While leaving the garish estate, Raksha surreptitiously looked around, hoping to spot Ellessea again on the way out. No such chance was given and soon the trio, Pinn, Olady, and Raksha, were escorted out and onto the streets, now mostly empty as the midday sun and haze settled in.
“Gonna be a hot one,” Olady said, trying to sound casual, stretching her limbs and blinking in the bright light. It came off as awkward to Raksha.
Raksha just looked around the deserted streets, feeling sullen. The enchantments on his armor kept him cool, but the stickiness of the swampland still clung to him like a wet blanket.
“Ellessea shouldn’t be forced to be a consort for that man.” He ended by saying plainly.
“Err, ah, he’s not being forced, what she’s getting in return is more than fair for a woman of her…. position.”
Raksah gave the priestess a flat look. “She’s still getting bullied into it.”
Looking around warily, the priestess started pushing Raksha forward, up the street. “Ah, yes, well, we can talk about this more when we are a little further away from their estate.”
Raksha let himself get pushed and then led into a small building off the main street. The sign out front read, “The crooked bandit” but most of the sign was taken up by a large picture of a fearsome woman with a crooked smile and an active spellsign on her hand. Opening the door, Olady ducked in, followed by Pinn and Raksha.
The inside was much cooler, if only a little less humid. “Ah, that’s better,” Olady sighed, wiping off the sweat that had accumulated on her head from their walk.
The tavern was about a third full at this time, a couple dozen tables scattered around and a long bar at one end. The room was dark, all the windows shut to try to keep out the heat of the day and it took a few moments for Raksha’s eyes to adjust to a comfortable level.
Olady made a beeline to the bar and sat down heavily on a stool she pulled out, fanning herself with her hat all the while. “They could have at least offered us refreshments before we were kicked out,” She grumbled to herself.
Looking around for a second, Raksha settled beside the priestess, Pinn taking a spot on the opposite.
Not letting the silence continue, Raksha started, “You think it's wrong what the house is doing, don’t you?”
“It's not that simple,” Olady replied with a shake of her heard. “Personally? Yes, the illusion of choice given to Ellessea, is just that, an illusion. I think everybody should have the right to choose their own partner. And I don’t like the concept of concubines, or consorts either. Women should be limited to a single man in holy matrimony.”
“But the church’s stance is different. While the church still stands for individual freedom of choice, in marriage and elsewhere, it's also concerned with regional stability.”
“Regional stability?” Raksha replied with a snort. “Forcing a peasant woman to be a concubine effects ‘regional stability’? Don’t make me laugh.”
A bartender came up, a middle aged man with a pleasant smile. Olady ordered drinks and some food for the three of them, annoying Raksha, but he let it go.
“I wish it were a laugh,” Olady continued as the bartender left. “But unfortunately not. House Yilner has been the leading house in the city since it was built, 400 years ago. When they first settled, the strength of their house mages, and the impressive power of their Matriarch at that time, who was a mana spring herself, allowed them to subdue their competition and set themselves up as the de facto rulers of the city. They have been in charge ever since.”
“But their strength is dwindling?”
Olady shrugged, “Their house mages are as strong as ever. They've got the resources to train and equip a veritable army. It’s their actual house members that are the problem. Since the first Matriarch, no new mana springs have appeared. Most houses have two or three, either in the main family or in the branches. It has not mattered too much in the past, as the house members have always been skilled and their hold on the city has been firm. This recent generation has been… subpar, unfortunately. The Matriarch's only daughter is a spoiled fop who thinks the city owes her for just being alive, but has very little actual skill and a smaller than average mana pool. As you’ve seen, the son’s attitude is hardly better.”
Chuckling, Olady added, “I’ve witnessed Angnes rant quite a few times over the uselessness of her daughter, always having to bail her out of the trouble she gets herself in. Unfortunately, she has only herself to blame and she knows it, she didn’t spend nearly as much time as she should have raising her daughter, letting the servants handle it for the most part, preferring to pour her energy into house affairs instead. Her husband had passed unexpectedly after Rylie had been born, and I think she used the work to help numb the pain.”
Olady raised her hand, “Just conjecture though. Angnes and I have been close for some time, despite how it appears, and sometimes I can't help but pity her. I know that trying to deal with all the problems the house has these days is taxing, and she doesn’t have anybody she trusts to help her out. Her own doing, again, but still...”
The bartender returned with the drinks, Raksha being handed a red sweet smelling beverage with a Java fruit slice floating on top. A little resentment at the stereotypical drink choices for men, Raksha nevertheless enjoyed the taste, the cool sweetness just right. He knew it was definitely not a cheap drink.
