My first thought was that I felt ashamed that I had ever thought of Edrona as a city. My second thought was that this city didn’t seem like a place for Solomon worshippers.

I first cowered at the sight of two lines of giant marble statues depicting Lady Euridice, which started from the entrance I stood at and then continued down a long, straight road. But my discomfort was soon forgotten once I noticed more people than I’d ever seen at once milling about on the straight road and conducting their various tasks. I still stood alone right outside the little cave entrance, but just looking at the masses felt suffocating.

And there was essence. Massive amounts of it. There were definitely enough people to attract the thousands of streams. The blue threads bobbed and weaved in hoards over the thousands of heads, offering a glowing blue decor that lit up the already bright and bustling city.

Without even thinking, I began pulling the essence toward me and storing the streams in my Soul for later cultivation. And I would continue to do so until my body couldn’t take anymore.

My attention fell back on the lines of eerie Euridice statues with white eyes that I felt could bore into my flesh with just one glare. At the end of the lines of statues stood a massive structure made from marble like the hundred or so Euridice statues. It towered several hundred feet tall, with looming spires and wide columns to hold the heavy structure erect. Circles of iridescent blue lights that blended in with the hoards of essence lined the building in an organized pattern of straight lines and offered a beacon for the entire city.

Similar lights, just larger, dotted the walls and ceiling of this underground metropolis, like glowing blue stars that trapped the people in a never-ending, eerie night. I could see no windows or source of natural light anywhere–not even behind the towering buildings made from metal that lined every inch of the circular area.

A sound like the hum of a beetle, just much louder, rang in my ears, offering me just enough warning to duck back into the hall in the cave before a flying object whizzed past my face. The object was large and slim, entirely made of a shiny black material. It carried two people in narrow seats as it flew. Four circles protruded from the underbelly of the machine like wheels on a cart, but these wheels were horizontal, had no spokes, and glowed a dim orange around their edges.

“Watch it, idiot!” one of the passengers yelled at me, waving an angry gloved fist in the air. His voice was deep and lilted with a heavy accent that I couldn’t recognize. But, of course, Dex had still been able to translate his words, though I would’ve been fine without knowing them.

Eyes wide, I stumbled back into the light and found that many of these machines buzzed around the city, carrying people to various destinations. Some were bigger than others and could even carry up to six people.

I’d never seen anything like it!

And the people… They were all so different! All of the Edronans, except for me–the baby found mysteriously in the desert–had been dark-skinned with brown eyes and hair and naturally tall and lanky. But that wasn’t the case here. I saw many who looked very similar to the Edronans, which did ease some of my anxiety as they reminded me of home, but I also caught sight of people who looked like me–light-skinned and smaller in stature.

I found myself rushing forward five more steps, excited to see such a wide range of different people. I even saw people of varying sizes and hair colors–including hair colors that I’d never imagined seeing on someone’s head. Long hair with pink streaks, blue spiky hair, golden hair…

In addition to some who looked similar to the Edronans or even to me, others looked slightly tanned or even darker than an Edronan. I also saw children running about, some escaping the watchful eyes of their parents and snatching at the strange piles of food and toys displayed at different booths set up along the city’s main road.

Feeling my excitement increase, I dared yet another step forward but froze before I could set my foot down for a second step.

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Nagari!

I held my breath and reached a hand toward the spear strapped to my back, slowly retreating deeper into the safety of the cave.

Wait….

I relaxed the hand reaching for my weapon but maintained my ready stance as I watched a group of three humanoid and Nagari-like figures strolling past me. They laughed with one another, eating foreign foods, and they paid me no mind. They looked a lot like those who belonged in the savage Nagari snake tribe back on my planet, with their snake-like faces covered in scales and narrowed, yellow eyes. But upon closer inspection, I realized there were more human features in their faces and in the way they walked that differed from the Nagari I’d come to know back home.

And these three made no move to attack anyone.

In fact, the closer I studied the rest of the people in the city, I noticed that many of them had animal-like qualities. I saw people with tails on their rears, scales covering arms, feathers protruding from long necks… It seemed I had no idea what sort of races and human-type species existed in not just this universe but all others. And everyone seemed civil and acted… normal.

It made me wonder again how “savage” the Nagari back on planet X-47-14 really had been. The Edronans and I had always treated them more like monsters than anything else. But… maybe the way we’d treated them had been unfair.

“There will be a day when the Nagari and the humans will live together. That is what they promised us.”

The words that dying Nagari had said to me right before one of its companions had killed Drayek ran through my mind. The chaos of the Nagari army massacring all of the Edronans and learning that the Priests of the city and my best friend Sarina had been working with them had made it difficult, at the time, to think too much about why the Nagari had followed along in the Priest’s plan. Maybe they’d wanted to show the Edronans that they were people, too. Maybe they’d felt like we’d deserved their attack on us.

And had the plan to attack the city and kill all of the Marked even been Priest Kane’s plan? The Priests had always talked about how they worked to enact Lady Euridice’s will. Maybe she’d used a ploy to manipulate both the Priests and the Nagari to make sure I had died in the end. The leveling of one city in her expansive domain wouldn’t make much of a difference to her. She had plenty of supporters. And perhaps she’d really wanted me dead back then.

I shook myself out of my reverie and clutched at my pounding heart, feeling sick at the possibility that Euridice had actually been in Priest Kane’s ear that entire time. But now, she didn’t want to kill me….

I ignored any thoughts of such things and focused on the city before me. Thankfully, not one of the hundreds of thousands of people had moved toward me or offered me any uncomfortable attention. Possibly because the population was already so great that my presence was of no consequence. Maybe I could blend in after all.

But there was one problem: Euridice was everywhere. Not only depicted as many, many statues, but I could see her visage painted on blankets that Tradesmen and Tradeswomen (were they called that here? Well, they were merchants of some sort) sold, and on banners that rippled over the ledges of various buildings.

I took cautious steps backward again, remembering her ominous warnings to me back on my home planet.

“I thought you said this establishment had been built for followers of Lord Solomon.” I tried to shove an irritated tone into my thoughts, even though I knew Dex didn’t have the capacity to recognize the context that human inflection could bring to dialogue. “It seems to me that these people worship Euridice.”

As suspected, Dex didn’t grasp my annoyance one bit. “This Solomon’s Realm Academy looks significantly different from the one my databases are showing me.”

I retreated even further back into the cave, avoiding staring at the two statues starting the line of Euridices just four feet away from the gaping entrance.

“Is it still safe? From the goddess?”

“I do not know, Rayden. I need to do some scans and update my data.”

I dared a glance up at one of her statues. It wasn’t dissimilar from the gray stone structure depicting the goddess that had stood before her temple in Edrona. But, unlike the one back home, I didn’t feel a darkness or a heavy weight slinking toward me as I stared at this statue in front of me. Her eyes seemed motionless and as inanimate as a hunk of carved marble should be. I had no reason or feeling to assume she could see or get to me.

And did I even have a choice?

“Is there somewhere better for me to go? Should we get back into the spaceship?” I asked internally.

“No, Rayden. The Ambition cannot run again until it has refueled itself, which will take approximately six days.”

“Is there somewhere else on this planet I can go to?”

“You could. However, human life above ground on X-47-35 is difficult to sustain. Tier 5 through 7 monsters on the surface prowl the entire planet, one of the many reasons Lord Solomon built this academy underground. That and to keep it hidden. Though, the population has grown exponentially than what my records say it should be at.”

It was decided. Staying at Solomon’s Realm Academy was my best option, at least for now.