Chapter 38 – City on the Edge (2)
The offshoot tunnel was shorter than I initially expected, not more than a steep incline leading through the darkness to a little circle of light that steadily expanded into the tunnel’s opening as I walked closer.
Fwoooo.
A faint howling sound pricked my ears and grew louder with each step towards the tunnel until I stood at the mouth of it and gazed into a seemingly solid white wall of a raging blizzard, flakes of snow drifting into the tunnel and settling on its edges, lting quickly from the warmth of the tunnels.
While I was happy to see natural light again, there really wasn’t much else to see from there, and it beca evident why Krylla had mapped out a path through the tunnels rather than the shortest path out.
—Walking through the blizzard would have been tantamount to suicide for , who had no Item Bag, no true supplies to keep warm, and no shelter. It would have been difficult for even equipped travelers to pass through the raging snowstorm.
It made wonder if the snowstorm was constant. It was at least a regular occurrence, seeing as Krylla had specifically mapped the route for to go under it.
Fwoooo.
I stood and watched the howling storm for a few monts longer before turning around and heading back down the tunnel.
***
The rest of the journey through the tunnels was fairly uneventful. It took a few hours, most of which I stayed on the move and continued to hear things moving around , just outside of my senses.
I wandered upon more bones and the dilapidated remains of other adventurers, but there was nothing left worth looting on what remained of their corpses, items long ago taken by others passing by or by the creatures of the tunnels.
Finally, the faint scratches in the ceiling I had been sensing through my echo sight continued up through a gradual incline, leading to a tunnel exit through which chilly air wafted down.
The night sky greeted my ergence, stars twinkling brightly overhead in the clear sky, absent of the light pollution common back on Earth. Of course, the stars in the sky were completely different after the rge, wherever we had been transported to being very clearly a separate place, or even ti, from the Earth that humanity had known.
The world after the rge even had its own moons, three celestial bodies that orbited far overhead, smaller than what I had been used to on Earth. The ambient light they gave off on a good night was about equivalent to a bright, moonlit night from the world I had grown up in.
Notably, the sky was clear of clouds or signs of storms. It was still cold, but the snow had faded, and though a light layer of snow remained constant from when it had last fallen there, the mountaintop I erged from was only lightly powdered in it.
From where I stood on a circular, flat platform near the mountain’s peak, I saw the city far below , just a bit past the base of the mountain—the City on the Edge.
Looking at it from up there, it was clear why it had been called that.
The city quite literally was situated on the edge of a massive drop-off in the terrain. I could only initially see it as an inky black void beyond the city and the mountain range it was situated in, almost like the city was on the edge of an abyssal ocean.
As for the city itself, the walls of it were irregular, and the city didn’t look very carefully planned. Orange pillars of light that I could see from far above on the mountaintop were erected around the city, seemingly at random, and the city’s largest structure, akin more to a palace than a castle, balanced precariously on the furthest edge of the city itself.
The seeping cold snapped out of my awe, the cold burning my ears and hands.
Judging from how high up I was and how far the city still was, it would be another few hours of trekking down the mountain before I reached the gates of the city itself.
It was far too cold for such a journey, as ill-equipped for the cold as I was, so I decided to turn back and retreat to the warmth of the tunnels for the night, choosing a place down the tunnel that was comfortably warm enough so that the cold didn’t bring pain while also not so far down that I was back in the tunnel system itself with the creatures that had followed along my journey. I was not eager for their company again, the image of the snakelike thing still fresh in my mind.
I slept through the rest of the night, waking up at so point when the daylight penetrated dimly into the tunnel.
When I erged again out onto the mountaintop, the air still bit at , though not as ferociously as it had during the night. The sun above provided a protective warmth, and the light wind could have been much worse.
Looking again at the city in the morning light, I saw the edge for what it truly was—the edge of the world itself. That was the best way I could describe it. It was a steep drop-off of the terrain that continued far down out of sight, through a hazy covering of… clouds?
The climb down the mountain was easier than I had initially imagined it would be, a crude pathway/staircase of sorts winding its way down the mountain and providing foot and handholds on the steepest descents.
It still took so ti, but it wasn’t like I was trying to free-climb down the mountain as I had originally thought I would be doing.
The light powder coating the mountain softened my footfalls, and I eventually found myself looking ahead at the walk across the flat, snowy plain.
* * *
Reaper Scans
[Author – Farlight]
[Proofreader – Harley]
Join our discord for updates on releases! sdsc.gg/reapercomics
* * *
After the walk, the city gates finally lood before . I could see the occasional traveler coming or going, but the size of the gates seed to contrast the small trickle of travelers.
What’s more, on the final section of the plains to the city, bumps that I had originally assud were rocks or boulders revealed themselves to be the well-preserved corpses of recently killed monsters that looked like sothing between mutated bison with squidlike faces and tentacles.
My eyes traced over the innurable mounds jutting out of the snow as I approached the bored-looking group of guards at the gate entrance.
Surprisingly, the guards were a mix of different races, each wearing a matching red suit of leather armor, equipped with weapons of varying classes, with another human stepping forward to greet .
“Tattoo?”
‘Tattoo?’
He spoke as if I should have already known what he was talking about. I guessed that the city didn’t get many new guests.
The guardsman took in my obvious confusion and sighed.
“A new one then, huh?”
The guard shuffled around his belt and reached into his Item Bag for a few monts before pulling out a tal vambrace with leather fastening straps.
“Do you already know the protocol?”
His voice had a sowhat hopeful, questioning tone to it. I could tell it was sothing he didn’t want to have to repeat.
“No… I don’t. This is my first ti here, sorry.”
It wasn’t quite what I had expected. They weren’t even going to question how I had found them? I had thought that the city was supposed to be a secret of so sort.
The man exhaled a long breath.
“In order to enter the city, you must swear to a vow of secrecy, stating that you will not tell others about the city. To secure your vow, a seal will be placed on your wrist, which will warn the city and explode if you break said vow. If you refuse the vow of secrecy, because you have already made it to the city, we will have no choice but to execute you. Do you accept?”
Despite the threat in his ssage, the man spoke in a bored tone, already knowing what my answer would be. It was more of a formality, it seed. Who would decline such a contract in front of them, after all?
“Sure… I accept.”
The man held the vambrace up between us.
“Hold out your hand for the seal.”
I reached my hand out, my sleeve reaching down to my wrist.
“Pull back your sleeve,” the guard said as he rolled his eyes.
I pulled back the sleeve and watched as he slid the vambrace over my hand. The vambrace ca to a rest on my forearm and he tightened the leather straps before resting his hand on it.
The cool tal ward as it emanated a purple glow for a few monts. Sothing scratched over my skin, almost giving off a burning sensation.
Sothing about the glow felt wrong to , familiar. I knew I had felt the sensation before, but I wasn’t quite sure how to put my finger on it. I even suspected then that the seal wasn’t quite what it seed, but I had no such actual evidence to back up my suspicion.
Then the man unfastened the vambrace and pulled it back.
The purple tattoo left behind on my skin looked like a series of ovals spiraling through each other around a set of horns at its center.
I examined the tattoo through the System.
[[Seal of Secrecy
This seal guards a secret kept by a pact.
-If the owner of the seal breaks the pact, they will receive punishnt.]]
{{-This seal has the power to act as a focus for certain spells.}}
Reviews
All reviews (0)