The distance between the city and the forest’s edge was a mere few hundred meters and the two of them covered that distance in no time. Orou got more excited as he approached closer to the city, he had examined the city from the outside for hours on end, and finally, he had a chance to enter it to observe it closer and marvel at the things inside of it. Passing by one of the buildings on the edge of the city, they started to navigate between passageways of several buildings before finally, the view of the city was laid bare before them.
The first thing that caught Orou’s eye was a massive water fountain made of gray stone. On the stone itself were carvings of beastmen with scales, as well as various creatures with scales, long and thin just like Orou sitting on the beastmen’s shoulders. A pair of beastmen were sitting on the stone, chatting with each other and nibbling on some fruit by their side. More groups of beastmen passed through this area, a few of them taking a few glances at Orou, but paying him no more mind upon seeing Grizz by his side.
Simply comparing Belor and Lium, the two border cities at the edges of the forest, it was like a day and night comparison. Belor was a walled city constantly on guard, within the city itself were numerous people, constantly active and bustling, the shouting and clamoring on the streets could be heard at the other side of the city. Lium was a breath of fresh air from that, a city both lavish and quiet with people leisurely strolling around the city and enjoying the various luxuries of the city.
While Orou was taking in the sights before him, Grizz’s attention was on a completely different matter. He was looking at a building to the east of the water fountain, a building not as impressive as the ones at the edge of the city, but still relatively lavish compared to Belor’s houses.
“The first step is to get rid of that collar of yours. I’ve got an acquaintance in the lower city who deals with this sort of stuff, charges a price for freeing both beastmen and beast alike.” Grizz motioned over to the building he was looking at, but Orou was too busy looking at another scene that surprised him. He saw trees growing in the middle of the city and beastmen sitting there, occasionally plucking the fruit off of the trees. He even saw new saplings growing a bit off of the city centre. How could they properly grow trees in the middle of the city?
As usual, Orou’s curiosity got the better of him and he started slowly slithering over to the trees before he felt something tapping him on his head. Grizz pointed his finger at the building and said: “ I know this is interesting, but we’ve got things to be doing. You can explore the upper city a bit later, but for now, let’s get that collar removed.”
Orou hissed in displeasure but grudgingly followed Grizz, who checked behind his back every few seconds in order to make sure that Orou hadn’t run off. They passed the water fountain and walking by several buildings and Orou noticed that the buildings closer to the middle of the city were shorter and they seemed to be one shade lighter than the buildings near the forest. The two types of buildings were different from each other, but Orou wasn’t sure why that was.
They entered one of the shorter stone buildings that Grizz pointed to earlier. The interior of the building was unusual, to say the least, it seemed like a storefront, but without any of the wares or a person running the store. The place was shabby and run down, a lot different from how the exterior of the building looked. Grizz beckoned over to Orou and kneeled down behind the counter. Orou hadn’t seen it before Grizz lifted it, but there was a trapdoor disguised as a floor panel, indistinguishable from any other floor panel in this building.
Peering inside of the trapdoor, the only thing Orou could see were stone stairs leading downwards. Grizz sneezed as he peered his head down and using his hand as a support against the stone wall, he slowly started descending downwards. It was pitch black and Orou was surprised how Grizz didn’t fall walking down the steps, but after several minutes of climbing down, Orou finally saw light coming from below.
Slithering down the final set of stairs, Orou entered into a place that resembled a warehouse. Piles of scrap and various garbage were sorted into piles and on the floor was a beastman that resembled a rat tinkering with various metal pieces, loudly cursing to himself. He turned his head around at the sound of footsteps and placing down the metal in his hands, he stood up and clasped Grizz’s hand.
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“Back so soon eh? Is this the reason you needed the permit and the bell? Quite an impressive specimen if I say so myself.” A gnarly voice spoke to Grizz while his two beady eyes examined Orou. Not giving Grizz a chance to speak, he continued: “Are you here to participate in the arena? He looks like he could take on the top contenders.”
