by Eric Ugland
“I’m pretty committed to the city life for a while,” I said. The thing was, I’d never really spent time out of cities. Robbing homes in the suburbs is as much nature as I delved into.
“Hey, it’s your new life. If you want to stay alive, there are three places you want to just straight-up avoid. The Pit, The Shade, and LegionHome.”
“Are they, I mean, what is—”
“The Pits are essentially the spot where trash and waste and whatnot go.”
“And it’s a big pit?”
“A pit is involved, yeah. Multiple pits, really. They should call it The Pits.”
“And it’s dangerous?”
“It can be. Let’s just say you need to really watch yourself if you go there, and it’s one of those, why risk it sort of thing. Not worth it, my opinion. You may have a different opinion, I don’t know.”
“The Shade?”
“Real name is Rose Hollow. It’s a graveyard. It’s tough to get into, frankly. There’s definitely some history I have to explain here for it to make sense, but imagine that Glaton is a city that keeps expanding, and every time they expand, they build another big wall and fill it in with the city. Before the last expansion, there was a graveyard outside of the city, on the other side of the walls. Next expansion, it’s inside the walls. And the big difference here, lots of dead bodies seems to give energy to the undead. So, lots of undead pop up in graveyards.”
“Why don’t they burn their dead here?”
“I’m not a cultural anthropologist, Hatchett. I don’t know.”
“Can I go there to level up?”
“I thought you wanted to fight from the shadows and all that crap.”
“That was my mindset, yeah.”
“Might want to rethink going and fighting toe to toe with the undead. Because some nasty things pop up in there. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. Again, not worth the risk to me, but you can go level up there. Just swing by the temple at the entrance, they take your name and actually pay you to kill the undead. Still—”
“Not worth it.”
“Bingo. Last place—”
“Legion Home.”
“Right. It’s where the Legionnaires make their home.”
“And it’s illegal to go there if you aren’t in the Legion?”
“No, not on paper at least. But if you aren’t Legion or Legion adjacent, you’re getting hurt. People here love the Legion.”
“Is that rule number five?”
“Sure. Rule Five: Love the Legion. You go up against them, you’ll lose.”
“Are they the policing force here?”
“No. The Guard is the equivalent. The Legion is more like the army, but they do the bulk of monster killing too. Especially for anything particularly big or nasty. That’s when the legion gets called in, and that’s basically what they’re so loved for. Most everyone has a story where the Legion came in and saved their nana’s village.”
“Got it. Do people like the Guard?”
“No. I mean, most are ambivalent. But the Guard and the Legion are, well, let’s just say there’s no lack of bad blood between the two.”
We were rolling towards a huge crossroad, and I made the guess that we were about to cross the main east-west thoroughfare. Large buildings sat at each corner, again, the architecture on them was exquisite. Just awe-inspiring work in terms of the columns and the arches. There were astonishing gargoyles all over the building, and I imagined that in a rainstorm, the crossroads would seem downright magical.
“This used to be the center of the city,” my guide said. “Still is to an extent, functions as a gathering place for several events, none of which I’ve ever been able to attend, and they still call it the Forum, but ever since they built a new Senate building, everything actually important moved uptown. Years ago, mind you. That building there,” she pointed off to the left, “is the Emperor’s Hold. Every once in a while, the Emperor comes down, sits in there for a day or three, and he listens to anyone who wants to speak to him. Grants edicts and stuff. Pretty much the only time we plebes have a chance of seeing the top dog.”
“Have you seen him?”
“No. Just heard of what happens in there. I don’t think that sort of thing has happened in a while. The Emperor hasn’t been in town that long, only recently got back from a campaign. They like to make war in Glaton, so, you know, when they win, there’s a big parade, lots of celebrations. Before you ask, that’s only happened once since I’ve been here. Other building, across from it to the south, that’s the Legion Recruitment building. You decide you want to be in the Legion, you go there.”
It was a more utilitarian building, a big rectangular thing almost squatting on the space. Almost brutalist. There were men and women in armor all around the place, and, surprisingly, a line of people awaiting entrance.
“There’s a line there,” I said.
“Popular job.”
“Rule five.”
“Bingo.”
“You ever think about joining?”
“Do I look like someone who’d do well in an army?”
I looked over at her and at her body. She was lithe, athletic, I saw little reason to think an army—
“Look was not the right word to use there,” she said with a sigh. “Obviously, I look fine. If you jumped into this game world without being aesthetically pleasing, you are a grade one idiot. Clearly, you realized this.”
“You think I look—”
“Let’s not get into that boat of thought.”
“Boat of thought?”
“Anyway, I did know one, uh, what, player? Traveler? Whatever, someone like us, who joined the Legion. Saw him not that long ago, and he’s rocketing up in levels. So, you know, might want to think about it if you want quick levels and lots of killing whatever someone else points you at.”
“No, thanks."
“Cool. The dark building behind it, that’s the wizarding school.”
“You can learn magic there?”
“You can, no one does.”
