Elrik sat up in his bed with a start. Then he blinked, and took a deep breath.

Slowly his eyes adjusted to the pre-dawn light that peeked in from the window. The sun was just barely starting to creep into the horizon, painting the sky in shades of subtle violet. The air outside had the clear crisp coolness that only the predawn could have.

That.. was a lot

Elrik rolled out of the bed rubbed his face.

The room he was in was a stark, spartan place. There was a bed, a desk and a chair - and little else. The walls were bare - as were the shelves, save for a few sets of clothes. The room was bare of anything that might suggest someone lived here - that someone had lived here for months now.

Of course Elrik, quite literally, spent too much time in his own head to ever bother getting around to furniture.

Elrik got out of his room and went to the communal bathroom down the hall.

He still didn't fully understand that strange dream space of his apartment..

Was it real? Was it a dream? Was it all happening inside his mind?

He didn't know.. but he couldn't deny - the magic of this world was doing something to him. It was doing something that that he didn't understand - something that seemed unique even to this strange world.

There's something dangerous growing in my head. And I don't know where it stops...

But it was an edge. And he needed every edge he could get in this strange, beautiful, wild place. So he'd put aside his questions and accept it.

He was in a dangerous new world now - in this place - on Aruth. Life seemed worth so much less here, and death so much easier come to by.

He wondered why then.. why he loved it so. Why did this strange, wild dangerous world so thrum with his soul - more than earth ever did.

Elrik felt a dangerous smile break out on his face. He felt alive here.

...

Usually, in Aunty Ruiz's apartments for bachelors, there was some crowding in the bathrooms, but this early - Elrik had the space all to himself.

He spent a few minutes washing up. He enjoyed the quiet meditation of getting ready before the run rose. It gave him time to collect his thoughts, as the cold water ran over his body.

He needed answers.. He needed to know.

He needed answers - and the only one who might hold them - seemed to be whoever had plotted to have him killed.

For himself. For Agrisu and Senu and Sakka and Yena.

Six months ago, Elrik had - somehow - survived and had washed up on the river shore.

Luckily, he'd grasped enough of the language and customs to let him make his way, slowly, into the city. He'd picked up on enough of the local mannerisms - that when he said was from a little village around here - no one questioned it.

The vacancies in the city watch were a spot of luck.

He'd quietly made a name for himself, by just a dint of competence, rising to corporal in a few short months.

He liked the watch. Elrik liked feeling his way through the rhythms of a city again - however foreign it was in some ways. He liked slowly coming to know the the beating heart of it - the street markets, the guild houses, the smiths and the alchemists.

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He liked quiet unspoken mission that drove the watch. They were growing a city here, building it up into something.

And it gave him time - time to investigate.

Then he grabbed his uniform and breastplate from his room and he was out the door

...

"Halt! In the name of the law!"

The order was shouted in a lisping chorus. Four small children barred the doorway to the building, decked out in array of mismatched costumes, meant to resemble the watch.

The eldest - a six year old with a gap tooth grin - produced a knife held in one hand and stepped forward. She waved it threateningly in the air before her.

"It's four candies to pass through here! City watch toll!"

Well, so much for the watch's sterling reputation.. even kids pretending to be watchmen were extorting passerby's now...

"Easy, easy does it, Amaya", Elrik held his hands up in the air in mock surrender, "I have them here in my pocket - I'm going to fetch it for you"

"Slowly", The girl warned, her eyes narrowing

Elrik pretended to grab something from his pocket then held his hand out, "Here you go, no one needs to get hurt today - alright?". Elrik's voice quavered in mock fear.

The girl reached out, to grab her loot, but lightning fast, Elrik's hand shot out whisking the tiny dagger from between her fingers.

"Hey!", Amaya cried out in outrage that was immediately on the verge of tears, "Give that back! You cheated!"

Elrik gave her a glare and examined the little blade. It well made, sharp and had a decent balance to it. He looked up at six year old, waving it the dagger in the air, "Little girls shouldn't be running around with daggers"

Amaya just crossed her arms, "Mother says, everyone needs a weapon to protect themselves with in the city"

Elrik sighed, fair enough. This was Kalaghutta after all.

Reluctantly he handed the dagger back to the six year old with a warning, "Careful with that - and don't let the little ones touch it"

Amaya snatched back the dagger, all outrage and contempt, "Of course not! They're too little for dangerous things", she seemed delighted that a line had been drawn between her and the smaller children.

Elrik swiftly scooted past them, before they figured out what he was doing. He shouted over his shoulder as he did, "I'll bring something back in the evening! Corporal's word!"

A chorus of satisfied cheers followed behind him.

...

As night turned to dawn in the city, Elrik finally walked out of the building.

"Morning Aunty!", Elrik waved to Aunty Ruiz, his landlord. The middle-aged pregnant woman gave him an approving smile. She'd already set up at her usual place, in her rocking chair on the building porch.

Aunty Ruiz gave Elrik an approving smile, "Good morning Corporal! I hope you took a roll of bread from the kitchen!"

Aunty adored Elrik. He paid his rent on time, was whisper quiet in his room, and he was a Corporal in the city watch. He was the model tenant.

Elrik smiled as he walked past. He'd come to quite like her - Aunty Ruiz and her children. There was something about his landlord's petty penny pinching ways or her laissez-faire approach to parenting that almost reminded him of his mother. For a second Elrik’s smile faded.

He shook his head, clearing it. No, he had other things to worry about.

House Akela - another of the great Houses of the Imperium.

Somehow, he doubted it was a coincidence that he'd run into one scion of the house - just hours before being recruited to babysit another.. He was being vetted - scouted - perhaps being recruited

Elrik frowned to himself.

He was not doing a very good job of keeping his head down. It was bad enough that the great game of the houses was coming to Kalaghutta. He, for one, didn't want to have any part of it.

...

Elrik walked in quick brisk steps, till he came to the corner - where the street met the greater thoroughfare.

Erlik had never seen a stoneshaper at work - or any of the mages of this world - who's magic made light of the work of building. He'd heard once that a single mage could lay down the firmament of a city in a handful of months.

They did good work, leveling and laying down roads and streets in days - that would have taken the romans years to build.

Then again the Romans had lasted more than a thousand years on earth..

Again Elrik was reminded of different this world was from his own. The Imperium on Aruth wasn't rome.. it was barely a fledgeling kingdom by the standards of the Romans - rising swiftly on the back of the strange magics of this world..

"Woah there", the carriage driver brought the giant ghaanu to a halt, tugging on its reigns. He looked to Elrik, as the beast pawed at the ground, shaking its great antlered head. The ghaanu were closer to reindeer or elk than horses - with steel hard hooves that needed no shoes. For a second Elrik was lost looking at the magnificent thing, before he looked back to the driver.

"Akela manor"

The driver nodded and motioned for him to get on.