Chapter Fifty-three

The City of Vasselheim

We all went below deck again to play another game of cards. Jörgen went back to bed, and Keothi just watched, but the others all joined in. After watching for most of the journey, I decided I'd try a hand at it. I needed a distraction after the fight. I threw a piece of gold on the table so I'd be dealt in.

I took one look at the card I was dealt and knew there was little hope of winning. Better to cut my losses, I'd seen how much could be lost over cards. Why had I decided to play? At least it was only one gold piece.

The crew member that was playing that hand won, taking twenty-six gold pieces. Ari'yasa had been confident she'd win, but the crew member barely bested her.

A day or two later, the sky cleared up, making the journey more comfortable above deck again, though it was still cold. At last, a day later we heard the call we'd been waiting for. "Land ho!"

I could begin to see it, in front of the ship. There it was, Fenraas, my ancestral home. A mountain range grew over the horizon. The land grew closer and closer through the hour. The captain started shouting orders to prepare for our approach.

The ship descended and landed in the water. Naidaroe explained to me that no flying vessels were allowed in Vasselheim. We landed in a bay, then traveled up a river. Forests blocked our view of the city, but I felt more at home than I had in weeks. I breathed in the sweet scent of the trees, mixed with the salty sea air.

There were towers along the banks. They started as small stone outposts, but got bigger the closer we got to the city. They were four or five storeys tall by the time we reached the walls of the city. The walls themselves were about three storeys high, and ended in towers when they met the water. One tower had a statue of a paladin, and the other had a statue of a wizard.

There were little houses with docks and fishing boats strewn along the banks the closer we got to the city. The city looked to be about as large as Emildan, though a little more spread out, and not quite as tall. It was almost as if it had been squished. The city itself climbed into the mountains, with a majestic effect.

We pulled into the dock, fairly far into the city. There were actually docks for a long way through the city. Allura came up to us as we waited for the gangplank. "You're welcome to stay on the ship, the ship will be in port for several days, if you need it, or we can get some rooms at a local inn or tavern."

Everyone wanted to board off the ship— surprisingly, especially Naidaroe. But this was where she had spent many years learning magic. There were some large warehouses just off the docks, but in the center of the city was a huge marketplace, even bigger than the ones that were in Emildan. Once, I'd thought Raishan was huge, but it seemed the more I traveled, the more I felt like I came from a small town.

There were people of so many different races moving throughout the city. Some I recognized, most I did not. I saw a few half-orcs, which I'd seen a time or two before. There were a few races that seemed goblinoid, which made my heart jump. I assumed that the fact they were roaming free in the city meant that they were not part of the goblins that were invading my homeland.

Of course, there were elves, but also gnomes, and even dwarves. At one point I saw someone that looked like a turtle walking by. Someone that looked like a cat walked into one of the shops. There were so many things to learn about in this city, I wanted to spend so much time learning, but I had to remind myself that I had greater things to attend to, and I didn't want a dragon getting mad at me for dawdling in my mission.

I'd asked Naidaroe if she knew of any archery contests in the city. Keothi's contest in Emildan got me thinking of ways I could earn gold in the same way. There was a festival with all sorts of contests, but it was still several months away. We couldn't wait that long.

There was a large fountain in the main part of the city. There were symbols on it that represented different types of trades pointing to different parts of the city. I was impressed with the organization of the city. One section had symbols of many deities that I recognized, including some of the betrayer gods. That part of the fountain pointed towards a religious district. There were several references to the Platinum Dragon.

All sorts of languages were written on the fountain, reading the same thing in each language. There was even Draconic, Primordial, and some of the dark languages. There was a phrase repeated several times in each language, "All races and all magic in cooperation."

I was worried that my mixed race might stick out, but with all the other varying races around, my own wasn't going to stand out any more than another. What stood out more was the clothes I was wearing. Everyone else was wearing common clothes, and my woodland attire stood out in this warm, seaside city.

I was content to stay with my friends and watch the people around me. Melima started wandering down one of the streets, the third main one from the left. Naidaroe had disappeared into the city as soon as we disembarked, and Keothi headed towards a blacksmith, but the rest of us stayed together.

She entered a stone building with an arcane symbol on it. The building was three storeys high, and was neatly kept. The interior was fine, with velvet curtains, and ornate cases throughout the room. The cases were filled with what seemed to be random objects, decks of cards, rings, little carvings, and wands. Hanging on the wall was a broom that looked much like my own. There were also several robes on the walls. In one corner was a shield, staff, and a large sword.

Melima went up to the storekeeper, a human with dark skin. He wasn't much shorter than Keothi and had a similar build. She asked about one of the decks of cards. It was a deck of illusions, which would make an illusion appear on the ground when a card was thrown on the ground.

