The day before, I found an inn early on in the evening, so all the changes awaited being discovered. This place with little magic, did they use the abundance of oil here to become a city that never slept? Such a large and busy city, there was no need to stop just because the sun had descended.

That's just a delusion in my head; Glaucen stilled by a great deal once night fell.

Even with these flagstone roads and lampposts softly illuminating them, the barren streets made it wasted effort. Did people really lack so much to do at night? With Lyssa’s sermon on how the church valued self sufficiency, it gave me the idea that there would be more people working hard. Instead, it looked like the whole town was about to fall idle for half the day.

There were still a few citizens out and about, but the density was such that I only saw someone every half hour, and at a long distance away even then. Glaucen wasn't lit up particularly well, but the broad and straight roads made it easy to spot others at a distance. In essence, the night would be depressingly encounter-free.

Looking to the bright moons in the sky, I had to find my own entertainment for the night. Actually, looking to the sky to see two moons got me interested in observing the heavens. Casting so as not to disturb anybody in my wanderings, I found myself a barrel forgotten on the side of the street to perch myself atop. Due to my unusually large frame it was a bit awkward getting settled comfortably, but I was able to end up cross-legged in a suitably relaxing pseudo-meditative position as I looked to the sky.

The twin moons gave the view a slight similarity to the one from earth. But any more than a slight glance and the differences became apparent. The stars were innumerable and blanketed the sky, and while not all were bright, they were still clear.

Astral bodies, where have you gone? It turns out they all went to this world. Next rhetorical question please.

The two moons somehow managed to be even more eye catching than the spectacle of stars, despite appearing fairly mundane. One took up the space of about a plum held at arm’s length, overbearingly bright, but being less than a quarter full provided little illumination. The smaller, about the size of the thumbnail at arm’s length, was much harder to distinguish from the background. Lacking the intensity of its celestial sibling, it was also tinged with a navy hue, making it even more difficult to detect against the background.

Something about them, a bombastic pearl of radiance and subdued sapphire drew my attention for a long while. Curious how I never really noticed the sky like this during those first few nights on the road under the sky, or even when I rested outdoors in the village. I reasoned it to be the similarity to some games, and it required a conscious thought to remember it was now the norm. Besides, I'd not attached any importance to the sky and its decorations.

I likely spent several hours dazing off in that manner, making note of the positions of the stars. No real reason to do so, but there was also little else for me to do. 

Then zoning out a bit, my equilibrium became unbalanced, and shaking a bit as I jolted back into position, the barrel beneath me did likewise. It didn't shift by much, and I could feel it was filled with a heavy liquid of some sort. Speaking of which, why was such a container just left out on the streets of Alchemist Avenue?

Losing interest in the heavens, I began to thoroughly inspect the matter of my makeshift seat. Whatever was inside this sealed container, there was enough of it that it shouldn't be cheap. I knew from my lessons earlier in the day that liquids and extracts were used in small quantities, with the obvious exception of water. Their prices were still no less than a unit of other similar materials, and a whole barrel such as this would be quite the investment. For it to just sit out on the streets like this, there had to be some fool involved. It would be so easy to just take this incredibly valuable mystery liquid.

Jingshi were calling my name, but I ignored them. Righteousness over wealth. I wouldn't become a thief over such a petty matter.

Still, the question nagged at me; between the actions and stories of those around me in Glaucen implied that criminal behaviors were not startlingly uncommon. The lack of regular law enforcement was more so that members of the church could act as they wished without guideline or precedent. In fact so long as it didn't affect the church negatively, they didn't seem to give a whit about it. The city was the skeletal frame of the church, with everyone else grasping on to that support to fill in the rest. No one would be so careless with their goods.

Doing a little investigation, I crawled over the exterior looking for clues. Along the rim, a familiar symbol that resembled an upside down fleur-di-lis was branded. Given how much new information I'd been exposed to over the past two days, I didn't actually remember where I'd seen it though. Accursed ignorance...next time it came up, I would definitely sear it into my memory.

Continuing to search, it was a bit difficult to spot in the poor lighting, but looking at the bottom of the barrel, there was a large patch of discoloration. Heavier and more prominent at the bottom, but scattered higher up, I could tell it was the result of a spill of some sort. Squinting my eyes, I turned to the ground.

The paved ground of course wasn't monochromatic, but upon closer examination I could make out the edges of the most recent spill. A faint plant-stem green residue, the same as on the barrel. Crouching down, I could make out numerous white marks and tiny shards of glazed pottery. Was it left out because it had been contaminated by a spill of some other ingredient? I didn't feel like that was the right answer, since the residue didn't reach to high up and the container seemed relatively solid.

Continuing to look for more information in the surroundings, to the sides of the barrel were circular patches of ground untainted by the spill. 

I felt so happy, is this present for me?

Whatever this was, it and several other barrels like it had been there when a spill occurred. Present on either side, it had clearly been left behind on purpose. Considering it hadn't been taken, there was probably a defect I wasn't aware of.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Beggars can't be choosers!

