“Tell me, young lads, what is your business here today?” asked the customs official.
“To see the inauguration!” Talynn replied, suddenly aware of how much less formal his accent was than that of the city folk.
“Excellent. Now, before you enter, the imperial guard will check your effects for weapons. Nothing to worry about, standard protocol, ” the man nodded for the guards to approach. After inspecting their meager possessions, the guards nodded back to the customs official.
“Perfect. You’ll find the marketplace at the center of the city on this side of the river, and the inauguration begins at noon. Enjoy your stay,” the man bowed cordially.
“Thanks,” Talynn and Mavence nodded in unison.
As soon as they entered the city they were overwhelmed by how different it was from anything they had ever known. Wealth and luxury overflowed around them. Houses made of light-tan stone and expensive dark wood framing lined the smooth light-gray cobblestone streets. Men wore vests and doublets over ruffled white shirts, women wore flare-sleeved gowns, and children ran about in multi-colored tunics. On the far side of the city lay an immense castle, with grand towers reaching into the sky. But what held their attention the most were the delicious aromas.
“Talynn. Are you smelling what I’m smelling?”
“Way ahead of you. I think we’ve found the marketplace!” The pair sprinted into the open public square, crowded with merchants, vendors, tourists, and common-folk. With mouths watering, they ran from booth to booth, trying to make the critical decision of what to stuff their faces with first. Having picked their first prizes, the pair sat down under a planted tree on the side of the road.
“You have to try this Mav. Oat bread with honey. I didn’t know bread could taste this good,” said Talynn, crumbs flying everywhere as he devoured the sweet bread.
“Ooh, try this hoggeth meat on a stick. It tastes so much better than meat not on a stick,” Mavence held out the wood skewer for Talynn to sample.
“Oh man, do you see that? They put some sort of sweet glaze on the meat that makes it taste even more amazing. Why is food here so much better?”
“So much better. Okay, books! I need to find books. Hey sir,” Talynn ran up to a nearby merchant. “Where can I find someone who sells books on lumi?”
“Lumi, eh? I wouldn’t bother learning that sorta thing, if ya ask me,” the man said, stroking his large black beard. “Tough to learn on your own, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone to teach you magic these days unless you’ve been accepted into the Mage’s Academy.”
“Well, I’m a determined person, I’ll find a way. I’m gonna be a great mage one day, no matter what. So where can I find the books?”
“I like your spirit, lad. Go a couple streets that way, just past the blacksmiths.”
“Blacksmiths? Yes! Come on, let’s go,” Mavence grabbed Talynn’s arm and began running, bubbling over with excitement. “Maybe I can finally get a real weapon!”
The sounds of the crowded square with vendors advertising their food and wares were replaced by the loud clanking of dozens of blacksmiths hammering away at their creations in their smithies. Talynn stopped to watch one of the blacksmiths heating up a bar of metal in his small forge. The kind-looking man noticed Talynn staring at him quizzically.
“Can I help you, young lad?”
“Yes, I have a question, if you don’t mind. How are you heating that hunk of metal without coal in your forge?” Talynn inquired.
“Coal? We don’t use coal around here. Our forges run on lumi,” the man replied. He opened up a panel on the side of the forge to show Talynn how it operated. A glowing orange crystal sat beneath the hearth and a smaller blue crystal sit in a slot near the side of the device. “This here luxstone provides the lumi which goes to this mutostone here. The mutostone changes the lumi into the fire element and heats up the forge.”
His curiosity satisfied, Talynn thanked the man for his time and followed Mavence as he continued browsing. Finding a booth displaying several swords, Mavence approached and attempted to speak to the person running it.
“Excuse me, are you selling any big swords?”
The young blacksmith behind the display had a short beard and long hair tied into a low ponytail. He remained silent as he replaced the luxstone powering the flames of his forge. Grabbing a well-used hand towel, he took his time wiping off the powdered iron that had been building up between his fingers. Finally, he turned his attention to Mavence, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his table as he addressed the boy in a monotone voice.
“According to city regulations, we cannot sell longswords, spears, polearms, halberds, maces, battle axes, and other large weapons unless you have documentation proving you are a member of the imperial guard or a trainee in the knights academy. Non-military citizens can purchase shortswords, knives, daggers, or hand tools.”
“Shortsword it is then," nodded Mavence.
“That’ll be forty silver coins for the sword and sheath.”
“Done,” Talynn deposited the coins on the table.
“Thank you, sir,” Mavence nodded politely, throwing the sheath strap over his shoulder before departing.
“Look at this, Talynn, a real iron sword with a sheath! It has weight to it, not like those sticks we used to play with,” Mavence said with a giddy energy as he admired the sword. The blade was of polished iron and the hilt bronze. Though of simple craftsmanship, it was still leagues better than anything he had held before.
“It fits you perfectly. Now I need to find myself some good books.”
Talynn’s search quickly landed him a pile of books from various vendors down the street. As he was about to reconvene with Mavence, who was still browsing various weapons at the blacksmith’s area, a voice called to him.
“Hey you! Come here, kid,” a heavyset vendor from further down the street beckoned to Talynn, his tone warm and fatherly. “You wear the traditional hat of a mage, I see. Ever heard of lux chalk?”
“Nope, what’s that?” Talynn eagerly hurried over and dropped his books onto the vendor’s table.
