Ely had seen it before, and now even Luca had. Riky wondered — how in the world could a ship made of heavy steel fly in the sky so easily? He had heard the noise, but by the ti he ca out from the basent of the shop he worked in, it was already gone.
"Who does it belong to? Lord Keeper can easily fly.." Riky wondered aloud.
"It has to be for taking other people with him, right? No one other than Lord Keeper could build sothing like that," Ely guessed.
They finished their al and walked leisurely to the north gate of the Sanctuary. They knew it was late and they wouldn’t be allowed outside the city walls, but maybe they would make an exception — no one really knew what the thing was, after all.
But alas, the guards stopped them. And when they asked what it was that the Lord Keeper had built, the guards too had no idea. No one was allowed to go near or ask while Lord Keeper worked there all day.
Lord Keeper could build massive buildings and towering statues in minutes — what could possibly take him an entire day to construct?
Riky, Luca, and Ely returned to their modest hut. It wasn’t the sa one their father had built — that one had been destroyed. It was, in fact, how they had found Luca.
When refugees from the villages and border towns had started arriving in the city, the slums beca packed. There were barely any jobs available, and food was scarce. The Sanctum distributed food once in a while, but they couldn’t do it every day. Many n used to go outside the city to hunt animals and monsters — the only way they could fill their bellies.
If Ely and Riky had arrived in the city during that period, they surely would’ve found no jobs at all. Their employers weren’t kind in the slightest, and they had worked far more than they were ever paid. But at the end of the day, they were still among the lucky few who barely missed a al. Many families were living in far worse conditions.
It was during this ti that cri was at an all-ti high in Sanctuary. The city didn’t have enough guards or knights patrolling.
One day, their hut was attacked and ransacked — so n thought they were hiding all their money there. Luca had seen it all and stopped Ely and Riky from returning while the n were still inside, frustrated they hadn’t found anything valuable.
They didn’t have anything of value to begin with.
Food prices were so high they themselves barely managed to eat for a month on two incos.
Now, they were older. Riky was fifteen, Luca eighteen, and Ely seventeen. The Sanctum gave food every day now. Prices had co down enough for them to enjoy one night of luxury food each week.
Since that day, Riky and Ely had lived with Luca in his hut. He had been an orphan from birth. His earliest mories were of playing in the town that once stood where Sanctuary now did.
He had lived on the streets his whole life and taught himself everything. Ely and Riky tried to teach him how to speak properly and not use the village-folk accent so much. Ely, among the three, could even read — she was the smartest of them all.
Luca worked in a smithy, Riky in a store, and Ely in a tavern.
Not easy jobs by any ans — but they were happy with their lives.
The next day, all three woke up early and got ready. They didn’t want to be late for work again, but they also wanted to see what Lord Keeper had built.
When they reached near the gate, a crowd had already ford there.
It took them twenty minutes just to get out of the massive gate. But when they finally did — Riky’s eyes widened, even though he had no idea what exactly he was looking at.
So kiloters away from the gates, in the middle of the open green fields, strange steel rings were placed. Each ring had a three-step steel platform, the front of which glowed with a bright sky blue hue.
A runic device! But what did it do? And why were there over twenty of them, placed on both sides of the main road, lined up side by side?
There was even a wooden fence separating each line in front of the strange tal rings. At the start of the wooden fences were boards, and beside them stood soldiers and Sanctum officials.
"What does it say?" Luca asked as they walked nearer to the strange structures.
Another crowd had gathered here as well, though it was thinner. The whole stretch had been fenced up, with gates placed at regular intervals to stop anyone from approaching the steel structures directly.
The wooden fence stretched for kiloters.
Ely looked at the boards for a while, then replied,
"Greywick, Thornbridge, Redhollow, Ashbourne, Cinderfield, Eastre, Highadow, Northmarch.."
"Eastre?" Riky echoed.
That was the town closest to their old village.
"Oh! This broad can read!"
"Did she say Redhollow?"
"Highadow?"
"Aren’t all those towns lined up from here to the north border of the Sanctuary?"
The crowd around them began murmuring on their own.
"..That’s not all—" one of the old burly n spoke up, "All those towns the girl nad? They’re the ones with a dungeon."
"Dungeon town nas? What are those for?" Luca asked, just as confused as Riky.
"Rember those big blue magical circles Lord Keeper made when he went to fight the Faerunians on the border?" Ely asked, her eyes sparkling with excitent.
"Yes," Riky nodded. Everyone in the crowd was also paying attention now, eager to hear what she had figured out.
"Lord Keeper’s spell — the one that lets him travel hundreds of kiloters at once.."
"It could be that!" Ely said excitedly. "The runic devices could send people to all the towns I nad — in a minute!"
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