There was a line. Of course there was a line. The Grand Competition was beginning the following day, everyone who could afford it had come to watch. Or sell their wares to those who came to watch. Maybe I should have done that. Taught myself a Skill that people would value its results more, a [Carving] Skill perhaps. I could create figurines of those that won in each round and sell them to the spectators. I bet the figurine of the top finisher would earn me more gold coins than the competition would earn the top finisher. I stopped dead in my tracks.
I had chosen the wrong thing to do. [Carving] should have been what I focused on. Or maybe [Magic Animations], I could create those for the finishing moves in the competition. The most dramatic ones would sell more, especially if they were also finishers. I was no artist in my previous life, but in a world with magic, I could pick up the Skill with the help of a tutor. I knew I could. I hoped I could. There would be no pain, no risk of death at all. Unlike during the competition. It would last the whole year; I would have new content to work with in every round of every level.
I looked up the road, disappearing into the forest. Which I had aptly forgotten the name for. I knew that Boni told me once, he must have. That way lay Yange, a place where I had a stable job waiting for me if I returned. And then I turned and looked at the line of people waiting to be allowed inside the city. Would there even be room for me after they all got their accommodations? Would it be the first time I got to sleep on the streets? What a sight it would be; a good-to-honest competitor sleeping in the streets in between the rounds.
Just how many people were there? Hundreds? Maybe a thousand. No, my brain was playing tricks on me. Maybe even a hundred was a stretch. How many of them had Skills that would help them create those [Magical Animations]? I wondered. They must be highly leveled too. There was no way my wares would have sold with them around. At least with fighting I stood a chance. I had been no fighter before, but my day in the fighting pits of Yange showed me that I at least had the talent. But I still needed training, way more training than I had. Mesily knew that what I had it wouldn’t be enough. Far from it.
With my mind cleared up from the slight doubt I had gone through, I resumed my walk towards the city gates.
I relieved my staff from its confines as I got close to the back of the line. My social phobia was still present, and even if the city in front of me was Sjuma, it was still a foreign place to me. Approach new places with caution was always my motto. And the staff was my most potent weapon. Magic was a close second. Right there with running away.
The people in the line were a mixture of light and tan skins. And a mixture of classes too. There was those whose dress proved them to be nothing more than what I would consider the peasants; the manual workers of the Realm of Mesily. Then we had the other end of the scale for wealthy merchants or nobles and lords, in their large ornately decorated carriages. And everything in between.
I counted at least ten such carriages, with tens of people surrounding them. Attendants? Maybe the number really was in the hundreds. The other folk were equally represented, but it was the carriages that were slowing the line down. It was more than ten minutes since I had arrived at the line, and the same carriage was still going through admittance.
Soon enough, they were let through the large gates. And several other people moved in with them. I had been right, the carriages had attendants. The line progressed as time went on. By the time I realized I hadn’t asked anyone on the line what the name of the city was, two hours had passed and I was at the gates myself. Three people away from admittance. The people around me had tried to start up a conversation with me, but I had reverted to the three or four word sentences. They didn’t stay interested for long. At least not in talking, they kept throwing glazes at me. I was just glad when my time came. I would finally be out of their gazes.
“Card or fee?” the gate-guard asked in a monotone voice as I approached the gate station.
I didn’t understand why they kept asking that. Everyone had to have the cards, and the fact that no one had advised me to get a new one for Sjuma made me believe that they were universal, used in every city. Quite possibly in all cities of the world.
I tentatively retrieved my Citizen Card from my pouch and handed it to him. I waited for several seconds as the guard stared at me with a doubtful look. He then returned it to me with a good luck. Coming from him, it sounded to me like I would need it.
Is there a way to know if I’m a competitor by just studying the card? What was I thinking? The registrars told me to present the card to the Council Office, of course there was. I was just surprised that the guard was able to see it. Maybe anyone could.
I quickly walked into the city. With the guard’s reaction, I was more than sure that I was in the right city. The line should have been the first clue, but I liked facts more than I preferred speculations.
Inside, the city was as different from Yange as it had been from the outside. The use of stones as the building blocks continued to every building I could see within the main street of the city. Unlike Yange, the main street was a long stretch that disappeared into the buildings. It had something of a right curve to it, but it was hard to tell for sure. What with all the people jammed in together.
Most were vendors with their stands by the side of the street. A more accurate description would be on the road. The buildings that marked where street ended and the buildings began were a good deal behind the stands, with barely enough room for a carriage left in the middle of the road. I didn’t know whether it was the normal state of the city, or just during the competitions.
Someone bumped into me from behind, reminding me that I should be moving and not standing still. That was a clear sign that I was a stranger in a strange new place. Thieves, pickpockets and swindlers would rob me of everything I had before I could finish an hour in the city. I began moving purposefully down the street, holding my staff tighter and reminding myself to keep swinging my left hand. My first destination was the Council Office, to present myself as a competitor. Then would come lodging, and hopefully food. A hearty meal if my budget would allow it.