“Why?”
“Just want to have the magic talk, don’t you.”
“It’s magic, it’s the one thing that’s so fundamentally different here. I only want to know what’s the deal, because I want to do magic.”
“They hate magic here. And they hate those that practice it. Hate with a capital H. Big hate.”
“So there are no wizards here?”
“Not many. There’s always crazy fools who study the stuff, but—”
“You?”
“You know, one of my rules should be: don’t interrupt me.”
“Sorry.”
“I don’t study magic, no. You want to study magic so you can cast magic in public, you have to do it official like, sign your life over to the Emperor. Not the Empire, the Emperor. If he wants to be a mass-murdering buttwipe, guess who’s doing the mass-murdering?”
“Jesus.”
“And if you do something the Emperor doesn’t like, or that one of his bootlickers doesn’t like, your personal head chopper chops off your head. And, if you ever do get some time in public, everyone hates you. Or, you could, you know, do it illegally, and then, if someone sees you do magic, they report you, they get a reward, and you get dead.”
“Awesome.”
“You see why you might want to rethink magic?”
“Is it like that everywhere?”
“I’ve only been here, so, maybe?”
I stammered for a second, still working on the Earth ideals of interconnected information, of being able to know about all sorts of cultures worldwide without having to do any traveling.
“Anyway, magic is a pain in the ass, okay?”
“Picked that up.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the carriage.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Need to think,” she answered. “We’re almost to Old Town, and I still need to figure out what I’m doing after I get out of Glaton with whatev
er I can carry as my only assets.”
I looked at her a moment, taking the time to make an aesthetic assessment of the girl. She was right, I could design my own appearance, so I’d taken my sweet time making sure my new elven face was a pretty one, and from the looks of it, so had she. She had perfect symmetry, beautiful eyebrows, all that stuff. I made a note to keep the look out for pretty people with unusually perfect facial symmetry, that might be a sign they were travelers like me.
Turning my attention to the world passing by outside the carriage, I watched my new city pass and realized that the world wasn’t exactly what I’d expected when I read medieval fantasy in the introductory email. This place seemed more advanced than the medieval world, certainly in most aspects of construction. There was definitely concrete involved, lots of soaring arches, and a fair amount of brick. The streets were cleaner than I’d expected and paved with cobblestones. There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of trash piled up, and I certainly saw no bedpans being emptied into the street. There was a fair amount of horse poop around, but I also saw two carts picking up poop while we trundled along, so poop was definitely a known problem being addressed. The diversity of people was astounding, and I found this burbling excitement thinking about exploring that. About meeting new people, people who were legit totally new. What was a Minotaur like? A dwarf? There were so many questions rocketing around my mind, and I was pumped to learn.
I also thought back to Etta’s Rule Number One. This was reality now. And it was a good rule. There was no real reason to try and compare this world with the old one, not any longer. And I realized that even trying to put a pin to where they were technologically was flawed conceptually. It wasn’t medieval Europe. It wasn’t Rome or ancient China or Egypt. It wasn’t any of those things because it was contemporary Glaton. Everything in Glaton had to be different because the very foundation of reality was different. Magic was a game-changer, and that had to have changed the game. Not only magic but access to different sentient beings that had different skills and abilities available to them than humans. Looking at the size of the smallest minotaur, I had to imagine they were physical powerhouses. Just having them around would alter so many construction techniques developed by humans.
Etta opened her eyes and glanced out the window, then leaned forward and opened a small hatch that gave us a view of the driver.
“Up here,” Etta said, “on the other side of the gate.”
12
The walls around Old Town soared over us as we went through the impossibly thick gatehouse. I struggled to comprehend the reality of it. The stones used in the construction just seemed unreal. They were huge. Massive. I could see that they had been lifted and moved and put into place, but my brain couldn’t quite get around the idea that it had actually happened. The walls were super thick, yards and yards, and they looked both old and well maintained. These were walls that were in active use daily. Perhaps not daily here, because it was mainly just a separation between neighborhoods, but someone took the time to repair all the little bits of damage, and the people standing at attention had the thousand-yard stares as they scanned the world at large for threats they knew would be coming.
“Good here,” Etta said, leaning out the opened door of the carriage.
She hopped out of the carriage before it stopped, and chatted quietly with our aged driver for a moment before the carriage traveled on.
We were just about thirty yards past the entrance to the neighborhood, and there was definitely a different vibe in Old Town versus, well, rest of town? Gone was the architectural splendor of Glaton, Old Town had much more grey stone and a focus on defensible functional buildings. No silly columns or archways, this place was safe. And a tad dull, at least from an aesthetic standpoint.
Etta grabbed my hand and pulled me from the major street into an alley.
“You live here?” I asked.
“This alley: no,” she said. “We’re splitting up here because the asshats who’ve been murdering and harassing me are going to be watching my place. See, this is that quest coming to bear.”
“I’m going to sneak into your house and get something for you, right?”
