Each breath was an effort in this highland abode. The air was thin and cool. Sun beat down ever more intensely than in the lowlands, with little shade to keep it at bay.

  “Good thing the Interface provides a basic sunblock,” Zilara said as the party navigated a rough trail. “If anyone needs something stronger, I can craft it up. Used to be out on the glacier, the sun all reflected right into your face and made—”

  “Unnecessary,” Enkidu said.

  “I’ll be fine,” Jelena said. “Calaf’s the one not built for heat. You okay back there, dear?”

  Calaf trudged along in his heavy armor. Endurance allowed him to carry the party’s treasure haul, but the Agility stat had yet to catch up.

  The capital plateau was sprawling, large enough to be split into dozens of vestigial fiefs and small holds in the rural areas outside the city walls. Ancient keeps from the pre-Demon Age were visible upon the plateau, most still staffed by a lord or lady with some nominal degree of power. This power had waned greatly in the church age and faltered further following Joan’s rebellion, but a baron would command respect in the capital.

  The wide brick road of the pilgrim’s path continued ramrod straight to the city gates. Despite the grand and ornate boulevard, weeds and shrubs grew through cracks. A line of thorny ankle-height weeds crowded around the gate itself. They would be trampled underfoot by throngs of high-level pilgrims in time. For now, though, diminutive Zilara tiptoed over the shrubs.

  A double-door gate wide and tall enough for a dozen carts of dire-horses to ride through with room to spare for foot traffic. Only the leftmost door was open, and the party met no other travelers leaving or going. Shadows reigned in a mammoth gatehouse where not even a torch or sconce was lit. It was enough for Calaf and his friend’s eyes to adjust to the dark, then approach a wall of blinding light leading out into the city.

  The Olde Capital awaited. A cracked bridge built for a metropolis ran straight north-south. It intersected with a raised east-west boulevard at the city’s midpoint. There at a circular tower running from the ground up taller than the city walls, awaited a multi-floor market.

  Auxiliary bridges, platforms, and wooden trestles shot out from the twin raised roads into four equal quadrants. Modest brick manses and wide artificial parks lined narrow thoroughfares. This was the central, ‘ground’ level of the capital.

  There wasn’t enough wood on the continent to cover even a single quadrant. Below the street level was a shadowed undercity of rowhouses in an older, more utilitarian style. The land here had been scooped out of the hard stone of the plateau by the bucket, the material recycled to build the bridge-roads and buildings.

  Stone archways crisscrossed the sky above the street. It was the only shade from the harsh highland sun. This was the third level of the city, and the most recent. Hailing from the four centuries-past Demon Age, most of the structures there were outgrowths of the city’s walls. Still, a prodigious Agility stat allowed the daring to crisscross around the canopy.

  Two roads, a grand bazaar, four quadrants on two and a half levels. All hemmed in by quarter-league thick walls. Such was the topography of the Olde Capital. A fortress city, its founders fled to the defensible plateau at the dawn of the Demon Age. It was they who spent a generation building the walls, sans Interface, and they who both built towards the sky and into the Earth.

  It hadn’t helped. The Demon King was a mobile entity, once upon a time, and it had set up an extended court on the far side of the plateau to oversee its subjugation of humanity. The modal demon could fly, rendering walls nearly useless. The sunken-in undercity proved a prison as all-encompassing as Priestess Mia’s Southern Shackled Asylum.

  The ancient capital had remained bustling for a century after the formation of the church; the bazaar was a church creation to supply wayfaring pilgrims, and there were churches on the uppermost level above both the south and west gates. In time, though, the population of the world filtered back down into the more hospitable lowlands. They brought their Brands with them, spreading their shackled status through missionary work and general intermixing with unaffected settlements. Church power rose steadily from one decade to the next, the ranks of faithful ever increasing.

  The party walked, seeing only a handful of travelers on the road. Small groups of six or fewer milled about in the adjacent parks with an occasional pedestrian in the undercity. The capital was scaled for a population that was now spread continent-wide. All this infrastructure, serving but a fraction of its intended residents.

  “Guess this is base camp,” Zilara said as they walked north up the wide avenue.

  Jelena nodded. “Make for the bazaar. We’ll buy everything we can and head west tomorrow.”

  “Hmm.” Zilara glanced through a gap in the floor at the undercity. “Might have a way to set up a Teleport point while we’re in town. Not going to use it unless I level up enough to come with. But it might help in a pinch.”

  Having a fallback position could surely come in handy. The party agreed to assist with Zilara’s side objective as soon as they kitted up at the market.

  A series of aqueducts spanned the city, crisscrossing the walkways. Water was diverted from endless snowdrifts to the north and supplemented by rain-catching reservoirs built into the walls. The network of ditches and canals reached ground level at a ring pool around the market.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Water was heavy and always sought its lowest level. The pool was designed to allow the water to cascade into a well system in the undercity. There it flowed widdershins through the city on a gravity-assisted current.

  It was while walking up to the bazaar tower and looking down upon the cascading water that Calaf laid eyes upon an altercation.

  A lone swordsman stood dead center between three assailants. It would be an unfair battle were it not for the massive chunk of metal attached to the outnumbered man’s back.

