//------------------------------// // Hi merchant // Story: Burden of Love, Curse of Hatred // by Knight of Crows //------------------------------// So I think I should introduce myself, my name is Jack Griffith. I'm 20 years old currently living with my parents as I save enough money for a car then college from working as a cashier at a grocery store. I have a small circle of friends who help me keep my sanity after a long day of serving idiots, most don't give me trouble, but when one drives you to the point of yelling and insulting them, that was the second time over the course of 7 months that I smoked. I've never been an addict, but both times helped me calm down. Basically what happened was the customer was charged $21.51 and payed with a $100 bill so the change was $78.49, the register opens then the guy tries to tell me and I quote "I give you another dollar that makes it $80", I tried telling him that is wrong and I would actually be giving him $79.49 if he gives me that. He throws a fit and gives up calling me a "uneducated dumbass who can't do simple math, they don't teach you millenials anything in schools these days", I told him "clearly they do a better job now than 50 years ago if they taught you 8+1=10, those same people probably taught that one kid 9+10=21". This continued for a few more minutes before he finally left after he had been told to leave by a manager before it escalated too far. Until his wife laughed when he said I need to have intelligence before he can insult it and said I threw change at her when I dropped it into her hand I wasn't sure who I should pity more: the 50 year old man with no noticeable mental disabilities to speak of and can't read or do simple math or the woman who must have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel when she married him. On a side note I should have picked up the scissors and repeatedly dropped them on the register, if dropping change less than an inch above their hands is throwing it then by that logic I would have been attacking them using scissors as a weapon, let's see how well that holds up in court when there are 2 cameras watching the event unfold. I'm sorry I let myself get sidetracked, it was recent 3 days to be exact. One of my friends, Aaron, invited me to come with him to a convention in a week that I didn't even know was going to happen. I decided to come with as I would be waiting for Halo MCC to reinstall the same day to try out the new fixed version and had a bit of trouble deciding who to dress up as. My choices were narrowed down to Madara Uchiha, Estarossa, Trusty Patches, Jack of Blades, Nobunaga Oda, and Sephiroth. I numbered each with a die and after rolling it, it landed on number 2 so the winner was Estarossa. I spent I think 5 days looking for the attire in my size as well as the Rebellion blades, but either the prices were ridiculous or were so poorly made that they likely wouldn't even survive the delivery. I had to make them myself, but didn't realize I was missing one until the day of the convention. I walked outside after dying my hair, putting in the black contacts and the marking above my eye and didn't have to wait long for him to arrive. I saw him step out of the car as Mordecai from Borderlands. "Hey, you ready to go?" he asked me "Yeah, just about, let me get a drink first." don't know why I didn't grab one sooner "Can you get me one too? A dr. pepper or a root beer if you have any?" "That'll be $10 sir." "Just get me the drink Jack." fine, kill my fun. I walked to the fridge and got myself a coke and grabbed his dr. pepper before making sure I had everything and walked back out "You have everything you need this time?" he asked me as I handed him his soda "Wallet, drink, Rebellion, phone, ipod, earbuds, I'm pretty sure I've got everything." "Okay, let's go." The drive was probably an hour, maybe an hour and a half before we reached our destination. He told me he finally got around to buying an Xbox and was curious as to what he should buy, I told him without missing a beat Halo MCC, Dark Souls, Warframe, Overwatch, Paladins, and Fable Anniversary. He mostly played single player games or MMOs like WoW, Warhammer, or Neverwinter on his computer so because I was mostly an Xbox player as my brother or my dad would be on the computers or PlayStation, we didn't get to play too often. It didn't really help I was working from 3 or 5pm-12 most nights. When we arrived we went our separate ways agreeing to meet back up later. I looked around for a little bit not seeing anything of interest before going to the market stands, there were actually a few things I wanted to buy, but I only brought a few hundred with me and most of what was on sale was for a reasonable price, but I had neither the money nor the space to put them anywhere. After a while I found someone dressed up as and sounded exactly like a certain Agent of the Nine. "Hello" he greeted me "see what I have to offer, Commandment of Love." "Hello Xur." I said browsing his wares, it all looks so life like, this guy certainly knows what he's doing, he could probably make a living off of this. I stopped when I saw he was selling the full Rebellion set "Has something caught your eye?" "How much just for 1 of these, the- I want to say flamberge, but I'm not sure if that's what this kind of sword would be called (the one used against Escanor)?" "That will be $20, or the whole set for $100." I think I should be careful as to what else I buy "Seems fair, you wouldn't happen to have change for a $50 would you?" I asked handing him the money "I do." he handed me $30 "Thank you, have a nice day." "Have a nice trip Estarossa." "Wait, what was that?" my vision started changing color "Okay why do I feel like I'm tripping on acid?" I began falling "OH cool it gets worse!" I said while falling into what looks like a ruined castle from this distance.