Pinn had gotten the same drink as Raksha but Olady was handed a dark amber colored liquid with a sphere of ice sitting in the middle. It gave off a rich, nutty scent and the priestess took a small sip and sighed dramatically in pleasure.
“So,” Raksha said, keeping the conversation going, “The other houses are smelling blood in the water?”
Olady gave him a weird look. “I haven’t heard that idiom before, but yeah, they are sensing opportunity. A few of them resent their places in the hierarchy of the city’s elite and they see the ‘weakening’ bloodline of House Yilner as an excuse to make waves. Angnes is hoping to add Ellesea to their house to shore up their ranks with a mana spring, and to hopefully get some grandkids that are mana springs as well. To help stave off the words of the other houses.”
Raksha stared at his red drink, stirring it with the java fruit. “But why does the church care?”
“The church seeks stability in the city.” Olady replied bluntly. “Political upheaval hurts a city and its citizens, and can lead to a great many problems. I’ve seen it before, in other cities, when house rivalry gets bloody, it’s mostly the citizens that suffer. While House Yilner have been heavy handed in their rule, it's also been fair and peaceful. So, even though I don’t like it, the terms for Ellessea and her family are more than generous, and the union will help keep the peace in the city. So the church supports it.”
“What about the Empress?” Raksha asked, “Doesn’t she appoint the rulers for each city? Won’t she be upset if one of the houses subverts her orders?”
Olady snorted in response. “In theory, yes, she appoints the ruling house for each city. But in practice? These days she just affirms whoevers on top, especially for a small city like ours on the edge of the empire. There are more important issues she has to deal with now, she doesn’t have the time or resources to try to regulate every border city. As long as the taxes keep coming in, she won’t care.”
Raksha didn’t respond and Olady didn’t press it. They waited for their food in silence, sipping their drinks. Subdued conversations across the restaurant floated around and Raksha tried to concentrate on his plans going forward. His foul mood prevented any meaningful thoughts, though.
The food arrived soon, it looked to be a steaming plate of some local meat with grilled vegetables on top, smothered in a dark sauce. Despite his mood, it smelled and looked amazing and his stomach gurgled appreciatively.
He listened to Olady say grace over the meal, a few sentences of thanks and praise to God. Olady and Pinn then dug into it enthusiastically.
“You know,” Raksha said, picking up the utensils, “I think the Matriarch was at least right about one thing. Everything becomes politics in the end.”
He dug into the meal as well. Olady didn’t reply.
The food was as good as he thought it would be. Expensive as hell too, as he saw the priestess paying with the silver from the earlier delve. Raksha hadn’t had such a fine tasting meal in years and he let the priestess know. She gave him an appreciative smile.
She also said she would write a letter of introduction to the delving partie she trusted and her former disciple was with. She felt once they got over their initial feeling and saw what Raksha could do, they would be interested in a member of his caliber. She would also give him her full recommendation, which she insisted was worth a lot. Raksha’s gut reaction was to refuse, but decided to trust the priestess on this one. She was right and that finding a party would help him integrate into the city. She also offered to have one of her clergy, Pinn if he so wanted, to guide him around the city and help him find a reasonable place to stay. Raksha begged off that though, preferring to peruse the city himself. He did get a name for a reputable inn from Pinn though.
Thanking the woman for the meal and parting ways after, he left The Crooked Bandit and made his way down the city lane.
Feeling oddly tired already and not up for anything special, he gave into the nagging feeling his training had been pushing him to for the last couple of days; getting a feel of the land, the main pathways of the streets, the exits for the layers of city walls, the different districts where shops and goods and houses sat.
Taking a slow walk around the streets of the city and keeping a close eye on his coin purse, he let his mind drift, comparing the Delnin city to the city he was most familiar with, the capital of the empire.
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Looking at the layout of the streets, the walls and the districts of Delnin, it was clear to Raksha that the city had been carefully planned out. That made sense to him, as the land the city had been built on had to be completely terraformed from swampland, block by block, in order to make it habitable.
The little bit of history he had dug up before he journeyed here had indicated that the city was less than 400 years old. Built around the dungeon that was discovered here by adventurers around that time, there was no other good reason to build a city in the money pit of a location.
As they say in the guild, there are dungeons and then there are dungeons, and only a few of them are the type cities are settled around, and even fewer are the type to be worth it to build a city around. This dungeon was obviously the latter type, not too dangerous, not too bizarre, but still profitable for experienced delvers.
