The walk from the outer city to the inner city took a lot longer than Addie thought it would. She was slightly reminded of the initial walk to the city in the first place— the way the walls kept getting bigger in the distance without ever really feeling like she was getting any closer. Luckily, the inner city wasn’t that far away, not compared to the walk from the cliffs to the city in the first place. No, the walk from the outer city walls to the inner city walls only took a few hours. Longer than she would have liked, but a lot shorter than she’d feared.
The walk was made slightly worse by the fact that the city itself was boring. Everything was just broken-down buildings and useless stone. Addie didn’t see any wood, metal, or anything except that gray stone. Honestly, even some dirt would have been a novelty in this city of rock.
She couldn’t practice her magic to pass the time, either. Squishy kept making sure of that; the silly cat told her she needed to ‘be aware of her surroundings’ and ‘watch for unseen threats’— as if she wasn’t always just doing that by default nowadays.
In either case, she and Nettal reached the inner city walls sometime between ‘in the shade of the Binary,’ and ‘in the shade of the Binary’— seriously, no matter what time of day it was, the constant giant stone walls always made sure they were in the shade of the binary, regardless of the time of day. She mocked it, but that actually made things somewhat harder on her, she’d already spent so much time stuck in a cave system without any outside light. It grated on her.
“How did people ever live here?” Nettal asked, staring at the giant inner city walls. “I love the light of the Binary too much to stay in a place like this.”
Addie couldn’t agree more, “And we just left the caves, too!” She added dramatically.
“At least we’re almost there,” Nettal pointed to the approaching walls. “Maybe we can find a gate somewhere?”
“Naw, Realmspace magic, remember?” Addie jabbed her thumb into her chest.
“Oh, right. You know, being able to teleport around is really convenient.”
Addie nodded her head in agreement.
“You don’t know what convenient means, do you?” Nettal teased Addie with a slight smile.
Too bad for Nettal, Addie wouldn’t fall for it. “Nope!” Addie admitted without the slightest hint of shame, instead enjoying the look of exasperation on Nettal’s face.
“But, I understood the content.”
“You mean context?”
“That too. Enough about that, look, we’re here!” Addie shouted a bit too excitedly. Her voice echoed across the stone walls strangely, almost like shouting through a hallway but way louder somehow.
Addie held her hand against the giant stone wall, feeling the cold, rough exterior and slightly uneven surface with her fingertips. A moment later, Nettal grabbed Addie’s hand. Addie took one last check to make sure Lotty was there too, then she sent everyone into Realmspace. After they’d made it to the other side, Addie was quite surprised by the differences between the inner city and the outer city.
The inner city had proper roofs on the buildings! They weren’t much, stone like everything else seemed to be, resulting in blocky square looking buildings throughout the area. Most importantly, there was a castle! Towering over all of the other buildings, a grand structure stood in the center of the inner city. Not nearly as tall as the inner city walls were, though— not to mention the outer city walls.
Addie saw a set of walls around the castle, much shorter of course, with those spiky things along the outside of the walls that she expected out of a story-book castle. The center of the castle had all kinds of cylindrical towers, with a big square part right in the middle that resembled the walls surrounding the castle, only a bit taller— the same height as the towers. There was even a real moat around the castle! With a drawbridge! Addie didn’t see a gate though, and the drawbridge was rotting and nearly fallen apart, but still! A drawbridge!
Tugging on Nettal’s sleeve, Addie pointed at the drawbridge, “Look Nettal, look!”
“We found the castle!” Nettal said, also excited.
“Not just the castle, there’s a moat and drawbridge, too!” Addie hopped up and down with slight excitement.
“What? That’s what’s cool to you?”
“Duh~! I’ve never seen one in real life before,” Addie said, since it should be obvious.
“I thought you’d be more excited by the castle?” Nettal asked, a slightly confused look on her face.
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“Well, that too, I guess.” Addie replied, “Hey look, do you think we can walk on the drawbridge?”
Without waiting for a response, Addie began walking around, trying to get to the main gate so she could check out the drawbridge. She could hear Squishy slightly chortling for some reason, but he was a silly cat so she ignored him as she made her way over.
“Wait up!” Nettal called out from behind.
Addie glanced behind herself to make sure her cousin was coming, then continued onward to her destination. It was all very exciting.
Finally in front of the drawbridge, Addie was able to make out even more cool details. The whole thing hung from two really gigantic chains. Each link was so big that Addie could stick her head through the gaps! She wasn’t allowed to keep doing that for long though because spoilsport Nettal kept telling Addie that it was ‘dangerous’ and she ‘might lose her head’. Silly Nettal.
Maybe she had a slight point, the chains were looking a bit too red with rust, with little flakes peeling off. But, that just added a certain rustic charm to it, in Addie’s opinion. The bridge itself was constructed of big logs, though the left half of the bridge was completely missing, most of the logs rotting away on that side for some reason. The right side looked better, but the wood was really soft and squishy when Addie stepped on it with a single foot. It kinda smelled bad, too.
