Half-way through their fourth day of travel, Stevens and Cody arrived at the edge of the nearest safe zone to the one they called home. When they first arrived at the barrier, they simply stopped outside of it in plain view and waited to see if they saw anyone moving around. During their journey here, they had discussed the best way to approach how they entered this unfamiliar place. They were strong enough to not really have to care about it, but they wanted to be political about it and not just barge in and start collecting information like some kind of cheap spy. After two hours though, they had only seen people at a distance, and no one seemed to care about them so they walked in and were met with system windows.
"You are entering a new safe zone, would you like to mark yourselves and alert the local leader?"
They both chose yes.
"Are you entering as traders, conquerors, or diplomats?"
They both chose diplomats.
"I wasn't really expecting something like this, who would choose the conqueror if they are announcing themselves?" Cody asked.
"Someone who wanted to give them a chance to surrender," Stevens replied.
"That makes sense. Do you think they will send someone to greet us or just watch us to see what we are up to?"
"Depends on what kind of leader they have around here. Eli said that only the top one hundred people get the lord title and they get to keep the title even if they fall off that list. So there are bound to be two lords per safe zone at first, maybe one died like in our safe zone and there is only one in charge now," Stevens explained.
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"We have no idea what kind of person this lord is, so don't let your guard down. I doubt they have anything like a government or police setup yet so let's just keep it casual. We make contact with a lord, deliver the message, then we head home."
"You make it sound easy"
"No, it's simple, not easy, there's a difference." Stevens said while pointing at Cody, hoping he understood how bad this could go. He didn't know why Eli wanted him to send this particular message, but he knew it was going to cause problems.
After they walked inside the barrier for a few minutes they started to see settlements, nothing more than a grouping of ten or so buildings close together. They saw a few people there, and even a couple of kids that were three or four years old, but no one looked strong or in charge of anything. Another ninety minutes and 2 more small villages later and they were starting to wonder if anyone cared that they were here. So far people were sparse and the villages small, so they kept going, hoping that this trip wouldn't be in vain. Another 2 hours of casual enhanced walking, and they had arrived at the closest thing either of them had seen to civilization.
This couldn't be the main city but it was much larger, with around fifty buildings and a lot of people walking around. It felt more alive than the places they had seen so far. There was something of a main street with an Inn and a tavern but most of the buildings were professional shops with people inside working hard to level up their crafting. They had meant to just pass through, but they spotted an alchemy shop and Stevens motioned for Cody to follow him inside. The shop was small with a door to a back room where there were some glass vials, beakers, and some herbs on the table. The walls were covered in shelves but they were empty and they heard someone moving around in the back.
"Excuse me," Stevens said, raising his voice in hopes that the apparently clumsy person in the back could hear.
"One second, I'm dealing with a vermin problem," the person in the back said while more crashing and thumping noises could be heard.
Stevens and Cody looked at each other and mouthed the word 'vermin' to each other.
"Do you need any help back there friend?" Cody asked.
"No," the noises coming from the back stopped and a middle-aged man with long grey hair and the worst resting-grumpy-face either of them had ever seen came out from the back holding up a kid in each hand. They had to be only about five or six years old and they were squirming to get out of this guy's hands and laughing to each other. "I found these rats in my brother's shop and I need to throw them out… of town!" The man laughed maniacally as the boys stopped laughing and began to look worried. He tossed them into the street and they got up and ran away.
"Ok, now that that is over, what do you want?" the man asked.
"I was wondering how strong your potions are?" Stevens said with his best negotiating smile.
"This isn't my shop, it's my brother's, I have no idea what he can make. Now if you are looking for rings, then I can help you."
"But the sign says Alchemy," Cody said.
"Well I don't want a building until I can get myself started, until then I watch the store here while my brother picks flowers. I just try to sell what I have made until he gets back."
"What do you have?" Stevens asked, intrigued at the possibility of maybe returning to the girls with some jewelry.
The man smiled big and still managed to look grumpy, "I have made three variations so far," He held out his hand with three rings in it. One was tiny red scales with purple lines at their tips, one was pitch black and reminded Stevens of obsidian, the third one was a dull white like bone. "The red one increases fire node magic, the black one increases stone magic, and the white one increases resistance."
"By how much?" Stevens asked knowing it wouldn't be much.
"Small amounts, I'm just starting out."
"How much do you want for them?" Cody asked, looking very excited about getting one. Stevens inwardly facepalmed knowing that the guy would now raise the price since they seemed eager.
"Well…" the man said while rubbing his chin in obvious fake contemplation. "The system store sells similar rings for one hundred thousand credits. But mine look better, last longer, and work more efficiently, so mine are two hundred thousand credits."
"We will take them," Stevens said. He was sitting on a personal wealth of over 6.5 million credits from all the monster horde fighting they had done.
"That's great, which ones?" the man asked.
"All of them."
