“This lodging is shit.” I said as I laid on a rather uncomfortable bed during our seventh day of travelling to the capital city. The journey so far was quite relaxed as we didn´t have any issues. There were no bandits as they usually didn’t raid a simple carriage with fifty guards, I had enough animal blood so that I didn’t have to risk sneaking out to hunt, and we were always staying at a completely locked off inn which made sneaking out even harder. Not impossible, but harder.

And so I rather stayed in the room with Mary during the night, read all kinds of books which were always with us on a cart and enjoyed my laid back life. Not.

I was itching for action, for bloodshed and depravity. I wanted to punch some faces, to torture someone and to have fun. I liked travelling with Mary, don’t get me wrong, but it was simply boring after the first few days. At least we would arrive tomorrow evening which was something … too bad we would need to visit the king shortly afterwards which made everything a lot more … boring. Seriously, I already saw myself sitting in the waiting room for hours, just to meet this guy for a few minutes. It's a waste of time in my opinion, but going into the royal palace was definitely a plus point.

“The lodging is shit, the food tastes bland and I am bored.” I stated once more.

“And I want to sleep.” Mary said to my right, laying on her side and facing away from me.

“Sorry.” I said and shut up for the rest of the night, only making noises as I turned the pages.

Truth to be told I was honestly a bit excited and I wasn’t let down in the end. As soon as we were travelling over a small hill the next day, I stuck my head out of the window and looked at our destination. It was a glorious sight. The capital city was located in the plains, perfect for agriculture and keeping livestock as the grounds were also incredibly fertile. All these masses of food were also desperately needed.

Around 100.000 inhabitants lived here, making it the largest city in the known world. Well, it wasn’t that hard as the Worchester kingdom was dominating the human side of the largest continent and the elves lived rather decentralized. In any case … a hundred thousand! That’s more than … one thousand?

And if one counted the inhabitants of the slums as well … then it was even more than a hundred thousand. For real though, nobody knew how many lived in the slums outside the city walls and I certainly understood why. First of all, the stench was horrible, even though the main roads were usually cleared of any unwelcome citizens who found their new home on the wayside. If pure misery had a smell, then this was it. Even though my senses were dulled, it was still unbearable. Mary knew this though and had already prepared scented handkerchiefs which worked fine, at least for a little while.

As I looked out of the window, the wide farmlands were already replaced by the slums in the distance. Although I couldn´t see them clearly, it was obvious what kind of citizens lived there: Thugs and those who were powerless, without any money to spare. Their buildings were completely made out of wood or in some cases resembled tents more than anything else. The misery, if not for the stench, was beautiful. It was a hotbed for crime, the humans there practically waited for me to abuse them, and I absolutely loved it. Even better, the animosity they had for those living within the walls must have been enormous.

Like a knife, the outer wall cleanly cut of those who were worthless in the eyes of the state, from those who were slightly less worthless. There were several guards stationed at the gate that led into the city, all armed to the teeth and covered by archers on top of the wall. It wasn’t that the inhabitants of the slums weren’t allowed to access the city, it was just made incredibly hard for them. There were basically three lines one could wait to grant access to the city: One for those who could identify themselves as a citizen, which required a registered home and those who couldn’t. Obviously, the focus of the guards laid on those who could identify themselves and they hindered the process of screening the beggars, rather than doing it. I mean, I could understand them, these beggars didn’t look great and I already saw a few drunkards and junkies out here.

Oh, and there was the third line for everyone influential enough to use it. That meant basically nobles and really wealthy merchants. But even in this line, there was an order to things. As soon as those waiting spotted the White´s family crest, they all made way for us. The hacking order of society was established everywhere, no matter where I went.

The guards, after kicking a few beggars away who were nearly run over by our convoy, didn’t even check us but rather waved us through the gate. And then, we were stuck. No seriously, this was the biggest traffic jam in the history of traffic jams. There were actual houses there, made out of stone and wood. Most of them were used as shops, displaying different wares from all over the country. I mean, it was natural as the gates were used frequently and so, the shops opened here. But they also hindered the flow of traffic as everyone was walking around in irregular patterns. This was probably the worst city planning ever. At least it didn’t stink this much as there were no residential buildings on this street and the houses looked rather well in all honesty. They looked much like the normal houses in Eastminster I was already familiar with, and so I quickly lost interest in them.

I rather kept looking at all the people scooting around on this street. Merchants, farmers who sold their ware to these merchants, beggars, thieves, guards, there were all kinds of my favourite food here. And among those, there was Tom somewhere, already working behind the scenes to make this place even better.

