The son of the village chief, Amos opens the door to his house and begins calling for his father. He turns around and beckons Marcus to follow him inside. Walking inside Marcus sees a large room with some simple furniture made of wood and a gentle fire burning in the fireplace. There is a young girl with blonde hair, maybe around twelve cooking what appears to be a stew in a large pot over the fireplace. A few moments later an old man that looks like a professional body builder comes barging in yelling.
"Amos what is all the yapping for, I can here you fine without you yelling so loud and aren't you supposed to be leading the others in harvesting the trees."
"Yes, father but there is someone here who needs to speak with you and the harvesting will be fine even without me there."
The old man then looks over at Marcus studying him before he once again opens his mouth and begins speaking.
"Ah good for you Amos, you finally got yourself a wife I do not know what you see in my boy but please take care of him from now on."
The village chiefs statement leaves both Amos and Marcus with shocked expressions on their faces. Marcus in particular has a hard time processing what this old man just said. After a couple of seconds, the old man begins to laugh uncontrollably obviously pleased with the reactions of both Marcus and Amos. After laughing for about a minute the old man begins to speak again.
"Sorry I just could not help but to make a joke at my son's expense hopefully it was not too uncomfortable for you miss?"
'Oh, I think he is asking for my name I guess I should give Irene's name again since calling myself Marcus is bound to cause trouble.'
"Ah yes my name is Irene, and I came from the small logging community a little ways north of here."
The village chief ponders for a moment looking over Marcus and staring intently at the left side of his face.
"Hm Irene, ah yes Vance's daughter, however while you do have quite the resemblance to her, she was horribly scared by a burn on the left side of her face and shoulder."
Marcus once again goes through the lengthy explanation of how the community was attacked, the scar was healed, and why he is here.
The village chief looks at Marcus with a pained expression after hearing his story he contemplates what he should do for almost a minute before he opened his mouth to speak again.
"Are you sure that is what you want to do, in my eyes it is a suicide mission doomed to fail, you should stay here, and we can tell the authorities what happened even if it is unlikely that your sister will be found."
Marcus shakes his head and looks at the village chief with a face full of resolution before answering.
"Yes, I have to try to save Lilia no matter what even if you are not willing to help me, I will still go since I already swore to myself that I would."
After seeing the resolute expression on Marcus' face, the village chief sighs once and tells Marcus that he will give his knowledge on the area and his insight on where he thinks the slavers are likely to be headed.
"But first things first you need some new clothes, you look like you have been attacked by multiple beasts and your clothes are shredded."
The village chief looks over towards the young girl cooking on the fire and beckons her over.
"Marianna, would you help Irene find a new set of clothes, preferably something easy to move in since she has a long journey ahead of her."
The Girl name Marianna nods her head and then looks at Marcus and begins speaking.
"Follow me Irene I am sure we can find something in my wardrobe that you can wear."
Marcus then follows Marianna to her room where she starts to take out multiple different outfits and lets Marcus try them on. At first Marcus was pretty embarrassed to undress in front of a girl but he soon realized that he is currently in a woman's body and it is not even his own. Marcus tried on many different sets of clothes from dresses, skirts, pants, and shirts. However, there was slight problem, Marianna was around five feet three inches while Irene's body was five feet six inches. All of Marianna's clothes were a bit too short for Marcus and the shirts were also a bit small in another area, namely the chest.
'Even her biggest clothes are a bit to small for me to wear comfortably, I guess I will just have to get over it and fine some clothes once I make it to a bigger town.'
Marianna looked disappointed with the clothes choices she had but she suddenly looked over at a chest sitting in the corner of the room. She walked over with a bit of hesitation and opened the chest. She then brings over a beautiful white shirt and black pants.
"Since nothing I have fits you very well, I figured that these might, they belonged to my mother and from what I remember she was around the same height as you."
Marianna has a bit of sorrow in her eyes as she hands the clothes to Marcus who promptly changes into them.
'These clothes fit pretty well, almost perfectly and are much softer and higher quality than the other clothes that I tried on.'
Marianna sees the satisfied expression on Marcus' face and says in a solemn tone.
"Those were my mother's favorite clothes, she had them specially tailored with the highest quality yak and goat fur that we usually reserve only for selling."
Marcus' expression turns sour as he contemplates whether he should accept such precious clothes from a bunch of strangers. Marianna noticing the change and Marcus' face begins to speak gently.
"There is no reason to be apprehensive, those clothes look great on you and I am sure my mother would be happy to see them being used again rather than collecting dust."
Marcus thanks Marianna for her generosity for letting him have her mother's exceptional clothing and the two of them begin to head back towards the main room of the house.
'These people sure are incredibly nice, even if they think I am Irene she still was not even a part of this village and yet they have given me new clothes and plan to help me even more.'
As Marcus thinks about the kindness that these people have bestowed upon him, he and Marianna come back into the main room and see Amos setting a table and serving the stew that had been cooking. When the village chief and Amos look over and see the clothes that Marcus is wearing tears start to well up in both of their eyes for an instant before they get their emotions under control. The village chief then begins to speak in a friendly manner.
"Well, I see you have found some fine clothes to wear, now come you two dinner is ready and we can talk while we eat."
Marcus and Marianna sat down and began eating, after everyone had eaten a bit the village chief was ready to begin telling Marcus about the area and his insights on where Marcus should go to find the slavers and save Lilia.
