Wet wafer biscuits are already an annoying thing to deal with. But add on the passing ships, which they had to swerve around constantly to avoid ramming into one, and it becomes a very fun underwater journey.
The tunnel, which descended deeper and deeper, featured motes of light along the walls to keep the whole place well lit. And while a large place, wide enough for at least three smaller ships to travel side by side, the lack of height meant that all transport through was done using ships with arrays to move. Some more advanced ones actually possessed retractable masts, but these rarely appeared and signalled some more valuable cargo heading for Aphtail.
After just a few minutes of kicking hard against the water, they finally saw the ship-bearing tunnel widen out and let them catch sight of the city.
When someone imagines ‘Watery cities’, their first assumption is that the elves were obviously smart enough to just place a massive barrier over the whole place and cycle air using dedicated channels. Or by absorbing oxygen from the water itself…
This is not what any elven architects did.
In the massive underground lake, the primary light source was the magical glow coming from the ten giant, grey chains anchored to the walls of the great cavern. Each of them connected to a wide metal disk, on which the city of Aphtail was formed. However, this disk was not the full extent of the city’s support, as a thick spike in the centre stabbed down into the stone beneath, and layers of shrinking disks were placed equidistant from one another, all the way down to the stone bed of the cavern. That overly grand display merely formed the baseplate of this elven city.
From there, the elves used one of two forms of ‘grand’ architecture, as they called it.
Ultra-Precise, or naturally blending. The Watery city of Aphtail was in the Ultra-Precise style, and the name was apt. Every single building in the dark cave made use of a slightly reflective pale stone which bounced around the white motes of light all around to create the appearance of a citadel sunken beneath this water.
Around the buildings, they clearly saw water flow past, wearing down the very architecture which would have to be repaired in just a few months.
Ultra-Precise is to be taken literally. Everything, and that means everything, is engraved with some style of design befitting its material or the city’s style. Stone was crafted into intricate shapes and designs as though the objects were simply made of clay. What might be a specially-crafted gargoyle for a church in some small human cities was merely a basic adornment on a house here. Metals were instead engraved with fine designs made with smooth strokes that rarely deviated or slanted. In some places, the metal even rose from the architecture to create tiny, delicate structures to match their engravings.
One might ask why in the world anyone would go through such hell for an entire city?
But the Ultra-Precise style was actually rather unique, and it existed here because, at its core, Aphtail is a tourist destination for the independent elven state of Frittla. Not simply this nation, but the surrounding several as well, leading it to become quite a place for generating income.
However, such a place was one they wished to visit, not reside in for the long-term.
Aphtail is expensive to live in, and while possessing admirable mana densities, it hardly met the group’s future needs. Stores here did not cater to warriors or wizards en masse, but more importantly, the closest hunting ground was at least an hour away when including the journey out they’d have to make.
It made an excellent introduction to the Trifer continent though, and that’s why none of the seven was unwilling to take this short trip. Also, as a tourist destination, it was unbelievably comfortable to live in.
Before all that, they first had to deal with the fact that only the insides of buildings in the city could be breathed in. The reason for this is so the city can exorbitantly loan out magical equipment which allowed ordinary people to breathe on their visit. As said, it was not a cheap place to live. Fortunately, they didn’t need such things, but their lack of any elven currencies made it a bit hard to pay for anything.
The harbour master had been alright with taking some black dreyers as payment, but very few places would take the currency in Aphtail. Fortunately, humans did come through here, very rarely that is, so the banks and commerce groups were happy to exchange currencies at a small fee. Normally varying between 2-5% of the amount exchanged, and the major differences would be some small amenities and even discounts given at other stores owned by that group.
In their case, a quick exchange had all their spare dreyers converted into the rough equivalent for elves, called crowns. At around 7 pounds of gold a piece, it could be seen that they were slightly more valuable than Dreyers on average, although the market did change. Crowns were coins formed of lustrous chromatic metal and featured a figure of a peach on one side with a crown on the other.
Every coin used one side to easily distinguish its type, although colour and size often did a well-enough job.
As for the peach, that represented the elves’ primary god. Just as the humans had Manus, the ancient elves who barely survived the Eternals long ago poured their faith into their greatest saviour at the time, a peach tree with fruits so powerful that just a single one could bring a Gold ranked warrior all the way to Starlite rank. This effect only became more exaggerated as the tree became sentient, alongside forming a divinity, quickly reaching the supreme tier and then exceeding that level of power with a substantial amount of divinity. In essence, it was already a demigod.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
And as being a demigod is the only known way to grow beyond the supreme tier, the tree’s divine position only grew, eventually forming complete godhood and firmly entering its current place as the elven racial god.
These days, the tree only sprouted once every decade with three fruits, each one could bring a Mithril rank warrior to the peak of Cornem rank, but no such power is obtainable so easily. The fruit did allow for these chained evolutions with no defects but required the one who imbibed it to sacrifice the centuries of lifespan they’d ordinarily gain through such growth to power the effect.
As such, the elves strangely have somewhere upward of 30 Primordius warriors and 20 Great sages at any single time. Not to mention the stream of Cornem ranks and Sages born from weaker graftings of this peach tree, but most of them died within a century or so.
