Having walked for several hours, Gilliam tried to keep a conversation going but it was more of an interview, when he asked or said something to her, she replied and that somewhat ended that dialogue. Though he learned a few more things about her. She had indeed been a slave as long as she could remember, she was four years old but her mix of beastfolk was considered an adult after around a year.
He also used this time to properly introduce Savia and Cera to each other. Having Savia fly over and crash into Cera’s face was both hilarious and sad. Cera was very startled at Savia’s way of greeting, but once she got over the lack of boundaries the tiny creature had it seemed that it worked out. Cera was holding Savia like she was the most delicate creature in existence, seeming terrified of breaking her.
“Throw Savia!” She commanded her new furry ally as she stretched her winged arms up in the air.
“I...” Cera didn’t seem to know how to reply to that, she looked almost terrified at her lack of action and what was commanded of her.
“Don’t worry, just do it like I did yesterday, toss her into the air. She’s a good flier.” Gilliam got involved to comfort her a little.
She hesitantly lobbed the harpy into the air, though it wasn’t with any sense of force so she barely got to Gilliam’s height.
Taking flight she just sailed back down and landed in her hands.
“Toss Savia higher!” She wasn’t satisfied with the meagre height she got this time.
Cera looked to Gilliam with pleading eyes, seemingly hoping that he could do something to make this stop.
Gilliam obviously faked not noticing this.
Doing as told the young fox tried again. She put some more force into it, using both her hands. This time she got some more height and let out a happy squeal before she spread out her wings once she reached the peak of the arc. This time floating down and crashing in Gilliam’s face.
Before he managed to peal her off she commanded her master. “Throw Savia!”
Gilliam grabbed her off of his face and like throwing a rock into the air he threw her with most of his might. Like a whistling arrow, she squealed into the distance, her sound getting lower the further she flew. Again taking flight before she fell too much from the peak of the throw she this time landed on Cera.
Per the norm, this lasted for a while, to the curious eyes of the people they were passing on the road.
A while later they finally saw the outer walls in the distance. This didn’t seem to cause any reaction to Cera or Savia, but Gilliam got visibly excited.
The outside wall wasn’t too smooth in shape, seeming to have been built after the buildings had expanded to a certain point. There were a lot of buildings outside the wall though most of the outside ones were gathered around the river that led in through the wall to the ocean ahead. As they got closer and got a better look at things, everything was made out of stone. The buildings, the roads and even the roofs were mostly rock, very little wood was used inside the walls, or for the walls themselves. Though there was more wood used on the buildings outside, a few were even entirely wooden around the river.
Due to how the river curved into, and through, the city, as well as the outer walls, an aerial view would very roughly give it a similar appearance as the number nine.
Several plumes of smoke from various locations and there were a lot of large ships docked, several more waiting out in the bay of the ocean.
Gilliam was still a bit excited once they neared the gate, though there were plenty of guards around it seemed nobody was stopped. Or rather, they appeared to be doing spot-checks or checking out the ones they thought suspicious. As they passed through the gates unhindered, a few guards were speaking with some merchant-looking man with a cart. Gilliam assumed it was a documents check but since it didn’t involve him he ignored it.
Entering the city opened up to a much, much busier place than Yar’i. He didn’t have the capital to compare to but this place was bustling with people. The road they came from was heavily trafficked so there wasn’t a lack of people going this way either, the same collection of carts, people and whatnot from outside was supplemented with the locals just using the road. This increased the activity considerably, however, there seemed to be some logic in the right of way, so there were surprisingly few problems. A quick check made it seem like the bigger or stronger entity had the right of way... which made sense to some degree.
Walking over to a guard who was standing on a slightly raised platform, doing his best to look out for... whatever he was looking for, Gilliam addressed him.
“Good day. I have a question if you have a moment.”
The man faced him with a questioning and judging look. “What do you want?” It didn’t sound rude but more direct and wanting to get it over with.
“I’m looking for the Guildhall, I would like to r-” Gilliam’s complete sentence was cut short
“Follow this road, you’ll see it to your right once you get to the plaza.” Not seeming to care about any extra info for the question he blurted it out almost like an order, then returned to surveying the people.
“Thank you.” Gilliam didn’t drop the politeness and continued down the road.
Much akin to roads back on Earth, where there was a right and left side, it seemed that the flow of traffic had ended up with a similar concept here. The right side was heading into the city and the left heading out, from his angle of going in. It made it surprisingly easy to navigate as you’d just go with the flow rather than having to struggle through chaos.
Though there was enough activity that Cera opted for walking very close to Gilliam, so they didn’t get separated, she was quite small, after all. She also seemed incredibly uncomfortable being in such a large group of people.
