Dream II - In the City of Men - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Chapter 1 - Vereton at Dawn

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Race: Saurian

Bloodline Powers: Strength, Rending, Emberbreath
Greater Mysteries: Fire (Noble) 3, Wind (Noble) 1
Lesser Mysteries: Heat 4, Oxygen 4, Embers 4, Pressure 4, Current/Flow 4

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Samazzar pushed through the streets of Vereton, a gentle drizzle dampening the sounds of the undaunted and bustling crowds even as it brought a shine to his scales.  The street was full of races, some of which he could barely place.  After spending almost his entire life amongst kobolds and goblins, he was used to humans standing out.

Here they came in every shape and size: veiled men and women with olive skin and amber eyes from the great southern plains, westerners with blue-white skin and dark hair woven into a complex braid that betrayed their social status, and short, ruddy folk that hailed from the islands and atolls.  Sam could barely keep the categories straight even before taking into account the other civilized races that complicated the mix such as elves and gnomes.  Every once in a while a winged avian, heavily muscled orc, or amphibious triton would make an appearance in the dense crowds between a smattering of even more exotic races that Samazzar didn’t even know the name of.

Dussok and Takkla walked closely behind Samazzar.  Takkla stood about as tall as the humans around them, but both Sam and Dussok towered over the average person.  It was a bit strange being noticeably bigger and stronger than everyone around him after spending so long as a kobold, but the Vereton citizens barely paid him any mind.  Instead the crowd flowed around them like it was the most natural thing, brushing past the three saurians without paying them any mind.

Sam felt a light pressure at his hip.  Before he could say anything, there was a squeak of surprise to his right.  He glanced down to find a short, skinny man with a flushed face, his hand clutched in Takkla’s taloned grip.

He reached down, gently removing the small pouch of downy oak shavings from the man’s fingers and returning it to his satchel.  The pickpocket whimpered, his beady eyes flickering from Takkla’s stern gaze to Samazzar.

“I don’t even want it anymore,” the man whined.  “Look, just let me go and I’ll tell everyone else that you’re a tough mark.  At least in the High Market district that means no one is going to bother you given the number of inattentive merchants and craftsmen wandering around.”

Dussok growled at the trembling thief, causing him to shake like a solitary leaf in a windstorm, but Sam raised a single hand.

“We’re running a bit late at the moment,” Samazzar remarked, flashing a toothy smile at the human.  “Dealing with the city guard to report you would take time that we don’t have.  I’m sure they would want us to go to some central processing area and question all of us, all over a crime you didn’t even finish committing.”

“Thank you, thank you thank you,” the thief gushed, nodding his head rapidly and sending his unruly red locks flopping everywhere.  “I’ll make sure everyone knows that you’re some of the good ones.”

“Say,” Dussok began, a frown creasing the scales of his muzzled face.  “Didn’t you let the past person that tried to rob you go too?  Whatever happened to that guy?”

“He tried again, but in a place without any witnesses or prying eyes,” Samazzar responded cheerfully.  “So I killed him.”

The man blanched.  Frantically he tried to rip his hand out of Takkla’s but the female saurian held him firm.  Around the four of them the crowd pushed past, either not noticing or ignoring the miniature drama playing out in the middle of the street.

“Takkla,” Sam continued, resting a hand on his sister’s shoulder.  “Let the nice man go.  I’m sure he won’t be repeating today’s mistake.”

The second her fingers released him, the short thief disappeared, squirming into the crush of bodies.  Sam sighed, shaking his head before walking once again.

To Sam’s left, Dussok voiced his dissent.

“We could have spared a couple of minutes to take him to the guard.  This City is lousy with predators.  If we’re going to live here, the least we could do is help clean up the trash.”

“Maybe later,” Sam replied, lowering his shoulder slightly to part a tall human and what appeared to be an elf that had stopped to talk in the middle of the busy street.  “For now we don’t know any of the rules.  That thief might have been connected to a gang that could have made our lives difficult if we broke some sort of unspoken rule.  No matter what the laws are, there’s always the question of how they’re enforced.”