  Further details would be nigh-impossible to make out at this distance. But the Interface allowed for much more to be gleamed:

  Swordsman. One of the more generic, physical-focused roles for those who didn’t reclass into the Paladin or Battlemage path after Stalwart. The figure’s armor was plain and unassuming, while his hair was braided, and his skin was the signature dark complexion of a Firefieldian. While the name was unfamiliar to Calaf, something about the figure’s countenance felt like they’d met before.

  The three assailants were marked as level 70+ and titled Arbitral Auxiliaries. More militants of the church, armed with the best gear the capital could offer.

  That sword, though. It was far too big for a zweihander. Unsharpened, it was too large to be called a sword. It could only be called a +15-refined slab of obsidian.

  Combat was nigh. The party noticed and leaned over the railing to investigate.

  The arbiter at Oromund’s back lunged. Oromund grabbed his sword and held it back in a bracing position. Twin knives bounced harmlessly on the slab of obsidian.

  The leftmost arbiter lunged with a spear while the third cast a flare. Oromund broke the spear with a single swing that also bisected the knife-wielding militant. With a running leap, he batted the mage into the now-disarmed spearman, and the pair went sprawling into the reservoir pool. Blood coated the obsidian slab, blending in nicely with the black stone.

  “I know who that is,” Calaf realized as he said it.

  “Hmm?” Zilara glanced over at him.

  The team tank did not respond. He wasn't sure how relevant it would be to share. But he knew of one noble line of the high plateau whose heirs would still be operating in the region. Old nobility had steadily lost power during the church age, to the point points Firefield south paid dues straight to the church rather than a liege-lord, and the old nobles' power had only declined further following the forced sack of Fort Duran, many months ago. But this Oromund had a Paladin's airs about him...

  Oromund looked up, aware he had an audience. Greyish-blue eyes met Calaf’s.

  A shout from below shattered the moment. A dozen more auxiliary arbiters rushed in from the west. The anonymous swordsman rushed off, slab of a sword in hand, underneath the bridge and out of sight.

  “I suppose you’ll be asking me to keep an eye on him?” Enkidu asked.

  “C’mon.” Jelena motioned north. “Gotta resupply. This fellow can take care of himself, clearly.”

  Calaf nodded. “Besides, we have a way to track him.”

  “Indeed, we do.” Jelena chuckled.

  “Let’s hit the shops,” Zilara added.

  The bazaar was at once sprawling and sparsely populated, like everything about the faded city. There were merchants of all types. How they turned a profit, the party knew not.

  Zilara and Jelena went together to buy sundries and camp items essential for the perilous journey into the Fellmarsh. Enkidu, in a rare moment of passion, took interest in an entire wing of antique swords and blades. This left Calaf with time and funds to pursue his passion project: the armorer’s tables.

  A dozen armor stands and blacksmiths of all stripes sold their wares. Calaf went straight to business, examining the full collection of armor and shields. Every type of armor he’d ever worn was present here. One particular set caught his eye:

  It was a modified version of what he’d worn until the Piper Demon had reached right through it to sunder his ribcage. The extra defense should help protect him from any further armor-ruining blows. And they were headed for the graveyard of the demon king. Surely they wouldn’t be set to fight another of these near-extinct fossils. The price was set at 40,000 gold. He bought it immediately.

  Another item caught his fancy:

  A straight upgrade to the shield he now wore. He bought it, again at a premium, then made a fair percentage of gold back from selling his old armor and damaged shield. Newly equipped, he went searching for Enkidu.

  “Find anything you like?” Calaf asked.

  Enkidu was testing a freshly forged blade against his old faithful sword.

  “No.” He put the new sword back. “Nothing forged this century ever compares.”

  Huh, guess I never had reason to try and examine Enkidu’s sword, Calaf thought. Is it even Interface-compatible?

  The thought hung in the air, abandoned as a spear on a rack caught Calaf’s eye.

  Zilara was the only party member who would be receiving the buff, besides Calaf. But still, this was an exceptionally rare and ornate piece. Worth any price. The seller listed it for 50,000 gold. Calaf bought it with the last of his personal funds without hesitation.

  The group ended the day at the top of the market tower. It infamously leaned a noticeable five degrees to the west courtesy of a faulty foundation. Still, the tower allowed for an easy view over the city walls.

  “Heh. I’m from out there,” Zilara nodded to the north. “Way past the last noble’s land. That’s where my one teleport point is located. Really cold year-round, though. Better hope we don’t have to use it.”

  Mighty glaciers clung to the far reaches of the plateau and down its north slope. The beginnings of which were visible from this lofty perch.

  “I wouldn’t mind visiting the far north one day,” Jelena said with a shrug. “Maybe dressed better for it. I’d hate to trapeze around a glacier in this corset.”

  No armor Calaf yet found would keep him cold in the snows of the north.

  “I don’t like the cold,” Enkidu said with a scowl.

  The sun was setting in the west. The various religious institutions around town would be closing up for the night.

  “Think I’ve got an idea for where we can try to set that new Teleport point…” Zilara said, her eye on the undercity.

  It's that song from Ferris Bueller.