"You want all three?"
"No, I want all that you have, every single one you have made."
"I've got 8 of each one, so you want 24 rings? You know you can only put one on each hand right?"
"On one condition," Stevens said while holding up a finger. "I want you to join us when we go back to our home and work for us and our group."
"You will pay me 4.8 million for my whole stock if I join you? This is some kind of cult thing isn't it? I won't join your cult or any other cult."
"It's not a cult, we are from a different safe zone, the one to the east near the coast. We work for a very eccentric lord who can be very generous. He will be happy if we bring back a craftsman such as yourself." Stevens explained.
"I work for myself, I refuse to have a boss, not to mention I know better than to get involved with a lord and his cult. I don't know what yours is like but the one in this safe zone is creepy and dangerous. I won't do it and you can't make me!"
"Ok so you don't want to join, that's fine, we will be back in a few days, think it over. For now I'll buy one red, one black, and two white."
"I'll take a white and a black as well please." Cody said. The two gave the man the money and then got their items. All the rings were of common quality and only increased things 'slightly'. But the impressive part was that one of his rings increased a stat and that had tremendous potential, and this early on in the system, it was worth it.
They shook hands, "I'm Stevens, and this is Cody, we will be back."
"I'm Theodore, and I hope I never see you again!"
"Bye Teddy," Cody said as they walked out the door.
"It's Theodore, you damn cultists!" he yelled as they left.
They left that town and kept heading for where Stevens thought the center would be, since the safe zone he was from had its main city in the center. After an hour they were at what he guessed was the center and there were only a couple of buildings there with no people. In the center of the buildings was a log with an arrow pointing west on the side of it, with nothing else to do they followed it, but this time they ran. As they got closer to the mountains and the sun started to fall behind them, they could see lights in windows and on the streets of a city built into a mountain that stood apart from the rest of the range.
It was like a fantasy land of stone and light, with the city going up the mountain in a spiral, it was an amazing feat of planning, building and organizing. The closer you got to the ground the more densely populated the place was, as they looked up towards the top the buildings were larger and fewer. From their distance they couldn't see details but it looked like the top of the mountain was cut to make a flat space for a giant building.
"Well," Cody said, "it's obvious we want the guy at the top, maybe that's why he didn't come looking for us, probably knew we would be able to find him."
"I doubt that, this place looks more like a fortress than a city. I bet you a million credits that they shoot at us before we get to the base of the mountain."
"Deal!" Cody said and held out his hand for a handshake. This had become a common game between the two, where Stevens would bet on a scenario pessimistically, and Cody would bet optimistically. The score was tied between them and they never really traded money.
Stevens shook his hand and they started walking toward the mountain at a nice casual pace, both with smiles and humming a happy tune. As they got closer to the mountain, it was becoming clear that where the city on the mountain reached the ground was a sort of smaller city around a gate along with buildings going all the way around the mountain. The gate wasn't very big, about ten feet tall and wide enough for 6 people to walk through side-by-side. There weren't any guards at the door but the area in front of the gate for about 200 feet was empty, then the buildings started. The town outside the gate was large, staying close to the mountain forming a crescent moon shape, it followed the wooden fence that seemed to go around the mountain starting on either side of the gate.
They moved through the crowded streets slowly approaching the gate, everyone around them seemed to be in decent spirits, laughing and joking or working on their profession and selling their wares. However, they all stayed away from the gate and the fence. The fence on either side of the gate didn't look like much, a few wooden posts and some wire and logs, but everyone seemed to be scared of it. There was something off about this town outside the gate but he couldn't put his finger on it. Also, how did the people inside the gate get out to hunt and get stronger? Stevens couldn't imagine the lord stays in there and doesn't leave to go grind levels and such.
Cody motioned for Stevens to come to him and when he got there, without a word, they started walking toward the gate again. Inside the two hundred foot distance line on the ground, two turrets popped up and started firing steel tipped wooden bolts at both of them. They weren't very strong but they were numerous, so they hid behind Cody's shield and walked forward. The turrets couldn't change their angle and they seemed to aim at their chest so it was easy to avoid as they walked closer. Stevens' spine tingled and he turned around, everyone, every single person that had been going about their day had stopped dead in their tracks and silently turned toward them with a predatory grin.
They didn't attack or come closer, they just watched, as if something else was going to happen, and from their looks it was going to come from higher up on the mountain. This changed everything, Stevens grabbed Cody by his non-shield arm and when they looked at each other, everything they needed to say was communicated. They dashed forward and Cody used a shield bash to blow open the gate, it blew apart into splitters and kindling immediately and they were through. Stevens looked back and the people's expressions hadn't changed, except their gaze seemed to be following something above them, and when he looked up, his jaw dropped open. Without being able to look away he grabbed Cody's head and made him look up as well.
His jaw dropped too and he couldn't help himself but to say, "Batman?"