“Remember,” he glanced over his shoulder to address Dussok, counting on the size of his body to deter pedestrians from walking into him, “there were plenty of rules and customs back in the kobold warrens, and that stopped precisely no one.  We were fed almost nothing, half the guards tried to turn blind eyes when the bigger kobolds tried to rob us, and the second we were strong enough to stand up for ourselves, they tried to get rid of the three of us.”

“Yes,” Dussok muttered grumpily, “I do remember our treatment in the caves.  I remember our treatment by the goblin tribe we were sold to as well.  I am not eager to repeat either of those experiences.”

“Sam just doesn’t want to overcommit us,” Takkla said, laying a hand on Dussok’s forearm to placate the massive saurian.  “We’re in a new place with new people.  This doesn’t seem like the time to risk making a hidden power angry with us.”

Sam winked at the two of them before returning his gaze to the bustling street.

“I may not look like it,” Samazzar replied, “but I’ve learned my lesson on that front.  Mostly.  No more leaping before I look unless I simply can’t help it.”

“I do not feel reassured, little dragon,” Dussok grumbled back, a hint of playfulness under his usual dour demeanor.

Sam just smiled as he continued walking.  On either side of the tightly packed stone brick road, buildings loomed above them.  Almost all were at least three stories tall, and about half of them were entirely made of wood.  That said, more than a couple of the wealthier shops were made from brick or stone, and at least one per block was clearly crafted with the assistance of magic.

The shape of the building depended on the mystery used to craft it, some were living trees, while others were made from seamless stone or metal, but they all had one similarity.  Each and every one of them represented a level of skill and wealth that Samazzar struggled to even comprehend.  There was no way to build structures like that without teams of practitioners, each headed by at least one magi.

They were status symbols, flaunting the wealth and magic available to their owners in a way that made the magical axe slung over Dussok’s shoulder pale in comparison.  More than that, they were almost a perfect metaphor for Vereton itself.

There were slums outside the city’s walls, Sam hadn’t spent much time in them, but he’d seen areas that looked as ramshackle as the goblin village in his whirlwind tour of Vereton.  Most of the city was too dense to be that poor.  It took some wealth, even with cheap construction, to stack buildings on top of each other.  The majority of the city, though well maintained, was cramped and teeming with people.

Magically crafted buildings were the exception.  From a distance, partially because average residents were turned away by armed guards, Samazzar had seen entire districts of the expensive structures, complete with well-manicured lawns.  He didn’t fully understand the amount of resources they represented, but given the premium placed on living space by most Vereton residents, he was sure that they represented a massive concentration of wealth.

He bit down a wry grin as he glanced up at their destination.  Even two blocks away, the Vereton Academy was completely visible.  A fence, made from a metal he didn’t recognize and clearly woven with magic, stretched twice Dussok’s height and was topped with a mass of razor-sharp, arms-length spikes. A number of buildings made from seamless decorative stone stood above the fence, but all of them were overshadowed by a trio of spectacular towers, each standing in a corner of the estate.  THey jutted above the entire campus, commanding attention even as they overlooked the city in general.

It stood to reason that Pothas would live in a place like that.  Samazzar wasn’t entirely sure how powerful the eccentric old man was, but the hints he’d seen were impressive.  It was clear that the humans of Vereton were far more powerful than the Greentoe goblins, let alone the miserable kobold tribe where he was born, but as best Sam could tell, even a fraction of the magi’s power could have wiped both tribes off the face of the planet.

Finally, he shoved his way through the teeming crowd into an area of calm just outside the Academy.  Four guards in gleaming silver armor, each wielding what looked like an axe with a very long handle, stood impassively in front of the closed gates.  Above them stood a tower, also crafted from metal.  One guard stood watch, only visible from the stomach up, and with a longbow resting against the side of the building behind him.

Taking a deep breath, Samazzar walked across the stone brick road toward the gate, suddenly nervous now that he was leaving the crush and anonymity of the crowd.  He could feel eyes burning into him, both from the guards and the mass of people at his back as he approached.

The moment he stepped within twenty paces of the gate, all four guards on the ground clanked to attention, lowering their axes into a ready position that didn’t quite involve pointing the weapons at Sam.

