“Fuck.”

  Felicity looked around at the mud-covered cobble stones, the medieval stone buildings lacking any sort of color, the Gothic cathedrals that would put the Notre Dame to shame, and the Romanesque castles with their thick walls and slits in the stonework along the tops for archers to fire out of, and felt like she was in a D&D game.

  The smell of wet animals and manure scratched the back of her throat, making her gag.

  “Fuck.”

  Someone bumped into her shoulder, and she clutched her leather bag. Not someone, something. The thing was definitely male, but it had the appearance of an orc, with green skin and a necklace made of teeth. It carried a war club over its shoulder and used its seven-foot height and weight to carve a path through the crowded street.

  Felicity stepped into an alleyway and double checked her leather bag, checking all her contents were still inside. She had seen more than one thief slit bags of unknowing strangers, causing their possessions to spill to the ground where greedy hands snatched them up.

  Map. Check. Manual. Check. Food rations. Check.

  She slapped her forehead. The map and manual were soul bound. They couldn’t be taken away. But the money given to her, on the other hand could, and it was split between her boot, under her top, and her bag.

  She had queued up at her nearest portal back on Earth, nerves on edge, and had expected some sort of ceremony before she stepped through the portal. But the experience was akin to queuing up at an airport. Not one of the large, fancy ones, no. One that you would find in some backcountry town, where the checking staff also handled the luggage and served the food and acted as security.

  She had queued up in the rain, stated her name, security number, and that was it.

  The person behind the counter typed it all in, bringing up a mugshot of her face, before pressing a button that stamped the word “deceased” across the picture.

  “But I’m not dead,” she said.

  The clerk gave her a pitying look and replied, “You soon will be.”

  After those chilling words, she was told to leave all her possessions behind. She clutched her rucksack tighter, but with the same pitying look on their face, the clerk told her nothing survived the portal journey but the clothes on their backs. It still pained her now to think of all the lost pictures and memories she had to leave behind.

  She almost turned back at that point.

  If she left everything behind, would she still remember what her sister’s face looked like in five years?

  Would the memories fade away like they had of her parents?

  The only thing that kept her resolve was the thought of some gray-suited asshole taking her sister away from her. She would rather die a thousand deaths than allow that to happen. So, with her head held high and shoulders back, she stepped through into the darkness.

  A rain-drenched courtyard greeted her on the other side. Mud deep enough to cover the toes of her boots squelched under her feet as she saw signs directing her to come forward. She followed them along with the other strangers, who stepped through similar portals as she had. She was glad to see her face wasn’t the only one with a look of bewilderment on it.

  She followed the signs and queues until she came to a counter with a clerk behind it.

  “Name?” she asked.

  “Felicity…Felicity Cooper. But my friends call me Flic.”

  “Uh-huh,” said an uninterested tone, “is that the name you want on your passport?”

  “Passport?”

  The clerk looked up at her over the rim of her glasses. “It gives you easier access to travel to and from domains ruled by anyone with an Archduke- or Archduchess-level Aura upward. Although you don’t need it to enter a domain or empire legally. If you put enough money in the right hands, you’ll find someone to smuggle you through.”

  “Then why get it?”

  The clerk sighed and gave an answer she had uttered a million times. “It makes your journey at the start easier. When you travel through one domain after the next, your passport gets stamped with all sorts of information. Information like what kind of violence you caused in the last domain you visited and if there are any bounties placed on your head. By having that information, the guards can charge you a fee to enter, reflective of your danger level to the domain you are about to enter.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Let me guess. The higher you are as a risk, the higher the fee.”

  The clerk nodded.

  Felicity said nothing while she weighed up the pros and cons. On the one hand, having a passport sounded like a good idea. It would grant her access to places easier, and she wouldn’t have to deal with unsavory types who could smuggle her in. On the other hand, she hated the idea of the passport keeping track of her. She knew the path she was going to walk to make money, and it would create a lot of enemies and people looking for her. The more she could cover her tracks, the better.

  “I think I’ll pass, thanks.”

  The clerk smiled. “You’ll be surprised how many people turn it down. I’m guessing the line of work you’ll be choosing will be…of the nighttime variety?”

  Felicity’s heart rate doubled as she looked around her in alarm.

  “Easy. Easy. The Other Side isn’t like Earth or any of the other planets the inhabitants who now call this place home are from. Earth and most of the other planets have rules, laws, and etiquette that you need to abide by. There is only one law here: strength dictates. If you are strong enough to take it, then you can.”

  “It sounds like hell.”

  “Or paradise, depending on who you talk to.”

  Felicity looked around and could only see other humans. “You said there were other people from other worlds here, yet the only people I see are human.”