“Watch this,” the vendor took a cylindrical piece of silvery gray chalk and drew a large circle on the table. After sketching different geometric patterns and runes within it, the vendor channeled his lumi into the tip of his finger and touched the edge of the circle. A yellow light began racing through the patterns in the chalk. After it reached the center, the lumi rose into the air and focused into a point a few inches above the table.
“Whoa!” Talynn exclaimed as a spinning ball of fire the size of an apple burst into existence for a few seconds before vanishing in a puff of smoke.
“See that? A simple fireball spell. With lux chalk, you can draw an inscription circle and activate it using your lumi. It’s used to help mage apprentices learn how to cast spells. The spells won’t be very powerful, but it’s a great teaching tool for beginners. And, if you buy a stick of chalk now, I’ll throw in a free book of spells. How does that sound?”
“I’ll take it!” Talynn staggered back to Mavence, struggling to carry the pile of goods in his arms.
“Here, let me stick these in your bag. Man, I’m so excited to try this out,” Talynn eagerly thumbed through the book of inscriptions. “Flame spells, ice trap spells, shock spells, wind cutter spells, it has it all!”
“Satisfied yet?”
“Yep,” Talynn nodded to Mavence. “Shall we head to the inauguration? I think we can take a shortcut through this alley.”
“That dark and shady one that you can smell from here?” Mavence wrinkled his nose.
“Yep. If it smells that bad then it probably means it’s empty, which means we can cut through the crowd."
“Great idea. Nothing bad ever happens in a dark alleyway,” Mavence rolled his eyes. As the pair began working their way between wooden crates and piles of garbage, the late morning light of the sun suddenly became as dark as dusk. The noise of the crowded marketplace around them became muffled, as if it lay behind a thick oak door.
“Talynn, stop! What is this? Everything’s dark, is this some kind of spell?” Mavence tugged on his friend’s arm and pulled them behind a crate, speaking in a low voice.
“I dunno, I’ve never seen anything like this,” Talynn said as the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
“I don’t like this. Let’s get out of here,” Mavence started to get up, but Talynn quickly yanked him back to their hiding spot, holding his finger to his lips in in a hush sign. They slowly peeked around the corner of the crate and beheld a short male figure in a dark green cloak walking through the opposite side of the alley.
“The field is up, imp. We can do business,” said a lone street vendor in the middle of the hidden alleyway. His booth was smaller than the ones on the public streets, the sides covered with ragged cloth so that one had to be directly in front of the booth to see inside.
“I’d recommend not referring to a Furvusian as an ‘imp’. We take offense to that,” the cloaked figure said testily.
“Look, I’m not here to make you feel warm and fuzzy inside. I’m here to make some coin. You gonna buy my wares or complain about your hurt feelings?”
“Don’t test my patience, human. You have my package?”
“That I do. Two unlocked mutostones, one fire, and one ice, as requested. I expect payment in full, seeing as how the cost to craft these stones and smuggle them into the city is quite high,” said the vendor, pointing to the trade table with his thick, grimy hands.
“Are these the real deal?”
“Of course. Handmade these myself. Looks just like a normal mutostone, but these have far higher power levels than city regulations allow. Just remember not to activate them at the same time when they’re close to one another. If they start to resonate it will cause stress fractures in the stone, at which point one or both will probably explode.”
“Noted,” the Furvusian man quickly tossed a large sack of gold coins onto the table and pulled back sleeves up on his cloak, revealing leather gauntlets covering his hands and forearms. He placed each stone into a metallic slot on the back of his hands, one glowing hot orangeand the other cold blue as he ran his lumi through them.
“I’m lowering the field now. I don’t want to know what you’re doing with them, you didn’t get them here, and we never talked. I can’t be seen doing business with an imp. Begone!”
“So be it. I have an appointment at noon I don’t want to miss.” As the cloaked man exited the alley the way he came, Talynn and Mavence scrambled out the other direction, running as fast as they could. The sunlight returned and the sounds of the crowd became as loud and crisp as before.
“Was it just me or did that whole thing look shady to you?” Mavence said between heavy breaths after they reached a good distance from the alley.
“Get it, because it was real dark in there-”
“Oh, shut up. Seriously, what were those guys talking about? I don’t understand this magic stuff.”
“Well from what that said said, when you have a magic-powered tool or device, it’s usually powered by a luxstone or the user’s lumi, which then goes through a mutostone to transmute the lumi into elemental energy,” Talynn explained, drawing air diagrams with his fingers. “Then you can use that to do things like smelting, freezing, air slicing, and so on. I'm guessing mutostones have a limit on how much lumi you can channel into them for safety, but if the safety limit was removed then…”
“Then what?”
“That’s the kind of thing you would use for a weapon, not a tool. I don’t think he’s doing anything good with those stones. He did say he has an appointment at noon. Wait, that’s when the inauguration starts! Come on, we need to tell the imperial guard.”
After finding the nearest guard and explaining the situation, they received only an amused laugh.
“So you went into an alleyway where the sun was darkened and some evil person said they were going to do something bad. You kids have quite the active imagination. Go run along now and play,” the guard shooed them off.
“I’d say we should tell someone else, but I think the story will sound just as ridiculous to them,” Talynn said as they took a seat on the side of the road. “There’s only one thing we can do.”
“If the adults won’t do anything, then we’ll have to stop them ourselves,” Mavence nodded.
“Do you think we can do it?”
“I’m strong and you’re smart. We can do it. I trust that clever brain of yours.”
“All right,” Talynn smiled. “Let’s head to the inauguration. We need to get as close to the emperor as possible. We’ve got a bad guy to stop.”
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