The next two days, we simply traveled. Nothing exciting happened, though both me and Jo got better at our respective spells.
On the third day, however, we finally saw the agate mountains. Like the name suggests, they are quite pretty with their colorful patterns near the tops. We should take a day to simply climb one of the peaks.
Our immediate goal is the city of Aeshraton, which lies at the foot of the closest mountain in the mountain range. The city is primarily built from rocks harvested locally, and as such is colorful like the mountains, though quite a bit more polished. From what I heard, the developers had a great time designing the city, and even put in shrines for their characters. The city walls are made of large rocks which have been harvested in the mountains. This means that they come in a variety of colors. The rock gray ones have been used low on the wall and the more colorful ones have been used higher up. The end result is quite pretty.
As we walk through the surrounding farmlands, we spot the queue at the city entrance. Aeshraton doesn’t appear to follow the same open door policy as Draumr. This was also true in the game. Now, the question becomes, is it an entry fee, or do they require an ID to enter? We’ll figure it out as we get there.
When we reach the end of the queue, we line up behind the last carriage. The line is quite long, so we decide to eat our lunch while we wait our turn. That turns out to be a good idea, since it took about two hours for the guards to go through the line.
“Please show your IDs” The bored looking guard says as we walk in after the previous group. I Have a feeling that showing any of my IDs will cause me some inconveniences in the future. So, I, as our de facto group leader, ask.
“What do we do if we do not have any IDs”
“Normally there would be an entry fee, but the new lord has decided to increase security for the time being. That means that you won’t be allowed entry without any valid IDs.” The guard continues.
I turn to James and Jo and ask “Do you have any IDs?”
Jo answers yes, she has a citizens certificate of Draumr. James pauses for a bit, probably to search through his inventory. I do the same, and find the royal insignia that identifies me as royalty, and my S rank adventuring card. The Insignia I got when they wrote Zendor into the lore, and the guild card I earned by doing sufficiently many quests for the adventuring guild.
I sigh as I take the guild card out. It’s going to cause the fewest complications. It’s all black, except the translucent letters in my name. There is some complicated enchantment in it, and by pushing some of my mana into it, my name starts to glow green.
“Fine, is this good enough?” I say to the guard. His eyes widen a bit, before he call over a mage to verify it. James also has a guild card, but he is only rank A, and it is enchanted with stamina, so the guard is able to verify it. Jo shows her citizens certificate, which is accepted.
“Please stand still while we scan your inventories for contraband.” The now slightly nervous guards continue as the mage from earlier steps forward. This was also a thing in the game. Certain items were not permitted in cities, and loot from civilians could get you arrested and or fined.
As the mage casts the spell, I can feel the mana move around, and as it tries to move into me, my naturally flowing mana pushes it back out. In response, the mage tries harder, but once again fails to get past my skin. After the third failure, he just gives me the go ahead. I might have deliberately fought back the third attempt, since it felt unpleasant.
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After the mage scanned through James’ and Jo’s inventories, we were let through. The mage was slightly annoyed at the sheer quantity of stuff in James’ inventory, but let it slide.
As we walk through the gate, we are greeted with gleaming and colorful stone buildings. As a result, we just silently agree to walk around for a bit to enjoy the view. Sure, the streets are a bit dirty, but everything else is beautiful. The main thoroughfare from the gate leads to a plaza with an abundance of stalls selling various stuff. In the center of the plaza is a huge and colorful fountain. It is mainly made of yellow agate, but there are amethyst for some of the details.
While walking, I spot that one of the stalls sell mana rich fruit, so I head straight for it. I ran out of pears yesterday, so I had to rely on the candied fruit today. Sure they technically taste better, but the added sweetness put them over the top and it becomes too much, so they are best enjoyed in moderation.
This stall sells a variety of fruits, berries and vegetables. I buy as much as the seller is willing to part with to a single customer, at least of the mana rich ones, which is a little under half of the different varieties. The dragon fruit like one, has a particularly large quantity of mana, at least for a fruit. The price matches at five silver per fruit, but that matters little.
Jo just stares as I hand over dozens of gold to the seller. Looks like the seller was expecting me to haggle, but once again I don’t care to. I decide to eat one of the dragon fruits while the merchant takes the rest out of his inventory. Slicing it into boats with a knife made of mana, I offer a piece each to James and Jo before biting into it. It simply tastes amazing. Slightly sweet and sour, but with the added mananess, which I still don’t have a name for. James and Jo both find it good, but after seeing my almost orgasmic reaction, they are a bit disappointed.
After picking up a few more random things from the market, most of which are food, we start looking for an inn. Not immediately seeing any, we ask a few of the sellers. They give us some tips, but recommend finding an inn a bit farther from the plaza. Partly because of the noise and partly because they tend to be full.
Heeding their advice, we head off looking for the growling barracuda, since several independent people recommended it. It might be a situation where they pay sellers to recommend it, but we are willing to try.
It’s fairly easy to find, especially with the distinctive sign with a large fish on it. The inside is as good looking as the outside and it looks like a high quality inn. The ground floor is a restaurant of sorts and the three floors above are rooms. We end up getting rooms on two top floors. I get the one on the top floor since I pay, and the other get a room each on the floor below.
We argue a bit on how many days to reserve the rooms for, and settle on two nights, since we want a break from traveling, but we will head deeper into the mountain for our quest pretty soon.
I find the dinner in the restaurant kinda disappointing after eating the dragon fruit, but both James and Jo claim it’s the best food they have eaten so far. Afterwards, we head for our rooms. My room turns out to have its own bathroom with a bathtub. It’s empty for the moment, but I still have water in my inventory from the beautiful lake. Combine that with my pleasantly warm fireballs, which I find out doesn’t get extinguished by water for as long as I feed them mana, and I get a pleasant bath.
After magicing my clothes away, I set myself down into the tub. In situations like this I love being short, even if it is inconvenient at times. I may or may not have fallen asleep in the bath.
Once I was satisfied with the bath, I dry myself with a towel and jump into the all too comfortable bed and fall asleep once again.