The train slowly came to a halt at our stop.

“District 109 Necrotopolis,” an ethereal voice projected. "District 109 Necrotopolis.”

I got up and walked off the train, along with Niff and Darvind. Again, it felt surreal. I was walking with people. People. And they were okay with me.

I frowned.

“Is something wrong?” Niff asked me.

Yes. I was uncomfortable. I wasn’t used to being around the same person for an extended period of time.

“I’m just thinking about the dungeon. I wonder if we can all be considered equal to or above the strength of two silver adventurers.”

“Of course we can,” Darvind replied. “I’m one silver and you guys together probably qualify as another.”

That was probably true. There were seven different adventuring ranks. Copper, bronze, silver, gold, adamantium, mithril, and celestial.

I was at bronze, which was a decent star but still at the bottom of the food chain. Anyone could get to bronze given a year or two, my previous experience in fighting and test scores had boosted me up in the evaluation, but in truth, there was barely a difference in fighting strength between a bronze and a copper.

The only real difference was experience. Copper was where you learned your limits and bronze was where they trusted you enough to fight by them.

Silver was the first increase in strength, which was a huge testament to Darvind’s abilities. To be assigned to silver rank on pure combat experience alone meant that he would be quite powerful.

But power was not a substitute for experience. Out of all three of us, I was probably the weakest. Maybe I was somewhat better than Niff, but she seemed pretty combat-ready to me. Her assessments were dead on and her speed and strength coupled with her small size and sharp senses would make for one killer rouge.

They were capable.

But even then, I was more experienced. I had spent decades of my life living in a forest full of monsters. I’d read and memorized every monster compendium I could find not out of interest but out of need. I had fought, killed, stealth, and slaughtered more times than I could count.

But that was probably not going to be involved in the Adventurer’s Guild assessment of our strengths. I was the weak link.

“We should go to the dungeon,” I commented.

“What? Now? Shouldn’t we get a room and figure out our plan of attack for a few days? I mean, I barely know your name, diving headfirst now would be-”

“We’re just going to get assessed. See if we make the cut for the dungeon. I have no idea how they measure group strength but it’s probably best to figure that out before making plans,” I cut in.

Darvind slowly nodded his head.

“I hadn’t thought about that,” he replied.

“Okay!” Niff replied. She always sounded so cheery. True, I had known her for less than half an hour, but it wasn’t an act. I could tell when someone was lying and she was just constantly happy.

We walked off the bus and both Niff and Darvind pulled out their oracle, holding the little square mirror in their hands and typing furiously on the screen.

I just kept walking.

“Where ya going, lad?”

“To the dungeon entrance?”

“Do ya know where it is?” Niff asked me.

She had sat down and put her oracle in her lap. The thing was too big for her so she had to be sitting down to use both of her little paws to type.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I memorized the district map.”

“Ah, great. Then we’ll follow-” Darvind paused. “The district map? Not the route to the dungeon but the whole map?” He asked me.

I nodded.

“But, this easily one of the largest districts within Asrin? You memorized it all?” Niff asked me.

“That and the dungeon’s map itself,” I replied.

Somewhere that dyard looked at me. I could feel her gaze specifically. Why was she still listening in on me? I hoped she’d leave soon.

“Wow,” Darvind commented. “No wonder you’re a mage.”

“It’s something my mother taught me,” I answered.

I could feel several people shift at that statement. Gods damn that stupid angel. People had been listening in on our conversation the whole ride here, I’d known that.

That wasn’t anything new to me. Once people find out you’re a half-demon, they tend to keep a close eye on me.

But I shouldn’t have made that comment about my mother. That gave away too much. Usually, half-demons weren’t conceived in the best of situations. At worst the mother, or the father, kills them right after childbirth, or at best they give them away.

Very few wanted the trauma and judgment that came with raising one. I doubted common people would know that, but haughty nobles might have some knowledge on the subject.

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“What happened to your mother?” The dryad suddenly shouted, inserting herself into the conversation once more.

“She was killed-” I answered.

“I knew it!”

“By a demon.”

“One of your brethren? By your involvement?” I could feel several truth spells buzzing from her group and one of her people even had an attack spell ready.

I didn’t want to answer, but realistically, I didn’t have a choice. She was looking for a reason, any reason to attack. Maybe she could justify it to the authorities by stating that I had killed my mother and was a present threat to those around me.

The sad part was that she would believe it too. She’d kill me thinking she was doing a good thing.

I sighed. Nothing new.

“No. Not by me or whoever helped conceive me,” I answered.

“Then who?” The dryad growled.

“I wish I knew,” I replied.

After a small, ten-second silence, the dryad once again, snorted and stomped off.

I had a feeling this wouldn’t be the last I saw of her.

“Wait!” I yelled out to her. “I’ll tell the Adventurer’s Guild that if anything happens to me in the dungeon, that you should be the first one investigated. They’ll put you under a truth spell and scrutinize everything you say. And you know the guild doesn’t respect the high families. It’ll be hell for you.”

The dryad turned and glared at me.

“I’m above that,” she spat out.

“I don’t think you are,” I replied.

She frowned, then stormed off. Her crew faltered behind her, all of them giving me similar frowns and looks of disgust.

“What a bunch of cave-rats!” Niff spat out. “I thought dryads were supposed to be kind and flowy and stuff! Not mean and arrogant!”

“Ah, the rich are a whole species of their own lass! Fret not, I know that wench’s bloodline. She won’t try nothing.”

“What does that mean?” I asked the dwarf.

