The walls surrounding the city looks quite impressive. I didn’t do too much traveling before, and for the most part just inside of the US. Seeing walls like these is rather amazing. Guessing I believe the walls to rise about 6-8 meters. I do wonder how the houses, roads,and people are inside the city?
“Stop, please identify yourselves.”
Peaking around the carriage at the person speaking I see a guard dressed in what I assume is the cities colors, given the similarly dressed guards around the gate.
“Master Emmerich Josef Danks is here to assume the position of the new guild master of the merchants guild.”
“Guildmaster Danks, finally the merchants will get some new leadership. Well,carry on through.”
The guard that had stopped the carriage waved for us to continue. When I passed the guards they gave me some weird looks. Why are they doing that? I didn’t get any weird looks from Ardin or Ced or any of the other guards with the carriage. Right? Probably just the fact that someone without armor is walking beside the guards behind the carriage. Yeah, that is it.
Once we passed through the gate I finally got a look at what houses looks like in this place. And I don’t really know what I expected. They just look like normal medieval houses. Most of the houses lining the road we are traveling are of off white color. About three stories tall and seems to have been built as large connected blocks.
*splash*
I immediately turn towards the sound and see only brown.
“Hahahahaha. I-”
I’m going to throw up.
“I-I can-can’t, hahaha”
Get it off.
“Miss-ha-miss Al-ha-alice why”
What did I just touch? OH MY GOD!
“OH MY G-”
Darkness.
----------------------------------------
Sounds. What just happened? We walked into the city and I heard something. What was it? A splash, right. I turned towards it and then only brown. Oh god. And-and-and then. Then I touched something. A SEA URCHIN. YES! That is exactly what I touched. Nothing else. Nope. Never touched anything else. It must have been a poisoned sea urchin since I fell unconscious. Yup. Poisoned sea urchin.
Opening my eyes I see a ceiling? Right they wouldn’t just leave me in the streets. Feeling around me I am definitely lying in a bed. Though I must say it isn’t a comfy bed at all. It feels like I am laying on a large bundle of hay or something. Taking a look around I see three other beds in the room.
I lift one of my arms and look at it. It seems like I have been cleaned. And taking a tentative whiff of my hand. It carries a tiny hint of lavender.
As I am trying to determine my state the door into the room is opened letting in a matronly woman. Taking a guess I would say she is around 40-45 years old. She is dressed in what I would say is a rather typical servant or maids dress.
“I see you are awake, girl. I think this is the first time I have heard of someone first getting a face full of night soil and then falling unconscious. Be glad that Master Danks cares and had you transported to his residence. I was also told that you had been allowed to follow them for security to the city in exchange for helping with unloading the carriage.”
I couldn’t do much but nod at what she was saying. I also feel rather stupid from what happened.
“Now they have already done that, they couldn’t really wait for you. Instead, Master Danks said you would help me and the other girls for the rest of the day in getting the house situated. Luckily you were only out for about an hour, so there is plenty of the day left. So get up, and put on that dress there.”
She points towards the end of the bed I am lying in, guessing by the other beds having a chest at the end it is probably laid on top of that. As I start getting up and out of the bed the woman is still standing there, looking at me. I quickly put one of my hands down to cover myself. Whilst the other hand with a bit of a delay covers my chest.
“Uhm, ma’am why are you just standing there and looking at me? Isn’t this innapr-”
Right. I’m a girl.
“I don’t have all day and I need to make sure you get that dress on. They said you were mind-touched and I am starting to believe them. Now get dressed!”
Mind-touched? What’s that? Though from the sounds of it I should hurry and get dressed. Walking over to the end of the bed I see that I was correct in assuming the dress was placed on a chest. Lying on top of the dress is a pair of undergarments. Why are there no panties? I mean boxer shorts. Taking the undergarments I put them on. Huh, they kind of reminds of boxers, though looser.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Lifting the dress it is quite similar to the dress the woman is wearing. I manage to pull the dress over my head but struggle with making sure it sits properly.
“Hmpf”
Is all I hear before a pair of hands grabs the dress and adjusts it.
“There we go. You can’t even put on a dress properly. Anyways, now that you are dressed follow me.”
I turn around as the woman starts walking towards the door. It takes a few seconds before what she said registers and I hurry to follow her.
Walking out the door I am met with the smell of food. Looking around I see two men and another woman working with food on different surfaces. The woman I followed turn back to me.
“This is the kitchen, the room we came from is one of the servant’s quarters. There won’t be any food for us just yet. Now follow me upstairs and we can get you started.”
She turns around and starts walking towards one of the doors leading from the kitchen. I do feel a bit hungry with all the smells around me but not as much as I would have expected. So again I hurry to follow the woman.
She leads me through a short hallway with a few doors and up some stairs, though I would rather call the stairs a ladder with their incline. Once upstairs she walks down another hallway and walks into one of the rooms. Following her inside I am greeted by a rather lavish bedroom. I am sure the bed itself could hold five or six people. Around the room, there is a handful of wardrobes and a dressing table. On one of the sides is two large windows and the rest of the walls contain varying sizes of paintings.
Standing by the dressing table is another woman dressed in the servants’ attire. She smiles at us when we enter the room.
“Anna, I will leave you with the girl, Alice I think Ardin said her name was, have her help you get the room ready for the Master. Girl, listen well to what Anna says, she is second only to me so when I am not around her word goes.”
I nod in understanding to the woman.
“Good, now get to work.”
Saying so she turns and heads out of the bedroom through one of the other doors. Leaving me with Anna.
