Ash’s POV
It had been a long time since I’d told that story to anyone. Actually, I think that Mike was the only other person who knew about my past, mentioned once after I ended up drinking a little too much at the inn’s bar. When he’d heard the story, he wasted no time in showering me with words about how he’d never let anything like that happen again, and that I would be safe sticking with him. Leo on the other hand, gave me none of those. He spoke in a calm, collected, almost bored sort of voice, as though we were simply discussing a story I’d heard, and rather than empty promises that he would forget the moment he met someone else the way Mike had when he found Liz, he simply allowed me to say what I needed to say, complimented my character, and provided a practical solution to my worries. While it was difficult to tell from his tone of voice, I knew from my conversations with Sophia that that was the tone Leo adopted whenever he spoke of any serious topic.
And despite the fact that he’d never really mentioned it, we had both noticed how Leo was practically never the one to touch someone else first, whether it was a hug, grabbing onto someone, or something more romantic. He would always wait for us to make the first move, before responding in kind, as though uncertain whether what he was doing was okay. The fact that he had broken this practically iron clad rule of his to comfort me ended up making me feel way more cared for than any words he could have possibly said. I was also actually quite looking forward to finally visiting this subspace I’d heard them talk so much about, and meeting Sophia face to face. I still couldn’t really picture her in my head, and curiosity about the woman whose voice lived in my head had been building up for months now. A race of beings I’ve never heard of, from a world different from my own, and a semi-divine entity to boot? I had absolutely zero frame of reference to even begin understanding her, and it was driving me mad.
After a couple more hours of walking, we finally saw the walls of town off in the distance, Liz and Aozia picking up the pace in excitement. Aozia sprinting and Liz flying ahead to get there faster. Mike also bounded ahead, cheering loudly at the prospect of not waking up with back pain, but Leo maintained the same steady pace, as though utterly unconcerned with the existence of the town. Which actually did make sense. Considering he technically went home every night and slept in an actual bed, he had none of the same complaints that the rest of us shared. Leo and I watched as everyone was stopped at the walls, and were made to wait for the both of us to catch up with them.
“You two couldn’t have walked a little faster?” Liz complained the moment we were within earshot. “You’re making us wait!”
Leo replied in his same nonchalant manner, “You’ve been waiting for an entire year, another couple of minutes ain’t gonna kill you, besides, it’s only been a few hours since you woke up so it’s not like you’d actually end up going to bed right away anyway.” Liz had no reply to his cold rationality. That’s actually how pretty much all of their interactions had gone over the past year. Elizabeth whining at Leo for something or other, and him countering with uncaring logic. I couldn’t help but feel a little entertained, watching her gain a defeated expression. My own form of pettiness for her snagging Michael away, and her treatment of him after the fact.
Once we were actually standing next to the other three, the guard at the gate called over one of his colleagues, stating, “As per the laws of the Kingdom, all travelers are to be immediately escorted to the Traveler’s Station, comprising both the Adventurer’s and Merchant’s guilds. There they will inform you of the laws that must be followed by visitors while within our borders. If you fail to comply, we will have no choice but to exile you from the Kingdom. Do you understand the procedure as it has been laid out?”
“What?!? That’s not fair, I want to go look around! Who are you to tell me what I-” Liz started yelling, before Leo’s voice drowned her out. “The man’s not the one who made the rules Liz, yelling at him will do literally nothing but get you kicked out of the damn country. He’s just doing his job, leave him the fuck alone.” He then muttered under his breath something about ‘Karens’ and ‘Retail’, which I didn’t really understand, before lifting his head up, fixing the guard in the side view of his blindfold, and stating, “Yeah man, that’s perfectly fine. Lead the way.” The guard nodded to Leo, seemingly grateful that he had stepped in to stop Liz. His companion then walked with us towards a large building that the guard had called the Traveler’s Station. After walking us inside, he also nodded to Leo before returning to his post at the gate.
There were a lot of laws that we were informed of, but none really worth mentioning. For the most part, they were all common sense, don’t kill, don’t steal, etc.. The only thing of note were the consequences for breaking the law in the Kingdom. It seemed that the officials had determined that fines, imprisonment, or even slavery were too lighthearted of punishments for criminals, and instead opted to execute anyone who broke a law, no matter if it was theft or murdering an entire village. Leo expressed the worry that locals would take advantage of this and threaten to file false reports in order to extort travelers, but it seemed like that problem had been resolved years ago, when a certain shop owner who believed himself to be clever did that very same thing, and was publicly executed in the gruesome manner of being burned alive alongside all of his employees and friends who knew of his wrongdoing without saying anything. Since then, no one has dared to file a false report, and business between travelers and locals has been going smoothly.
