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Sentinels of Discord
Chapter 55 On The Road Again

Chapter 55 On The Road Again

CHAPTER 55 ON THE ROAD AGAIN

AN: music used for this chapter here it’s nice finally trying to break away from the situation the mc has been in for a while. I tried to breathe more life into the city, not sure how well I succeeded on that, but I feel like I did a much better job than I’ve done in the past. I’m starting to actually try and describe the people the character is talking to, although I don’t always do a great job. I realize now, I just sort of had idea’s in my head of what they looked like and completely forgot to put that to paper. It be how it do. Anyways, enjoy!

Lustirne wasn’t as big or bustling as Elendar. But that was mostly to be expected. That wasn’t to say that there weren’t tons of people walking around, however. A city with a population of over a million lended itself to being somewhat busy no matter what. The streets were so crowded though I practically had to push and shove my way through to get to where I was going.

I walked down streets filled with vendors selling all sorts of stuff. Jewelry, paintings, carvings, if there was something you wanted you’d easily be able to find it here. I wasn’t planning on buying anything, but it was still enjoyable to window shop.

“You there Elf, would you like to buy this necklace for a loved one? Surely there’s someone you care for that would enjoy a pretty piece!”

“Hey there, tall one! Take a look at my crafts, surely you’ll find something you enjoy!”

“Elven one, please browse mine occult wares. I can tell fate has drawn you to this path.”

As I said, everything was being sold here. I mostly just ignored the vendors and idly glanced through stuff. Nothing actually caught my eyes at any of the stalls or shops.

People yelled and haggled with vendors constantly. Men trying to buy presents for their wives, or parents buying a new toy for children. Or perhaps a woman was looking for something new to spruce up the interior of the home, providing a bit of flair to an otherwise mundane place.

Mundanity is good though. Normalcy is the standard the entire world is based on, you can’t have extraordinary if there’s nothing ordinary to begin with. There’s a saying from a movie I adored as a child, and still did as an adult, “Once everyone is super, no one is.”

Although I was now seeing that there was another side to that, just because everyone has access to the same system doesn’t mean everyone is now magically equal. I was considerably more powerful than people of the same tier and level as me, so from their perspective I was an extraordinary individual. Or a ‘super’ if you wanted to stick with the analogy.

I don’t know that I still fully disbelieved the statement held any truth, but it just goes to show not everything is so clear cut all the time. Sometimes things get a little smudged along the way.

I slowly meandered my way through the streets, working on getting my bearings of the city. All the cities in Seltas I had been to, so far, had been structured relatively similarly.

The eastern districts tended to be things like forges and industrial. So armors, weapons, metalworking in general. The northern districts tended to be food stuff. Which now that I thought about it, seemed to be a flaw considering their enemies would be to the north. So wouldn’t the farms be the first thing lost? Seemed like a drastic oversight. Maybe it was a carryover from when Seltas used to be part of Alixia, so in reality it was facing away from the nearest possible enemies in the south?

That made more sense in my mind. The southern districts tended to be arts and crafts. Much like what I was seeing now. The western districts were recreation. And that meant all forms. From high brow to low class. Plays and things similar to opera’s would be advertised to the richer citizens of the cities. Or so I assumed that’s what the board was saying, I still struggled with reading this world's language.

A month was not enough time to figure that out. Maybe once I got to Alixia I could pay someone to tutor me? Pick up where Karif left off.

Wait… Was there a standardized language and writing system for this world? Oh lord. They didn’t speak a different language up there did they? If they did I was completely screwed. Seltas spoke English or whatever they wanted to call it here. Maybe I was overthinking it, but if Seltas was a breakaway the real question was if it was like the America and Britain split or not. Both countries still spoke the same language and used the same writing with only minor differences in spelling and terminology. Hopefully that would be the same here. Or maybe, since this is a cool and awesome and amazing fantasy world everyone just speaks the same language and writes the same?

One can hope.

Maybe if I believe it hard enough it’ll manifest itself into existing. Waaagh.

I chuckle to myself. My mood had increased drastically over the past week, I was starting to enjoy myself again. So I planned to ride out these good vibes for as long as possible. First things first I needed to make it to the western side of town. I’d been moving slowly since I wanted to look at the stuff people were selling, but it was starting to get late and I’d been piddling around for a few hours as it was already.

