The Unbidden: A New World (1) (Long Parts)

Chapter 3 (Part 1)

The city was amazing. When it finally came into view, I almost dropped the piece of stale bread I was eating. Even from miles away, I could see tall structures towering over a wall that appeared small at first. The closer we got, however, the bigger the wall grew, and the taller the buildings got.

Spaced around the wall were ballistae, and in between each ballista were at least ten archers. The stone wall looked like it was made of several ton blocks at least a foot thick, and six feet in width.

The gate was taller than the tallest beast we'd seen so far, standing about thirty feet above.

This place is a literal fortress, I thought.

The buildings that stood taller than the walls were thin with a single, large green orb situated in the center at the top below a pointed roof of each one. When we arrived just before the gate, I took a casual glance around. The city was so large that the wall stretched on for at least a mile either way.

Thea didn't seem too excited, but I doubted much really excited her. She was God, after all. I looked passed some of the carts in front of us, peering into the city beyond the walls.

Every building I saw was made of stone save the roofs, and most were a dull grey. The ones that weren't had red stone, green stone or some shade in between. The streets were absolutely packed. It reminded me of the Big Apple from back in my universe.

At the gate, we were met by several individuals wearing full plated steel armor. Some had longswords, others halberds. The soldiers had a crest emblazoned on their right pauldron depicting a phoenix spreading its wings over a castle.

Gillfreid talked to the approaching soldiers, pulled out some papers and pointed to us. The guards nodded and motioned for us to continue.

We had to travel a couple hours more before finally reaching our destination.

"Thank you for your services," Gillfreid said, turning to us as he hopped off his wagon.

"It's no problem. That was our job, after all," I nodded.

"I'll be sure to put in a good word with my guild about you. Final Bastion, was it?"

"Yessir, we appreciate it greatly. What was your guild name, by the way?"

I moved the wagon a little more to the side of the road, to get out of the way of people behind.

"Valen's Merchant Guild," he said proudly.

"I'll be sure to keep them in mind."

With that, Jayde hopped off his wagon and watched as he rode off. As I was about to continue, Thea cleared her throat from behind.

"What?" I asked, turning to look.

"Mayhap you will offer a ride?" her eyes shifted off me to somewhere else.

Jayde was looking at us as though she wanted to speak, but couldn't find the words.

Ah, that's what she means, I thought.

"Would you like to ride along? We don't know the area, so it'd be nice to have someone to guide us around."

"S – Sure," she replied in surprise.

She climbed onto the passenger seat and led us around until we found someplace to eat. Stale bread and the like wasn't a good source of nutrition.

As one would expect of a city, there were ample amounts of places to lay our heads and fill our stomachs. We got some food at a place called Rolleg's. If it weren't for Jayde's family giving me so much gold, I probably wouldn't have been able to afford it. The food was pretty good, but I felt that one-hundred-twenty silver for three people was too much.