Chapter Fifty-Six - Forgingburg

I'm sorry I didn't post a chapter yesterday :( Got, uh, very distracted painting minis... hehe? Anyway, have a Lucky chapter! I'll try to write at least two chapters of Black Apron today, to make up for it!

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Lucky had seen a few cities now. Well... three, which counted as a few, she supposed. It was more than she’d expected to see in most of her life. If she stayed in Smithville the most she could expect to see was maybe Alpta, if the opportunity arose to go and visit the capital one day.

Chances were slow that that would ever happen. Most of the people from her hometown stayed there. She was probably one of the few that had travelled this far.

And that over only a week.

And now she was filing in line to enter another city.

She wasn’t well-versed in cities and such, but this one felt different. Forgingburg wasn’t like the cities of Lithos. Its walls were grander, taller, made of wooden planks that rose a hundred paces up and which were ten paces wide. She couldn’t begin to imagine the sort of tree that came from. 

The outskirts were no less fantastical. They had crossed a few homes that were nestled into the hills. They were multi-floored homes built in receding tiers, so that the floors below had their roofs exposed. That showed off the massive gardens and spaces for guests and so on that each home had. It didn’t help that she suspected that some of those homes could house her entire extended family.

The sights only grew more bizarre as they came closer. There was a small outlying village just outside of the city itself. It had paved roads, not not just cobbles that were laid down, but proper brickwork across the ground. The homes were wood and stone, with tall faces decorated with columns, and the town had streetlamps.

Not just poles that someone could hang a light from, but magical lights, connected to each other by a grid of wires. 

The people they moved past on the wide sidewalks were humans and a smattering of elves, with only a few rare others in sight. The opposite of the cities where she’d been before. They were dressed well. 

Swordmaster Thorn... Rosario, had a fascination with clothing, and she could probably say more, but to Lucky’s eyes, it looked like every commoner was a step away from a noble here. She saw many things that she didn’t quite understand, but one thing was hammering itself into her with certainty: The Aerie was rich.

On arriving at the city itself, they were made to stand in line while guards inspected every person entering the city, having them touch some item and take down some notes. Rosario frowned ahead, then said something about using the washroom and how she’d meet them inside. 

Then she moved so fast that she blurred. Lucky had to blink and replay the movement in her head. Rosario moved to the right as a blur, touched the ground and... disappeared? Has she simply accelerated beyond Lucky’s capacity to keep up?

“Um,” Lucky said.

“Don’t worry about it!” Cricket said as she wrapped an arm around Lucky’s shoulder. “Your crush isn’t far!”

“Crush? I don’t have a crush on Swordmaster Thorn,” Lucky said. She did have to fight back a bit of a blush on saying it.

It wasn’t that Rosario wasn’t attractive. Not that Lucky had a thing for elves in particular. Rosario was... very pretty. Tall, and statuesque, and intimidating at times, and yet she was quite friendly and nice and had been nothing but helpful, even if she set the bar high.

It... well, maybe Lucky had to think about some things, but she was quite certain that she didn’t have a thing for Rosario. Her ideal partner wasn’t someone already nearing the pinnacle. Lucky wanted someone to grow alongside her.

Cricket tilted her head and inspected her real close, then she shook her head with a jingle of her bells. “Huh... thou truly have no crush? You ought to develop one, that lady is hot.”

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Lucky said. “Besides, she’s my teacher, it would be wrong to think of her that way.”

“Wow,” Cricket said. “You are... urgh, disgusting.”

“Huh?”

“Too earnest! So true! Too pure for this world! Be evil, I say! Allow the chaos to fill your insides with its wriggly goodness! Chase after those skirts and fight dirty and be your one true self. Let no one tell you otherwise, Lucky! Rise up, look at authority in the face, and say ‘fuck the guards!’”

The guard ahead of them cleared his throat. “Next,” he said.

Lucky felt like maybe the guards gave them a harder time than they would have otherwise, for reasons that she felt were rather obvious. They had her and Cricket touch a magical device that read out their total levels. 43 for her, and an impressive 76 for Cricket, and then they used another device that forced them to empty their inventories.

Lucky mostly had some small camping supplies, some hygiene items, and some spare clothes. Her Strength was rather low, so she could only bring so much with her.

Cricket’s inventory was knives. A concerning number of knives. There were other things too, but Lucky suspected that the guards and even the next few people in line were mostly staring at the small pile of sharp metal.

“What? Has thou never seen a knife before?” Cricket asked.

They were eventually let in, mostly because it wasn’t technically illegal to have thirty-six knives (a guard counted them all). 

The interior of Forgingburg had her slowing to a stop. She could only see the main thoroughfare past the gate, but it was wide, with hundreds of people on the sidewalks. More interestingly was the colourfulness of everything, and the cleanliness. There were trees all over, some of them blending into the stone and wood buildings. Brightly-coloured advertisements were plastered on shop windows, and a strange all-red vehicle on a track built into the centre of the road was moving at a fast walking pace, people hopping on and off of it to save themselves some time travelling through the city.

“You might want to keep moving, or the guards will shove you along,” Rosario said as she reappeared next to Lucky as though nothing had happened.

“Where did you go?” Lucky asked her.

“I didn’t want to be hastled,” Rosario said. “So I went around.”

“I... see,” Lucky said. Maybe that was just the privilege of the powerful. Maybe it was something to look forward to, one day, if she kept on the path she was on. She wasn’t on this path to get shortcuts into cities, however. She’d like to think that her reasons were a little more noble than that.

“We’re going to the adventurer’s guild, then... we might as well find an inn. It’s late enough that we’ll likely do little else. Tomorrow--”

“Day off,” Cricket said.

“I... I suppose,” Rosario said.

Cricket bounced over to stand before Rosario. “A real day off,” she said.

“Are you implying something?” Rosario asked.

“Yes! I’m implying that you, oh maidly one, dragged us into a training ground for an eight hour training session on my last day off. The only bruises I should have after a day off are fun ones!” Cricket replied.

Swordmaster Thorn took in a deep breath, then she glanced over to Lucky. “And you?”

“Um,” Lucky replied. She loved the training. Not so much the act of it, though it was occasionally fun, but the results. So many levels, and so many more stats. Six levels in Constitution was something she could feel and it was wonderful. But that wasn’t the only thing she could feel.

Her bruises had bruises, and her sores were bone-deep. Some of her muscles ached no matter how she used them, to the point where she just acted through the pain.

“I see,” Rosario said. “Fine. This is a nice enough city. I’m curious to see how it has changed. There are a few other supplies that I’d like to find as well, so... yes. Tomorrow is a day off. However, we’re leaving the day after that.”

“Thank you!” Cricket said. “Now... since we’re staying for longer, we ought to save some money, might I humbly propose that we save on room cost by sleeping together, and on clothing washing fees by sleeping without? We can save on food casts if you simply eat m--yowch!”

Cricket bounced backwards and clutched at her forehead quite dramatically where Rosario had flicked her. 

“The cost of rooms is of no concern,” Rosario said. “Though... no, nevermind.”

Lucky covered her mouth to hide a smile. 

She wasn’t the cleverest horse in the stable sometimes but... well, she wasn’t clueless either. Cricket asking her if she had a crush, then Rosario’s strange way of acting around the jester. 

Her master and the clown were definitely building something.

And what was her duty as her master’s faithful [Soldier] if it wasn’t to help!

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