Eventually, the woman paused and without looking at him, spoke. “I haven’t seen you around here before. With my skills, my memory is near perfect. Who are you?”

Unsure of what was happening, Jonathan frowned. “I’m new here.”

“New here? Nobody is new here. Every family in this part of the city has been here since its founding. You must have snuck in here. None of the workers from the outside would enter my shop.”

“Uh,” Jonathan began, starting to edge towards the door.

“Stay, boy. I mean you no harm. I was simply curious. Gods know I am not the biggest supporter of the wealthy and indolent who make their lives here. At least on the outside, there is a semblance of honesty. Here, everyone save for the elite families are second class citizens.”

“I see.”

“Now, what were you here for? If you are a thief, there is little of value in this shop. The maps might be expensive, but they are of little value to me.”

“I was actually here to buy something. Specifically, that map of Mire that you have displayed outside.”

“Ah. Your sights are set beyond this city I see. That map is one of my finest pieces of work. It is enchanted so that you can enlarge any part of it, and reveal new details previously hidden. It costs ten thousand Leviathan Marks.”

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. That was a comparable price to a Tier 2 natural treasure. However, everything in Mire was more expensive than in the Ash Heaps, which was to be expected.

Rather than argue, he simply reached into his storage device with his mind and withdrew the currency, dumping it onto the counter. He had discovered that his storage device had a special feature for storing currency, where it would create stacks of money that took up far less space than normal, and could easily be withdrawn.

The cartographer raised an eyebrow and looked at Jonathan studiously. “I assume that is the right amount? No need to check, right?”

“Of course not.”

“Very well then, the map is yours,” the woman said, gesturing to the front window. There was a slight shimmer as a ward broke, revealing that the maps had been under more protection than just the watchful eye of an elderly woman.

Jonathan walked over and grabbed the map, rolling it up into a tube and tucking it into his storage device. Then he gave the shopkeep a smile, and continued on his way, prize in hand.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The rest of his trip through the Inner City was a quick one, and he soon found himself back at the walls, having changed back into his plainer clothes. Getting out was far easier than getting in, and he found himself waved through by the guards.

He quickly upped his speed, using alleyways to hide from onlookers. He found himself back at the tavern a few minutes later. Unfortunately, he had been forced to limit himself to a few hundred miles per hour, as anything more than that would draw too much attention.

He slowed down as he closed in on the tavern, and entered the door at a normal pace, spotting Edgar working the bar, serving one of the few customers there. Hushar worked in the back, carrying up kegs from the basement. The barkeep, Rutherford, was nowhere to be seen.

“Did he just leave?” Jonathan asked.

“Yeah. Went for a nap, and left it all to us. Still paying the same amount though,” Hushar replied.

“Well, I got what we were looking for.”

Edgar gave him a look, pointing at the man leaning against the bar.

“What? Nobody here is in the right state of mind to understand anything,” Jonathan said. “Hey, what’s your name?” He asked, leaning in towards the man at the bar. His only response was a low gurgle.

“I suppose you’re right,” Edgar sighed.

Jonathan walked to the edge of the bar and through the small gate placed there as a meager impediment to anyone trying to get to where the alcohol was kept.

He made his way to the back room, shortly joined by the others. Jonathan took the map from his storage device and laid it out on the table.

“That is one finely made map,” Edgar observed. “Better than any I have seen, even in my father’s palace.”

“This is where we are,” Jonathan began, pointing at a small dot near the center of the map, labeled Miremount. There were five divisions on the map, each of which was labeled. They were in the middle of the Fetid Plains, with the next layer, the Rot-Trunk Copses about five thousand miles away. At the very center of the realm was a massive city, built in the middle of the swamp. It was labeled as the Oozing Bastion. Obviously, that was where Slothari ruled.

Jonathan already knew the names of the circle layers from his short time in the mercenary company, but now that he had a detailed map, he was able to get a better idea of what they looked like. Each one was larger than the next, and the Heap, the final layer, stretched until it reached a blank part of the map, simply labeled as the Empty. Jonathan already knew what that was though. It was where the circle intersected with the Void. There was a similar boundary in the Ash Heaps, but it was hidden by the living mountains. Here, the piles of detritus that stretched up for miles into the sky served the same purpose.

Each layer was labeled with a level range, representing the base and peak monster strength. The Oozing Bastion was marked as the strongest of the areas, but the Heap was right beneath it.

The former was because Slothari and her commanders made up the majority of the strength within the capital of the realm. It was a far more complicated world than the Ash Heaps, and would be a lot more dangerous to explore as well.

Jonathan rolled up the map and placed it back in his storage device. The others got back to work, and he used his little bit of downtime to cultivate his element. They would be leaving here soon, as he had fulfilled his objective far sooner than he had expected.