I get off the wagon a few miles before we get to the city and travel the rest of the way alone. Selle gives me the name of the tavern she'll be drinking at, I’m supposed to meet her there after the drop-off. I already know how I’m going to get the storage core past the guards based on what Merrick told me about the city and specifically the guard checkpoints at the gate.
There are three main gates to get into the city, and the one I’m going to has two extra side entrances next to it. One is for important people, guildmasters, and members of powerful houses, and the other is used by the guards. Merrick told me that the guards often take bribes to let peddlers use this door so they can sell goods to the people waiting in line and quickly restock inside the city.
After a few minutes of teleporting, I end up about a half mile from the city and decide to walk the rest of the way. The walls of the city are impressive, but they’re not nearly as exciting as they were when I first saw the walls of the Undead City, maybe because they aren’t quite as imposing. The walls around Barad are about thirty feet tall, made out of what looks like a bunch of stones conjoined together, and the cracks between them smoothed over. It’s almost certainly the work of a stone mage of some kind. I’ve seen Daniel do something similar on a much smaller scale, blending different rocks together.
Just as I was told, there is a main gate, a smaller gate to its right, and then a doorway on the other side, all of them with guards stationed outside. I get in the middle line, the one for the main gate and also the longest one. The road I took leading here only had a few other travelers on it, but this line has at least two hundred people in it, meaning they had to have come from a different direction. I guess not many people are coming from the forest. The sun is about an hour or two from setting, so I hope I can get into the city before nightfall.
I expand my spatial perception field to the wall and try to get into the city, but there is another barrier blocking entry. I’m pretty sure I could get through it if I really tried and pushed myself, but Merrick told me that several people are constantly operating the barrier and will know long before I manage to break through, alerting the guards.
I pay attention to all of the gates, but mostly the guard-only one, which does indeed have peddlers coming and going from it every now and then. Most of them seem to be selling food to people in line, but a few have clothes and jewelry and such. It takes until I’ve moved about halfway through the line until one of these vendors finally gets to me. They’ve all been selling out and returning to the city before I had a chance to speak to them.
A kid walks up to me holding a basket with a few loaves of bread and meat skewers in it. He’s clearly an alien, with light blue skin and dark blue hair, but looks human other than that. An [Inspect] reveals him as a [Level 13 Veltark]. Veltark must be his race, then.
“What kind of meat is that?” I ask, realizing that I’m actually pretty hungry right now.
“King Ox, sir. Best in the whole city. Real tasty, two for a copper, bread is one for a copper.” His big eyes look at me with what I assume is a practiced puppy dog look.
He’s only got a few loaves and skewers left, less than ten copper for what he has left. “How many coppers in a silver coin?”
“One hundred coppers, sir.” He responds quickly and politely, even to a probably strange question.
“I’ll take all that you have left.” I say as I offer him a silver coin in my mana hand and reach for the basket with my free hand.
He takes the coin instantly. “Thank you, sir! I’ll get your change right away!”
I stop him as he reaches for the coin pouch on his hip. “Keep the change. How would you like to earn a little extra money?” I say as three gold coins appear in my left hand, teleported from my pocket for dramatic effect.
He looks at the amount of money, at my hand made of mana, and then back up to my face. I see the greed in his eyes turn into skepticism, and then he asks, “What’s the job?”
I hand him the gold coins, which he takes but doesn’t put in his pouch yet, keeping them in his hand where I can still see them. Smart kid, cautious too. I decide that even if he turns me down, I’ll let him keep the gold. I have plenty already. I move the basket to my left hand, which I have to reshape so it’s holding onto the handle. I pull out my storage core from its spot on my belt.
“All I need is for you to get this past the guards and into the city unnoticed. I’ll get it back from you on the other side.”
“What is it?” He asks, curiosity on his face now.
“It’s basically a bag of holding, but more secure.”
He looks at the gold coins in his hand and then back to the orb. “Deal. But if I get caught, I’m going to rat you out.”
“That’s fine. I would do the same.”
