The cramped passageways of where we came from quickly vanished, giving way to a grand open space, everywhere I looked was the sight of varnished wood, deep brown and tall shelves which sprouted upwards like the trees that they once were. Books of all different vibrant colours filled each one.
"This is the family's library, it's quite puzzling to actually reach this place, but since the ritual has absolved you of any possible dissent towards Thagos, you are allowed to access it, however only with the permission of a retainer or myself and any of the other family members are you able to take a book out of it's shelf to read." Tzofia proudly cawed.
"What a magnificent place." I'd say as I gawked upwards, it was odd, even though it's not nearly as grand as the interior of a flagship, it's medieval decoration painted itself out as so incredibly surreal to me.
"This is our librarian, Turean, one of the beastials from the east, who is also a retainer of ours." I blink as my eyes witness a true biological miracle, the man had a tanned complexion, with splotches of pale on his forehead, as well as red markings which ran opposite to his eyes, though the most stand out of all, a pair of ears which poked out from his scruffy black hair.
I looked from his human face to his ears, and then back to his face in astonishment, though in a world of magic, isn't something like this to be expected Gale? My true objective was to get back to my own world, so I shouldn't get preoccupied with the fancifulness of this one, even if it is absolutely mind-boggling.
"I know, I know, it's not often you see a Bestial in a library, we aren't exactly the intellectual type are we!" The man, or well, half-man, was rather jolly, erupting in a chuckle at his own bit. I replied with a smile.
"It's nice to meet you Turean, I'm gale, a new servant here." I'd say, as politely as possible, since my presence had just been accepted here, I needed to build up a good appearance with everyone, right? Though it seemed to be working already, as proven by the warrior Abern's enthusiasm towards me.
"I'll be willing to rent you out the books in this library, since I am a retainer, however be warned there is a great deal of knowledge in here, once you've started reading one book, you won't be able to stop, that's what happened with me." Turean blabbers on, but it's a welcome break from all the intensity, and eases the headache that's been developing for the past half hour since we're just standing still.
My mind comes to the conclusion that Turean's culture must hail from some kind of warrior or physical work focused values if he's saying that being academic goes against his society. It heavily intrigues me to find out these little details one by one.
However, the discovery of this great library has finally solved a great problem that I've been facing, getting to actually realise the full scope of this realm I have been flung into, maybe then I can stop this dawdling and formulate a sensible plan to get back with my machine and finish Markus.
The books here are worth a pile of gold in terms of gathering information. Though I also ask myself why I don't just go back to the old ruins to search for my machine, it could very much still be there or around that general location. But that scenario looks very unpromising unfortunately.
So the other option? Well, I'll just have to figure that out, my main focus is just to stay alive, I of course need to carry on, finding out about the dangers and safeties of this world is a priority before just diving into the deep end.
My eyelids flicker as I realise I've been standing in silence for a few awkward seconds without saying anything, another objective should be to get rid of this 'shifting'-lag, it's abhorrent for my brain.
"Ah right, thank you." I'd recover the conversation with a polite gesture of gratitude, before Tzofia and Faron wandered off with me following behind, I shoot the librarian a wave as we walk into another hall leading out of the library, this place is an absolute maze.
We wind down a long hall, until eventually we finally reach the main pillared hall which leads to the Duke's throne room.
"You memorise the way to your residence from here I presume?" Tzofia queries.
"Of course." My enhanced brain would never let me forget.
"We'll be on our way then, it's time to leave you some time to complete your chores." Tzofia can barely hide the laughter under her breath as they both walk away.
A life of picking up horseshit? I mean it sounds rather peaceful, but I have amends to make. I cannot look at my own people without enacting revenge for what he and I have done to them.
My brain recognises the path I had taken with Bealla to go to the throne room, and I back-track through the narrow and dimly lit interior of a wall, I memorise the distance we travelled through, using that to locate the correct door.
The estate looks to be quite a large system, with multiple enclosed courtyards, so it'd be easy to get lost in it. Though due to my natural benefits, I find my way through with ease, and emerge into the fresh but pungent air of the outside world.
The position of the sun in the sky, or well, whatever star they have, makes it three o'clock. We haven't even gotten through the day yet.
The training formation has disappeared, the courtyard is empty, apart from one person who is now emerging from my servant's abode, it is Abern, still in his shining plate armour. A smile on his face as he practically gallops over to me.
"I'm here to give you a tour of the city we preside over, Gaport, if you haven't already been, it's quite close to the residence." He explained to me with a grin.
"Sounds good, how come you're the one offering the tour, I thought the retainers are quite busy." I'd ask a genuine question, I was puzzled towards his enthusiasm regarding me as a stranger.
"One of the reasons was to ask you about your swordsmanship, I'm a learned student of the sword, so seeing other people achieve interesting things with it naturally warrants my attention, and the second reason was to ask you to a bout after our tour." Abern says, a motivated expression on his face, one I don't really align with.
I'm so tired, will I really have to do a friendly bout with a magic swordsman? Sounds like a nightmare, putting my cybernetics up to the test with whatever mysterious force that drives him sounds like a hard ask.
But the tour of the city and getting close with members of the Duke's court could prove valuable to me in the moment. I scratch my chin, weighing up the positives and negatives.
"The bout sounds good to me, lead the way to the city." I say with certainty.
Moments pass before we're already walking towards a horse-drawn cart near the stables, also located within the same courtyard as my new home. There's a interesting looking farmer at the reigns of the two horses, we nod at him as we clamber onto the open air cart, it's quite shoddy to be honest.
