Chereads / The Secondary Magician / Chapter 4 - The Capital

Chapter 4 - The Capital

'As the sun rose so did I, Hi I am Ranjha and I am the secondary magician that is gonna change this world.' he could be seen writing in his new journal in his bed, journal was item number five in definite items to be carried by adventurers, this list changed in various books and sources but the top three almost never changed 'water, shoes and for some reason a towel' but Ranjha wasn't taking any risks, he had packed a bag big enough to fit a troll. He had read every book on adventure preparation and basically packed every odd item mentioned even in passing. As he walked outside the door his mother literally had to push his bag out of the door.

Once he was out though, he turned around to see a single tear in his mother's eyes.

"Don't worry I am gonna be fine"

"I know how confident and fearless my boy is, yet I selfishly wish you had at least a little fear then maybe you would have stayed with this old lady"

"I will write regularly though, and gonna be careful too after all an old lady is waiting for me to come home"

"Who are you calling old, you rascal!! I am very young I just had you at an early age !!" she shouted

"You can't change your age according to convenience mom" he said and both laughed.

Then he waved away and started walking towards that pulley elevator he had seen every day in his life but never had the money to ride it.

You need to understand something, almost all the kingdom of Idnia is on the Anirose plateau, yet our village is one of the only places at sea level, getting down here is the easy part you just float down on one of those feathers of weightlessness, they were an uncommon item but far cheaper than getting up. It takes a lot of money to go up because it's done using these magic pulley elevators, that required a lot of man power 5 below average magicians to run one or one high level magician both not cheap options. this resulted in us getting most of our supplies from the neighboring two countries Empire of Dapi and Kingdom of Masa. Most travelers went through our village as it was beside the Agnes river between the two nations and taxes was one of the only way for us to earn a living. Most people earned their living in lodges and stuff. Ranjha's mom also owned a travelers store with a adventurer specific section, Ranjha had seen and met these heroes all his life while his mom made sure to sell everything at a high price. Ranjha ran around talking to these guys and trying to acquire as many of those adventuring books mentioned before, some of them journals copied by Ranjha by hand, others retail sold at his mother's store written by 'experienced adventurers'.

This was the reason that Ranjha's mom thought maybe if she sold carrots her son would be a farmer and not leaving to fight for life just to earn a couple of gold coins.

Ranjha could have easily left the village and traveled to the other countries to become an adventurer yet he had always dreamed of going to the capital of Hilda and becoming an adventurer despite the high price of the elevators because no matter how many adventurers he met the best ones were always from his own nation and he was finally going to do it on Kingdom's money.

He walked on, not realizing Sara walking behind him hidden by his clanking huge bag finally he heard a voice,

"Umm…, you dropped a pot at the back" and he turned around to see a pot a few steps behind him and Sara with a much smaller bag too.

"Did we need all this stuff, because i just got my clothes mostly?" said Sara in a worried voice,

"Nah! he's just an idiot who reads too much" it was Ruhi, she came running in just in time as always, "Hey don't you think that's too much stuff for just going to the academy we are not going to adventure right now"

"Pfff, Its the unexpected adventures that kills most adventurers, you should be thankful I have supplies for almost 4 people"

"Just get used to carrying our stuff after all if we were in a party, you would not do anything other than carrying the stuff" Rohan said with an annoying grin on his face, He had been standing a couple steps in front at the gate.

This left a weird taste in my mouth as we approached him, but before I could answer the Guild Master was here,

"Good morning adventurers to be, I am Boro your Guild head as I said yesterday, I will personally lead you all to the capital we would ride the elevator to the top and then it's a horse drawn carriage, Understood!!"

"Yes Sir " we replied in unison as if already trained but in reality, we were just excited.

"Good get on" he said with a smirk.

We sat in this toughened glass egg, cushion fitted seats, you could really see the money in the small yet roomy chamber. Ruhi leaned in and whispered to me "This must be expensive"

" Yes it is, but young adventurers though few is an important resource in our Kingdom, and we do everything to groom and train them" we sat surprised at the fact that Sir Boro heard that.