Wrapping it in a bear hug, I expended some stamina to lift it into my . The black vortex appeared silently, much larger this time, so I could place the barrel in, as if setting it on a ledge. My arms disappeared inside, but it seemed to only be a visual effect, as it certainly didn't feel as if they'd gone anywhere. Even as harmless as putting so much of myself inside the seemed, I resisted the urge to jump inside. What if I got trapped inside? How would opening inside work? Would I be so fortunate as to be able to escape, or would it just give me nested inventories? I wasn't about to do something so reckless as curious as I was.

Since I then lacked an activity to waste away the time, I settled on exploring the city more thoroughly. So far I had only been getting the general gist of the place, but I supposed it would be useful to further familiarize myself with Glaucen. Being the largest city I could reach and the sheer density of events that took place inside its walls, it was only natural to try and memorize as much of it as possible.

I began in Alchemist Avenue, and were Glaucen to be described as a unit circle, it would be around 13/16 tau and 0.4r. Departing in the direction of positive rotation, the mercantile sector was the first one encountered. Slightly south of the eastern gate where the majority of trade came through, there were surprisingly few buildings. Primarily flat, with wide roads; the place seemed structured for loading and unloading goods. Personally, it seemed like to have such a spot within the walls. If the city came under siege, then they wouldn't be doing much trade would they?

I skirted the edges of this zone, for there were caravans in the process of being loaded, and there were guards hired to watch the premises, some of them being Disciples. So it seemed that they could be hired to do work outside the church, interesting. Of course the vast majority of guards were still normal folk, but that's something to be expected.

The eastern entrance of the city seemed to be a dividing line between where wagons and caravans unloaded, and the portion of the city where purchases would be made by citizens. Directly north of the east entrance at 15/16 tau, the shopping district started. Glaucen must have had an esteemed city planner, as despite the incredible density and variety of shops, it was all too easy to navigate, and the streets were no wider than they needed to be. I remembered back to the height of pedestrian traffic the day before, despite the thick crowds, it was actually quite easy to move along.

There were an abundance of cobblers and carpenters, which made sense, but what really raised my brow was a store for religious trinkets. Note that even though I was illiterate regarding Derrish letters, so were the vast majority of commoners. The shops identified themselves with the symbol found on the Heirga Yoll, the religious building for the masses. I found it strange for independent looking places to exist when the church centralized so much power, but it made sense once thinking about the sheer number of disciples there were.

While disciples were a minority, the population of Glaucen, and Derriad as a whole, surpassed common medieval settings by a huge margin. With all of them gathering in the few large cities combined with the fact they were essentially a higher class, it was almost like there were two populations that existed. Religious affairs were a bridging point where the two met, and seemed to be how the church was extracting additional resources from villeins and their lot.

I say this, and you might think ‘well, that doesn't sound so surprising. Of course those bourgeois will try and exploit the proletariat.’ Calm down Marx, the invisible hand of the market isn't quite wrapped around the necks of the working class, they still have a choice in making their purchases. This is where I began to realize how much I’d underestimated the religious sentiment of this land.

Religion is something that varies intensely from fiction to fiction. Since I focused my efforts on works from ages past, I felt fairly confident in knowing more about how religion functioned in predominantly religious societies than most. Even so, as I browsed the commercial district, I felt the Derrish were some strange mix of fanatic and casual worshipper.

There prices were indicated on the outside of the stores for one or two items. Vertical wooden planks with an image at the top, with two columns of coins depicting the price. I took this to mean these were the specialties of the shop, and would be either high quality, or low in price. At first, only the first seemed to make any sense, because one would have to be mad to only make the sums cited in conversation and buy these gewgaws.

25 cupra for a strip of paper with writing! 75 for an entire sheet! 30 for what looked to be a normal candle! 50 for a string of beads! One argent for a patterned bowl! 2 argent 50 cupra for a knife, and an additional argent for a whetstone! An argent for what I assumed to be some sort of holy water!

Who can afford these things? And by the looks of them, they were primarily consumable! If there had been only one shop, I could brush it off, but the quantity of these religious stores showed there had to be quite the demand for them. High prices at high supply, and there was still high demand! 

Only then did I really understand how liberal Lyssa and the village seemed to be in their beliefs. Derriad was a country of maddened fanatics, only pacified by being hundreds of miles from the nearest apparent dissenting opinion. I thought learning more about Tiaism was just to move more smoothly through Derriad, but it seemed knowing the religious landscape was a survival skill.

I may not have been overpowered to start, but at least there had been the blessing of fortune to only be running into those tolerant of my apostic disposition. In the end, I am still a believer in an internal locus of control and determining my own fate.

There were still a few hours left before dawn, so I moved onwards towards the temple. I'd taken the matter too lightly, and needed to investigate before getting swept into something by my ignorance.

A/N:AHHHHHHHH!