“Halt!”  A male voice shouted.  Samazzar couldn’t make out which of the armored figures was speaking due to the glittering helmets that fully encompassed their faces.  “The Vereton Academy is off limits to those that don’t have business here.  Present a writ of passage, state your business, or vacate the premises immediately.”

Sam coughed.  It wasn’t like him to be skittish.  After all, a dragon wouldn’t be afraid of a handful of small pink creatures just because they were wearing overly polished armor.  Still, there was something about the ritual and precision of their words and movements that took him a bit aback.

“I, uh,” he began, stopping for a moment to center himself.  He belonged.  He wasn’t an interloper.  One of the masters of the academy had recruited him, paying for Samazzar’s lodgings and encouraging him to venture down from his mountain home and into the strange new world of the city so that he could learn more of the thousand and one mysteries.

“My name is Samazzar,” he continued, puffing out his chest slightly.  “These are my siblings, Dussok and Takkla.  We were here yesterday with our caretaker, Crone Tazzaera.  We are all here at the invitation of Wind Master Pothas.”

The axe wielding guards didn’t relax, still frozen in a ready position, but the bowman in the tower responded the second he heard Samazzar’s name.  Leaning back, he cupped one hand to his mouth.

“Oi, Saasmani I think Pothas’ new apprentice is here,” the man called out.  A couple of seconds later, a female elf in a light blue robe clambered up a ladder to stand on the tower roof next to the guard.

She wrinkled her nose at the drizzle, waving a delicate hand.  Samazzar felt something in the air shift and the light rain began to curve around the top of the tower, leaving her long hair and robe dry as she turned her attention to Sam.

“Do you think you could keep doing that once you go back below Saasmani?”  The guard asked hopefully.  “It’s miserable out here.  Not quite cold enough to justify a draught of something warm, but too wet to keep a fire going without breaking into the alchemical supplies.”

“Shush, Harris,” she replied dismissively to the shorter human, her eyes never leaving the three saurians standing before the gates.  Sam shifted slightly.  HIs magical senses were alerting him that a good number of the humans in the crowd behind him had stopped moving, and he could only guess that they were staring at him and his siblings as they waited to be admitted.

“Samazzar?”  The elf asked, taking in Sam’s appearance before sniffing lightly.  “Rose said that you were a fire and air practitioner.  Please demonstrate your mastery and I will send Percival to fetch her.”

Even as she finished speaking, a third person joined her on the roof of the tower.  The newcomer was somewhere between a boy and a man, although Sam would guess that he was closer to the former than the later.  He had unruly blonde hair and a pair of piercing sapphire eyes that seemed to cut through Samazzar’s scales.

With an awkward shrug, Sam let his throat bulge before he spat out a handful of sparks and flames into an upturned palm.  He reached out with his mind, crafting the disorganized flame into a pair of birds.  His will reached out, forcing the two creations of flame to flap their wings and circle each other as they flew up into the sky.

Barely two seconds later, the ever-present rain smothered the fire, but the elf had seen enough.  She nodded once curtly before turning to the human boy.  Somewhere behind Samazzar, a handful of people in the crowd clapped appreciatively before returning to their business.

“Percival,” she said curtly.  “Unless I miss my guess, this is Sam, your new fellow apprentice.  Run to the alchemical hall and bring back Rose.  She’s the only one other than Pothas that’s actually seen him, and we’ll need to confirm his identity visually before we open the gates.”

“But Saasmani,” the boy began, only for the elf to silence him with a single glare from  her steel grey eyes.

“But nothing Percival,” Saasmani responded severely.  “You may be one of Pothas’ apprentices, but I am a magi and I am well within my rights to give you a command.  Plus, Rose requested that someone retrieve her when Sam arrived, and she is your senior under Master Pothas’ tutelage.  It might be raining out, but you’ll survive.  Thousands of other people including Sam are surviving the drizzle without complaint right now.”

Grumbling, Percival jumped over the side of the tower.  Samazzar could feel the wind gathering under the touch of another practitioner, forming a large pillow of higher pressure that caught the falling apprentice and dropping him gently to the ground inside the Academy.

Without a word Saasmani turned and climbed back down the ladder that she had taken onto the guard post’s roof.  A second or two after she was out of sight, whatever magic she had worked disappeared, and the cold morning rain began to fall on the bowman once again.

