Path of the Pioneers

Another day passed before we were staring down the walls of Grymgate. The two of us leaned back against the stonework, plotting our next move with the stars shining clearly above. The walls were shorter than I had expected, about the height of three men. Regardless, we weren’t exactly capable of flight. As far as I could discern, our only way inside would be through the city’s gate. The gate itself, a big hulking arch with a rather threatening portcullis, was on the main road. It was almost certainly closed at this time of night.

Adeline stood up, stretching her arms and legs carefully as she eyed the top of the wall. “If we’re lucky, they won’t have instructions for our arrest in this city quite yet. You’re still topped up on mana, right?” I nodded, to which she smiled. “Alright! I don’t sense any guards up top, so it’s time to go. Come on,” She leaned down slightly, gesturing for me to get closer, “let me pick you up.” I tried to push down the embarrassing thoughts. Unfortunately, unlike the last time, I was painfully aware of the situation. I stepped closer to Adeline, and she very quickly scooped me up into her arms.

The ease with which she picked me up and held me was far more distracting than anything else she had done before.

“Alright, Sybil. We’ll need your full focus for this one.” Those words snapped me out of it, quickly reminding me of the situation. “I’m going to jump as high as I can, but I don’t think that I can clear this while I’m carrying you.. So.” She grinned, looking down at me from above. “Lay down a barrier at my feet just as we begin to stop going up.” I blinked a few times, “Surely you don’t mean to..” She nodded. “Let’s just try it, alright?”

The logistics of placing a barrier t that exact spot were confusing, to say the least. But an idea quickly came to me. I ran a thread down Adeline’s leg, to the base of her left boot. A few more followed, coiling together into a thin braid of mana. [Barrier] was a low-cost skill, meaning the threads would likely have a high enough mana-transference rate to cast it. That was all in theory, of course.

From five meters back, Adeline took off in a full sprint, utilizing her legs to the utmost. As we approached the wall, she kicked off of the ground with both feet, launching into the air with more speed than I expected. It was a distracting feeling, something I had never really felt before: the sensation of flight. She called out an order, “Now!” just as the velocity of the initial jump faded out. We were three quarters of the way to the top of the wall.

In response, I squeezed down on the threads of mana coming out from my hand, casting [Barrier] from the very end of the thread. Mana stemmed out from the braided energy, forming a solid, sturdy mass below Adeline’s feet. She didn’t hesitate in the least, jumping once more with the barrier’s aid. I grimaced as I felt the energy crack, but the feeling faded when we were going up into the air once again. Adeline’s crazy plan had worked.

She let out a laugh like a giggle as we made it around the top of the wall, landing safely on the very top of it. “That was ridiculous!” I smiled a little, more relieved than anything, considering that the barrier hadn’t given way under the pressure of her jumping off of it. In spite of it all, we were now standing atop the main wall of the city of Grymgate. Beyond us was the sight of the city proper.

The buildings here were made from almost entirely stone. Carved blocks of stone, stone bricks, and even tiled, ceramic roofing. It was appealing to the eyes without making much use of color. The shapes and textures of the building almost let you ignore the fact that it was nearly all monochrome tones.

The buildings varied in height, though most of them were at least two or three stories, with some of them extending up a few more. The windows were all very smooth, careful arches, filled in with panes of glass. The tiled roofs were all just in slanted lines, as opposed to a typical gable styled one.

A wide, main road ran through the city, paved with red brick. Its color made it stand out from the rest of Grymgate. The clay used would have cost the master of this territory a fortune. But as beautiful as the city looked, with its glimmering lanterns and towering buildings, the arched gate (and its accompanying fortress) at the end of it was built with a grandiosity that seemed to put all the rest of it to shame. As if the city itself was built to try and live up to the construction.