“And that’s about everything you need to know about the Kingdom. I suppose you lot are in town for the Bazaar? You arrived a bit early, it still won’t be in full swing for another few months.”
We were not, however, Aozia seemed intrigued, “Just passing through, but please share, what is this Bazaar?”
The Traveler’s Station receptionist explained how the Capital of the Kingdom was originally a mining town, built at the base of a mountain made almost entirely of Spectral Quartz. However, a town cannot eat if the only occupants were miners, so throughout the year farmers would frequently travel to the capital to sell their produce. However, there was one particular grain that could only be harvested at the same time every year. It stayed edible for up to a year after being harvested even without special preservation methods, and was used to make several kinds of foods, but specifically bread.
“Hold up, even the damn wheat is magic here? Is it filled with Fantasy Gluten? Magic Carbs? Can I give myself extra stores of Magical Fat by becoming obese in this world?” Leo went on an incomprehensible joking tirade. Or at least I think he was joking. It could be quite difficult to tell sometimes.
“I mean I doubt it, but feel free to try. I’ll love you even if you get chubby again.” Sophia sent a joking reply through the telepathy link. Leo responded in the same manner, Ehh, best not to risk it. I’ll definitely try out some actual Wonder Bread though, just to see if there’s a noticeable difference. Then to the receptionist, he stated, “Excuse my ramblings, carry on.”
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The receptionist stared at him for a moment, apparently concerned for Leo’s sanity, before doing as he requested and carrying on.
“Anyway, that one time a year that the grain, or ‘Magic Wheat’ I suppose, can be harvested, not just the farmers come. Adventurers, merchants, craftsmen, everyone makes their way to the capital during that time, and they hold a month long Bazaar, something like half open marketplace, half festival. This allows the people in the surrounding villages to gain money collected from the mines, and for the people in the capital who are financially wealthy but lacking in goods to gain what they need in order to live, establishing the economy of the Kingdom.”
After the receptionist's explanation, the five of us headed to one of the Adventurer’s guilds common areas, to discuss how we would be proceeding in our travels from here. “I think we should attend the Bazaar.” Aozia started right off the bat. “You guys can get a job escorting another group of people to the capital, which would give you some spending money, and then we can take a rest period for a while during the festivities. I know that it will probably add a few months to our initial travel plans, but I think it’ll be worth it in the long run.”
“I don’t know,” Mike responded, “for us to have enough spending money for the job to be worth it, we’d have to escort a pretty big group right? That poses a lot more risk that we’d end up losing somebody along the way wouldn’t it?”
Leo shook his head in disagreement. “Normally you’d be right if we were traveling through the forest like before, but you missed something on the walk over here from the gate.” He tapped his foot against the floor. “They’ve got roads here.”
Aozia shot Leo an appraising look, as though what Leo had shared was some sort of forbidden knowledge he shouldn’t have access to. “What are roads?” Mike asked, Liz and I nodding along in shared confusion.
Leo responded, “Did you notice how the ground we walked on had no random elevation changes, no grass, no dirt, and was just made of stone kind of like the floor in one of those caverns we met in? Very flat, and easy to walk on?”
“Oh yeah, I guess it was. But what does that have to do with anything?” I asked.
“The thing about roads is that someone has to maintain them. Sometimes they develop cracks, or settle in a weird way that causes a decent sized hole in the road. But there were none of those in the road we walked on. This town does seem to have an oddly large number of people in it, but not enough to warrant the continued maintenance of roads. The only reason I could imagine their existence being necessary is for ease of travel to the Capital. Most likely, all of the towns of the Kingdom also have roads, all of which merge and lead right to the Capital. Due to the complete lack of obstacles in our way, that not only means we can move far more efficiently, but it’s also possible for tamed animals to pull carriages, increasing the speed of travel. This turns what would otherwise be a month-long hike into a journey of a couple days, a week at most.
“Our immediate field of vision would also open up a lot due to the fact that the forest had to have been cleared for a road to be formed, so it would be even easier than usual to detect incoming threats. Ironically, taking another job to protect more people would honestly probably be safer than just traveling by ourselves. Not to mention, the merchant here is the job requestant, so if he plans on going to the Bazaar, we all kinda just have to go along with it, unless we plan on knocking him unconscious and basically kidnapping him to his destination. Which I’m totally down for, but we should probably discuss that without the potential victim sitting right here listening to the plan.”
