The moment they crossed the border into Imperium Caspian felt an immediate change to his surroundings, an invisible pressure began to bear down upon him causing his every movement to be sluggish at first.
“This is the Mana Density at the border?” He couldn’t help but be shocked, there was no gradual build-up or increase as they got closer to the core areas of Imperium instead it was like he had entered another world yet the gate of the fortress behind him was proof enough to the contrary.
He was truly interested in how they had achieved this, ‘System?’ He couldn’t help but ask for some insight as his mind continued to draw blanks.
[By passing through the threshold you entered a sealed space, it’s not an exaggeration to say that whoever created this has created their own isolated world]
It was something outside of his current realm of understanding, but it did give him an idea, “Would it be possible to split this space away from the rest of the world?” He asked curiously.
[Theoretically]
The system took several seconds before responding; Caspian could tell that there was a more complex answer behind the one that he had been given yet he didn’t delve into it, it was enough to know that it might be possible even if it was almost impossible.
“Maybe this is the true power of the Beyond Realm Mages of this world?” He mused to himself as he admired scenery, the fact that this place had a much higher density of Mana was obvious from how lush and vibrant nature was as it grew with the assistance if the Mana in the surroundings.
He was astonished at how different two places on the same world less than a mile apart could be, he could feel the vitality around him as he began to meditate even to the extent where the Mana that he absorbed from his fireballs was more abundant and pure than when he was in Novatus.
After an hour of meditation he opened up the map he had gotten from Alexander and tried to track their current position, he could roughly determine where they were on the trail as he traced the route they had taken and found the fort they had just passed through.
Surprisingly Imperium was much smaller than any of the other nations, he determined that they were only a day or so travel away from the only city that was built in Imperium.
“Hey there!” He suddenly heard a voice call after them, he peeked around the side of the carriage to see it was one of the merchant groups that he had seen earlier. They had a small convoy of three carriages with what Caspian could only assume were goods that they intended to trade.
Caspian motioned for the Demon to stop, “What do you want?” He asked plainly as he stepped off the seat. The Demon followed, shadowing behind him as he confronted the man who had called after them.
The man who had called after them had a sheepish expression as he scratched his chin, “I was wondering if I could hire one of those men in the back.” He said, pointing to the carriage.
The back of the carriage was open aired allowing for anyone to see what was in the back, Caspian walked around to see the Demons sitting there statically without moving – their heads all turning in unison to face Caspian.
“Woah…” He heard the man exclaim as he saw this, “Scratch that, I’ll hire all of them.” He said without a second thought. “How do you know they’re any good?” Caspian asked curiously, all the man had seen was them sitting still and moving their heads.
The man scratched his head out of embarrassment as he glanced at them, “Call it… Intuition.” He said after thinking for a moment. Caspian nodded, it was a fair answer after all, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to tell that they were dangerous just from a glance – merchants trained themselves to have keen eyes after all.
“How much and what’s the job?” Caspian asked calmly, he lost nothing by sending the Demons off to work for someone else and even if they died all he had to do was wait a day before he could summon another.
He’d learnt that the currency they used in Imperium was different to the other countries, so he hadn’t bothered to ‘borrow’ coins from Alexander.
“Twenty Mana Crystals, the mission is to be bodyguards for two days.” The merchant spoke without hesitation after hearing that Caspian was interested, he’d already taken Caspian to be the one in charge seeing that they allowed him to speak for them.
Caspian fell into thought for a moment, ‘That should be quite a bit… especially for only a couple of days work.’
He felt the price was reasonable, but he didn’t know what the worth of a Mana Crystal was to begin with, “Forty Crystals and I can only lend you three of them.”
“Deal.” The merchant didn’t even try to haggle much to his surprise, he hadn’t expected that the man would still agree especially when he wouldn’t be hiring all five of the Demons. ‘The situation must be desperate for him to be that willing to hire help.’ He thought to himself.
“I want half now and you can give my troop the rest when they finish.”
The merchant, again, agreed without argument making Caspian wonder if forty Mana Crystals was below the reasonable price of a bodyguard in Imperium but, despite his suspicions, he had no intention of going back on his word now that a deal had been made.
“You three,” He pointed randomly at the Demons in the back as he chose, “For the next two days you’ll follow his orders, come back when you’re done.” He turned to point at the merchant, ‘Make sure they don’t kill them after the jobs done.’ He spoke to the System as the three quickly jumped out of the carriage and stood in front of the merchant.
Their looming figures seemed to satisfy him as he nodded with a smile before fishing out twenty small diamond-like tokens and handed them to Caspian.
They felt firm yet delicate in his hand as he toyed with one, their surface was cleanly cut and there was a glowing engraving on the front. ‘Imperium Officiated’ he assumed that the engraving was to differentiate counterfeits from the real thing although he had no idea if he had just been handed a real or fake to begin with.
Caspian nodded before returning to his carriage with the Demon, they quickly set off once more towards Imperium leaving the merchant and the three Demons behind without a second thought.
The Merchant directed the three ‘men’ to ride in the final carriage of the convoy before returning to the first where a young boy was sitting in the seat waiting for him.
The boy was only about eleven or twelve years old, but he looked down at the man with disdain as he sat next to him and picked up the reins of the horses.
“Young Master.” The man said respectfully as he looked at the boy.
“I hope you didn’t just waste our funds.” The boy said coldly as he glanced at the bag of crystals the man had at his waist. “Don’t worry Young Master, they’ll be useful. I promise.” He said confidently as his mind wandered to the three ‘men’ in the back carriage.
Just from staring at them he had felt a chill down his spine, he had seen plenty of strong people in his time but even they didn’t give off auras as intense as those people. He could tell they were strong but not overwhelmingly so, it was the aura of death that surrounded them however that piqued his interest.
He had risked exposing the Young Master with the determination to recruit a few of them no matter the cost, it had truly been his intuition that had led him to ask to hire them for protection.
‘I just hope they can help the Young Master escape if we need to.’ He said to himself as he glanced at the child next to him with concern.
…
A day later Caspian and the remaining two Demons finally reached the outskirts of Olgarith City, the central hub of all activity in Imperium.
The city was much more impressive than Novatus in every regard.
The city had no walls to speak of, it was completely open without any obvious defences yet he doubted anyone would dare to attack the city – there were six towers reaching the clouds at points all around the city from which he could feel powerful auras from each of them.
He guessed that it was likely that guardians of the city lived in each of them, powerful mages that had been tasked with guarding Olgarith from attacks or internal disturbances. Just the fact that the System had informed him of several High Mages within the span of a few minutes was more than enough to tell him how dangerous the city really was.
Caspian felt like a bumpkin as he travelled the wide streets on his carriage when there were mages flying through the air and people travelling on beasts, he even saw a home that seemed to be on the back of a tortoise walking through.
He was dumbfounded at how different life was here than in Novatus, he couldn’t talk for the rest of the Kingdom or the other Kingdoms, but he had a feeling that Imperium was the most abnormal of them all.
“I wonder which one of these is an inn…” Caspian mumbled as they wandered through the city, he didn’t want to admit that he had lost his sense of direction in the maze of buildings and towers the moment they entered.
Thanks for the chapter