SYSTEM: You have discovered the Hub City of Portcullis.
Portcullis was an amazing accomplishment that Boyd could hardly believe. The city was aptly named. It was walled-in entirely, surrounded by solid marble at least 50 feet high. Atop the marble set a number of intricately crafted marble heads with different faces. The wall extended farther than Boyd could see in any direction. If the same thing had been built on Earth, if it could have been built on Earth, it would’ve cost many decades of many country’s GDP. Like most things on Zenith, Maze or not, it had been fashioned with a degree of magic that was no longer possible. The Portcullisians or whatever the people who lived there liked to be called were faintly human, but taller and sleeker. Much like their impossibly amazing wall, they were not something that would occur naturally, and had clearly been enhanced with magic. They looked like what humans would look like if all humans had side careers as runway models in a science fiction tv show. This sort of extreme was fairly common in the Maze. Why make a partially simulated reality if you can’t fill it with impossibly beautiful things?
The only way into the city was through, not surprisingly, a large portcullis. A Guard stood at the gate and checked paperwork. The group queued into a long line of various creatures, human-like and not. They were all NPCs, creations of Zenith and not Combatants. It seemed like this was a daily event for them though, some sort of play they performed over and over. They presented their papers and marched on whenever the Guard signaled them to go. Whenever someone didn’t have paperwork, the Guard promptly yelled at them and sent them off the other direction.
"I don’t have any paperwork,” Boyd said.
“No one has any paperwork. Paperwork takes time and effort,” Salia replied.
“Then how are we going to get in?” Boyd asked.
“There are four ways into Portcullis, 1) bribe the Guard – I don’t like spending money though 2) swim the moat and enter through the sewers – Gmol can’t swim though 3) fly – Fleon and I are the only ones that can fly, and he needs a horse to do it so someone is likely to notice,” Salia said.
“So which one are doing? Number four?”
“That’s right. 4) Kill the Guard while no one is looking and then skedaddle.” The VMR made an attempt at a smile.
Fleon looked at the group and then sauntered off towards the edge of the bridge.
“I, Fleon, High Paladin of the Filary am now standing well to the side of the rest of my Foray. I am not paying attention to their actions and I cannot be held responsible for them. I am being noble and chaste over here in this area.” Fleon motioned towards the area around him with his hand and then set down to pray. He drew The Blade of Light and Majesty and slammed it into the ground before kneeling in front of it and bowing his head. The Blade beamed with Majestic Light.
“Fleon can’t participate because of his Oath, but fortunately Jellybean and I are less morally bound to goodness. I need you to do something though. Hold this.”
Salia handed Boyd a small wooden box.
“What’s this?”
“Uhh… it’s not important. Just hold it and keep walking. When I give a signal, open the box.”
“I don’t understand, why don’t we just get papers? Or just pay?”
“Paying is a waste of money and papers take time. The Guard is of Zenith. He’s not real. He gets resurrected to do this every 30 years. Probably 90 groups a year use Option 4. If they didn’t want you to do it, they’d stop making the Guards Rank 10. Now hold the box and shut up.”
The group moved slowly up the bridge and other groups, none of which were Forays, moved through the bridge. The scripted encounter continued until Salia stepped up to the Guard.
Boyd scanned the Guard.
SYSTEM: Guard, Rank 10: He’s a guard. He guards things. Whatever is behind him is probably that thing. This one’s pretty simple, why are you scanning a Guard?
“Papers, please,” the Guard said.
“Hold, on, I think they are in that box my friend is carrying,” Salia winked at Boyd.
“We’re friends?”
Salia whispered and nudged Boyd, “Of course not, just open the fucking box.”
Boyd did as told and spark and lights shot out of the box. It reminded him of a fancy fountain on the Fourth of July. It was gorgeous, an array of sounds and colors. The Guard and all of the other locals stared in wonder. He himself stood there watching the beautiful display. He felt Jellybean Jenkins slip past him and obstruct his view of the Guard but thought nothing of it. The lights on the box started to fade and he heard a gurgling noise in the background followed by a quick splash. No one else noticed as the box was finishing its finale.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Salia grabbed him by the collar and pulled him. Gmol, Jellybean, and Fleon were already well on their way down the bridge. Boyd set the box down as it began to close and marched along with the rest of his foray. He took a moment to look back and saw the Guard floating in the moat with his throat slit. Boyd couldn’t understand that he wasn’t “real”. To him, it was a murdered person. He wasn’t human, but he had human-like features. Boyd couldn’t stop staring at him floating in the river as they pulled him forward. He realized he couldn’t separate murder from killing things in Zenith. He wondered whether he could survive here if this is what it took.