“Addie! Get your foot off of there!” Nettal shouted while tugging Addie back onto the stone walkway.
“What?! But look at it!” Addie pointed at the drawbridge. “Don’t you wanna go across a real life drawbridge?” She demanded.
Nettal’s eye twitched for some reason, but then her eyes lit up with a response, “Actually Addie, since the drawbridge is so cool, don’t you think we shouldn’t walk over it?”
Addie narrowed her eyes, “What do you mean?”
“Well, look at it, it’s falling apart a bit, right? So, what if it breaks while we’re walking over it? If that happens, then you won’t be able to admire it anymore!” Nettal pointed out while waving at the bridge, triumphant.
With a slight huff and crossing her arms, Addie agreed reluctantly, “That’s a good point, I guess. Fine! We’ll use Realmspace to get to the castle.”
Nettal just smiled. It kinda annoyed Addie for some reason, but she wasn’t really sure why.
After they made it past the bridge and into the castle walls, there was actually quite a bit of nature before the castle itself. Addie had expected the main gate to lead directly into the castle, but apparently they had a front yard of sorts. Though, it was super boring— it was just nothing but grass, and the exact same grass she and Nettal had already been walking through for days. Addie just pushed it aside with her arms to make it to the main castle itself.
Addie couldn’t see any light inside the main doorway— combined with the fact that the Binary was still hidden because of the outer and inner city walls, it was so pitch black inside the castle Addie couldn’t see anything past the front door. That didn’t matter to Addie of course, shadows were her friend— she always had her spatial sense!
She scanned the area, but it was just an empty hallway so she began to walk further inside. Just before her foot crossed the threshold, Nettal once again grabbed Addie by the back of her poncho and tugged her backward.
“Hey! That’s not nice,” Addie said, more than a bit frustrated that Nettal kept doing that to her.
“You know what’s not nice? Dying!!!” Nettal said with emphasis, not quite shouting, but also being kinda mean. Then she pointed right at the ground. “Look!”
It was slight, and she could only see it right at the very entrance due to the darkness, but Addie could see wisps of fog right at the doorway.
“Oh,” Addie said dumbly, “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome!” Then Nettal sighed. “But what are we supposed to do about this? More fog? And we didn’t find any people at all either, so we still haven’t found a map to help us get home.” Nettal grumbled.
“But at least we got to see a castle?” Addie said, trying to uplift the mood.
“I just wanna go home.”
Addie absorbed that for a moment, then replied, “Me too.”
But the somber mood crashed away as Addie had an idea, “What if there’s a library in the castle?” Addie asked, excitement coming back to her now.
“Oh good idea, Addie!” Nettal praised, making Addie feel warm inside about her idea.
“But, how are we gonna get there?” Nettal scrunched up her face, “We certainly are not stepping into the fog.”
“Hmm.” Addie put her fist under her chin to help her think, “Maybe we can climb on the walls, like a spider!”
“I don’t have any magic like that.” Nettal pointed out.
“Yeah, I realized it was a bad idea right after I said it, too.” Addie said, a bit confused at herself for why she even suggested the silly idea in the first place.
“Well, I have another idea...” Addie said leadingly, staring at Nettal to see her response.
Nettal slumped, “Your idea is more fire, isn’t it?”
“Yep!” Addie popped the ‘p’ sound.
“Fine! Fire-blast away! Just, if you find anything wooden, try not to set the castle on fire.”
“Don’t worry, my flames always listen to me!” Addie had a lot of trust for her magic, and for Ember, too.
Nettal seemed unconvinced, and proved it a moment later when she started listing things out while counting on her fingers. “Like the time you exploded the flames in your face? Or the time you used so much fire I thought I’d have to carry you since you were so tired? What about the time in the cave when we tried to cook that meat—”
Addie interrupted her cousin, “Hey! Those times were different.”
“I see.” Nettal narrowed her eyes at Addie. “Either way, just be careful, alright?”
Addie rolled her eyes, “If you’re that worried about it, we’ll just use a flame-shield. Mr. Book can help us, too.”
“Mr. Book? You gave it a name?” Nettal tilted her head slightly.
“I came up with it just now. It’s pretty good, right?” Addie smiled.
“I guess so,” Nettal agreed easily, but not too enthusiastically. “Alright, just make sure to flame-shield us before you step inside, please.”
“Geez! I know that much, at least.” Addie frowned.
“It’s better to be thorough with explanations, I’ve found. Otherwise all kinds of things happen, like jumping off cliffs.”
“That’s not fair. You agreed to that one!”
Nettal put a wistful look on her face, “And I regret it to this very day.” She spoke like an old person for some reason.
“That was fun!” Addie retorted defensively.
Nettal smiled, “I’m teasing you a bit. But c’mon! I really do want to see if there’s a library. I can’t wait to get home. Maybe there’s a big map, or even better, an atlas or encyclopedia! Encyclopedias are really exciting— even my mom says so.”