Chapter Text
The town was designed to radiate.
Wide boulevards stretched out from the town hall like wheel spokes. The river was a shallow lazy thing, winding around the edge of the scenic country highway and through the elm-shaded streets to the picturesque little lake. The high stone buildings on the main street wrapped around the red and white trellised street corners. The pale limestone spire of the cathedral watched over the autumn-bright town, reminding visitors of Paris, or perhaps it was Prague. The streetlights were warm yellow.
The townspeople fit the place, as though part of the scenery. They were markedly friendly and well-behaved. None who spent any stretch of time in Olympia could remember a crime that was committed or an item that was stolen. None who spent any stretch of time in Olympia could see any reason to leave. It used to have a simple explanation; safety in numbers when the monsters came hungry. But guns and lances grew cold from disuse. Now it was just a feeling.
That the town was designed to radiate.
Its reach was long as the summer sky, just as impatient too. There was a lot that could attract the right person to the right place. Maybe a scholarship. Maybe a friend. Maybe a wrong turn. Maybe a death. There was a god for everything. And the gods had empty eternity to fill. A town like Olympia was a perfect place to gather pieces on a board of a game too old to name.
Towns like that had their uses, just as people had theirs.