Quoted By:
"Hey old man what kind of bread do you serve?"
"Try one. It's one the house."
You take a bite out of it feel that it's crunchy yet filled with some sort of heavy but sweet cream.
"Ooooh!"
"Good huh? It'll put some hair on your chest."
"What's crunching though?"
"There is iron in there. Real champions eat like champions and if you wanna be tough as nails you gotta eat ground up nails."
"Very true!"
" Good man. Most wet worlders just spit it out when they ear it. Bunch of wusses."
"Yeah. But I'm built different. And the cream?"
"That's just heavy cream, eggs, butter and a whole lot of sugar. You also need energy to be a champion."
You talk with the nice bread knight about pastry a bit more until you finally can no longer contain yourself and ask him why everyone is dressed from top to bottom in armor.
"Ah. That. Not all of us are dressed like that. Foreigners like you. Or those fuckin' Birkans. But all true knights wear our plate with pride. From the day we pop out of ou mothers womb till the day we die we wear our armor like a second skin! It is our face, our identity, our strength!"
"Strength?"
"Aye. You didn't notice? The air is thin up here. "
"No."
"It saps the strength. Most o' those who dwell in the sky grow accustomed to it. Their muscles grow light, their bones hollow. But the armor protects us. Preserves the strength we once wielded down in the blue sea. Also it's part of our culture now. Everyone kinda feels weird not wearing one. Even when I'm with me wife we both keep our helmets on. Less awkward that way."
"Wow. That is very cool! Thanks erm-"
"Bread Knight."
"Bread Knight! Do you know where I could get one myself?"
"Hmmm. There are plenty of armor tailors out there. Not sure if any would serve an outsider. Then again, not many ever ask. Or they want something nice, light and fancy."
"Pansies."
"Exactly. Anyway, you seem like a decent sort. Go to Armor Knight over there. He's a grumpy one but a good soul. He may help you out."
"Oh. One more thing. What's up with the names? One of the guys down there had a normal name. Hans I think."
"Ah. Those vermin. They fooled ya. Buncha Birkan scum wearing discarded armor pieces, extorting people on the way up. I wish I could ask you to kill them on the way down but ya can't go down that way, only up. Nobody bothers stopping them because it's so out of the way."
That is making you feel pretty pissed. Maybe you'll drop a few cannon balls down the side of the island to check how they like that.