"Not as formal as our ceremonial carriages for stately visits and such, but it gets the job done." Abern tries to reassure me as the driver pulls on the reigns, and we set off, the cart suddenly jolting up, down, forwards and wherever else it could as we exited the gate which separated us from the outside world.
It was the first time seeing the land, one word can describe it, serene, rolling green hills spilled out over the surroundings, a sea of great pines settled on the very tips of the horizon. Taking it in, combined with the fresh air, made my headache seemingly fade away.
Looks like pharmacists were wrong, you just need fresh air to cure your ills.
"I wanted to know how you dispatched those goblins." He asks, full of curiosity as we rock in the cart on the unstable stone road.
"Well, It was completely in the dark, so I had to rely on the sound of their footsteps, since I had keen hearing I was able to adjust to the situation well enough to survive, that's all really." I answer as honestly as I can, without painting myself as some kind of warrior genius.
"I see." He seems to contemplate my answer for a moment, before delving back into silence, it's like this for the rest of the short trip.
I say short, because I turn my neck to see what laid in front of us, a wall that increased with size and intimidation as we got closer to it rose over the horizon.
So this was the city wall of Gaport, Abern told me before we got on that it was a mostly human city, the idea of different races of creatures being sentient and co-operating was so baffling to me in the first place. The horses were quite swift, at the expense of comfort of course, however we reached the gates of the city within minutes, the large steel confines of it towered over us as we went underneath the open gate.
Two guards approached the cart upon us going under the gate.
"What's your intentions for visiting?" One of the guards said, he held firmly onto a spear, vigilant of anything that could happen.
"I'm with our Lord Duke." Abern shows the guard a piece of scroll, making the man immediately salute, and pass us by without issue, quite the powerful thing aristocracy is.
As we pass under the gate, I'm greeted by a whole host of incredible and exotic sights, a bustling city is upon us, the dirt and stone that we travelled under turned into a neat and shining brick road, with multiple story wooden and stone houses at either side of the street.
Many other carriages, some grandly decorated, others as humble as ours passed by, overtook, and came behind us whilst we traversed the main street.
"That's our True Goddess's church up ahead, right after the main market square of the city." Abern tells me.
I catch a look at the large and pristine white brick of the chapel, it has multiple tall spires that branch off of the main body of the church, looking like the chalk of a colossal cliff. With great steps leading up to the two wooden doors, which are open, revealing the inner stained glass of the church.
What lays before it is just as interesting, dozens and dozens of stalls line the cobbled floor as the street opens up into a massive square, pedestrians wander the markets, looking for fresh produce and whatever else they can find. I catch some animalistic ears in the crowd, among other interesting characteristics.
"It's fantastic." I say, my mouth agape.
"Sure is, this is our domain, the shining city which his majesty entrusted our Lord Duke with. But we're also going to stop the wagon and get off, I have to run off and get some materials for the estate, feel free to wander around the market whilst I'm gone, try not to get lost though!" Abern says, hopping off whilst the horses were still moving, reckless or not, he still stuck the landing.
The horses eventually stopped for me after a minute, and I got off with minimal effort this time. I waved off the cart as I walked towards the market.
What struck me first was the smell, all kinds of savory sweet and sour spices mixed into a pleasant aroma, coating every one of my senses with a airy pleasantness. As I approached deeper into the market square, the crowds got busier
I found myself brushing up against various people of all backgrounds, all of which were polite and said sorry, I was awe-struck, this was certainly not my assumption of a medieval-world. One ruled by magic and not science and logic.
Everything was as clean as a whistle, and you have the constant hum buzz of the vendors shouting their produce out to the potential customer crowd, smoke rises from certain stalls, along with the wonderful smells of food which latch onto the steam travelling through the stalls of the market.
Abern sneakily slid me a pouch of silver before he left, though I didn't exactly have an idea of the exchange rate of coinage in this world, so I'll just have to go off of what the vendors tell me, but they'll most likely charge me higher as I look like the biggest tourist whose ever visited.
"Would you like to buy a bowl of hearty stew?" A burly man called over to me as I passed by his stall.
The smell emanated from within instantly drew me to it, I hadn't eaten since the shift obviously, I was starving.
"Sounds wonderful, how much for a bowl?" I raise my voice over the blaring noise of the blurred crowd which travels by at every moment.
"20 Silverine for a bowl." Abern gave me 70, so it's quite a chunk off my amount, however it'll have to do, I'm too hungry to pass this opportunity up.
I exchange the money for a steaming bowl, my lips smack as I readily dig in, this must be the true magic of this world, as it's absolutely delicious. I wasn't worried about the hygiene, clearly this society has adopted it's shifts through magic, rather than technology, obviously it's behind still, but much better off then it would be in our normal world.
If it was a regular medieval time, I would never touch any food.
However, as I dug into my stew, I noticed something odd, the weight in my pocket had suddenly decreased substantially, my hand quickly sifted through to see what was wrong, noticing the absence of my pouch of silverine.
I had just been pick-pocketed? So crime exists here, of course it does.
My neck twists swiftly to see the perpetrator, a person who had just briefly brushed against me, and was still only a few feet away, dressed all in black, with a matching black hood, they were the picture of the word ominous, yet I decided to pursue behind them loosely, I wanted my stuff back after all.
Whilst I followed them through the moving the crowd, I noticed another source of curiosity, much more concerningly this time, their cloak was concealing something, as something made their pockets droop ever so slightly to the side, the average person would have not been able to pick up on this, thank my augmented pupils again.
It must be a knife. This just spells trouble, should I keep following them? Would it result in dire consequence?
No, I need my money back. Especially after being disturbed from a hearty meal.