Elania added a clock to her Hud, which was wonderful all by itself. The other features of the binding stone presented themselves in yet another menu that she could call up, the most relevant of which to her was ‘Call Guards’ since she was still following Henri toward the Mercenary district.

“Don’t expect a fast response in the Merc’ District though. Unless you have an upgraded callsign, most calls in there go unanswered. It’s just not patrolled well enough and is too large for that. Mostly the mercenaries and some gangs keep the order without steppin on each other’s toes. The dwarves have their own union as well and the factions generally don’t mess with each other.”

Henri was a godsend, Elania thought. He’d already filled her in on ten times as much as the monks or Marcus had about the city, as well as telling her exactly who she needed to find and where. 

“So, going about at night isn’t going to be wise, curfew or no, so you’ll want to find a well-lit tavern and wait there. Most of ‘em are open all night and day. You’ll see why.”

He paused as they turned around a corner, and a large two-story-tall gatehouse appeared; it had circular towers built directly into the gate and was part of the inner city wall. The mercenary district was part of the vast sprawl that left the walled confines of the older part of the city. It was impressive, but not so much as just how massive the cavern was to hold the entire city.

“What about earthquakes, isn’t anyone afraid the roof could collapse? It doesn’t make much sense that such a huge cavern stays intact?”

“Engine has its own field that prevents that.”

“Engine?”

“Really? You’ve never heard of the Celestial Engines? One of fourteen Celestial Engines that maintain the world, reality, and the system? What kind of rock did you...”

He paused, looking at her and frowning, maybe for the first time considering that she was a lesser-demon and not a lost young woman. Although Elania would have assured him she was definitely both.

There were a few guards idling at the gate; they didn’t seem to be checking anyone that passed through in either direction, although there was only one or two trickling through at the moment. That changed when they saw Henri, and one of them waved questioned them.

“Henri, what did you find a new girlfriend already? Digging in the gutter for them now after Aleah dropped you?”

“Uhh, no. Girl needed help with some directions.”

“So you escorted her all the way from your post to here.”

Another guard still leaning against the wall chimed in, “Always the knight, bleeding heart Henri.”

“That’s why he’ll be a lieutenant soon.”

“Ain’t worth the effort, pay is the same.”

“That’s just to weed out the slackers, and isn’t about the pay, but the access you get even higher.”

“Life-long commitment to the guard isn’t everyone’s cup.”

The rapid back and forth was a bit too much for Elania, so she just stood there and smiled while trying not to look anyone in the eye or bring attention to herself. Something that turned out to be useless in a world where [Identify] existed.

One of the guards had stopped leaning against the wall and had half drawn his sword, “Hey! She’s a demon!”

Elania sighed inwardly for what felt like one time too many. The chatter died instantly, and all the guards suddenly went on alert.

“Fuck, she’s not even bound! Look at her eyes!”

That sent them over the edge, and Henri held up his hands in protest.

“Guys, calm down, I don’t think she’s dangerous, she came here with a party of Conclave monks and if they weren’t concerned about---”

“I’m sure she told you that, how can you believe anything it says, Henri? Are you stupid? What are you bringing it here for anyway? Don’t you know we have enough problems in the Merc Dis’ without a rampaging demon running about?”

“Hello, I’m right here. I’m not rampaging or anything, you know?” Elania spoke up, and everyone went silent and stared at her. Well, that was a nice change; in her experience, men would keep talking over her unless she raised the volume. That, apparently, didn’t apply to lesser-demons, so score one for her new race.

She fished out the checkpoint badge she’d been given when first entering the city. She wasn’t sure it would serve any purpose, but it seemed like something to try.

“I already spoke with Lieutenant Gaston.” Ok, ‘spoke to’ might be a stretch since it was more like ‘interrogated by,’ but she didn’t think it was time to be too accurate. “He let me through the checkpoint without issue. The Conclave monks didn’t seem to be concerned when we parted ways either, I helped guard them for weeks to bring their stupid Glow Moss in from the Mushroohum village. Don’t you think if I was going to ‘rampage’ I would have started already?”

She saw that a few of them understood most of it, and the one that seemed to be in charge of the gate seemed to recognize the namedrop of the Lieutenant, but the one who had spotted her first seemed to be in the ‘anti-Elania or anti-Demon' crowd.

“None of that matters, she’s a bloody unbound demon! Letting her into the Dis’ will be a bloodbath. We’ll have to clean up the mess!”

“I’m not going to rampage! Maybe if someone attacked me, I’d beat the crap out of them.”

That elicited laughter from two of the other guards who were starting to calm down. 

“She’s going to beat the ‘crap’ out of them.”

“That’s a new one!”

“Fitting.”

“Wouldn’t want to clean it up.”

“Hahaha.”

“Stop laughing, this is serious! Anyone she ‘beats the crap out of’ is going to be a bloody mess on the pavement, she’s a demon, not a girl!”

“Seems like she’s both to me.”

“This is se…!”

“…serious. Yeah, sure, but plenty of people end up as bloody messes in there, what’s the difference? We don’t get involved with those anyway. Just when things get really out of hand.”

“Like the last time the Mercs’ and the Dozers got in a scuffle and leveled a city block?”

“A demon could do that, too! We’d be responsible!”

The leader frowned and looked her over again. “She does have one of the checkpoint tokens, and she did mention Lieutenant Gaston.”

“You can get one of those anywhere, they hand them out like candy.”

“Maybe, but most people throw them away, and she did know that my Uncle was on the checkpoint today. That’s not something that is really publicized unless she actually went through it.”

“Just because your Uncle is a high-and-mightly lieutenant, doesn’t mean---” A raised hand silenced the anti-Elania Fanclub, and the guard who seemed to be in charge looked at her... Elania made a note to ask his name... 

“What checkpoint did you go through then?”

Oh crap. She tried to remember which one it was, but she had forgotten.

“Uhh, I don’t remember the name. The one closest to uhh... Waystation Four? That’s the one we stayed at the night before.”

That seemed to be enough because he nodded. “That’s the one. I think if she went through the checkpoint and has been vetted by the Lieutenant we don’t have to worry about a ‘rampaging’ demon.”

“We should lock her up and send for a captain.”

“I don’t think we need to.”