James followed Steven down the street. They went over a couple of roads, then came to a building with a stream of people coming out. Steven stopped and waited. James watched as the flow slowed to a trickle, then mostly stopped. Then people started walking in. Steven grabbed James by the hand and got in line to go in. As they walked through the front door, James saw Steven hand someone a few coins, then gesture at himself and James. The woman nodded and waved them in, smiling. "Have a good time!"

As they walked in, James noticed the sound from the street was clearly muffled. Probably an enchantment like on market lane. He walked through another set of doors and the sound muffled again. If he strained he thought he could still sort of hear it, but only just barely. Then Steven led him through a final set of doors and the sound was completely gone. James' eyes widened in amazement. They were in a massive room, with chairs on three sides. The chairs were all angled to face the last side, where there was a massive curtain. The chairs got higher as you went further back, so everyone had a clear view of the curtain. Most of the chairs were empty, although they were filling quickly. It looked like the chairs in the middle were the most sought after, and that's where Steven pulled him to. Once they sat down, James had a great view … of a curtain.

The room was pretty quiet, and James wasn't quite sure what was going on. "Hey Steven." James whispered. "What are we doing?"

Steven leaned over and whispered back. "Just watch. They give everyone a few minutes to find their seats before starting."

A few minutes passed as James watched the seats fill in. The middle filled in first, and soon there were only the edge seats or those in the very back still available. Suddenly the lights in the room grew dim and the low buzz of whispered conversations silenced.

James looked around the room. Everyone was fixated on the curtain. Suddenly it swooshed open! On what James could now see was a large stage stood a man. The room, full of what James now realized was an audience, was silent. "Long ago, in a land lost to time, was born a baby girl." So began the show.

James stared, awed, as the actors and actresses performed a story of a young girl, her life, her joys, her sorrows, the machinations of a greedy king, the generosity and heroism of a young beggar boy, and the plans and schemes of ancient, powerful beings. James had seen shows before from traveling bards, and once even a group that did shadow stories using a large box and a hidden light, but this was incredible! There were magical battles fought on the stage, with bolts of magic flying everywhere, even occasionally looking like they were about to hit the crowd! There were hurried journeys where the stage seemed to stretch until it was miles long. Powerful monsters made James’ ears ring when they spoke, but he could somehow still hear the whispered conversation that happened next like it was right beside him! James traveled with the beggar for weeks to find his friend, and when the show finally ended and the curtain closed James joined the rest of the audience in a standing ovation!

As they walked out to make room for the next group, James didn't even know what to say! "How … what … I've never seen anything like that!"

Steven laughed. "See why I didn't want to spoil anything? This is by far one of the most popular places in the city to spend a couple of hours of free time."

That reminded James. He'd had an appointment! "Oh shoot! I've definitely missed my meeting with Marcus."

Steven laughed again. "Don't worry. You've still got a half hour or so before it's time. That whole thing was only a couple of hours."

James stared. "No way. Just the journey across the muttering seas took at least …" James tried to remember how long they'd watched the ship sailing on the sea. In fact, the whole show was starting to get a bit foggy, like a dream after you woke up.

Steven chuckled. "It's a bit disorienting the first time. The whole show is put on by a couple of high powered mages who retired a while back. They got together and tried to decide what to do next. They'd been friends for ages, and realized that they had abilities that could do basically whatever they wanted. In the end, they thought of this show. It's a combination of spells, a few enchantments on the theater itself, and a lot of hard work on the part of the retired adventurers who do it. They put on a new show about once a week. They've been doing it for a long time now, so sometimes they pull out shows they've done before if they aren't quite ready with the new one they're practicing. One useful thing of being a strong adventurer like they are is that you have nearly a perfect memory, so they can get a show that they haven't done in decades ready to go in a few hours. And since it has been decades since they did it, most people have never seen it and the few that have seen it have probably been to so many in the meantime that they don't remember it very well."

James still couldn't quite believe it. He just knew it had been at least a few years since he went in there, but at the same time he could see the sun and knew that it had only been a couple of hours. "What enchantments and spells are they using?!? That is insane!"

Steven smiled. "Like I said, they're pretty powerful. The biggest enchantments are one that makes you more susceptible to believe things you see or are told, and the other is the one that messes with your sense of time. The first one is why you probably didn't think about the fact that you hadn't eaten anything in 'years' or that there couldn't actually be a stormy ocean in a single building in the fort."

James realized those things hadn't even crossed his mind! Steven continued. "As for the spells and such, those change every show. And they don't tell much, they've gotta keep some secrets to keep the show mysterious you know!"