I picked up my pace and started more deftly weaving through the crowds of people. Another thing I had noticed about Lustirne was the diversity of the city. Elendar and Vinwood had been all humans, I hadn’t seen a single other race there, I hadn’t really thought about it at the time, but thinking back it did seem kind of strange. Elendar especially. You’d think such a high populace and prospering city would have a varying amount of races occupying it.

But that hadn’t been the case. Here that was the case, however. And hoo-boy were there a lot of different types, all of them tickling my fantasy aesthetics. There were several main groups, Humans, obviously, Dwarves, lizardfolk… I think? I was never particularly good at telling if one was say descended from a primordial lizard or a dragon. There was a fine distinction I’m sure.

The rarer types were things like, Kitsune, and Cat-People. And Dog-People, as well apparently. But there seemed to be way fewer of these types. I think I even saw a Cambion.

There were all sorts of types and it was incredibly interesting to see. The one thing that kept piquing my interest is that there were no elves. Once again, a race that is fairly common in fantasy tropes from my world just doesn’t seem to mingle with the rest of the world here. Making me a very strange outlier. It was starting to make more sense why people were always so shocked to see me. I was probably the first Elf they had ever seen.

Sure they had heard of them and had a general idea of what they looked like. There was literature and paintings that depicted us. But they had never seen one in person before. It must come across as a huge shock, especially with a lot of the myth and legend built up around elves to only then get disappointed by little ol’ me and my piddly amount of levels.

Most of the people I was identifying here had more levels than me. Tier three kinda seemed to be where a lot of people sat.

‘Ping’ [Identify] Has leveled up 7 > 8

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Awesome.

But I guess it made sense for them to be stuck around that level, given that once you acquired your third class, most of the exp disproportionately went to it in an attempt to play catch up. Meaning that you were generally stuck with the same level id for a long time.

It was also a fairly good indicator of how old people were. Lots of races were deceptive in their age, given that they were long lived. A dwarf that looked like he was 50 years old? Yeah, he actually just celebrated his 224th birthday, thanks for asking.

It really went to show that you just couldn’t judge things by a human standard a lot of the time, since none of the other races really conformed to the human standard in the first place.

I continued sifting my way through the crowds, it didn’t take too long to break free of the market area and for the hustle to die down. I decided that I was more hungry than anything else right now so I decided to go find something to eat in the northern districts first.

They had an interesting variety of foods on sale. Apparently the concept of deep-fried foods existed here as I watched someone coat some mystery meat in a batter and dunk it in some oil over a controlled fire. I could go for some deep-fried food, it’s been too long.

I gave the guy a silver and he handed me several sticks of the things without a word. They were arranged like kebabs, several pieces of the fried meat stacked on the thin piece of wood. I took a bite.

And I tasted heaven. The seasonings were perfect, with a perfect blend of spicy and savory. Juices spilled out from the tender meat that melted in my mouth while the breaded exterior crunched satisfyingly. It was so good I nearly started crying. Almost.

I quickly devoured the rest that I had and licked my fingers trying to get the last few vestiges of sauce and seasoning. I was definitely coming back to that stall before I left.

This time I actually started making my way to the western district. I had prolonged long enough and it was starting to get pretty late. I picked up the pace a little, making it a brisk walk instead of a leisurely one.

The buildings slowly changed in style as I moved from restaurants to the administrative type buildings that intersected the districts. Eventually arriving at entertainment and leisure places. The sun was low in the sky now and cast a fiery orange glow over the buildings.

It was also obnoxiously shining right into my eyes. I lowered my gaze slightly while grumbling despite not really being annoyed. Eventually I made it past all the theaters that were putting on different shows. Musicians, circuses, plays, everything you could think of.

Small bursts of sound made it to my ears as I passed by each building, giving me an idea of what was happening inside. Crowds cheering, a melancholic aria, an energetic tune. It brought a smile to my face.

I came to a stop in what could rightfully be called the bath districts. I walked past several of the more expensive looking ones that looked like they would charge an arm and a leg just to look at, let alone go inside.

I made it to one that was a middle ground between the two financial ends of the spectrum. I nodded slightly to myself before entering one. A fancifully designed logo, and assumedly motto, rested over the door.

Unfortunately for them, I’m illiterate.

