Before me was a sprawling city of tents surrounded by a high wooden palisade and a deep earthen ditch filled with sharpened stakes. Pairs of men armed with fine long lances patrolled upon the ramparts. There were four gates, at what I presumed were the cardinal points of the compass. Gasping, I saw that in the center was what could only be described as a great ark of a ship, like some enormous leviathan of the ocean that had been beached.
Its neighbor was a large golden-domed white structure of some sort, reminiscent of the grand mosques I had seen back on Earth. Around the ark, four main streets of hard-packed earth sporadically paved with bleach-white stone, could be seen flowing from the center of the city. Scattered across the tents there were a few rare stone and wooden buildings one and two stories tall.
Towards the east just outside the walls was a primordial forest of trees golden and green in the late afternoon light. The smoke of many charcoal burners could be seen at the forest’s edge rising lazily into the air. Near the forest, I spied a quarry, or a mining pit, filled with workers toiling away at the alabaster rock.
Taken together, the nomadic tents, the rough stone buildings, and the presence of primitive industry defied direct categorization. But the academic in me placed the level of civilization at around the 11th or 12th century, and a rough guess would establish the population at perhaps twenty to thirty thousand.
Performing these rough calculations in my head, I was filled with a renewed sense of wonder, realizing that this single area was bigger in scale than the entirety of any of the adventure role-playing games I had played back on Earth.
As I had stopped in my tracks, lost in wonder, someone kicked me from behind, forcing me to hurry and keep pace with the horse. Weary and exhausted, it was sundown when we finally approached the southern gate. Bogurchu exchanged words with the group of guards at the entrance before handing a length of knotted leather string and a single copper coin to a young boy who quickly scampered into the city.
The streets were hard-packed mud, with occasional deep ruts. Shutters were closing as the city prepared for the night, and the sounds of city life filled the air. I could hear the sounds of when humanity is pressed together, the arguments, the minor violence, the crying of babies.
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Close by, I saw a long line of miserable, pale-skinned, muscular men being led down a street in chains, their eyes devoid of hope. They passed us just as we walked by a large tent filled with music, laughter, and merriment, a stark contrast to the misery of the chained men. It was their equivalent of a tavern, I presumed. Occasionally, a mounted patrol would pass us, and Bogurchu would salute them with a closed fist over his chest.
Finally, we arrived at our destination: a squat building of rough-cut stone, around two stories high. Every window of the building had wooden shutters and cast-iron bars. At the entrance, two guards stood, looking bored and tired in the way of men who had performed the same duty many times over. For them, every action and order had become rote and repetition. They saluted our leader before lazily making way for our party.
Inside, a stubby, bored-looking man was reading characters written on animal hide at a desk. He looked up and gave us a lazy nod as we passed, before I was roughly shoved into a stone cell. The hinges of the stout iron door squealed in protest as it closed with an ominous clang, signaling the finality of my imprisonment.
Through the bars of the cell, I saw the guards turn to leave, jauntily stepping away as if a job well accomplished. Further down from my cell, the sound of playful laughter could be heard. Men were giving each other a ribbing, only to be tersely cut short by an authoritative voice.
My new environment consisted of a small cell, with a pile of straw in one corner. In the other corner, there were two buckets. One was filled with water and the other empty. The walls were made from solid stone of uniform length and shape, the gaps filled with damp, rotting mortar. A small window, secured with iron bars just above my head, let in a drizzle of twilight into my new, dank dwelling.
I moved to the straw in the corner and sat down, feeling almost catatonic. Glancing at my Health reminded me that I had suffered great damage from my beating earlier that day. Silently, I cast Heal. Normally, in a game, I would be eager to try out an improved spell or skill, but now I felt nothing but dejected exhaustion. Halfheartedly, I noticed that my spell was healing me for five points of health, which was a vast improvement. This helped alleviate some of the aches that were running through my body.
However, magic could do little for the bitter humiliation and the hope that had been cut savagely short. Huddled in the corner on the pile of straw, I hugged myself in the cold, damp cell. Feeling helpless, alone, weak, and under-leveled, I longed to return to the comforts and security of my old life. Frustrated by the absolute powerlessness I had experienced, I wept myself to a troubled sleep, filled with grim dreams of cruel men.