He nods his head and puts the storage core in his backpack, struggling a little because it weighs nearly thirty pounds with how full it is. He struggles with it for a little bit but manages to hide it by acting like he’s tired from being on his feet all day. He makes for the guard gate as soon as he leaves me.
I eat the meat skewers and loaves of bread while I watch him with my spatial perception, making sure I have time to leave if he gets caught. He stops once he gets to the guards and starts chatting with one of them, making him laugh before he hands over a few coins and strolls into the city, seemingly without issue.
I force myself into a higher state of [Concentration] to calm my nerves and racing heart. It works, and soon I feel myself sink into a state of cold logic, pushing most of my panic away. After another hour, just as the sun is starting to set, I finally make it to the front of the line.
There are four guards at this gate, two on either side, all armored in half plate with open-faced helmets. They all have a sword on their hips and spears in hand. I recognize the symbol of House Baradia on their chests, a black bird flying over a tree in a field of green.
“Have you ever been to Barad before?” The one on the left asks me with a bored tone.
“No,” I respond.
“Name and reason for visit?”
“Ray Alder, just checking the place out while I’m in the area.”
“Ten coppers for entry. You’ll have to pay that every time you enter the city through this gate.”
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I count out ten coppers and hand them over as he explains the rest of his obviously mandatory speech.
“No causing trouble inside. If you have any blood feuds you absolutely have to act on, go to the city administration building and file a dueling request. If they agree your blood feud is valid, then a sanctioned duel is held at the arena, or the other person is kicked out of the city if they don’t want to fight.”
“Does that happen a lot? Blood feuds, I mean.”
The guard shrugs his shoulders. “Often enough. I heard that earlier today some guy literally ripped the arms off another guy and beat a third person to death with them. They’re making sure that we tell everyone not to cause trouble. They’ll send the Fiend after you if you do. Anyway, you’re free to enter the city. After you get your bag checked.”
The Fiend? I have an inkling of who that might be.
I give the guard a nod and walk through the gate, finally entering civilization after nearly a month in the wilderness fighting for survival. As soon as I pass through the barrier, I expand my spatial perception outward, noticing that the barrier doesn’t block it from the inside.
Another set of guards stop me before I can fully enter the city and point me to a small building nearby. Walking inside I find a few more guards standing behind wooden tables, searching the belongings of the people who were let in before me. One of them waves me over.
“Please place your bag on the table. Do you have any spatial storage items on you today?” She asks with all the enthusiasm of a TSA agent.
“Just the bag.” I say as I place it on the table.
She calls over a guy who was sitting in a chair behind her and hands him my bag. He spends about a minute using some kind of skill on it, pulses of mana emanating from his hand sink into the bag.
“All good.” He says as he hands the bag back to her.
Did he just search the bag with that skill? I use [Inspect] as he walks away.
[Level 44 Arcane Analyst]
The guard puts my bag back on the table and then walks over and pats me down. After finding nothing, she hands my bag back to me and clears me to enter the city. I exit the building and start walking along the main road, further into the city.
I start searching for the little blue kid, but he finds me first, popping out of an alley right next to me with the storage core in hand. He’s looking up at me with a cheeky smile, and I drop the [Concentration] I have active on my mind.
“Here you go, sir!”
I take my storage core back and do a quick scan, finding nothing out of place. I would have been immensely impressed if he managed to tamper with it. I toss him another gold coin for a job well done.
“A bonus for good work. Now can you point me towards the Necromancers Guild?” I ask.
“Follow me.” He says as he starts leading me along the main street.
The city is completely different from the Undead City in terms of architecture. Buildings are all shapes and sizes and are not all made out of the same gray stone. There are even a few wooden buildings. We pass shops and vendors of all kinds along the main street, with the kid telling me which are likely to rip me off and which tend to be honest. Walking through the streets here feels unreal with the variety of races and people walking around. It makes me wonder just how many different races there are. I never imagined the universe was so lively.
Most buildings seem to have some kind of magical warding or protection on them, stopping my spatial perception from entering them. Most of these wards seem to be pretty weak, but I don’t even bother with trying to break through them. I don’t want to snoop around in random people's business.