There was a soft chime as the door swung inwards in front of me. I didn’t see a bell resting above the door, so I assumed it was some type of magic that triggered it. It was always little things like that, you just kind of expect them when you’re reading a story, or playing a game. But hearing it in person is an entirely different thing and sparks a bit of excitement at the prospects of the things that this world is capable of again.

I would never get used to magic.

The lobby was a hardwood floor with a rug that led up to the reception. There were stairs to the right that led up to the floor above, and down to presumably the basement. To the left and behind the reception was a hallway that had a number of doors on either side before ending in a set of doors that had writing over each one.

Manning the reception desk was a catgirl. She smiled brightly at me as I entered, giving a flash of her canines. Her teeth were much more catlike than human-like. She had the same kind of slitted pupils they had as well.

Overall she had the more anime approach to catgirls than anything else. A much more human physique but with cat ears and a tail. Her fur color was a stereotypical calico with honestly kind of creepily green eyes. It was a bit off putting if you weren’t expecting it.

“Welcome to Mila’s Baths and Board! My name is Mina, how may I assist you?”

Her greeting spiked traumatic memories of my own CSR jobs I had worked over the years. It was terrifyingly similar. I wasn’t able to fight off the shiver that worked its way up my spine.

I returned her smile before replying, “Thanks, I was looking for both services being offered as well. I plan to stay today and all of tomorrow before heading out the day after.”

She nodded before looking down and ruffling through some papers and writing a few things down.

“Alright, so the pricing here is charged based on either the hotel side or the bathing side, we get a lot of people who want one or the other more often than you might expect. Just using the baths would cost you a silver, whereas a room for the night would cost you three. We have a deal going on though that gets you a room for three nights and open access to the baths for three days however. Would that be something you’re interested in?”

I frowned slightly, running the math through my head. Twelve silver was the cost for buying everything separately. So ten was actually a better deal. Whereas a room for tonight and tomorrow with the bath once each day would just be eight. I wanted to stay the extra day… I felt like I deserved to, I’d been working hard. But I couldn’t justify it in my mind, my heart easily could.

But I couldn’t mess around forever unfortunately, a day here or a day there adds up over years and decades. Time that could be spent being productive. Although, lord knows I wasn’t ever really productive before in my life. So it’s a bit hypocritical.

I shake my head, “No, I’ll just purchase them all separately. So it’d be six silver for the room for two nights and then a silver each time I want to go into the baths while I’m here right?”

She smiled genially at me, “That’s right. Alright then, six silver now. Whenever you decide you want to go into the baths just bring a silver with you and there’s a box in between the doors down the end of the hallway. Put the coin inside and it’ll spit out a band, you place it on your wrist and it’ll key you to the doors so you’re able to open them, otherwise the door remains locked and if you try to force it it’ll trip an alarm that’s really really loud, so please don’t do that. Men on the left, ladies on the right. Is there anything else I can assist you with this evening?”

I shook my head while handing over the coins, “No, thank you.”

“Then here’s your key, room 216. Thank you and enjoy your stay!” She finished with a little bow, her ears flickering slightly.

The key had a marking on it that I assumed was the number for the room. I went up the stairs next to the desk and managed to match the symbol to my room. The key inserted smoothly and twisted, giving a satisfying click as the lock disengaged allowing me into the room.

It was much more decently decorated than places I had been before, the bedding looked comfortable and there were even things like a mirror to admire your appearance in. I got my first good look at myself since I had come to this world and since I had changed.

I looked… Strange. Not that I was necessarily a stranger in my own skin, I was significantly taller than I had been previously. Standing at well over six feet tall when before I had been just an inch under. My hair was still the same shade of brown with a tinge of red, not quite auburn but enough that it was noticeable in the sun.

My eyes were still the same shade of green with specks of brown in them, a nice hazel I always thought. Outside of my long luscious locks of hair, my eyes were always the features I was most happy with.

I ran my hand over the wooden arm that I had, my arm was completely cut off at the shoulder. Maybe I would eventually get a good enough healing skill or class that I could finally heal this? Or maybe I could meet someone and pay them when I got enough money.

I let out a sigh. Things to think about for the future. It may also be that I never get it fixed and I learn to live with this wooden arm constantly upgrading it because of my skills, making it better. Maybe one day it would be capable of the level of finesse a real arm would be. I was a musician once upon a time, I’d hate to be cut out of that path forever.

I shook my head dispelling all the depressing thoughts weighing me down. Those weren’t important, not at all.

I had a hot spring to go enjoy.