Fresh stares out of the cart in wide-eyed bewilderment, as the desert wind, carrying a circulating heat, pushes against her face as they ride into the city. The wide open road quickly tightens up, as they enter through and past a giant gate, adorned with two westward facing statues on the outside of it. Both of the giant depictions of some people of note, long since left in the past, wear what look to be light cloth and leather raiments and carry elegant weapons to match. The gate, as always, is unguarded, except by these two behemoths.

Warm lights shine out of the many open windows and soothing smells of cooking dinner and fragrant teas fill the air. People walk around in all directions, even in this later hour of the day, all of them are wearing loose, billowing clothes with only ever a few small strips of metal or leather at best to offer protection. Fresh hardly sees anyone wearing any full metal armor and she’s sure that she understands why.

She shivers, the warm air dropping very quickly in temperature, now that the sun has vanished. The wind itself, carrying the last of the residual heat from the sun-baked sands is the last sign of the desert heat to be felt, at least until sunrise, come tomorrow morning.

“It’s so pretty!” says Fresh, staring out past Basil.

Jubilee taps the priestess, pointing towards a large, three-story building at the end of the street. “That’s the adventurer’s guild. We’re stopping there.” Fresh checks her pocket, double-checking that she still has the big iron-key. She does.

“It certainly has a charm to it,” says Basil, looking around at the many small alleys that the cart could never hope to fit through. Tightly packed houses line the entire area, pressed snugly together, despite there being ample space in the desert. In-between many of them are small ponds, wells and fountains, constantly babbling with a never-ending trickle. The off-white, sand-tinged stone of the buildings takes on a shimmering, yellow hue, as the reflections of the houses’ lights bounce off of the water and then back towards them. They all seem to shimmer in a way that makes Fresh marvel, as they ride past the glowing spectacle.

A bell rings through the air. Fresh tenses up, looking around in a slight panic.

“It’s just the harbor, goo-brain,” says Jubilee, seeing her surprised face. “It’s the only port of call worth mentioning,” they explain. “It’s a good town to do business in. Lots of exotic goods, lots of sailors and foreigners who need them.”

Fresh blinks, she had never considered this, but.. there are other places? Places for the ships to go to? This makes sense, she supposes, it’s a whole world, after all. But.. she had just never really thought about it. For a brief, tiny instant, she considers asking her friends if they want to become pirates. But that seems silly, so she doesn’t.

The cart rolls to a stop as they reach the guild, the massive structure hidden behind a bridge and an oasis of palm fronds.

“Come on, we’re going inside,” says Jubilee to Fresh, nudging Basil in the side. “Pull the cart around to the right,” they explain. “There’s a stall there. We’ll take care of the inside-stuff.”

Basil nods. “Be careful,” she says.

“It’s the city, what’s there to be careful of?” asks Fresh.

Basil shrugs. “It just felt like the right thing to say,” smiles the priestess as Fresh and Jubilee get off. The anqa shoots her a dirty look and she retreats back a few steps. Basil whips the reins together and the cart rolls off and away around the building.

“It’s a good thing I kept my fluffy robe on,” says Fresh, rubbing her arms. “It’s cold here, Jubilee!”

Jubilee shakes their head. “Well yeah, it’s a desert.”

“I thought you said it would be hot here?”

“It is. During the day. It’s night now,” says Jubilee. Fresh frowns.

“Should we buy a ship and become pirates?” she asks, not being able to resist after all.

Jubilee stops. “Can you not say that in public? Do you want us to get hanged or something?” Jubilee stares at her, their hand stuck on the door-handle. “You know? I’ll be glad once I finally have a wall between me and you people again,” they sigh, opening the large, ornate door of the guild. It appears to be made out of a very dark-colored, close to blackened wood that Fresh can’t identify. There don’t seem to be any trees of a similar color around here. Maybe it’s just been painted? Yeah, that makes sense.

“Sorry,” mutters Fresh. Apparently pirates aren’t popular in this world. It makes sense too though, she supposes. Basil has warned her several times that military tensions are already high these days. So some third-party getting in the way and making life unnecessarily difficult for the economy would likely be dealt with swiftly and quickly. This last thought, she realizes, also applies to herself, in a sense.

Jubilee takes a deep breath, readying themselves and then the two of them enter into the guild. Fresh stays quiet, opting to just walk behind Jubilee and let them do the talking, before she does something dumb.

As the two of them step inside, Fresh isn’t sure what it is that she had expected this time. The northern guild was quiet and somber. The western guild was a wild, boisterous party and here? The eastern adventurer’s guild?

A man’s voice booms around her ears, Fresh immediately flinches as they step inside of the guild, stopping herself just before she grabs Jubilee in surprise. The smell of sweet liquor and of damp wood fills the salty air. This guild too, is filled with song, but in a different way than in the first guild.

“THE NORTH-WIND BLOWS UNTO THE SHORES~” booms the singular, very deep voice of a clearly drunk seaman in an upwards tone, who is standing atop the bar at the end of the room. A crowd is around him, encompassed by equally dressed sailors. Fresh looks around the bar, it’s entirely full. Some people are adventurers, as expected, but a large swath of the makeup of the room are sailors, judging by their matching, fabric uniforms.

Boots stamp down from dozens of feet at once, shaking the entire floor of the room as nearly everyone joins in on the shanty.

“Fucking sailors,” mutters Jubilee quietly, dragging her to the bar.

The entire room joins in, their sea-salt scored, drunken voices mixing together to bring the tone of their voices back down. “Of a place, we'll leave to find once more~”

They walk to the side of the bar, Fresh waves over to the barkeeper, hidden behind the reveling man who stands atop it, spilling his drink everywhere as he sings. “Excuse me,” she calls. “We’d like to check in,” says Fresh, showing her key to the figure who she can’t make out. The figure, polishing a glass, sets it down carefully onto a shelf behind themselves and walks over. “We have a cart outside too.”

Fresh freezes, her hand clutching Jubilee’s in sudden terror as the elven woman walks around the bar and faces their way. Her dusty, blonde hair is tucked back behind her ears, leaving only a few dangling bangs hovering down before her burn-scarred face.

The barkeeper from the north.

The three of them stand there, frozen, looking at each other as the shanty continues to ring on around them. Fresh doesn’t know what to do, she feels her heart thrashing in her chest, sweat pearling on her skin. Out of the corner of her eyes, she sees Jubilee’s hand reaching instinctively for their belt. But their satchel of dirt is gone, they had thrown it at the wolves back then. What is she doing here?

The barkeeper looks around the room, averting her gaze for a moment, before turning back to them. “The room is through the door to the right. I’ll lock up your cart in a few minutes. I’ll meet you outside,” says the elf, walking away to fill up some empty glasses.

Jubilee squeezes her hand and drags her back outside, very quickly.

Razmatazz

-) Welp, that lasted long.

-) Guess what? DIS chapters 1-110 have been edited, proofread and the tables have been unshittified. You can now buy DIS 'Book 1' on Amazon for your amazon kindle (Paperback 'soon'). The story is still free to read here, no worries. So you might be wondering... Razzmatazz, why? For what purpose? BECAUSE GIVE ME YOUR MONEY. That's why. (No Kindle Unlimited, because I don't want to go amazon exclusive)

Thank you kindly for reading!

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