  “Because we only deal with portals delivering humans from Earth. There will be hundreds of thousands of other places just like this, welcoming their own race. We find it easier for the newbies starting to be greeted with a friendly face they recognize,” said the clerk, giving a forced smile, “so they don’t go berserk and start smashing the place up.”

  “When will I see them? The other races, I mean.”

  “As soon as you leave the safety of the area.”

  “Safety?”

  “These grounds and grounds like it are called starting points. All violence is prohibited on its soil. But once you pass through those gates,” said the clerk, gesturing to a pair of fifty-foot black gates with a red stone set above it, “then all protection is off. So we suggest you ask as many questions as you can now before you go out into the big bad world.”

  Felicity looked at the gates again and felt it gave off some kind of energy that made her want to back away from it.

  “That’s Aura you’re feeling from it, my dear. Aura is power here, but it shall all be explained to you in this here manual,” said the clerk, dropping a dogeared book on the counter in front of her. “The manual also acts as a kind of diary, where you can write notes of things you’ve seen and experienced. Diaries are recycled, so if you’re lucky, the previous owner has jam-packed it with notes for you. If you’re not, then you’ve got to work out shit the hard way.”

  Felicity flicked through the manual and saw names and diagrams she didn’t recognize. “What do you mean when you say recycled?”

  “Once you die, the diary teleports right back here to be given to another lucky recipient.”

  Felicity gulped. Right, the first thing she needed to do was find a quiet spot and get some reading done.

  “Here’s your map. Like your manual, it is soul bound to you, which means it can only be taken away from you by killing you. There are certain items, weapons, treasures, you shall find in this land that can be soul bonded.”

  “Oh. That’s a bit extreme.”

  “What if you adventured for ten months to get a divine sword that can cut a mountain in two, only to have it stolen by some Duke?”

  “Are…Dukes not that powerful, then?” Felicity asked, confused.

  “It’s in the manual,” said the clerk, bored.

  “When you get to the Aura level of a Viscount, you can carry soul-bound items on you without the aid of carrying them in bags.”

  “And how does that work—”

  “In the manual!”

  Felicity bit back her reply and grabbed the leather bag given to her, stuffing her manual and map inside it.

  Next, she was handed a small coin pouch. She opened it to find square coins with holes in the middle. The holes were filled with liquid. The coins were made of copper, silver, and gold.

  “These are used as standard payment no matter where you go. There are also coins of platinum, but you won’t find those here. Each coin has liquid Aura in it that can be used for experiments and the like. Again, all the information is in the manual.”

  “One question, if I may. What is the currency rate for a gold coin to a US dollar?”

  “One gold coin equals ten thousand US dollars.”

  Felicity looked at the one gold coin in her coin pouch, and her legs went weak. Ten…ten…ten thousand dollars! She had never had that much money in her life. She had never seen that much money, yet here she was holding a coin that she would have to work all year to earn back home. How was this possible?

  The clerk chuckled. “When death lurks around every corner and your life is constantly on the line, the rewards are greater. That is the appeal of the Other Side. And to answer your next question, a platinum coin is worth fifty thousand dollars.”

  Felicity did a quick calculation of how many gold coins she would need to win her case and make sure her sister never needed nothing.

  “Slow. Slow. I can see you’re already making plans for spending your newfound wealth back the other side, but things here cost more than back home. A week’s lodging at your standard inn will cost you fifty silver. If you want to stay somewhere nicer, with security guards and security wards and the like, it can be a handful of gold at the least. That’s without food. A good weapon even more.”

  Felicity nodded her head, but she wasn’t listening. She would just have to live frugally until she accomplished her goals. She looked back up to the clerk, who gave her a bemused smile as if she had seen it all before and Felicity would learn the hard way in due time.

  “Any more questions?”

  Felicity looked over her shoulder and inched forward, leaning across the counter. “If one,” she stopped and drew closer, “if one wanted to pursue a career that…wasn’t as lawful as other professions, where would one go?”

  “There are a number of such professions that people get paid for on The Other Side. You have assassins, pirates, mercenaries, spies, necromancers, narcotics dealers, unicorn poachers—”

  “Unicorn poachers?”

  “Their horns make powerful elixirs. Thieves—”

  “That one,” said Felicity, a little too loudly, causing her to look around once more, “where would I go to learn about being a thief?”

  “Either the thief’s guild or you can hire a mentor. Each can be found in Goldfinders Lane. It’s the area dominated by the people you want. Your best bet is to visit Cutthroat’s Paradise. It’s the local watering hole.”

  Felicity nodded at the information and gave thanks, then headed out the gates, desperate to secure as much wealth as she could by any means necessary.

  https://mybook.to/DestroyerofGodsBook1