Ah, the joys of being a mercenary. A light, free lifestyle, just as I'd wished for, made all the better for making someone horrible pay me for it. Now, this supposed beast that's committing abductions must be around the village, which seems largely barren at the moment. I suppose all I need do is wait.

How trite.

Yunalesca, the very same who claimed to have felled me with (presumably) an ahriman, is finding trouble in her self-indulgent paradise, losing followers to a flower-doling abductor. She's trying to recruit warriors, and selling her body to do so, even on such a scant level as a handshake and hug. (Her scribes are most entertaining, I might add. At best, their loyalty seems to be rather tongue in cheek.)

Yunalesca, I'll come and fight away this Abductor, and return your tribesmen. I won't even ask for your offered payment. Just a public admission of your fraudulent successes. You're not a queen, nor superior. You simply have charisma and an inflated self-concept, without any justification for your pride.

Admit these things, and you'll have your warrior.

The prime unbeliever has fallen. He would spend all of his time in a lab, mocking magic and the power of pure soul. It yields the same in the end either way, but he eschewed the possibility that the answer was not to be found in a test tube.

It's certainly done him a lot of good in recent weeks.

May the rest of you learn from his folly.

Such wonder, I've found in these past weeks. No senseless concerns, no pointless tediums. I've made a cozy hovel, of sorts, and have plenty of social support. Not a one can sort out what exactly happened, but there's slow amounts of organization about. They're trying, and I admire that, in my way.

( Private )

it's going to be wonderfulbeautifuldivineperfect

new world

So again, I find the end of a year knocking on my proverbial doorstep. A lot of things have superficially changed: my living arrangements, my store, my surroundings. My cohabitants of the Chaos Realm are largely the same: myopic and thoughtless, empty headed shuffling blobs of misaligned organic material. Nothing of significance has happened. My location makes no difference.

One would think that in a world proclaiming to be chaotic, it could at least deign to be more entertaining. Having a constant stream of ungrateful customers for the last month has not been particularly good at endearing me to the human species, and being referred to as "Scrooge" and endlessly reprimanded for a lack of holiday cheer has only driven me closer to destroying this entire building. Perhaps the turn of the year's clock will remind them of their folly, and they'll sink back into their hovels to avoid wintry chill.

Bah, humbug.

A worse punishment I cannot imagine than to work on a day like this. I suppose that the only good point is that others suffer worse than I must, as I have the opportunity to find solitude in my office.

Deals: If you've arrived between 2-4 in the morning, you may buy something and get another of equal to lesser value free.
4-6 AM: 25% off anything in the shop.
6-8 AM: Free coffee with any purchase; present your receipt. Dates and times will be checked.
12-5 PM: For arriving at a decent time, 40% off anything in the shop.

I am altogether glad that this week has passed; giving anything away for free to a moronic public is abhorrent. As useful as it was to have an excuse to unload old books and free up some space, the fact that I lost profit on it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Worse still was Rinoa. She insisted on coming over daily as "part of her rounds", hauling in her dog along with her as a "sample" for us to try. Instead, she spent most of her time trying to get into the stockroom to visit Squall. This meant that a dog was loose in the bookstore for the rest of the time, making a royal mess of things, children clamoring to play with him, chewing on books...I detest that woman, that dog, and most everything surrounding the incident. I can only be grateful that it's over.

It would seem that I only have that odd sense of threat when at work...My apartment is clearly my sanctuary. No visitors, plenty of space...nobody knows I live here. Nobody in town knows much about me at all...it's quite peaceful.

Speaking of, I've heard that Wal-Market is becoming a reckless place. The employees are being a mite idiotic, believing such tripe as "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday." for a hamburger (or whatever such peasants eat there). Perhaps I'll have to look into it.