And with that, Aozia’s case was made for him with nothing but cold logic and obscure facts that the rest of us didn’t really know anything about. With the decision apparently made, Mike went over to the Adventurer’s Guild receptionist to find a suitable job escorting people to the Capital for the Bazaar. While the rest of us waited, Aozia turned to Leo and stated, “I must say, for you to know not only of roads but of carriages as well, you are clearly far more well traveled than I gave you credit for Mr. Leo. I’ll have to ask you sometime about the places you’ve been.”
Leo calmly replied back, “Nah, I’m really not. I only really ever wandered around the woods alone before I ran into you lot. If you want well traveled people, you’d have to talk to Sophia.” The merchant chuckled, but still gave Leo a side-eye, as though doubting his claims. The ironic part was that Leo really hadn’t been lying. From what I had heard, when Sophia brought him here she had dropped him quite literally in the middle of nowhere, and he had just picked a direction and started walking. Not that that was any of Aozia’s business of course. The idle chit-chat continued until Mike came back with the details of the job we would be taking.
Apparently it was to escort a large assortment of farmers, merchants, and local businessmen, who had all pooled together to hire as many adventurers as they could to protect them and their wares. Despite the harsh punishments of the Kingdom, it seems that banditry was very common this time of year, since as long as they killed all of the travelers, no one would ever be able to point them out as the criminals. This meant that the larger the group was, the less likely it was to be attacked. We were also not the only party of adventurers taking this job, as there were a grand total of 20 adventurers escorting a group of 100 people. We would leave in 9 days, giving us time to unwind before we headed out.
When all of us were caught up with the details of the job, we all split up to go our separate ways, Aozia and Liz off to see the local shops, Mike off looking for local restaurants and bars, and Leo and I headed up to claim a room from the guild. Once we shut the door, Leo held out his hand to me, and I took it, watching as he waved his other hand.
It was as though he had grabbed onto a sheet made of absolute nothingness, and pulled it over our heads. I watched fascinated as the room around us was covered by the abyssal veil of the subspace, as rather than transporting us there, he somehow pulled the subspace to engulf the both of us. I looked around, and was stunned. Not by the charming one story house that seemingly dangled in the void, but by the fact that despite the absence of any sort of light, I could still see perfectly. I had no idea how that was even possible, but before I could ask… I saw her.
It was as though the void itself had come to life and assumed the shape of a beautiful woman. Her skin wasn’t just dark, it was consuming. It was a ferocious maw that seemed to possess its own gravitational pull, filling my head with a pure and desperate Desire. Not for anything specifically, just a general and overwhelming desire for more, More, MORE. A Desire for the very concept of Existence. And within and throughout the inescapable maw of the void, danced a beautiful Flame, almost blinding against the abyss of her skin. It felt as though just looking at it was dangerous, and could turn me to ash with nothing more than my gaze lingering upon it. The majority of both the infinite void and the stunning flame was concealed beneath a lightly flowing crimson dress, the bottom of it barely reaching her knees and flowing lightly up to her mid-thighs. But the most incredulous of all was around her neck, a soft, breathtakingly beautiful white collar, a single spot of light amidst the void, embossed with brilliant gold designs of both a lock, and the symbol of the lunatic who actually sought to claim this divine being as his own.
The lunatic in question walked up to her, and the demon’s height shrank from its previously imposing 8 feet down to an almost delicate 5 feet, as she wrapped her arms around Leo, and he brushed his left hand against her collar, and inexplicably I felt the ability to move course through my body. The flames on her legs and arms seemed to converge on her throat and face as she asked, “What are you doing, we’re not alone right now remember?”
Leo let out a soft chuckle before saying, “She hasn’t breathed since the moment she laid eyes on you, I think your natural state affects her more strongly than it does me.”
She pouted at that in quite the adorable manner. “Are you saying I don’t affect you?” To which Leo grinned maliciously, tilting his head forwards and whispering something I was really glad I couldn’t hear directly into her ear. The flames in Sophia’s throat and face seemed to grow far brighter, this time truly blinding in response, as she meekly nodded to whatever he had told her, before jumping out of his arms and bouncing over to me.
“Hi Ash, nice to finally meet you! Follow me, I’ll show you your wing.”
My what now?