It was silent as the party moved toward the city’s main entrance, despite the crowds that had gathered to see them off. Even the king was there. 

The horses were the only source of sound as the party led them along to the gates. 

Word had gotten out about Eric and his party taking leave to go on a monster hunt, one the king did not respond to, no less.

Over the past few days, Eric had begun to notice the poverty of this city. The grand architecture had distracted him when they first had arrived, not to mention he was out cold when they had entered, and late at night. Most of his time had been spent within the luxury the king provided. 

These people, Eric thought. Are drained and spent. He noticed weary eyes as he passed them, though many had come out of that stupor at the excitement of seeing the “hero” as he left with his party. Eric took a bit of joy at that, at giving these people some escape from their worries, even if it was for but a moment. 

There was something else in the eyes of the people. 

A tense atmosphere was to blame for the silence as the party approached the gates. This city knew that their king now hated the hero. He had been embarrassed one too many times by Eric.

Good chance they won’t let us back in, Eric thought. That’s precisely why he had told his party to gather all of their belongings, whatever wasn’t in Clanker’s space, and bring them with them as a precaution.

Turns out Eric was onto something because the king glared a hateful eye at him as they approached. Though, right before they stopped in front of the king, the mask went up.

“Hero,” King Arelgore began. “I thank you for your presence and council that you have offered during your stay.” The crowd clapped after his statement.

Eric only nodded.

The king motioned for him to approach closer. 

Eric leaned over as the king urged him even closer, seeking to speak something only for his ears.

“If you return to Bracharest, I’ll kill you.” 

Eric stood straight, shocked by the straightforward threat.

The two locked eyes and Eric saw the eyes of an enemy. 

Eric had seen this coming to a degree, but hearing the king be so…outspoken in his anger made Eric go cold with a chill he had not expected to feel. Eric knew he had the real power, bestowed by some kind of twisted act of fate, but in that moment, the king’s ambition and willingness to hold onto his feeble power over these people grew barbs filled with poison, making Eric terrified to resist at all.

Perhaps I should have taken more care here, Eric thought. 

Eric moved away on his horse, riding lessons fortunately coming in handy, and motioned for the party to make its way out of the city. The people cheered them on as they began to leave.

“You alright?” Sophia said as she moved up to him on her horse. “You look like you ate maggot-filled steak.”

Eric almost told her what the king said to him, but decided that he didn’t want an altercation here with all of these people. He wasn’t sure what she would do, and if she engaged, the whole party would be forced to act with her. 

“I’ll explain on the road,” Eric said. 

The party moved through the gates, exiting the city and safety of its walls. As they moved under the stone, Eric noticed that same runic language engraved on the stone around the gates and the arches of the entryway. 

Bracharest seemed to enclose on itself as the heavy doors thundered close, a slight wave of light running along the doors and into the stone they were set into. The gates shook in their hinges just a bit as the light faded. 

“Is that some kind of magic?” Eric said. “I’ve seen those kinds of markings before, on your armor, right Bearick?”

“Nature magic,” Baearick said. “Enhancement of the natural body of the material. Stone walls are nigh indestructible with nature enhancement, but require maintenance.” He said the last bit with disgust.

“Maintenence?” Eric said. 

“They require regular blood spills to fuel the walls,” Sophia said. “Usually servants or even those selected for religious reasons bleed onto the runes of the walls designated to accept the blood. Can get a bit difficult to maintain for a large city.”

“That’s gross,” Eric said but checked himself. This is their world, he thought. To them, it might not be the same way for everyone. Though, Bearick had cringed at the mention of it.

That was the moment Eric noticed Clanker pouring blood over his entire body, tunic having been removed and was now laid across the flank of his horse. 

“What are you doing?!” Bearick said. “You will ruin the horse’s coat!”

“That’s what got you?” Eric asked. 

“What’s up with that skeleton?” Sophia asked. 

“Ah,” Clanker said. “Well, this conversation reminded me that my bones needed rejuvenation.”

“Well, that explains everything,” Eric said. 

“Your bones are nature-enhanced?” Sophia asked. “But I don’t see any runes or engravings on them.”

Clanker’s skeletal face looked at them with dissatisfaction.

“Would any self-respecting sorcerer have visible markings?” Clanker said. “Mine are engraved in the marrow.”

Josiah, who had been casually listening to the exchanges, dry-heaved, nearly falling off of his horse.

“I…” Sophia began but didn’t finish her statement. Eric was almost as surprised by her speechlessness as by Clanker’s display.

The blood that ran down Clanker’s body seemed to absorb into his bones, not a drop making it down to the horse’s coat. After emptying the jar, he grabbed his tunic and put it on, looking forward contendedly. 

“Well,” Eric said. “I guess we should probably make sure we’re on the right path. Josiah, you alright?”

The young man nodded, having stopped himself from actually vomiting. 

“We…” He began to say but had to take a deep breath before continuing. “Need to keep riding northeast for a time, then camp at the mountain pass as we discussed this morning.”

The party had taken some time to go over the map again before leaving the city to finalize how they wanted to make it up to Josiah’s village. There were apparently leviathan hunting grounds a bit to the northwest of where the pass entered the mountain range, so care had to be taken to make their path as safe and quick as possible. 