Savia seemed to be quite interested, the main emotions shared over their bond were curiosity and happiness. Though she remained in his hair for the whole walk.
Though they were on the metaphorical highway, it took quite some time before they came to the plaza, on the way they passed a bulk of buildings. All the buildings along the main street were at least two levels. The bottom levels were some kind of store or place of service, and they probably lived on the second one, there were several inns on the way.
Looking through the paths off the main street, just one block off the main road the building quality seemed to drop significantly. Though not bad by any means, they just didn’t look as fancy, the few similar places of service or the one Inn he saw didn’t look as active as the others, just showed that location was incredibly important in any place.
Rounding the final building before the plaza they came into a massive open location. Though covered in people, stalls, booths and all sorts of activities, it was easily large enough to place 20 to 30 more houses if they wanted to, but it was left open instead. Sort of straight ahead was a very official-looking building, simply rectangular shaped, from the signs and people around it, this appeared to be the town hall.
To his right, as the guard stated, was a gargantuan building. Easily four levels tall, had the same ground area as 10 smaller buildings and had a rough T-block shape with the extending part slightly smaller than the back part. It was extremely well maintained and was the only building that seemed to be made of a mix of expensive marble-like stone as well as copious amounts of wood.
Not counting the academy, this was the largest building he had seen so far.
Heading towards it was much like following traffic, just taking the exit that followed the flow of people heading in there. It seemed that the area in front, and around, the Guildhall was run by the Guild, as the information shouts changed from random sales to more specific about the services of the guild. And the stalls became more specific in terms of what was sold, there were more weapons, potions and items an adventurer might want.
Ignoring them all for now Gilliam headed in through the large double doors, they were large enough to let three horses enter at the same time, side by side. The doors were also amazingly and intricately decorated.
Coming into the first room, it had a very lobby feel to it. It was large and spacious, save a few pillars supporting the above floors. The walls were almost a little bit reflective, and the walls and ceiling were well-maintained wood. Several clerks and desks in an information booth like make, where they were next to each other with a dividing plate, and the clerk behind it had some bars between them and the person they were talking to. Perhaps so random people didn’t jump the desk into the back or attack the clerks. Above all of the desks was a plaque explaining what the desk was for, most of them read Information, but there were a few singular ones with Registration, Materials and Local Aid.
The working staff was also easy to identify as they all wore matching uniforms of a dark grey vest over a white shirt, and either dark grey pants or knee-long skirt, there were women with skirts and women with pants, Gilliam couldn’t find a pattern to who was using what so it was probably by choice.
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The people here had a very high-level feel, most of the non-working people wore some form of armour. All from just some leather over the important bits to certain individuals that probably wore Gilliam’s body weight in metal. Everyone seemed to have the same style necklace, a kind of metal square bar on a string, it wasn’t more than a pencil thick and about 4 times as long, though they seemed to be of different metals with different amounts of lines on them.
Gilliam was excited, based on logic and the media he had consumed he expected to start at the bottom with some menial-task-level jobs, but he’d stomach some herb-gathering or cleaning something to get started. He didn’t have money problems so this wasn’t for the money, meaning that he could do things just for the fun of it.
Walking over to the less active desk with the sign for ‘Registration’ he didn’t have to wait long until it was his turn.
The 20 or so-year-old-looking woman, with long blonde hair and blue eyes, smiled at him with a practiced smile. “Good day, welcome to the Order of Steel, what can I help you with today?”
Her question came with the level of familiarity of someone who had worked in customer service for a decade.
“Good day. My name is Gilliam and I would like to register as an adventurer.” He didn’t know if there was a specific thing to say, do or... whatever the tests were going to be, but she would most likely know the answers.
“Right. Do you know how this works or do you want me to explain?” She sounded a tiny bit bored of this conversation before it started, but she did a good job of hiding it.
“I vaguely know there will be a test, but that is everything.” Gilliam replied honestly but could see in her eyes that she’d rather be anywhere else than here.
“Right. In short, there will be an aptitude test, that’s simply to find out that you’re not lying on your application and to gauge your abilities. You will then be given a rank, as a new register you’ll be Copper, Bronze or Iron.” As she explained she slid a piece of paper to him with some notes, explanations and simple line-art drawings.
“There are seven ranks, starting at the lowest they are Copper, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril, Adamantite and Cryesium. These are represented by the Identification Badge material, as well as lines on them for simplicity. Once you are approved and pay the appropriate registration fee, you will get one made for you.”
She pointed at the drawing of the bar, it seemed they all looked the same and the lineart of them showed that there was a hole through the top for the string, your name was engraved on the front, the back had an identification magic circle and the rank was signified in the material itself but also several engraved bars on them. One for Copper, two for Bronze and so on.
