We finally had the city come into view. Hundreds of buildings sprawled out. Watch towers dotting the outside of a wooden wall and small fields surrounding everything. Our walk had been fairly peaceful. I got plenty of advice from the others and practiced putting some of it to use. Most of their suggestions would take time to make practical. After a few nights of sharing advice, sparring, completing my stone bracer, correcting others bad habits, attempting to use magic, getting corrected for my bad habits with magic, eating enough jerky to get tired of it, and sleeping under the stars, we were finally ready to relax in the city. It was a busy walk, but none of us were at risk of dying, which is my new requirement for a peaceful walk.
We lined up at the gate to enter behind two merchant carriages. Comparing ourselves to them, we needed a long bath. Unfortunately, the fight left many of our only sets of clothes covered in blood and gashes. Fortunately, all of us were at least decent enough to enter a city. The monk’s outfit was missing a sleeve after she cut the shredded sleeve off.
I absent-mindedly played with two stones in my hand. I was trying to roll the two stones in my palm and get them rounded without consciously focusing on using magic. I wasn’t sure how effective it was but that was what I was told to practice by the prince. My arm was warm and tingly, which meant little in figuring out how well I was progressing.
As we approached the city guards dressed in thick gambesons, they looked down on us.
“Behave in our city wanderers, or you will be hanging from the gate as a warning for others.”
The prince stepped forward to talk back, but the monk’s hand covered his mouth. “It isn’t worth it. Let’s find a bathhouse and move forward.”
We moved into the city, rows of dirty buildings ahead of us. Our priority list was long and grew with every conversation. Decent food, an inn to sleep in, a bath, a leather worker, a swordsmith, a tailor, a general store, and a quick job for money.
“We need to get the rest of you some armor.” I had to put my foot down on us doing this before we used our budget on everything else. “We should go somewhere to drop the pelt off and put the advance payment down. After we give them our basic measurements we will need to find jobs to cover the rest of the payment. We cannot be miserly about that which saves our lives.”
“We need a place to sleep first”, the saintess glared at me while chastising me, “only after we get a place to sleep should we figure out how much money we can spend on other things.”
“I would like to get a lay of the land and figure out where wells are to drink from. I don’t want to create balls of water so we don’t dehydrate again.”
“I need to bathe before we meet anyone.” The prince grumbled.
It took a few seconds for our final member to speak up. “I’m going to get in touch with the darker side of this city. I would prefer to know if the assassin’s guild has a hit out on any of us. Plus, that side of town usually has faster ways of getting rich at a catch. I’ll see if there is anything acceptable.”
I stared down the not-thief, I would need to finally find a good way to refer to him later. I stepped forward to rebuke him. Claim that the guards wouldn’t try to save us in the slums. Remind of the thugs that try to kill others who stumble in for money. Worse still, you couldn’t even trust the people from those places because they grew up without values.
He waited for me to speak, defiance in his eyes. A stare that demanded an answer I could no longer find. The reaction from the gatekeepers showed they wouldn’t help us anywhere until we stopped looking like slum dwellers ourselves. He didn’t look like he had any money to buy decent gear, let alone enough to rob someone over. My final thought was an insult against him, so I closed my eyes and found the courage to speak.
“I’m sorry. You make good points Logan. We should split up and look into our immediate goals as soon as we can.”
The prince smiled and said, “That’s good and all, but appearances matter, we need to bathe before going into any shops”. He then gestured to the dirt on the monk’s face from when dust stuck to our sweat. “Cleaner and wealthier people get directed towards higher end goods as they are more likely to be able to afford them. I hope you will respect the teachings I got in royal etiquette, as we don’t look like valuable customers.”
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I looked down at my armor which was scratched all over and mud that stayed firmly within the deepest scratches. I was closer to the image of a former knight turned bandit, much like that recurring dream in which I used magic, than an actual heroic knight.
All of us began to come to an agreement that a bath would be best except for Logan. He decided to enter the slums while looking dirty and dirt poor. We parted ways after he handed us a few coins for the bathhouse. Asking the occasional person for directions allowed us to eventually find a decent bathhouse. We separated into men and women and entered our respective rooms. I fully undressed, including removing my stone cast, and looked at my chest. My muscles were still very visible on my body, but a thin layer of dirt covered everything except where trickling sweat had washed it off. My arm was mostly turning the color of an old bruise, but the skin had deep gashes that were inevitably going to scar. They ran all across my forearm, and small amounts of pus oozed out at points. I saw the prince looking between my body and his, comparing my figure to his slim one that didn’t have defined muscles. Mine had multiple small cuts that had become scars over the years. His chest had a large burn scar. The discolored area stretched across most of his ribcage.
The prince followed my gaze and gave me a sad smile. “This is an old wound. Help clean my back and I’ll tell you about it. Then I’ll help you look presentable.”
We walked through the humid room to one of the small wooden tubs. “So I told you that I started training early right? Well, I had a teacher that would see me only once every couple of months. A spare among the spares of the heirs. Couldn’t let me get achievements under me and gain a claim to greatness.”
He spoke at length of his struggle as a mage. How much he figured out himself and hid from others. His face was beaming as he glanced behind himself at me. There was an infectious positivity to the story. Pranking maids by extinguishing candles. Making knights smell smoke in places they shouldn’t. He sounded like any normal kid.
“Then I tried to push my limits too far. I decided it was time to manipulate a large body of fire with extreme precision. I created a ball of fire and then began to pull the head and body of a snake out of it. I struggled so much, but I wanted to prove what I could do to myself. Unfortunately, my magic teacher didn’t think I could do anything near this much. I didn’t get taught the signs of one’s control of magic failing. The flames expanded straight into me, hitting my chest. I was unconscious for a little over a day. From that day forward I was treated like I committed minor treason. Like I was trying to aim for the throne. I hadn’t wanted it. I just wanted something that was mine. Well, after that I was raised as a sacrifice and now you guys are going to help me prove I would be the best king.”
I had finished washing him part way through but waited for him to finish. He stopped looking so excited to tell the story near the end. We sat there for a bit, taking in the feelings that the story gave. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for him to explain his shift to wanting the throne in d
He turned to me again, “Your turn to reveal something so tell me about your family”.
I struggled to put things into words as I was unsure how much he already knew. The greatest knight of our family helped slay the first great evil but was then cursed. Picking up our heirloom sword caused him to go insane. Just wielding that sword in a battle allowed our family members to get a knightly path, but every member who tried after that day went insane. Some members of our family who became knightly without touching the sword went insane, leading everyone to call our family cursed. We were the protective sword of the kingdom, but we couldn’t use our heirloom sword. We were the knightly counts, but we couldn’t become knights and we were no longer counts. He nodded along to this, likely already having some idea about my family.
“I saw knights in armor as a kid and was enamored. I struggled every day to act as my ancestors did. As noble and as strong as a knight. Despite this, or more so because of this, I was shunned. I became known as the mad dog of the recruits. Not for how I acted, but for how I would end up. The sword trainers in the nearby fort were not technically allowed to stop me from volunteering as a recruit, but they could push me harder until I quit. I got knocked to the ground by grown men with dull metal blades so much, I probably ate a full chicken’s worth of dirt. Everyone in my family has given up on trying to break the curse, as trying to understand it may trigger something and drive them insane in the process. They probably are waiting to find out if I break the curse or succumb. Knighthood is a wonderful thing to aspire to. I don’t want to be chained down by something 150 years ago.”
He put a hand on my shoulder and resolutely stated “You should never feel bad about following your aspirations”.
I gave a weak smile. We returned to washing ourselves, finishing far later than we initially expected. I never realized I might have more in common with the prince than I thought.