James knew he'd definitely be back when they changed shows. That made him remember the coins Steven had handed to the woman out front. "I know high tier adventurers can charge crazy amounts for things they help with, how much is it to watch a show?" Steven hadn't handed over much, but James knew that getting a high tier adventurer's help was super expensive, so it made sense that to get in the show probably wasn't cheap.

Steven smiled. "Remember, this is their retirement. They're doing this because they enjoy it. They charge a little bit so people don't come too much, they want everyone to have a chance to see the show, and they request you go to a single show at most twice. Then, one night a week they charge super high prices. This is when all of the rich and snobby people show up who don't want to mingle with us normal folk. But other than that night, it's super doable."

James was even more impressed by the people who did the show. He walked with Steven back towards the big building he was meeting Marcus at. As they walked, they talked about the show. James found himself wishing he could see it again, and could see why the people running it had to request people go no more than twice. They took streets other than market lane so they could move quicker. Eventually they passed the guild lodge, and Steven bid James farewell since the line was mostly gone to get the pay for the trip to James' village. "Just go straight down this street and you get there. And remember, if you need to ask for directions it's on 20th and 32nd."

James nodded and waved goodbye to Steven. Then he thought of something. "Hey Steven! What are you doing tomorrow?"

Steven turned around where he'd been about to go in the door. "Nothing, I planned the whole week for the expedition, just in case. Why?"

James didn't want to impose on Steven, but he felt they'd become pretty good friends and didn't know if he'd be able to get back in contact with Steven if they separated now. "Do you want to show me more of the town tomorrow?"

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Steven smiled. "Sure! I'll be at the big building two hours after sun up."

James smiled too. "Sounds great! See you then!" He was glad he would have someone who knew their way around in this new crazy world he was going to be living in. He made his way to the big building without any problems, but when he arrived he didn't see Marcus anywhere. He was a few minutes early, so he just sat on the steps and watched the people of the fort moving about their days.

As he watched, it really wasn't that different from his village, just bigger and more crowded. The individual people seemed about the same. James sat on the stairs for a while before he started to wonder where Marcus was. It was a number of minutes past when he'd said to meet him, and James wasn't sure what to do if Marcus never showed up. He waited a bit longer, then decided he had to ask for help. He saw a woman walking up to the stairs he was sitting on.

"Hey, could you help me for a second?"

The woman stopped and smiled at James. "I sure can. What do you need help with?"

James looked around. "I was supposed to meet someone named Marcus here about a half hour ago, but he never showed up. He recently led an expedition to a village just north of here, do you know how I could find him?"

The woman smiled slightly. "I would assume he's in his office."

James blinked. "He has an office here?"

The woman chuckled. "He needs somewhere to run the fort from! A place this size isn't going to run itself, you know! Follow me, I'll lead you to his office."

James had to quickly reevaluate Marcus's position in the fort. James had assumed he was a fairly high level person, perfect to delegate an important thing like leading the expedition to James’s village to. Turns out, he was actually the person running the place. The woman led him into the big building and up a few flights of stairs. James still wasn't used to buildings having more than one or two stories, and this one had five! The woman led James up to the top floor and stopped at an unimpressive door. She knocked. "Marcus? Someone here to see you." She glanced at James. "Sorry, forgot to get your name."

James smiled. "I'm James, nice to meet you."

The woman smiled. "I'm Susan, nice to meet you as well." She walked away as the door opened and Marcus looked out. "Let me guess, you were sitting on the front steps waiting for me."

At James’s nod, Marcus shook his head. "I need to give people better directions to my office. Well, come on in."

He opened the door wide and walked over to a desk. It was covered in papers, books, and strange objects. He sat down in a small chair behind the desk, motioning for James to sit in the identical chair on the other side of the desk. Once James had sat down, Marcus continued. "I'm sure you're wondering why I have such a tiny office if I run the fort." James nodded and Marcus smiled. "The truth of it is, this isn't my office. I have a big office down on the first floor I use for meeting all of the important people and for holding meetings. However, I discovered soon after starting here that people came in far too often for me to get anything done. So I found an unused room on the third floor and started going there when I needed to actually get some work done and didn't want disturbed. It worked for a while, but eventually people caught on and started checking that room if I wasn't in my office." Marcus smiled slightly. "So I moved to an unused room on the second floor. Then once too many people found that one I moved to the fourth floor. Then back to the third floor. And so on and so forth. I figure that if someone wants to talk to me badly enough to check all of the rooms in this building, they've earned some of my time. And I tell a few people where I've moved my room to, like my secretary and Susan, so if there's ever something that actually needs my attention I can be found relatively easily."