“That Neveneal Al’ Dreavan Van Heed. One of the true high families,” he replied.

“True high families?”

“Aye, they're like the high families of the high families. Their bloodline predates the war with the Dark Lord and they were the old rulers of Asrin City. But her specific line is a lot more strict than most. All knights and such I believe. Honor and bravery and all that other shit they say while draped in gold. She’s too much of a prissy snob to cut you down while you’re not looking, laddie. She’s got so much pride that she’d rather choke on it than break the rules,” he said with a mocking tone.

I hoped he was right.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out an elixir. I shook it, uncorked it, and gulped it down. It was a calming tonic. Someday the thoughts, the evil were just too loud and I needed to chemically numb my mind to make it easier to work through it.

But not today. Today I took the tonic because I had two… friends? Acquaintances? Whatever these two people were. Kindness wasn’t foreign to me, hell that elf back at the capital had been super nice, but companions were.

A part of me was still expecting them to spit on me and walk away or for them to be Celestial Order Patrols in disguise. But no, I’d know if they were lying. I was a holy mage of Archane as well, as little as I used her magic, she had blessed me with a few things. And knowing when people were lying was one of them.

“We heading out or are you going to ponder for a few more minutes?” Darvind asked.

“Uh no, we can go.”

District 109, Nercrotopolis. It was very… dead. There were living people but most of the streets were flooded by zombies and there was very little light. The mushrooms that emitted the day and night cycle should have lit up the cave since it was daytime, but instead, they glowed dimly making it feel more like a bright night than an actual day.

I saw a few roots in the distance, each of them coming down from the world tree above. They were the brightest things here. And the smell, by the Great Spider’s claws, the smell. It was faint, barely even there really but it was pervasive.

The small stench of rot filled every corner of the district. No matter what street or what place. Even inside of shops and next to food stalls, there was the smell was there, everywhere.

Niff had it the worst. She scrunched her nose.

“The whole place stinks!” She shouted for the third time since we’d gotten here.

“How can they walk around and pretend they don’t smell it?” She yipped.

“They’re zombies lass. They smell like the dead.”

“They stink!” Niff yelled. “All of them!”

A few zombies looked in our direction. A few rolled their eyes and one of them rolled them so far up they stuck that way.

“Help! Help!” He screamed while running around with his hands held forward.

Another zombie smacked him and his eyeballs slowly rolled back into place.

“You should get new eyes Branson, you’ve had those pair for over a decade! And whoever does your preservation spells is ripping you off!”

“But I’ve known the guy for a long time Brady! His brother was the one that performed my nercoplasey ya know. I know their whole family.”

“Bad business is bad business! If they want loyal customers then they should have better service!”

The two zombies kept on talking as they walked down the street. I for one, was heavily interested in the intricacies of undead culture but I didn’t want to be rude and listen in on the conversation.

“Necroplasey,” Darvind grunted. “I could never do such a thing.”

“Well, you're long-lived! And I’m an adventurer! The stronger I get the longer I’ll live. At gold rank, I’ll be living for millennia!” Niff replied.

“But the short-lived races, those that can’t use mana for anything more than simple charms. They won’t even see past a hundred,” She added.

“Aye, I’m nine decades young myself. Us dwarfs don’t even bother to celebrate the years in-between ya know! I can’t imagine dying now, so young and inexperienced.”

“Mhm! My colony’s sent off a few of our own to a few biomancers for apprenticeships and such. Life enhancer spells are a basic necessity nowadays for every colony!” Niff replied.

The two kept talking as I walked ahead of them. The elixir had calmed quite a bit by now, and this new district was one hell of a distraction.

The architecture of a place was important. It showed the past of the settlement, while the people showed it’s present.

I’d read that in a book somewhere.

And while the dungeon in this district had only been an official dungeon for two thousand years, the dungeon was far older than that. It had been around since the founding of Asrin City, as all the fifty-three subspace dungeons had. The resources those dungeons offered were one of the major reasons why Asrin City started developing underground, to begin with.

This dungeon was the last one to be unsealed, and the district reflected that. The Graveyard Dungeon had been seen as nothing more than a threat for most of its existence. This place had originally been a military outpost.

But that was only the old stuff. Over the past two thousand years, almost all the buildings had been torn down and remade. Necromancers, body merchants, and anyone else who dealt in death had flooded the place. Now it was brightly painted and well-built.

It was still dark, but the place was lively. Zombies walked around everywhere, even through the small street and alleyways, you could hear the music and bustle there.

But it was still weird. The smell of rot was everywhere and the food here was… well… we’d passed by a few restaurants and zombies were cannibals by nature, needing to eat on the body parts of sentient beings.

And while we all knew the food here was biomancied and never really on a person…it still felt repulsive. The whole place felt that way.

In sight and sound, it felt alive and jostling. Art, music, theatres, and libraries decorated the place. But there was a distinct lack of life here.

The dim light, the smell, the food, and the amenities. It was like they were all just pretending to be alive.

We finally to the guild and got the assessment over with. It was done by some high-level spirit and while we didn’t know how they measured our ‘collective strength,’ we did meet their criteria.

Niff did a little leap and jumped up and down and the dwarf just nodded like he had expected that outcome.

This was still weird. All of this was weird. I’d been alone for ten years with no one I’d call more than a distant acquaintance and now I had party members.

No, that was wrong. I’d been alone for most of my life.

I shook the thought off. I’d work through it later. For now, we needed to head to an inn and work out our plan of attack.