you to accumulate that. Besides, serving guests is a duty, and a noble one at that, you need no thank us."

Hold on, years of hard work? Has gold really become so scarce? Before you can respond, you hear footsteps from outside. A young man quickly peeks his head into the house before loudly yelling: "the Messengers are here. All residents to the town square!" After finishing his job, he runs off, and you can hear him yelling the same thing to every house in the village.

While you process what you just heard, you notice that for the first time since you've seen her, Alice has stopped smiling, and her expression looks grave. Addy, as well, gets up from the dinner table and rummages through a beaten up drawer to extract a box clinking with coins. Suddenly, you connect the two and two together, and conclude that these so called Messengers must be the ones collecting the tithe. A quick look at the box leaves you stunned, even though you don't show it: inside are a huge pile of copper coins, as well as an assortment of silver coins. If gold takes years to accumulate, then how long did it take for them to save up this much money, only for them to be tithed so heavily?

It seems you'll be questioning these Messengers.