Their bags had indeed survived, along with the remnants of Samual’s armour. The two massive horses had somehow pulled the wagon clear of the ensuing carnage, but one of the wheels were shattered and the tongue, the bit that the horses were attached to, was completely snapped off.

Of the horses there were no sign.

Still, it was a much less sorry-looking group of adventurers that wandered into the outer districts of Grailmane, having had the opportunity to dip into their remaining stockpile of healing shots.

Despite her protestations, Rita was made to drink three and she could use her leg again. The worst of her burns had faded to angry, red, splotches that were at the same time sensitive to touch and incredibly, frustratingly itchy. She was doing her best to distract herself from the constant itch - and the subsequent lances of agony when she forgot not to scratch - by gawking in awe as they passed through the outer districts of Grailmane.

The first structures they passed had been none too impressive; they looked like small shacks built out of loose rocks and bits of assorted rubbish. They were crammed together with no sense of personal space, or even hygiene for that matter, but leaving a large, open path to the city strangely clear. Like a highway passing through the slums.

Turns out, these were where Grailmane’s goblin population lived. She spotted a number of what looked like green-skinned children hiding among the shacks, staring at their group with beady, red eyes.

As Gora explained it, the local tribes slowly accumulated around the city, sheltering in its shadow from monsters and large animals. Every couple of years, however, they became too numerous or too much of a nuisance, at which point some of the local mages went out and burnt them out, massacring as many as they could and scattering them back to the wilds. Then, after a few months when the mages had gotten bored or busy with other things, they snuck back in in drips and drabs and the whole process started anew.

Rita listened to Gora’s description of casual genocide with barely restrained horror. And yet, she refrained from commenting. According to Gora, once their numbers grew too much they became quite happy to ambush travelers along the road, killing, skinning and eating them without a moment’s hesitation.

There was a thick band of shacks surrounding the city, but Rita and the others were subjected to nothing more than hungry, malefic glares as they passed through. Nothing like a giant, muscular, horned woman to indicate that your group was not an easy target.

Once they’d passed through to the city proper, Rita had been completely awestruck. She’d known that the stone spires were big, but she hadn’t quite appreciated just how absolutely massive they actually were until she got closer. Forget skyscrapers, these things were the size of entire city blocks at ground level and likely reached something like a hundred stories into the sky, tapering as they did. They were completely smooth, with no windows or other visible breaks or imperfections.

Despite how they looked from the outside, there was no way that something made out of pure rock would be structurally sound at that size. There had to be some kind of magic involved to keep them from collapsing.

They served to underline just how preposterously gigantic the mountain range the city was built on was when its peaks made these things seem like toothpicks in comparison.

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The sheer scale of this world took a bit to get used to.

The other buildings in Grailmane were surprisingly sizable as well, even if they were dwarfed by the spires. The buildings in the city were dominated by large, two- to four-story, stone structures that looked like big apartment blocks crowded along the sides of the smoothed stone roads. Many of them were made out of the same organic-looking mage-stone that the Outpost had been made out of, just applied to the darker type of stone of the mountain.

As interesting as the architecture was, it was the people that drew Rita’s eye, however.

There were humans, sure. Plenty of them, of every skin colour and ethnicity you could imagine, and a couple Rita had never even imagined before. But there were just as many that were absolutely not human. Some, she’d already come into contact with back at Triskellion Outpost. Most looked at least mostly human-ish, except for feathers, fur, strange ears, or a combination of some other odd traits, but a few looked positively inhuman.

Like the large, hulking bat-person manning (batting?) a small food stall selling thin strips of some kind of heavily roasted meat on skewers. Wings far too small to allow flight appeared to be folded along somewhat muscular arms and he even had the flat, scrunched up, so-ugly-it-was-cute face with big ears on the top of his head.

Gora briefly sniffed in the direction of the stall and the smell of roasting meat, but continued past without stopping. The proprietor completely ignored them.

Rita had been mentally preparing herself for causing a bit of a stir when they finally reached the city with her strange, arachnid body. Possibly even some trouble with the guards at the city gate who might have had some issues with letting a ‘monster’ inside.

But not only were there no guards - or even a gate, for that matter, the buildings just sort of… stopped - she barely raised an eyebrow.

A few looks, certainly. Possibly even a stare or two. But for the most part, people seemed to spare her little more than a brief, curious glance, as if she were a mild curiosity at best and annoyingly wide at worst.

A centaur - an actual, honest to god, horse-person with four legs and a black coat and beard - heading the other direction as their group, returned her own stare as they walked past each other. It was only after they’d passed each other that he winked at her.

Rita’s head immediately snapped forward again. He hadn’t been staring because she looked strange, he’d been staring because he’d been checking her out.

She’d been checked out. By a horse.

Creepy.

As they walked slowly deeper between the mage-stone buildings, Rita spotted something else that drew her attention.

Two women stood at the side of the road ahead of them, conversing with each other, gesturing wildly and punctuating their sentences with boisterous laughter. They looked like super models, with perfect, hourglass shaped figures covered in simple, skimpy outfits and beautiful, heart-shaped faces with delicate features. They looked so similar, they could have been sisters.

They also had flawless, red skin and curling, light-gray horns sprouting out of their foreheads. In a way, they looked a lot like Gora, except their eyes had a dark-red inner glow, visible even at that distance. And they were, you know, a bit more feminine.

Rita never thought that she’d be happy to see an actual demon, straight from mythology back on Earth, but there it was. She was happy that she’d found an actual demon. She could finally get Alice healed!

She’d barely taken two steps towards them when Gora’s hand clamped down on her shoulder and gently dragged her back.

“Not those ones, Rita,” she rumbled softly.

“But… but they’re demons! They can help!” Rita protested.

“’Can’ and ‘will’ are two different things,” Gora sighed. “Unless you have a proper, iron-clad contract set up first, they’re just going to screw you over, big time. Don’t worry, I have a few contacts, I’ll get you set up, just give me a little time. First, all of us need to report in to the Delver’s Guild building so we can turn in our gear and finish up the job, okay?”

Rita sighed. It looked like Alice was going to have to hold on just a little bit longer.