They marched into the city without further incident. Portcullis was a safe city, well defended by numerous guardsman, although none of them seemed cognizant of their fallen comrade. Fighting between Forays was discouraged, but possible in towns; however, Fleon was fairly sure they would be in last place at this point and unlikely to encounter another group which reduced any concerns about in-fighting between Forays. Fleon knew of an Inn that was in the central part of the city which was marked as their destination. While most days the Inn would be full towards the start of a Maze, most of the Forays had already descended to lower levels and thus it would likely be empty. Fleon stated that they would stay there and find whatever Mana Nodes were still available in the city and descend as soon as possible. Boyd wasn’t sure what any of that meant, but assumed it meant he could leave, and so he was very excited for it.
The walk to the Inn was uneventful as was the acquisition of their room. Fleon paid for the largest suite and they set it as their base of operations. Each of them had separate rooms, which was a luxury Fleon assured them was unlikely to continue indefinitely. The inn had food and beds available, but no showers or anything else of this nature. It was well appointed, and the beds were soft, so Boyd was fine. He hadn’t had a shower in a while, but he also didn’t care about showering that much.
The only notable event was the increasingly common groan associated with a system update.
SYSTEM UPDATE: Team Angwar’s Annihilating Amperage is the first to descend to Level 7.
Every time this occurred the entire time winced and stared angrily at Boyd. It was a constant reminder they were being held back.
Portcullis was normally an important source of both quests and tappable Mana Nodes. This was in the first 2-3 days of a launch though, and thus most of the easy and useful materials had already been tapped. What should’ve been a quick one day adventure through relatively simple territory was now going to be a slog to meticulously check the out-of-the-way Mana Nodes until they could find what they needed. It was decided that the fastest way to catch up to the rest of the Forays and maximize the amount of tappable Mana Nodes they could find would be to split up and aggressively try and find Nodes as singles. Level 1 of the Maze was absolutely not a threat to the majority of the party, and thus Fleon would stay with Boyd while the rest of the group split into individual efforts. The goal was to finish Mana Node gathering within a few days and then decide on how far to descend. The only real risk was running into a full Foray, but Fleon was confident that most of the competent groups would have moved on, and any amount of thoughtful action would prevent losses and maximize gains.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Boyd was just starting to drift off. He was in a state of near constant panic since entering The Maze. He was physically and mentally exhausted, but just couldn’t shut his brain down. The constant danger left him nervous and jittery. Not helping the matter, his door suddenly burst open and he arose with a scream.
“HUMAN! Tonight I will sleep at the foot of your bed. You will permit this and appreciate the warmth that I bring.”
Jellybean Jenkins morphed into a more dog-like form and climbed onto the bottom of Boyd’s bed. “What? Why?” Boyd asked
“You have heard my declaration. Tonight I will sleep at the foot of your bed as I once did for the ones they called Martin and Sarah Jenkins. You will appreciate my warmth and feel comfort from my presence.”
“Is this like… a choice? Is this like ...’or else’ because I don’t know if I want that.”
Jellybean Jenkins thought for a minute. “Yes, I will allow you to choose. You may choose my stated outcome or you may choose combat to the death. I will honor whichever choice you make.”
“That’s not really much of a choice though, right?”
“It is an honorable choice. You benefit from either decision. You either die by my hand and feed the pack or you gain the benefit of having me at your feet during the evening. Both options bring honor to your miserable bloodline.”
“Are you going to like… eat me at night?”
Jellybean Jenkins licked his lips, “I hadn’t made a decision either way. If I do not eat you, will you agree to let me sleep at your feet?”
"Yes. Definitely yes.”
“IT IS SETTLED! Let us rest!”
“I’m not actually tired yet though man, I was going to stay up and study this book on Zenith that Fleon let me borrow.”
Jellybean morphed back into his bi-pedal form and abruptly scooped up Boyd and contorted his body into a sleeping position and then slammed him down onto the bed. “It is now our time to sleep. You will commence resting now.”
Boyd wasn’t a small guy, he was probably 210 lbs on Earth. Jellybean Jenkins easily weighed more than six hundred pounds though, and thus when he laid at the bottom of the bed, it vaulted into the air and Boyd slid into Jellybean who promptly shoved him away bruskly while growling. They remained this way for much of the night, with Jellybean Jenkins taking up the bottom two thirds of the bed, while Boyd tried to sleep on the upper third which was elevated by the difference in weight. Boyd ended up hooking his arm over the top of the bed to prevent himself from sliding down as Jellybean Jenkins got increasingly angry if Boyd fell into him while they were sleeping. Boyd briefly thought about retracting his offer, but assumed that would likely result in combat to the death, and thus he decided a poor night’s sleep was better than death.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next day, the group divided into teams and left for the city in opposing cardinal directions.