Some dungeon types were under imperial orders to be destroyed on sight, like some of the poison or more esoteric dungeons that had the ability to spread their miasma across the land. Most were found early and were quickly destroyed before they could grow dangerous. Others grew out of sight, like a cancer on the land and powerful mages had to be called in to cull it.
Other dungeons were just strange and bizarre, operating under some logic beyond human understanding. Those were often more trouble than they were worth, a portion of those falling under the dangerous category as well. Those dungeons were usually destroyed, hopefully leaving room for more normal types of dungeons to appear someday.
Raksa recalled one of those dungeons, it was a place where the light spectrum had been reversed and the monsters all sported ethereal bodies that dropped beast cores only in an indecipherable pattern. Their slave corps had attempted to delve it, but the visuals were too disorienting for the slaves to properly work in and the output was too poor, so they were given orders to just destroy it and be done after a few weeks of no progress.
The third type of dungeon were the ones that delvers complained the most about. These kinds were profitable enough to keep around, but annoying enough to make most delvers not bother, and move onto greener pastures. These dungeons were the ones that the slave corps most often were put on, the unpopular ones that they could monopolize without any repercussion.
Rakshas spent the first three years of his slavery in one of these, a water based dungeon that everybody hated. The levels included swamps, lakes, rivers, and even a level that was just water and no land.
It was there that Raksha had found the desperation needed to experiment on himself with the jelly wraiths.
The last type of dungeons were the cream of the crop though, the types that Delnin city and the capital were built around. Easy and profitable, with levels suited for humans to work in and monsters, while still dangerous, were of the type a qualified delver could deal with.
This type of dungeon meant wealth and prosperity.
So Delnin city had been carefully crafted and carefully planned, in order for the houses to get the most efficiency out of their investment. Raksha had trouble imagining the cost it took to build the city from scratch, the mages needed to terraform, the stone needed to be transported in, the labor needed to build, slave labor, no doubt, but labor nonetheless. Looking at the city now, from atop the on the inner walls, Raksha had no doubt the investment paid off.
The capital’s streets were a mess of design in comparison, centuries of uncontrolled expansion had left it bloated, the slums were large, dirty, and lawless while the better off occupants lived far away, with high walls separating them. The slums were where Raksha had come from, another equally desperate situation, made even harder for men who could not do even the most amature of magic the girls could.
Looking at Delnin though, none of the squalor he was used to seeing was present. The poor were still around, but the city’s wealth and surplus of food were enough to keep it manageable. Despite his feelings towards the Yilner house, he had to admit, they were doing something right. The view from the wall showed a city at peace.
Looking past the walls showed green fields and lush farmland, the prevalence of earth magic and mages showing their benefits. It also helped that being attacked by an army was such a low risk. While the swamp was what the farmers fought and cursed everyday, it was also what kept the city safe. Moving an army through the miles of swamp was close to impossible.
With a sigh, Raksha ended his tour and got down off the wall, tipping the guard a few extra coppers who had let him up.
He made his way to the inn Pinn had told him to visit, one called The Day’s Rest, a block away from the delver’s guild. The inn primarily hosted parties of delvers and was said to have a good standing with the church, the guild, and the nobles. The sun was setting as he stepped in, the inside lit modestly by lamps situated along the walls. A single light orb spell of an impressive size hovered in the middle of the primary lobby, presumably set there by a mage who worked there. Unlike enchantments, spells like these were temporary, and disappeared when the user deactivated it, ran out of mana, or went to sleep, but if a woman had a large enough mana pool, leaving one up for a bit was no real stress.
Off to the side of the lobby was a space set aside for the restaurant side of the business, the tables and chairs giving it a more rustic look than the prim atmosphere of the Crooked Bandit. The room was full of people, mostly women, eating and talking, the atmosphere loud and boisterous.
While looking around, the receptionist and a large woman who gave off the feel of a bouncer, approached him.
“Slave’s aren’t allowed to come in here,” the receptionist said, not unkindly, perhaps wondering how a slave even made it out to this part of the city. She was a slender woman with an easy uniform of the inn, and looked more nervous than anything. The bouncer stood behind her giving him the evil eye.
Raksha tapped his left cheek, “this one means I am a freed slave.”
The receptionist frowned at him before turning and giving an uncertain look to the bouncer who just shrugged. Licking her lips, the receptionist didn’t appear convinced as she studied his cheek.
“Look, just check the mana sigil on my slave brand,” Raksha added, annoyed, “You’ll see that it's gone.”