We soon started ascending up the cliff side, he saw the cliff at a a very close angle for the very first time, yet he almost knew every rock because he had gazed upon it all his life but around halfway up he saw to the left of them some scribbles almost like letters but before he could take them down the elevator moved on then he finally turned around and saw for the first time the whole village. He felt a sense of adventure for the first time he felt that finally it was his turn. He spotted his house and could see his mom still standing outside the door. he could only hope that she was proudly watching him leave and not crying from his departure. Yet all this string of emotion was soon to be broken by our strong and gullible Rohan.

"Umm Sir Boro if you are the head of the organization, are you the strongest adventurer in Idnia" ,

"Ha ha ha!! no young adventurer I am just good at administration, there was a time probably when I was close to that title but that's when I got this job and now this Sir Boro is rusty because of the politics"

"Yet he is one of the highest paid adventurers second only to Rahim the legendary Attack Magician" said Ranjha interjected having followed every top adventurer for ages.

"But he isn't the only one stronger than me a lot of things decide salary, you kids will get it one day", this made Ranjha curious, but he didn't ask further.

The rest of the journey was pleasant it took them half a day in carriage, during this Raanjha saw so much of his beautiful country he couldn't wait to be a adventurer, the sadness of not getting his class was almost gone now as the excitement was overtaking any feeling left in his body. At first, close to the cliff the number of villages were less but as they moved inwards and close to the capital the farm fields grew by several times and villages grew to great sizes. Some of the farm houses with their fields were bigger than their whole village. These were the houses of nobles as cleared by Sir Boro.

They reached the capital in around 11 hours since their meeting in the morning, the sun was close to to the horizon painting the sky beautiful, from a distance the red stone wall of the city very visible with the castle marked in the distance by the huge four towers comparable only to its central majestic dome. As they got close to the castle gates the walls started turning green as they realized most of it was covered in vines and greenery providing a nice contrast to the rest of the city.

As the carriage approached the gate we weren't even stopped, rather all guards saluted as we passed by, probably because of Sir Boro.

"You are quite respected I see" said Ruhi.

"Ya some of those are adventurers because our guild comes under the state, so the king can call most of you any time to work for him" clarified Sir Boro.

Upon entering the city, the roads were big and bustling, there were so many carriages that even a goblin would be crushed trying to cross. There were great buildings all around, there were clothing stores, you could hear the clanking in the background proving the presence of a blacksmith, also a whole shop dedicated to just herbs, and there were so many smaller and thinner roads connecting to the main road, each one looked weird and interesting, Ranjha thought he saw a Dwarf but before he could not say anything the carriage kept going straight without a look around, it soon became apparent that

we were headed for the biggest building on the horizon, soon we came up to this thick black painted metal gate the carriage stopped, and the guard knocked on the window,

"Appointment and personnel identification."

Boro Parted the curtains and spoke taking out a letter with the greatest seal in all of Idnia.

"Ravi it's me, come on you know my carriage"

"Just doing my job sir"

"Pass!!" he shouted, and the doors swung open slowly on the most pristine stone laid path I had ever seen. As the carriage went in there were huge trees shaped like mushrooms (or umbrella something found here in big cities), they had almost no leaves on the stem but big bushes at the top, this put the stone laid path in shade but still gave a feeling of openness, there were gardens on either sides and the people working to keep them beautiful. Soon the path opened and I saw red stone columns, these were mighty columns, inlaid with black and white marble, it looked like they were not holding the building but the whole nation up, behind them was the building with huge glass windows and in the center a triangular protrusion over the columns and the entrance, with the same shape as the seal on that letter Sir Boro pulled, the royal coat of arms of the country in pure black, under which was written 'Together we thrive'. It was a completely black shield with three symbols The Owl in the top left, Lion in the top Right and the sun at the bottom. It always baffled Ranjha thinking why would a shield containing the sun always be painted in black with just these pictures being white outlines. He didn't know the answer but it just made it even more beautiful.