After a little bit we enter what he tells me is the Guild District, which predictably holds all of the guildhalls. He leads me towards the center of this district, where the bigger guilds have their halls. He stops in front of a five-story building that kind of reminds me of an office building but made in Victorian London. It even has gargoyles near the roof.
“Necromancers Guildhall. Is there anywhere else you need directions to get to?”
“No, that should be all. Thank you for the hard work.” I say as I flick him another gold and enter the wooden double doors at the front of the guildhall.
The inside is well decorated, with a nice seating area around a hearth and a long desk bisecting the room, with several receptionists sitting at it. I take a moment to look at the artwork on the walls, noticing that one of them seems to be of the Undead City from a bird's-eye view. I spot a man sitting in one of the chairs near the hearth, reading from a book while a skeleton stands menacingly behind him. His robes are a bright purple with a black skull on one of the sleeves, near his shoulder. His skeleton is wearing similar robes, and has glowing red gems set into the eye sockets, peering out from the darkness of the hood.
As I walk up to him, I notice his skeleton shift slightly, and he puts his book down to look at me. “Can I help you?” He asks politely.
“I’m supposed to meet you. Got a delivery.”
The book disappears from his hand as he stands up. He’s taller than me by a few inches, and his skeleton moves to stand next to him. Both the man and his skeleton are leaking a bit of mana that feels exactly the same, so I’m at least pretty confident that he is in control of it and it’s not a sentient being.
“Ah, good, I was beginning to worry you ran into some trouble. Follow me and I’ll get you sorted.”
I inspect him and his skeleton as they walk in front of me.
[Level 49 Skeletal Craftsman]
[Level 37 Undead Swordsman]
He leads me past the reception desk and into a hallway, down a set of stairs, and finally into a large storeroom. He points at a set of empty tables along one wall and asks me to unload all the goods there.
He checks each crate as it appears and cross-references it with a notebook in his hand. After I unload everything Selle had me smuggle, and he checks it, he looks satisfied.
“All in good condition, and everything is accounted for. Good doing business with you.”
“Before I leave, would you be interested in some research and items I recovered from the Undead City? We have some materials too, mainly the bones from the bears that live there.”
His eyes flicker with interest for a moment before he schools his expression. “Very much so, we would pay top dollar for anything worthwhile, especially if it’s lost techniques or items. Necromancy as a whole took a big hit when Nithine was executed and the city was made all but uninhabitable. I’ve heard that some creatures managed to evolve over the past few centuries to live there, but I didn’t know it was bears.”
“Has nobody checked out the forest or city? It seems like it would be a goldmine for your guild.”
“About three hundred years ago, House Baradia put up a massive barrier over the area, stopping the spread of the death mana. Apparently it used to be really bad around there, a complete wasteland spreading out from the city, but the barrier stopped that. I’ve heard that the trees there are special too, modified to grow fast and thick, and are even resistant to the death mana, but House Baradia keeps the place locked up tight. They don’t allow anyone but their own inside, which makes me wonder how you got in and out.”
“I’m a smuggler, remember?” It’s the most convenient excuse. There’s no use telling him more than I have to.
“Right, well, anyway, I’d be very interested in those items and research. Come back here anytime and ask for Mordak at the front desk. I spend most of my time in the city here anyway, so I’ll probably be around. Leave a message if not.”
“Understood. I’ll see you in a few days then, probably.”
He leads me back out of the building, leaving his skeleton behind in the storeroom.
After leaving the building, I realize that I should have had that kid wait so he could lead me to the tavern Selle is at. I end up going back into the guildhall and getting directions from one of the receptionists.
On my way to The Wriggling Eel, the tavern Selle is at, I notice someone who I think is following me in the alleys beside the street. I make a few turns, and they still match my pace and direction, not even bothering to use some kind of skill to hide. I would guess some kind of rogue based on their small stature and the way they move around.
I know it’s stupid and dangerous and likely to bite me in the ass, but I can’t stop myself from teleporting right behind them. I put a hand on their shoulder and turn them to face me. I am shocked by the face that looks back at me. The face of another initiate, one who was on that bus with me and I thought was dead.
“Duncan?”