Wellynd jolted upright. Springing out of bed, he drew the curtains open in a panic before letting out a sigh of relief.

The sun still stood high in the sky, and he must have only dozed off for an hour or so.

Rubbing his face and stretching, Wellynd eyed his pack sitting up against the wall. It took him a moment to realise that he didn’t actually know who he was delivering to today. Of course, he’d have a delivery for the Mox Ambrum. They always bought from Laine.

He walked over to the pack and fished a small folded piece of paper out of the front pocket of the bag, unfolding it as he looked about the room. He still couldn’t quite believe he’d paid to stay here.

There were three names:

Mox Ambrum - 3, Xa Thaleyn plaza

Kip - 10

Selkis- 1

Don’t be stupid.

L

Wellynd chuckled at Laine’s note, before staring at the final name on the list.

Any other person would give pause on the second name, Kip.

Kip was the contact for the resistance. If Wellynd got caught dealing with them he’d never see the light of day again.

But no. Selkis was the one who had him worried.

Selkis was one of the masters at the Revenshore observatory.

Folding the list back up, Wellynd clenched it in his fist.

He wasn’t quite ready to go there, but there was no way to get around it. Laine would kill him if he skipped a delivery.

He’d go to the Old City first and meet up with the Mox, and then move on from there.

After grabbing three skald from his pack, he headed out into the hallway, locking the door behind him.

Two minutes and an awkward smile to the concierge later, Wellynd found himself back in the sunbathed streets.

He turned south down one of the main corridors of the conveyor thoroughfare.

Meeting the Mox Ambrum, or, just “The Mox” as they liked to call themselves, was always a bit of a hassle. They would leave Laine with a general area in the city, usually dockside, and Wellynd would have to just mill about until one of their agents made contact with him.

Today, however, was a little more exciting. Wellynd had never been to Xa Thaleyn plaza. It was in the Old Town. A place he rarely got to visit.

Of course, getting there was a bit of a hassle. While the roads of the New Town were built in a sensible grid pattern, the Old Town lacked such a luxury. The road Wellynd was walking down abruptly ended at a dark stone wall, and he had to start weaving his way through several side streets as slowly he made his way south through the city.

He didn’t know exactly where the square was and, at one point, found himself stuck in a small courtyard.

Wellynd must have looked lost because just as he was about to turn around he heard a nasally voice call out from above.

“Lookin’ for the square boy?” yelled an old woman, sitting on a small balcony jutting out from a tall narrow house built of what looked like a combination of reclaimed stone and clay patchwork.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

“Uh. Yeah.” Wellynd called back

“You’re almost there” she laughed “keep heading south and follow the sounds. Or the smells. Whatever comes first.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks”

After heading south for another few minutes, Wellynd started to doubt the old woman’s advice.

“Crazy old lady…”he muttered to himself

Then it hit him. Smoke. Not the kind that curled from chimneys as families began to heat their homes in the brisk evenings of the season’s end, but the aromatic smell of slow-cooked meat on an open fire.

As he grew closer, more savoury smells filled the air, and he found himself growing hungry.

Then came the sounds. It wasn’t quite like the hustle and bustle of the docks. Instead, distinct voices competed, calling out over the chattering voices of a bustling crowd. He even heard the rhythmic patter of drums join the din.

As he rounded a corner, Wellynd’s eyes were gifted with a visual feast. Before him were a multitude of silks, some of which were made of colours he’d never seen. The silks seemed to be draped over an entryway at the end of the alleyway. He made his way towards them, and, cautiously, pushed his way through.

He gaped.

Carts, stands, and tents of all sorts were propped up around the edges of a large square. Vibrant red, orange, and blue silks and satins contrasted with the sombre charcoal stone of the tottering structures that stood behind them. Swaths of people, seemingly from every corner of Estioch, walked between the vendors throughout the market, laughing, ducking into tents, and eating foods Wellynd had never seen.

How had he never come here before? When he thought of Revenshore, he would have never imagined such a place existed within it.

He took a few steps into the crowd and quickly swept up into the flow of crowd, bobbing from stall to stall, stopping to watch Shadkarran musicians pluck at the nylon strings of their kloka, a curved wooden instrument that Wellynd had once seen Bilge bring back from a long expedition to the other side of the continent.

Within minutes, Wellynd’s mouth began to salivate at the smell of scorched pork. Unable to resist the aroma, he stopped at a vendor and bought a garlic-crusted kebab.

His treat in hand, he moved to the centre of the square to avoid once again getting swept up by the traffic. As he took the first bite of the kebab, the juices spilling onto his chin, Wellynd sat on the edge of one of the large fountains at the centre of the square and continued to watch the people hurry by.

When he grew tired of watching the crowd circle the market, his eyes wandered to the buildings that enclosed the square. The further south he’d come, the greater the disrepair of the stone structures. Many of the buildings here had long toppled over, and many others, much like the old woman’s house, were barely standing.

It was the old temples that fascinated him the most. Spires and steeples, although, like the buildings around them, dilapidated, still loomed over the square, their cast shadows scolding the revelry that now filled the square below.

Of course, the temples were merely shells of what they once were. People had said that this square was once home to many religious orders that, for reasons unknown, had long disappeared or left Revenshore. Though worshippers of Arthus still occupied the city, and since the Vertan invasion, many churches devoted to Deakon had popped up in the New Town, these places, ghosts of ancient past, felt different somehow. They were monuments to gods whose names no one knew.

Standing up, he craned his neck and put his hand over his eyes to survey the tallest tower, its sharp steeple looking like it could cut a tear in the blue sky. He wondered how long it had been since a person had stood up there.

As he took a step backward to get a better look, he nearly stumbled into a beggar. Or, that's what he thought at first.

The figure was hunched over in a tattered burlap cloak, hood pulled over its head, its sleeved arms clutching a small bronze pot.

The figure turned his head up to look at Wellynd for a moment, before once again lowering his hood and placing his pot out towards him.

“ALMS FOR THE POOR” yelled a hoarse voice from beneath the hood. Wellynd jumped back as the man pushed past him.

“ALMS FOR THE POOR” the man yelled again, as he stumbled forward into the bustling crowd. Several passersby dropped a few grell into the pot. The hoarse calls continued to sound until they were drowned by hum.

Uncertain of what to do while he waited to be contacted, Wellynd began pursuing the wares of the stalls on the far side of the square, beyond the chaos of the mob.

Disappointingly, most of what he saw seemed useless to him. Merchants called out to him or eagerly smiled, nodding their heads as he walked by stalls filled with dried roots of Yorgtrees from Shadkara, or carved, jewel encrusted totems from the northern reaches of Melyar.

Wellynd laughed to himself.

Most of these were made probably only a few leagues from town. There was a good chance that Laine had smuggled at least some of the cheap materials used to make the statues.

He kept browsing around the square until he came to a rather large blue tent propped up against the crumbling rubble of a half collapsed temple, bits of its black stone spilling out into the street.

Looking about, he saw nobody trying to approach him so with nothing to do but wait, Wellynd pushed his way through the small slip in the tent.