He explained that they could be used for a distraction or scaring another creature. The deck was rather expensive though, several thousand gold pieces. Evidently it was pretty rare to find.

He also showed her some earrings that would let us talk to each other at a distance, a cloak that would give whoever wore it some of the abilities of a spider, resisting poison and helping them to climb. That one was fifteen-thousand gold. I got concerned that she was going to spend too much money. "Just remember Sindus," I whispered to her.

Ari'yasa asked what the proprietor knew about magical blue stones, but didn't give enough information about whatever she wanted to know about for the shopkeeper to know what she was referring to, and she gave up. He did refer her to a jewelry store to try learning more.

Melima started talking about the main reason we were on Fenraas. "Have you heard about what's going on with the Tree, or what's going on with the elves?"

"I have heard some things that have been going on in the Elven community, yes. That there is some sort of problem, though I don't have all the details."

"Yeah," Ari'yasa said, "we're going to fix that."

"Well, good for you. I hope that some of my items may be able to help you," The man said. Melima asked him more questions, but he really didn't know much about it at all.

He did confirm that half-elves were not being affected. I'd assumed so, they needed to sleep anyway, but it was good to know. He suggested a ring of mind shielding that he was curious if it might help block whatever was interfering with our connection to the Tree. Melima bought it. Compared to other things he was showing, the five-hundred gold for it wasn't much.

Melima also asked about resurrection for someone whose body was gone. He told us that we needed to find a high ranking cleric, or an archdruid, who were the only ones he knew of that could perform that type of magic.

I motioned to the broom on the wall. "How much is that broom worth?"

He smiled. "I see you have one."

"I do," I said, smiling back.

"That one I enchanted myself, I sell for about five-thousand gold pieces." That was more than I thought it would be worth. I wasn't interested in selling, or buying another one, but it was handy information to have.

Jörgen asked about a bag of holding, like Melima's bag. The proprietor only had a smaller version. Jörgen wanted it, but didn't have enough money, and Melima refused to loan out any more.

Melima haggled for both the ring and the earrings. We were about to leave, and Ari'yasa invited him to go drinking that night. She offered to buy, and he suggested his favorite shop. She'd been flirting with him the whole time we were there, and I didn't care to know how her social hour went.

We all split off after leaving the shop. I found some woodcarvers and learned more about the woods in the area. I'd learned on the voyage that there were a number of rare woods grown around the city. The smell of sawdust and wood shavings brought me home. I tried to focus on learning about the wood, and not thinking about what was going on back at Raishan.

Jörgen had gone to a map shop, and once we got back to the inn, he gave us a rough sketch of the maps and routes he'd seen. There was the route up to Ankharel, which would take us through a dangerous desert, though Ari'yasa mentioned that if we went there she might be able to get in contact with an archdruid to help with resurrection spells. Allura asked a few more questions about that.

There was also a route that skirted around the desert, going along the side of the mountains up to a pass through the mountains. Otherwise, we were going along the coast to get around the southern edge of the mountains before turning north again, through grasslands, before even reaching the land of the wood elves.

While Ari'yasa and Melima went drinking, I asked around about what dangers might be found on either way around the mountains. The southern route was the safest, though it took much longer than any other route. It had its dangers though, traveling along the coast exposed you to ships, and the grasslands had many subterranean creatures living in them.

Going along the mountains to the pass, there was a possibility of both desert and mountainous creatures, and one man told me of legends of huge stone creatures that were known to inhabit the pass and fling rocks at carts and caravans. It didn't seem that they robbed them, but he also didn't know how true the reports were, or if it was just a fantastic explanation for rockfalls.

A few people told me about some of the dangers of the desert, the main one being sandworms. The best way to travel through there was by camel, or other animals that traveled with a soft foot.

Before we retired for the night, we gathered together to determine our route we'd take the next morning. Melima and I both thought that traveling up to the pass along the mountains would be best, but Ari'yasa really wanted to go to Ankharel. Keothi wouldn't be able to ride a camel, which would be a problem, though Jörgen heard that it would be possible to have some kind of modified cart to go along the sand.

We could make it work, but it would be expensive, dangerous, and besides Ari'yasa wanting to go there, I didn't see any point in taking that route. Melima asked her. "What's in Ankharel that you need to go back for?"

"That's private," Ari'yasa said. After an awkward silence, she continued, "I have unfinished business to attend to."

"How come you can't tell us?" Melima asked.

"I'm looking for someone I left behind." She wouldn't say anything more about it.

We all agreed that it wasn't a strong enough reason for us all to go the most dangerous route, and take longer to get to Felspring, and it was decided to go along the mountains to the pass.