“Yes. Well, yes, but in a manner. You need to get in there, unnoticed, procure a few select items, and come out, still unnoticed. You and I meet up in some covert locale, you give my items to me, and we continue on our jaunt through Glaton. Problem is, any of the asshats see you with me, they’ll kill you to get to me, so we need to split here, got it?”
“Should we, I mean, is it night soon?”
“Night? No. The hell?”
“Uh, sneaking?”
“Buddy, you’re a level one right? Do you have stealth or sneaking as a skill?”
“I told you I’m level four, and I already have silent movement as a skill, so—”
“Sorry, lots of death today, the brain is, uh, bit borked. I’ve got a way in, okay? Simple, no mess. No real need to sneak.”
She explained the plan, then told me the directions to her place, and made me repeat the plan and the directions back until I got them correct twice in a row. Satisfied, she gave me a smile.
“Thank you,” she said.
And with that, I headed into the city on my own for the first time.
I couldn’t help smiling as I took my first steps on my own. Sure, there was definitely some comfort having a guide, having someone there to explain everything to me, to answer all my questions, well, some of my questions, but that stole all the thrills of discovery. I wanted to run through my city and poke my nose in and around everything, I wanted to know it as well as I’d known my stomping grounds. I felt strongly that a rogue had to know their city better than anyone. Still, baby steps, I had to get Etta her things first, and then I could become a local.
The walk through the streets was relaxing. Unlike the rest of the city, at least the bits I’d seen, Old Town had a calm to it. Fewer wagons were trundling along the streets and the ones that were seemed willing to stop for people walking or animals. Hawkers called out from a multitude of stalls, but they seemed to be talking to friends, or at least people they knew, not strangers. It felt like an actual neighborhood. The racial diversity continued here, and I saw the whole gamut of races represented, though not elves. None of what was now my kind. Most everyone was armed in some small respect, a dagger on the belt was the usual armament. Swords were rare, and other weapons rarer still. Guards, obviously, wore heavy armor, bright blue tabards, and carried multiple weapons. They were pretty easy to spot, and they all looked terrifying. At least to me. There were a few non-guards who wore arms and armor, and the crowds always gave those folk plenty of room.
Ten minutes of walking, and I saw Etta’s place. Apparently, she owned the whole building. Located on a corner, the first floor was a tavern: The Heavy Purse. There was a wooden sign with a large leather purse overflowing with foam, ale, and coins. Evocative. The building as a whole boasted four floors, though from what Etta’d told me, only the tavern and her place were occupied. The middle apartments sat vacant, apparently by design. Escape routes and hidey holes for the rogue she’d become.
I darted across the street and walked into the tavern like I needed a cool spot to hang out during the heat of the middle day. The inside of the bar was a little stereotypical if I do say so myself. It had windows on two sides of the place, and along the wall opposite the door, a thick wooden bar. Thick and deep. And lengthy, I suppose. It was one of more massive pieces of wood I’d ever seen, that’s what she said, and it was imposing in terms of quality, she also said that. A burly man stood behind the bar, his shirt sleeves rolled up, leaning against the back wall, a leather-bound tome in his hands. A massive warhammer was on a plaque above him, and black iron chandeliers hung out over the rest of the bar with glowing rocks in place instead of candles. A long row of bulky stools was in front of the bar, and the rest of the room had been filled out with square tables and simple chairs. The place wasn’t crowded, but several of the tables were fille
d with people sipping ale from large wooden mugs and eating hunks of meat from a greasy-looking brown stew.
The bartender glanced up from his book when I walked in but had his eyes back down to reading so quickly I almost wasn’t sure he’d looked at me at all.
I walked over to the bar, pulled a stool out a bit then gave up after I realized how heavy it was, and sat down.
“Don’t see your kind here much,” the bartender said, not taking his eyes from his book until he’d basically finished his sentence. “You into the traditional stuff, or, uh, you eat normal like?”
“Normal,” I replied, “I think.” I wondered what traditional elven fare was given the question he just hit me with. “But, truth be told, I was hoping you could hook me up with sarsaparilla.”
He looked at me kind of funny, and I immediately worried I’d said the passphrase incorrectly, but then he frowned at me.
“Might have one in the back,” he replied. “Bottle or two. Maybe. But it’d be in the way back, behind the stock. You want it, you’re gonna need to help me go get it, not throwing my back out for a single bottle of that nasty stuff.”
“Happy to help,” I said.
The bartender nodded, closed his book, then started walking down to the end of the bar.
“Neela,” he shouted, “going to the back, watch the bar.”
Someone called out from a table, and I saw a woman in a blue dress with a black leather corset step up and vault over the bar.
“Walk around!” the bartender yelled back at her.
She just gave him a big smile, and from the look, I had the feeling they were related somehow. Given that she looked pretty young, and acted even younger, I was betting she was the bartender’s daughter.
We went through a cleverly hidden door, one that I’d been sure was just wood paneling, and we were immediately in a storeroom. A room fairly overflowing with barrels, crates, and bottles.