James smiled. That made a lot of sense. Even the chief in his village had occasionally hidden himself away to get something done, and he was only in charge of a small village!

Marcus leaned back in his chair. "Now, we need to figure out what you're going to do here. You have a bit of money we found in the ruins of the market and the chief's house, but you can't live forever on that. You need some way to earn some money. I gave you a bit of time so you could explore and look around a bit, do you know what you want to do here?"

James thought awkwardly about the entire time he'd spent walking down market lane and at the show. Still, fortunately he already knew what he wanted to do. "I want to become an adventurer."

Marcus grimaced. "I was worried you would say that. While you have a bit of a nest egg, it isn't nearly enough to become an adventurer. The life of an adventurer isn't a cheap one, especially starting out. You unfortunately aren't even close to the amount you'd need."

James’s spirits fell. "Can't you think of any way I could become an adventurer?"

Marcus shook his head. "Unfortunately, not really. If you could get a town or city to sponsor you you could become an adventurer just like normal. The fort itself sponsors 5 new adventurers every year, but those are some of the hardest spots to get into. Unfortunately, with your lack of prior training, unless you somehow acquire a large sum of money I don't see any way of your becoming an adventurer."

James' sinking spirits hit the floor. So much for all of his plans. "Well, in that case, the things I'm best suited for are hunting or farming. I can do either."

Marcus smiled. "I hoped you would say that. I know it's disappointing not to be able to do what you want to, but hopefully you can still build yourself a good life here. I would recommend farming, as most animals are frightened far away from the fort due to the frequent clashes with dungeon monsters. And since I assumed that was what you would choose, I took the liberty of looking into some of your options. I found a small farm, about the right size for a single farmer to work it, relatively close to the town. There's a small animal pen as well, with some animals to start you off. There's also some crops growing that will soon be ready to harvest, so you'll have some income quickly. You had enough to purchase the farm with a bit left over to purchase things you need and to live on while you get the first crop in. And I'll send over the bag of holding with the items from the ruins of your village. We'll call it a loan, just pull out the things that you need, anything you don't want just leave in there when you return it and the guild will either keep it or get rid of it."

James knew how much a farm like that would cost, and there was no way he should have that much. "How could I afford that?"

Marcus smiled. "The previous owner was getting older and wanted to move to a different city to be closer to family. He was willing to sell the farm for cheap, as he doesn't need much any more."

James still wasn't sure how Marcus had found such a good deal, but he knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. "That sounds excellent. Thank you for setting it all up for me."

Marcus smiled. "It's the least I could do, I wish I could do more. I'll get everything finalized, you can go sit downstairs and I'll have someone lead you to your new home."

James headed down the stairs and out to the stairs again. It had quickly grown dark. With such tall walls, dusk didn't last long. Pretty soon a young boy, probably 14 or 15, ran up to him. "Are you James?"

When James nodded the boy smiled. "Marcus told me to lead you to Old man Douglas's farm." James stood and followed the boy out of town. They hitched a ride on a wagon traveling in the right direction, and soon they had exited the main town. Sooner than James had expected, the boy hopped off, gesturing to James to do the same. He led James down a short path, then gestured to a gate. "That's the gate to Old man Douglas's farm. See you!"

Before James could say anything, the boy was headed back to the road. "Thank you!" James called out, not sure if the boy would hear him. He assumed this was the farm Marcus had been talking about, "Old man Douglas" matched the description Marcus had given. He walked in. It was fairly dark, but there was a full moon, so he could see fairly well. He could see a large field off to the left, and to the right, he saw a pen. Inside he could see a few cows, a few pigs, and a sheep. He saw a small haystack near the pen, within its own fence to keep the animals out even if they got out of their pen. He saw a small chicken coop, and when he glanced in he saw a dozen chickens. He walked into the small house next to the coop. It was small, but seemed cozy. It didn't feel like it had been unoccupied for long, it still had that "lived-in" feel to it. He felt the hearth. It was still warm, probably from cooking either lunch or dinner.

James felt an even increased level of appreciation for Marcus. There was no way the funds collected from his village could have paid for this, and Marcus had clearly pulled some strings to get it for James. Marcus may not have been able to help James become an adventurer, but as James looked around at the start of his new life, he knew that Marcus had gone above and beyond in his assistance. Realistically, he had everything he could hope for. He had somewhere to live, a way to make a living, and a friend to help him orient himself in this new life. James stood in his new house and smiled. His family was gone, and there was nothing he could do about that. But his future was looking brighter than it had since he'd left to find his compass. James decided that for now, he'd just be satisfied with that.