Chaos already reigned here. The majority of humans didn’t care about our carriage at all and as they didn’t have eyes in the back of their heads, our progress was slow. We were forced to follow the masses, instead of going through them like at the gate.

It wasn’t all bad though. There was a man who was run over by a cart on the other side of the road. He still lived afterwards, obviously, but it still had to hurt. I giggled a bit, mostly because the driver of the cart was robbed while he took care of the wounded man. He should have fled the scene …

In any case, it took hours to get through this mess of a street, especially because the shops didn’t decrease in numbers at all. Nervously, Mary kept on tapping against her armrest with her fingernails as we were running late to our meeting with the king.

That didn’t matter much to me, so I kept looking out of the window in amazement. As time went on, the buildings became quite extravagant, not to the level of a mansion, but they were certainly clean and looked good. The roofs were mostly made out of tiles, the windows had proper, although badly done, glass and the beggars were nowhere to be found. The shops were also displaying costlier ware, the restaurants were pricier and even the brothels I saw in the sideways didn’t look like you could get an STD from simply going inside them anymore. It looked clean, with proper city planning and stuff. It was getting better and better until the second wall segregated the fortunate from the really fortunate ones. Even we had to stop at the gates for a minute until we were allowed entry, which honestly meant a lot. The sun was already setting as I saw the first sophisticated shops, displaying jewellery, fine clothes or exotic food and with it, the first mansions. Nearly everyone, including the shops, had at least a small front yard with colourful plants on tables to enjoy a tea or two. It was obvious that this was the noble part of the city as it looked more like the suburbs of Eastminster, but with really large houses that stood behind the shops in beautiful and clean alleys.

My amazement didn’t lessen though as we travelled further. The houses … the mansions were freaking huge. The burnt down mansion of the White´s was nothing in comparison to this. Most of these mansions had at least a hundred metres of front yard, a rather costly prestige symbol as the land price around this area was rather high. And the mansions behind these lawns … wow. Decorated to the brim, adorned with marble, they honestly looked more like a piece of art than anything else. And behind these buildings, there was always another more private garden. I looked towards Mary once who simply shrugged.

“Welcome to the world of nobles who need to show their wealth to the world. Those who live here either need to overcompensate something or simply have enough money to throw around.” She rolled her eyes and looked out of her own window again.

“Where do we live?” I said as I returned my gaze outside as well.

“Near the royal palace. Our property is a bit larger than theirs, but the mansion is comparable to the one in Eastminster.” We spent the next several minutes in silence as I was still admiring the wealth of all these people. Quite a few citizens must have been extorted to finance these monstrosities because they were certainly very costly. In the end, we arrived in front of my new home, a two-storey mansion that looked almost tiny in comparison to the neighbours. There was one special thing about it though. The front yard was a kilometre of forest, completely out of place in this city. It felt like another place entirely as I couldn’t see the other mansions anymore. Only the tall towers of the royal palace indicated we were still inside the capital.

“Okay, we need to hurry, is it okay with you if the servants unpack your things?” Mary asked and looked at the sun to estimate the time.

“Uhm, if they don’t touch any red luggage, it´s going to be fine. Oh, and can you tell them to throw all the blue chests away?” I asked, hoping the locks I put on them were enough.

“Sure … what´s in them?” Mary asked, nearly plopping out a question mark above her head.

“My collection of bricks.” I answered drily.

“Excuse me?” I thought I was loud enough, but I was willing to repeat myself.

“My. Collection. Of. Bricks.” I repeated slowly.

“No, I understood you, but I failed to understand you … you know what I mean?” No? Using the same word twice didn’t help much …

“Not really?” I said and tilted my head in wonder.

“Why do you have a collection of bricks and why are we carrying them along?” These questions were rather easy to answer. I only needed four words after all.

“Because they are heavy?” I smiled brightly as I said that. The amusement I got from seeing the servants pack these chests onto the carts was already worth gold.

“And here I was, thinking to put too much burden on the servants while you disguised bricks as your luggage?” She said, clearly not seeing the beauty of my actions.

“Precisely.” I nodded happily at my grandiose plan to make the servant´s life horrible, alongside the animals which pulled the carriage.

“You never fail to find ways to terrorize everyone, don’t you?” She wasn’t exactly happy with it, but I hoped she would laugh about it someday.

“I´m a crafty little evil.” I said as Mary exited the carriage and started to prepare everything for our short trip to the royal palace.