A massive, intricate arch ran through the mountain, even as its slope increased more and more, standing forty meters high at its peak. Winding stairs climbed up its side, with little towers dotting the sides of them. At either side, two gargantuan spires rose up. A great fire was lit in either of their interiors, and they were capped off by roofs that resembled a curved cone.

“Adeline.. How much security is there at the gate into the mountain..?” I looked up at her, awkwardly asking the question while I was still in her arms. “Oh, right.” She looked over at the gate, “It’s an easy mistake to make, but that gate isn’t exactly a security checkpoint. It’s an outpost in case of a breach in House Pyre.” I blinked a few times, a breach. That meant this fortress was more or less a defense against an outbreak of monsters from the Vein. “The gate’s only been closed once, and that was two decades ago. Their thought process is that if you’re foolish enough to go to the Vein of your own free will, then there’s no reason to stop you. Or, if you were too crafty for House Pyre to notice, then they shouldn’t bother.”

So as usual, it boiled down to a sense of complacency. I was starting to understand how Adeline felt.

“The guards there may take particular notice of us, though. Especially if they’ve been informed about our status as fugitives.” Adeline sighed, “We just stand out far too much. Not to mention our clothes.” After three weeks of travel, we were still wearing the same dirty, tattered clothes. My robes were still stained by a good deal of blood, despite my efforts to wash it out (although it was quite hard to see in the dark of night.) And though we had bathed whenever possible along the path, the rivers and creeks were growing scant as we traveled further north.

At best we would appear as vagrants to the guards.

“But maybe that could work to our advantage..” Adeline seemed lost in thought for a moment, and then spoke again, “Sybil, could you.. Kind of press the pointy bit of your hat in? It might look less conspicuous like that.” I plucked my master’s hat off of my head, silently uttering a few apologies to her as I pressed the pointed tip down and into itself. I put it back on afterwards, smoothing out the top.

“It looks odd.. But certainly less mage-like. Drifters dress oddly, anyways.” She glanced down at her hip, and the sword that hung loosely on it. “But my sword.. They might be suspicious of two travelers like us with this blade on me..” She looked over at me, as if she wanted to say something, but was struggling. “Sybil.. Do you think that you could do me a favor?”

---

So it was that I ended up stashing away Adeline’s sword, hiding the thing underneath my robes to the best of my ability. It was a plan that would only work in the dark of night, so the two of us began quickly navigating the city’s alleys, snaking our way towards the gate that led into the mountain.

The buildings were clustered very tightly, leaving the streets quite narrow everywhere except for the main road. A great deal of the buildings were still lit up inside. At that, I was surprised by the sheer number of people still out and about, despite the time of night. Far less people than you might expect to see during the day, of course, but most city streets were empty during the night, completely devoid of human activity.

The city felt even larger once we were roaming its streets. A small part of me was disappointed that we were wandering through the place as fugitives. I would’ve liked to stop and enjoy the sights, but our destination was set in stone.

The buildings thinned out as we approached the gate, leaving the main road as the sole path forward. The traffic in the area was severely reduced from the city proper, but there were still a few people wandering between the inside and outside of a mountain. A couple of them were dwarves: short, stocky, bearded fellows in fine clothes. They were chatting with the sole guard posted at the gate, leaving him quite distracted as we approached. As we approached, the conversation they were having became quite clear, given its loud volume.

“There he was, his trousers hangin’ from his head, cryin’ for his dear ma.. He’d put back at least a dozen and a half pints o’ the stuff!” The whole group flared up with a sudden uproar of laughter, the guard folded over as his laughing fits got the better of him.

The two of us briskly passed by, entering into the gate to the dwarven mountainhold. I passed Adeline’s sword back to her, and she took it gratefully. She was grinning ear to ear, “Our luck’s turning around, it would seem. We’ve made a clean escape!” I smiled back, but I had a bad feeling about it all. We weren’t just common criminals, after all, we were wanted awakened.

Still, I tried to follow along with her enthusiasm. I wanted nothing more than a brief reprieve from the toil we had been through.