Looking even more conflicted, the receptionist appeared to debate with herself before reaching out her hand to him. The bouncer put a stop to that though, pulling the receptionist back and stepping forward herself.
“If you’ll excuse me then,” she said, not hesitating to put two fingers onto Raksha’s right cheek. She had an accent that meant she had come from the southern borderlands of the empire.
Raksha stood still, allowing it to happen but not hiding the annoyance on his face.
“So it is.” the bouncer said after a moment, sounding intrigued. She nodded to the receptionist whose face was still scrunched up.
“Um, okay.” She finally said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like to rent a single room for a week.”
“That’s four copper a night, or a silver for two weeks, if you want.”
Raksha thought it over for a moment. “What does that include?”
The receptionist finally put on a smile, “breakfast 6 days a week, and a key to the local baths. Any other services are extra.”
Raksha ended up agreeing to the two weeks, fishing out the silver and handing it over to the receptionist who hesitated a moment before accepting it. She pulled out a room key and started walking away.
“I’ll take him,” the bouncer said, plucking the key from her hand. She nodded and without another word, returned to her desk.
“Sorry about that,” the bouncer said, waving Raksha after her. “I don’t think we’ve ever seen a slave come in here before, much less a free one. Not many people know they can even be freed.”
“Believe me, I know.” Raksha replied dryly, the bouncer giving him a chuckle for it.
“Ah, you would know. How many times a day do you need to point it out?”
“I’ve been in the city for two days now, I’ve had to point it out to every person I’ve met. You two are the first who needed to touch the sigil though. When I was at the capital, I could get away with only mentioning it every other day.”
“Ah, you are from the capital?” the bouncer asked with interest, leading him up some stairs. “Long ways from here, I've always wanted to see it for myself. Perhaps I will go one of these days.”
“I wouldn’t bother. The outer walls are impressive to look at, but unless you are willing to pay out a lot of coin, you won’t be able to see anything special. The inner walls are all guarded.”
“Ah, a pity, then.” the bouncer sighed, sounding truly disappointed. “Here we are though, your room for two weeks.” she inserted the key and opened the door, revealing a clean, if sparse, space. A shuttered window was on one wall, it contained a bed, a dresser and a chair. An empty chamberpot sat in the corner.
“You like?” the bouncer asked, offering him the key.
“It's perfect,” Raksha replied with a smile. “Thank you.”
“Of course! Ah, where are my manners, my name is Hilde. I try to keep the peace here, at The Days Rest. Not an easy job, mind you.” She added with a laugh.
“Raksha,” he reciprocated, shaking her hand. “You’re from the south, judging on your accent, am I right?”
“Correct,” she replied happily, “I brought my family here seven years ago from Lotad city. It was a hard transition for all of us, leaving so much behind but we are happy here now. There was much strife in Lotad, and still are these days, I am told. I keep writing to my parents and sisters to come here as well, this is much more peaceful place. But it is a hard long journey.”
“How did you end up working here?”
Hilde gave a belly laugh. “I at first tried my hand at delving. I soon find out I am much better at fighting woman than beasts, so I found a spot here. Always, there is some sort of trouble when a group of delvers get together, it is up to me to sort it out. Bash some heads together, if need be.” She gave Raksha an evil grin. “But what about you? You say you are from capital, but your own accent and looks is different. I cannot place it.”
“Ah, well, I am from the capital, but the first language I learned was not Deldian. The little section of the city I grew up in had its own language that everybody spoke. I didn’t learn Deldian till later in life. And I don’t know my heritage, I was an orphan. The streets are my earliest memories.”
Hilde’s eyebrows were raised high. “Truly? The capital must be very large place to house extra languages.”
“It really is,” Raksha replied with a sigh, “I spent most of my life there, but hardly saw more than a bit of it. I really couldn’t tell you about anything in the inner walls.”
“I see. Well, dinner is available if you want it, it will be available for a few more hours, or when the cooks feel lazy.” She added with a smile. “Breakfast starts at sunrise and lasts an hour. A key to the baths are on the top of your dresser.”
“Thanks, I'll settle in and then probably come down for dinner.”
“Excellent. I will see you around then, former slave Raksha.”
With a parting smile the woman left the room. Raksha closed the door behind him and heaved a nice sigh. He never appreciated getting touched to confirm the sigil, but still it was sometimes necessary. She was happy with Hilde’s professionalism about it and her friendliness afterwards.
He unpacked a few items but left most of them in his sack. After confirming the lock on the door and the lock on the window were secure, Raksha smiled in satisfaction and left to join the diners downstairs.