Overall, it meant the elves were incredibly powerful at the upper echelons, but further down, the average quality of life wasn’t so good…
Aphtail was still a pretty great city to stay in though.
Large rooms, fully carpeted and furnished with thick cushions utterly stuffed with down, and the beds with silky, smooth sheets. They even provided similar quality housing for companion beasts at this price range, that being several pounds of gold per person, per night. Food was exquisite, making use of ingredients fit for their tier, and employing chefs who knew how to form dishes that retained the magical aspect of the meals for both flavour and slight alchemical effects.
Desserts were ludicrously expensive with such finesse though, and both the children settled for just a few expensive ones along with a sizable three-tier cake for Raccelline… Although Icy fully planned on raiding a bakery when they entered a more normal city later.
Casinos, magical exhibitions, tea rooms, plays, grand libraries, and several museums dedicated to elven history. Most stores that featured anything magical tailored their products to the fun and play that was common reason for visitors. For that reason, Icy very quietly skipped over pointing out any of the more thematically adult ones, namely the brothels that looked no different to inns with exception of the courtesans who walked past the open entrance suspiciously often.
Alchemical stores mostly stocked potions for pleasure, the most popular ones needed no explanation amongst the adults of the group. Icy recognised them but played innocent to avoid having to explain anything to Raccelline.
Magical tools were similar, although some actually sold some things similar to what the city rented out. Small respiratory devices in the shape of a choker, came in two forms. One directly infused air into your bloodstream, while the other created a small air bubble around your head, the latter being far more popular as most people weren’t used to ‘not breathing’.
The inventors could only imagine why.
Besides all that, the Watery city both enamoured the group and lost its charm after just three days. So far, they spent around 50 crowns enjoying themselves, about a third of that lost in gambling which the group soon grew bored of. Although Icy and Raccelline had some fun by mocking the elves at the ‘legal’ fighting ring, namely by utterly thrashing some in two-on-two combat.
As it turned out, the child with near Mithril rank strength cannot be beaten by two Gold ranks. She couldn’t even use mana throughout all of that, although if weapons were involved, the fight would’ve gone a lot worse for the young pair.
Well, no one ended up believing she was actually a child by the end anyway. Given that Icy was an intelligent beast, they simply assumed her to be another with the ability to shapeshift. And while it might be deemed unfair that Icy could fight with his claws and teeth as opposed to their elven opponents, they very easily bit back with a simpler response, “Well, she is a child.” And most shut up immediately. While they still assumed she shapeshifted, her mannerisms and speech made it clear that whatever she truly was, her mind was no different from a child’s.
Also, it didn’t seem like anyone recognised his draconic identity.
They won 35 crowns from those battles, most of which went to secret funds. However, while he could get away with eating literal mountains of sweets without worry, Raccelline couldn’t, and he knew better than to let her get away with such things.
If she wanted to buy something without the others knowing though, he saw no reason to refuse what rightfully belonged to her.
But after the three days, everyone pretty much had their fun. The city possessed far too much energy, and the constant part of, you know…
Being under water all. Day. Long! It only exhausted them more.
They left the city on the evening of the fourth day after a meal and pushed back up the tunnel before finally emerging above the river. Looking back on it, they barely felt that three days just passed. Quite a few events blended together as well, although none of the group judged each other for what happened. Darak was by far the ‘cleanest’ of them all, and even he followed a simple mantra when it came to wizards.
Never question what they do in their private life. It always spirals out of control.
Well, besides what the adults did to relieve stress, they did at least take some precautions for more serious matters. Like Mala copying a map of Trifer, and the group discussing their paths. The price for said map was best left unsaid, especially for the level of quality she received. It not only showed the borders of nations and the empire, as well as the individual territories within it but further displayed roads and geographical points of interest all over the place.
Strange that his draconic memories lacked anything similar. He definitely had books detailing the points of interest, but they just focused on things to acquire. Would it kill them to just include maps?
The group spent their last night in their rooms discussing paths to take and where to take refuge. Firstly, it needed to be a relatively strong city, as well as have access to locations with gold and mithril tier beasts. Human tolerance was also important, and preferably a place that wasn’t being threatened by a neighbouring state encroaching on land.
Of course, the elven empire as a whole, fit this requirement, quite literally hundreds of such places existing in its vast borders, but they also didn’t want to spend another two months travelling.
Eventually, they settled on a major Fortress city about a month away, it rested next to a forested desert region where gold tier beasts wandered commonly. Mithril tiers were the elites of the forest, and most lords were master tier. It did not seem to have a king at the moment either. Originally, a few beast clans thought it would be easy to overthrow the king and take the place for themselves, but after finally staging the rebellion, a few master tiers equal in strength formed their own alliance and now…
Well, bestial politics aside, it was a perfect ground for Icy to find Advanced rank bloodlines and the group had easy access to everything necessary to hit Mithril rank.
The Fortress retained excellent structure, surviving two movements of unintelligent beasts in the past decade, and it even provided free accommodation to warriors and wizards. In turn, they were required to hunt at least one gold tier from the region every week. Something the group could reasonably achieve in less than ten minutes.
But practically, maybe half an hour, given they’d have to remain a high degree of vigilance in the place.