The man grimaced before looking down at Samazzar and shrugging helplessly.

“At ease,” he called out, and with a clank, the armored guards in front of the gate returned to their previous, more comfortable positions..

“Sorry about that,” the archer continued.  “The academy rotates out magi for guard duty, and none of them like being ripped away from their research for long.  The chancellor says that guards with an elixir in them are good enough for most disturbances, but magical academies tend to have magical foes.  None of the magi like being placed out here, but it’s good to have them in a pinch.”

“Nothing too bad happens in Vereton mind you,” he said with a chuckle.  “People know better than to cross the Patrician, but every once in a while, a lordling will get a little full of themself.  Saw Sasmaani summon a tidal wave to wash an entire carriage away when a baronet from the South got upset that we wouldn’t admit him because of who his father was.”

“Impressive,” Sam responded agreeably.  “I suppose it makes sense to have a practitioner on hand, but I don’t really understand why you can’t have a roof or even a canvas overhang of some sort to keep you and the guards at the gate dry.  I don’t have any fur, and I’m barely wearing clothes for the rain to soak, and this is already miserable for me.  I can’t imagine how bad it is for you.”

“It’s pretty bad,” the archer replied, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the edge of the tower as he looked down on Samazzar.  “Name’s Harris by the way.  Harris Albers.”

“Let me tell you something Sam,” Harris continued, pausing for a half second as a cloud of indecision flashed across his face.  “You don’t mind if I call you Sam right?  I know that’s what Saasmani called you, but sometimes you magic types can get a little touchy about ‘proper respect’ and the like.”

Samazzar waved at him to proceed, and Harris flashed a smile back before returning to his line of thought.

“Look, I know that a lot of us working folks are beneath the notice of spellcasters that are delving into the very mysteries that rule the very world we live in.  Even when we get a couple elixirs into us, and we’re out in the field helping you take down some rampaging monster or ancient threat from before the sundering, half the time you don’t remember our names.  But you get us something to keep us out of the rain, and I’ll be sure that every guard that works this post remembers you.”

Takkla stirred to Sam’s side, finally breaking her silence.

“What does that mean exactly?  Is it a good thing if every guard remembers us?”

One of the guards at the gate chuckled, for the first time breaking their stoic uniformity as they stood.  Harris grinned down at the soldiers before answering.

“Depends.  If you’re trying to sneak out of the Academy unnoticed to panty raid the one of the off campus girls’ dorms?  No.  That would probably be bad for you.  But if you need a little help when you’re coming back to the Academy from a job, or you don’t want to show your ID badge every time?  Then it would probably be useful.”

“But I’m a girl,” Takkla replied, frowning up at the smiling human.  “Why would I want to sneak out of the Academy to raid a girls’ dorm?”

“Also,” Samazzar chimed in, “what’s a p-”

He caught himself when Dussok put a hand on his shoulder.  The big saurian shook his head silently, and Sam bit his tongue.  Takkla and Dussok were just like that.  Apparently some subjects were completely off limits unless it was the three of them alone.  Sam didn’t entirely understand why explaining biological functions was something that needed to happen in secret, but his siblings didn’t ask for all that much, so he made a point of accommodating them.

“I don’t know about that little lady,” Harris called back.  “Plenty of women want to go on panty raids to the girls’ dorms.  Excitement of youth and all that.  It’s not my job to judge anyone, just to make notes in the ledger when faculty and students pass through the gate.”

Before anyone could respond, a woman’s voice cut Harris off.

“Are you already trying to corrupt Master Pothas’ new apprentice?” Rose asked, floating up into the air on a burst of magically produced wind before landing on the roof of the tower next to the guard.  She shook her head, sending her silvery-grey hair flowing back and forth as she fixed her single eye on the guard.

He wilted under her wintery gaze, refusing to make eye contact as the woman glared at him.  Finally, Rose turned back to Sam and his siblings.  She looked them over once, before nodding, satisfied.

“That’s them,” Rose confirmed.  “Open the gates.  Most of the arrangements have already been made, but Master Pothas wanted to talk to Sam as soon as he arrived.