She continued explaining. “You are restricted by what jobs you can take, some also demand a group if it’s a dangerous job. The jobs are put on the boards over there, you pick the one you want to do and it’s then reserved for you for several days based on the expected competition time. Once you complete a job you report that, with the proof the job demands, in the information desks and your reward will be either handed over to the desk, deposited into your bank if you have one, or depending on any special agreement. Do you have any questions so far?”
All of this was explained with the same practised familiarity as her greetings. She had done this many times before.
“No, makes sense so far.” Gilliam commented, eager to get started. “Or, wait”
In his moment of eagerness, he almost forgot he wasn’t alone. “How does this work with a familiar or companion?” Halfway turning to the side to show that there was indeed a Cera standing there, though she looked incredibly uncomfortable becoming the centre of attention.
“Slaves won’t get a registration of their own but can be listed as part of their owner. Familiars are also listed as part of their master, but this will be done during the test.”
“Oh, that makes sense, in that case, I understand so far.” Gilliam returned to his eager state as the clerk pushed a piece of paper to Gilliam.
“Can you read and write? If not we have people who can assist you with that.” She asked something Gilliam didn’t consider.
Though he was gifted in that territory, whatever brought him to this world gave him not only his magical prowess but knowledge of all and any languages so far, he didn’t know the level of literacy in Lisica.
“I can read and write.” He commented, no need to blurt out too much information just like that.
“Good, then fill out this form, you can register your servant under the information part.” She handed him an ink pen, much like the one he had from his academy days, and seemed to just wait and expect him to fill it out there.
It was a simple document, it had all the common things listed like name, race, speciality, languages known and so on. Gilliam had a moment of internal question on how honest he should be on this but in the end, he decided to just be entirely honest, he didn’t want to consider keeping some dumb lie for too long either.
His name and other personal information were not a problem, not a problem seeing that he was a human, male or such. Though he couldn’t list any birth country or similar things, vaguely having a memory of the lie of being touched by the mist or something from all those years ago with Jial, he took a note of that in the info right away.
When it came to speciality he wrote down that he was a mage, specializing in overwhelming power and combat, listing all seven elements. When it came to language the sheet expected him to list them, he simply wrote down ‘all’, and expected a comment on that.
Savia and Cera were listed down under the information tab, as well as his lacking world-knowledge. Then he returned the paper to the clerk.
She looked over it and looked back at Gilliam. “I would recommend not lying on the paper, not only will that ruin your reputation but it will effectively block you from the Guild’s services.” She didn’t seem amused.
“Oh, I guess as much. However, there is nothing on there that’s a lie.” He lied, though everything was factually true he didn’t know if the mist was involved in him coming to Lisica, and it was an excuse for lacking basic world knowledge. Besides that everything else was true.
She checked the paper again and then looked back at him. “Mr. Gilliam, this lists that you are a powerful artillery mage, your familiar has teleportation abilities, and you’re a Heptagon mage as well as knowing all languages.”
She didn’t believe anything on that paper besides his name.
“Well, I’m willing to prove it, so that shouldn’t really be an issue.” He commented with a slight smile, he was kind of looking forward to that.
She shrugged and took out a plaque reading ‘Be back soon’, placing that in the little window, she got out of her chair and motioned for him to follow.
“Right, then. Come with me and let’s get this over with.”
Gilliam went with her and felt the adrenaline of excitement build up as they went through a door into a hallway. Savia was still in his hair and was kind of sharing his excitement over their bond. Cera looked more confused and followed closely mainly in uncertainty.
The group was led through a long hallway into a large room, it was easily the side of a large Gym hall, a few men were sitting in a corner playing cards, and one man was sleeping on a bench.
“Get on your feet, we have a new testee!” The clerk shouted out, which startled the sleeping man awake and had the other two put their cards down.
One man who looked older and more rugged than the other came over. He was a bit over Gilliam’s height and looked like he had trained with the sword since he was 2 had a well-kempt beard, a bald head and a scar going across his face.
The clerk gave him the paper, and a few seconds after skimming he looked back at her, then at Gilliam before back at her.
“You told him that lying will have him banned, right?” He didn’t seem happy about this.
“Yes, but he insists that it’s true.” She replied with a sigh and arms extended in a shrug.
“Well, this is going to be fast, then.” He commented as he walked around the clerk to face Gilliam.
“This room is enchanted for defence, so unless all of this is true you shouldn’t fear doing any damage to the place. The dummy over there hit it with a weak cast of every element.” He stated this in a challenging tone, talking down to him like a toddler who claimed he could fly.
Gilliam shrugged and turned towards the dummy.