“So, you’re the forest girl, Alice was it? Just follow what I do and you shouldn’t have much of a problem.”
“N-yes, Alice is correct.”
She smiled at me and handed me a cleaning cloth before turning back towards the dressing table and starting to clean.
I must say I was very glad there were no vases or such in the bedroom. Had there been I am sure I would have ended up knocking one of them over. Cleaning that bedroom took quite a lot of time. I wasn’t aware that something of that size could take so long to clean. I am fairly certain that if you were to go over the room with white gloves there wouldn’t be a speck of dust to be found.
One thing is for sure though, and that is how tired I am from all that cleaning. Why can’t they use magic for this? That would be so much simpler I imagine. Just a wave of your hands or something and poof, clean room. I tried asking Anna about that and basically got the same response as from Ced earlier. I did however learn that there is a guild for magic users in the city.
Once we finished cleaning the bedroom Anna had me follow her and lead me to what I assume is the study the desk and bookcases. There I was told to be extra careful so that I didn’t damage anything.
Cleaning the study took forever. I mean, by the time I heard what Anna said was the dining bell we were far from finished if it was to get as clean as the bedroom.
Leading the way Anna walked back down to the kitchen where I could now see there was a table in one of the corners. Sitting around the table were a few other women, including the one that I assumed must be the head maid. We walked over and sat down, grabbing a plate each of the food that was on the table.
I can’t say I am fond of servants’ food. It’s so bland and stale and everything. I mean the dark or black bread was stale and the stew had no taste really. I don’t even think there was any meat in the stew.
Whilst eating the servants that had for the most part finished talked mostly about what had been going on around the estate? Villa? Property during the day. What they seemed to find interesting I don’t understand. Like when was it interesting to find out that the Lady of the house had gotten a certain dress? Or that the master had some critique on one of the bushes?
When I finished eating I just had to ask them about where the magic guild was.
“Anna told me that there was a magic guild in the city, does anyone of you know where I can find it?”
“Hmm, it is in the central square, though I don’t really see why you would want to know that? Only nobles and rich people go there.”
“I want to learn magic! I-”
All of the servants around the table burst out laughing at that. Some of them even laughed so hard they started getting teary eyes.
“Wow, that made my day. A commoner learning magic. Well, non of us are going to stop you, girl.”
“Yes, it sounds rather unbelievable. Alice, Master Danks said that you were free to leave after dinner, though he also said that if you were considering getting some work to come to see him either now or tomorrow in the morning. But if you are leaving I would recommend that you find an inn to stay at. The cheap and safe ones are on the east side of the merchants quarter.”
“Thank you, ma’am, and when you see, uhm, Guildmaster Danks, please tell him thank you for the offer and safety. I don’t suppose you can tell me where I can find my clothes or any clothes at all? I imagine you would want the dress back?”
“Anna, don’t you have that set of old clothes still lying around? How about giving them to Alice so she can go and join the mage guild.”
Anna nodded to the head maid and waved for me to follow her. We went back to the servant’s quarter where I woke up and she opened one of the chests. From there she pulled out some rather shabby looking dress with almost no color except what color it must have gotten from use. She handed me the clothes with a smile.
“There you go, Alice. I would recommend you to just go talk with Master Danks, it sounds like you would get an offer to join us servants here. And he is quite a nice person to serve. He loves his wife so there aren’t any problems there and the guards are very honorable. But if you want to go to the guild I can’t stop you. It was nice meeting you and good luck. I’ll let you get changed and wait for you outside in the foyer, that is out the door there.”
She indicated one of the other doors leading out of the servant’s quarters that I hadn’t noticed earlier before she headed through the door herself. Once I was alone in the room I tried to be quick with getting out of the dress. But not because I felt uncomfortable, it was actually a rather nice dress to wear, but more since I wanted to hurry before it got too late. Quickly getting into the hand me down dress I made my way out to the foyer.
In the foyer, Anna was already waiting by a rather grand pair of doors, that I assume is the entrance, and waved me over.
“The dress isn’t the best but I’d rather someone have it than throwing it away. Now once more are you sure you don’t want to stay? It is starting to get late.”
“I need to see if I can join the mages. Who doesn’t want to do magic, and I am quite certain I can do it. I just know it. Thank you for the dress Anna and have a good evening.”
I waved to Anna and went through the door leading out. Seeing the gardens I stopped almost immediately. They were beautiful, just the spread of color in the different plants and bushes complemented by the greenest grass I think I have ever seen made for an almost unimaginable sight. Shaking my head I resumed walking, I can’t spend time looking at flowers when I need to hurry towards the mages guild.
When I reached the gate of the estate I asked one of the guards standing there where the central square and subsequently the mages guild where. They gave me the directions, which basically amounted to follow the road you are on right now towards the right for about 10-15 minutes and it will be the square you reach with the large statue in the middle. The guild itself should be quite obvious once there.
On the way over to the square, I passed quite a lot of people, most were rather well dressed. Non really at the level of the guild master Danks, but definitely up there. I guess people at Danks’ level of wealth and nobles wouldn’t walk and rather ride a carriage or horses or something.
When I reached the central square I would have to agree with the guard when he said that the mages guild would be quite obvious. After all, it isn’t really hard to find it when it is the largest building in the square. Having what appears to be magical light floating around the entrance and a pair of heavily armed men standing by both the door and the stairs leading up.
I stared at the building for almost a full minute before building up the courage to head in. I almost expected the guards to stop me at the stairs, but they didn’t even turn their heads and I continued to the door. Again the guards didn’t even seem to be alive as I pushed open the door. And was greeted by the sight of the reception room of the guild.