I walked and walked and walked. For close to a half an hour, I walked before I got sight of the first branch off from the main street. I slowed my pace as I took it. And rested by a nearby building taking a breather from it all. The people had decreased considerably from those found near the gate, but that hadn’t been enough for someone who had anxiety issues just been around so many people. At least the new street was better, with even lesser people around.
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After I felt like I had calmed down enough, I resumed my walk farther into the new street. It still had vendors by the street, but not as many as those on the main street. I needed to ask someone where I could find the Council Office. But stopping someone on the street just to ask them that felt like I would be bothering them too much. I went with the other option.
I approached a nearby vendor and asked, “How much for the apples?”
I really hated spending my money unnecessarily, but I needed the information and it felt like that would be a safer way. The vendor gains a profit and I gain a piece of information. What I was not prepared for was the cost.
“Two copps an apple,” the vendor answered.
My hand stilled on its own, dropping the single copper it had picked up from the pouch. I looked up at the vendor, my mouth opening up on its own. That was too much, four times too much. If that was how much things were more expensive, I would not survive it in the city.
It took me a whole minute to convince myself that the cost was worth it. I just hoped they would actually agree to answer. I picked up two coppers and returned the pouch to its safe location before handing them over to the vendor.
“Could you point me towards the Council Office? Please,” I said as I received my apple. A small thing that was nearly half the size I was used to back in Yange. They were two days apart, why was there such a huge difference in prices? And quality?
The vendor stared at me for a few seconds before answering, “It’s the first left branch from the main street.”
I quickly turned around and left the stand. I didn’t want to be any more of a bother than I had already been. That was before my destination hit me. I had to go back through the main street. Why couldn’t it be front and center like the one in Yange? I would have been done with the whole council business if it had been. I hesitated before joining the main street, making sure I had the left branch in sight before I made a straight line through the street for it.
The new street was no different from the main street, but the Council Office was clear in my sight and I went straight for it, ignoring everything else. The building was easy to distinguish from the rest of the street. It had the same design as the one back on Yange, only larger and way more grand. The inside was the same too. A larger but still similar looking reception hall with a similar reception desk which had six stations.
There were several people waiting in the reception hall, and others being served by the receptionists. I took a more solitary seat among the waiters and watched the receptionist desk. I had stayed in the Realm of Mesily enough to learn that if I wasn’t careful, others would take the chance to bypass me. I kept track of how many people were ahead of me, six; and how many came after me, zero.
By the time my turn came, no one new had joined me and all that vigilance went to waste. But it was good practice for when it would be needed. I approached the cleared up station, second from the leftmost, and presented my Citizen Card. The guy took the card and stared at me with his big blue eyes. They unnerved me, the size of them. They didn’t look human. I had only interacted with humans since I arrived. It had kind of slipped my mind, but those eyes reminded me that other species called the Realm of Mesily’s earth, home too. But other than the larger than normal eyes, he was all human. Light pink skin, no claws, no pointed ears, no scales, blonde hair and definitely no canines. That last one brought to my attention that he had been talking to me for a while.
“What?” I asked.
“How can I help you?” he asked. Probably for the umpteenth time.
“I was told to bring that here,” I told him.
I had thought it would be a quick thing. He would check it the same way the gate-guard did before telling me what to do next. A direction to the fighting pits would be nice. Were the fights held in fighting pits or did they have their own dedicated arenas? Something like the gladiator arenas of Ancient Rome.
“Hmm?” And I was again caught off on my own thoughts.
“Who asked you to bring it here?” he asked, probably again.
“Oh! The registrars, The Grand Competition registrars.”
He looked at me more keenly then, his eyes getting even bigger. He really needed to learn how to control that, or I needed to get used to it. As things were going, the first time I would see a goblin, or a lizard, I would most probably scream running away. After pissing myself. That was if I didn’t faint on the spot. It had me wondering what it would have been like had I chosen one of those as my species.
I got self-conscious and tore my gaze away from him, looking at the other receptionists. They were still occupied with their wards. Or those were other people who had come while I was absentmindedly staring at the guy’s big blue eyes.
“Right,” he said, bringing my attention back to him. “You took your time coming, didn’t you? All the others have been here for over a week.”
What? Over a week? I needed to be in the city a week before the competition begun? That was news to me. No one had told me that. In fact, if I remembered correctly, the registrar only told me when the competition would begin and told me to be there by then. At least I thought that was what he had said back then.
“I didn’t know that I had to be hear that early,” I defended myself. Did I arrive late still even after all the effort I put into making sure I didn’t?
“It isn’t required of you to,” he said, allowing me a sigh of relief before he continued. “But it is highly recommended. The training facilities here are far better than you would find in the other towns.”
He handed me back my card as he said, “Go on to the competitors’ inn and present the card to the receptionists there.”
I turned to go before I realized I didn’t know where that was, and stopped mid turn. He didn’t even give me the opportunity to ask the question before he was already answering.
“To the right of us, six buildings down. It has a large banner saying The Competitors’ Inn. You can’t miss it.”
I quickly left the Council Office in search of The Competitors’ Inn banner. If it meant what I thought it meant, then some, if not all, of my expenses during the period of the competition would be taken care of.