“It depends on when it starts, but most likely he won’t participate. Besides, if this big guy doesn’t want to participate, there’s nothing I can do about it.” Grizz shrugged and pointed at Orou who was still examining his surroundings before he continued: “ I’m here to get the collar removed and speak with Tris. I won’t be sticking around here for that long, I've got a few matters I need to deal with at home.”
The two of them spoke to each other and reminisced about old times, but Orou wasn’t interested in the conversation. His full attention was placed on the way this place was lit, that is, on the spirits simply floating around the area. In his spirit vision, he saw a spirit made from many different colors, shedding a bright light in a radius around it. It was made from several blue spirits, all packed together in a sphere of sorts. Orou had to wrack his brain for any recollection of this spirit and after a few minutes, he finally remembered where he had seen it. Dawn had created this spirit when she was healing people, using it in a spell to completely cure someone from a disease.
While the two of them were busy talking to each other, Orou decided to try and use this spirit in his spells. He started with the most basic spell he knew, the ball of light. Willing the scintillating spirit was difficult and he could barely move it and make it stop, but eventually, he succeeded. He placed the spirit in the middle and started to surround it with rings made from regular spirits, deciding to make the ball a meter in diameter. He had done this countless times when practicing, so the formation was done in no time. The three circles started spinning around the scintillating spirit, and soon after, the spell took effect. Almost immediately, the entire room was drowned in light, interrupting the conversation and raising alarm from both of them. The ball of light seemed like a miniature sun at this point, it completely illuminated the entire room to the point of making one go temporarily blind.
“Damn you and your spellcasting,” Grizz shouted as he groped around for any sort of support, his eyes completely shut. Even Orou was avoiding looking at the ball of light, instead opting to move around it and in the direction of the exit of this warehouse. Both Grizz and the rat beastman followed in his steps, blindly looking around for the exit. After several minutes of struggling, all of them safely made their way out of the warehouse and into an entirely different city than the one above.
As Grizz was closing the door behind them, Orou simply admired the sight before him. Countless spirits of the same nature were haphazardly floating around, illuminating the entire city for Orou to see. Various beastmen stared in surprise at the overwhelming light coming from the warehouse, but surprisingly, most of them seemed to expect this. Unlike beastmen above, those here mixed together and spoke to each other freely, most of them cackling and giggling at the sight before them.
Taking his eyes off the beastmen, he noticed that the buildings around them were ancient, it was a surprise at how they hadn’t crumbled yet. Both the craftsmanship and the stone used were completely different from the buildings above, even the oldest building he had seen in Belor couldn’t compare to those he saw here. The most surprising thing here was the ceiling, it was naturally formed and it stretched on for tens of meters in height. Thanks to one of the spirits that had floated up to one of the stalactites, he saw bat-like creatures hanging from the stalactites up above. They were blue in color and much wings bigger than their entire body, one of the bats whom the spirit had floated up to waved his wing to shoo it off and returned back to sleep.
All of this was a lot for Orou to take in. He spaced out for multiple seconds pondering on how one could even create a city like this while staring at the bats peacefully sleeping up above, undisturbed by the beastmen below them. Soon, the crowd dispersed and both Grizz and the rat beastmen were staring at Orou, who was oblivious to all of this.
“You can’t blame him, my mouth was agape for hours on end when I first came to this place, it’s truly a marvel of ancient times,” Grizz said to the beastman beside him and he simply shook his head and sighed.
“I suppose I needed to go out and get a few more materials anyways, do come back and visit me sometimes, I’ve yet to show you my latest invention.” The rat beastmen spoke to Grizz while ignoring Orou, his tiny hands on his sides as he started wandering off after saying his goodbyes.
“Let’s get going, there’s plenty of more shocking things ahead for you to see.” Grizz tapped Orou on the head a few times before he started heading forwards, straight into the heart of the city.