“It’ll take most of today to get to the pass, right?”

“If we keep this same pace,” Josiah said, nodding.

“How long did it take you to make it to the city once you entered the plains?” Bearick asked. 

“About two days. I had to avoid a harpy bear as I exited the pass.”

Eric suddenly realized Josiah had a bit of an accent. 

Rose, Eric thought. How does my translation ability interpret accents on Auron?

Rose’s familiar blue ball appeared and hovered next to Eric’s head. 

“Your ability will only assist in translating the language known on Auron as common, a human tongue and most used in the free lands and with the bulk of the Empire on the southern continent, though the Empire’s primary language is that of the Draculas, but the humans do tend to speak more common, however. Language from many of the shifter communities that self-isolate or other languages of Auron are not translated, and thus when speaking common, they have accents.”

I guess that makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

“Does your world have bears, Eric?” Sophia suddenly asked him. 

The question jerked Eric back to the party. Looking at the others on their horses, Eric realized he had missed an entire conversation as he mentally spoke with Rose. 

“Sorry, bears?” 

“Yeah,” Bearick said. “Josiah was talking about how he avoided the harpy bear on the last leg of his journey to Bracharest.”

“Ah,” Eric said. “Yeah, we have bears of varying kinds. There are three main types that roam in the mountains of my home country, others in the world as well. There’s a saying in my world that goes, ‘If it’s brown, lay down. If it’s black, fight back, and if it’s white say goodnight.’ The colors indicate the fur color of the bear.”

“Sounds like your world has monsters of its own,” Bearick said. 

“There are definitely scary animals, but there are many others that are not, and even more that would rather just be left alone and completely harmless if not bothered. There are big parks for recreation for the citizens of my world to go and see big, exotic animals from other nations and parts of my world to go and see safely. The animals are behind big walls of glass or in deep open pens.”

“That sounds odd,” Sophia said. “But I guess there are things similar to that here, but usually the caged animals are for sale.”

“That makes sense,” Eric said laughing.

“Couldn’t the animals just break the glass and attack you?” Josiah asked. 

“This is very thick glass. Even a big gorilla could ram it full-force and it wouldn’t break, at most slightly cracking. I once saw a scary animal video compilation with a clip of that.”

“What’s a gorilla?” Sophia asked. 

“You don’t have monkeys on Auron?”

“Do titan lemurs count?” Bearick asked. 

“Not sure I want to know what that is,” Eric said. “Monkeys are kind of like really hairy humans, with thumbs on both their hands and their feet. Anything like that?”

“There’s wolfkin,” Josiah said.

“Other than that,” Eric said.

“That’s strange,” Sophia said. “Hands for feet? But, I have heard of a type of monster in the Desert band that is kind of like that. It crawls on all fours, though, so not human-like.” 

The conversation died off after the talk of zoos, time passing quickly as they crossed the plain between the city and the pass. Hours had been off and on filled with either silence or questions of Eric’s world, mostly received with confusion, but the party seemed to enjoy listening to Eric talk about movies, sports leagues he had been interested in, and the structure of society. 

Before they knew it, the sun had just set as the mountain pass came into view. The reds of the sunset shone brightly on the mountain above the pass, leaving the break in the stone mountain filled with shadow as the fire of light slowly faded. 

They made camp near a small creek that flowed out of the pass and sat in a grove of trees thick enough to hide them from the main road into the pass. 

Bearick had made a fire after gathering wood from deeper in the grove of trees while the rest of the party tied up the horses and set out bed rolls. Eric was regretting not paying more attention to outdoor studies classes and wild survival lectures in school. He was painfully underprepared to camp out at night, not having much camping experience to begin with either. 

Josiah had caught a rabbit somewhere and roasted it over the small fire in the center of camp. The party sat in their bed rolls as Josiah slowly rotated the rabbit on the spit over the fire. 

Eric looked up and his breath caught.

Sophia turned sharply to Eric, searching for the danger. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I just…wow. It’s so beautiful.” Eric looked up at the sky full of stars, completely unfamiliar to him, but all-encompassing. They flowed through the sky in a swath of light, kind of like how the Milky Way looked, but vertically. 

“Do you not see the stars in your world?” Bearick said. 

“In the city, you can’t see them. There are so many people in them that the lights at night dim the night sky. The stars are really only this visible where light pollution can’t affect it.”

“What’s light pollution?” Bearick asked. 

Eric decided to show them what he meant instead of explaining.

He burst alight, filling the grove with a bright glow, shining like a beacon outward as much as he could. The sky, as a result, dimmed with the contrast of the stars and only the brightest of them were visible. 

After a moment, Eric let his light fade and silence fell on the camp.

“A little warning the next time you do that,” Clanker said, still covering his eyes.

The party laughed, exhaustion beginning to take hold.

“Well, I suppose we should sleep,” Eric said. “Clanker, keep watch for us since you don’t sleep and all that.”

With that, the party lay down in their bed rolls and quickly fell asleep, bathed in the light of a sky full of stars.