The doorframe trolley cart looked a bit ridiculous, but the guard rolled it right up to the barrier.

“Listen girl, I’ll only explain this once. Once the hole’s in place, you go on through and don’t dawdle. Protocol says more than thirty seconds is a violation, but if ye take more than half that I’ll yank it out and fry your ass.”

“Ok.”

Everyone was watching the noisy cart, but they appeared a bit uninterested. Considering that they had a ‘protocol’ in place, it stood to reason that others like her came through the barrier from time to time as well.

The rest of the party had hesitated, and Elania realized that the possibility of going through with her might have slowed them. The officer must have come to the same realization as he waved them on, “No doorway for the rest of you, go on.”

Tanyan was the last to go through, looking back at her briefly before hurrying through the shimmering light. The whole ordeal of going through the checkpoints was starting to make Elania feel impatient. She just wanted to get to the city, now, and all the barriers and delays were getting in the way.

The officer walked her up to the spot she presumed was the opening point, and the guard rolling the trolley looked at him for confirmation. “Don’t dawdle.”

The reminder seemed unnecessary to her, and she nodded her acceptance, but when that didn’t seem enough, she confirmed, “I won’t.”

Come to think of it, was nodding even a universal gesture? Tanyan had her rotate her head left and right, and she hadn’t thought of it at the time, but wouldn’t up and down have been easier? 

A hand pressed into her back and she realized the doorway was in place. She could clearly see the group looking back at her waiting for her to cross.

She almost jumped through. The barrier wasn’t that thick she realized, only six or eight inches wide, but whatever magic that powered it must have been incredible since it seemed to cover a massive area. Not that she had very many things to compare the size and scope of the magic with, other than her own abilities she barely understood.

“Thought ya’ had decided to stay on the otherside.” Marcus commented.

“No, just contemplating the details on the barrier thing.”

“It’s powered by the city’s celestial-engine, so it is a bit impressive.”

Celestial-engines, alright. Divine-magic-tech? Would she be dealing with theotechnicans now? Honestly, everything was so thrown together, Elania thought she might have been able to do better world-building than whoever came up with this mess.

Her curiosity had burnt itself out and a weary, “Ok,” escaped her lips. Selling the monster-core and finding a place to rest and stay at for a while seemed to jump out at her as a huge priority.

The last barrier seemed almost anti-climatic as it seemed to just be a metal wall and door, with a few guards near it. What set it apart was there was a building beside it, with a shop counter. A poorly painted sign stood askew above it that simply read, “Taxes.”

Elania frowned right away. She didn’t actually have any money to pay anything yet. 

It turned out money wasn’t the ‘tax’ being sought, though.

An older man appeared from inside, with a glowing orb. His movements were jerky, and Elania swore that he make a creak just by moving. His voice carried clearly, though, and his eyes moved purposefully between each one of them.

“Ey, you lot not paying in coin ar ye?”

“Mana.”

“O’ course. No one pays in coin anymore, not after the Immortals raised the price.”

Marcus set his hand down on the orb, and for a brief second, a dim light appeared in the crystal then died. Taniel repeated the gesture without a word, and finally, Tanyan. The Holy Monk’s donation seemed to cause a bit more of a reaction in the sphere, but it was still faint. The gesture from the novices was barely able to be seen.

Then it was her turn. Well, it didn’t look so hard, so Elania was confident when she placed her hand on it. The crystal was cold to the touch, and at first, nothing happened.

Then the deluge of system messages appeared.

[Manager tag-detected.]

[Management interface enabled.]

[Core drain status: Enabled, 5%]

[Core capacity: 433/799]

[Please select an option.]

[Core transfer.]

[Standard interface.]

[Unlink.]

 

It was a lot, and by the time she read it all, she realized the others were frowning at the non-reaction. She realized it wasn’t the same for her for whatever reason, and she wondered if it was the first bit about being a ‘Manager.’

Elania didn’t know what any of the options did, and wanting to avoid any more scrutiny, she quickly accepted the [Standard interface] one. The box disappeared and was replaced with a new one, the orb lighting up much more strongly than for even Tanyan.

[Core Link, 5% Power tax.]

She could feel the sudden surge, and then the message box disappeared as it glowed, noticeably brighter than before, but quickly turning back to its normal color. She noted that her power had dropped down about 5% give or take, which put her just under her new maximum.

The old man seemed surprised, but the monks and Marcus looked like they had expected something like this and were bored. Well, she had given them a graphic demonstration of her Power capacity.

Without any more fanfare, the old taxman was satisfied, and he waved to the guards. The smaller door in the gate opened and they filed through. 

Elania couldn’t help but think whoever had designed the multiple layers of the city’s defenses seemed to have been paranoid. What kind of things were they planning to keep out? There had been mention of diseases and the like, but she has a chilling thought that maybe the barriers were to keep people in.

She didn’t think anyone was going to manage to forcefully make it out through all the things they’d just went through.

As they crossed over the threshold, one of the guards uttered a bored welcome, “Welcome to Neftasu.”

It was almost anti-climatic as she took in the nondescript tunnel on the other side of the gate. It was just another tunnel-like all the others they’d been through. It was sloped downwards annoyingly, and she had to watch her step. It was quite a ways down to the first flat spot, which then turned at a 90-degree angle. 

“I thought there was supposed to be a city,” Elania complained.

“Just wait, the view is up ahead,” Tanyan answered.

It was a faint sound that reached her first that told her something was changing. She couldn’t quite place what it was, but she could tell the air had a slightly crisper feel as if the temperature had dropped and it was slightly more humid.

Reaching the turn, Elania suddenly understood what he meant by ‘the view.’

The downward slope turned into a long set of stairs that would have violated every safety requirement about staircase length ever made as it plummeted hundreds of steps down without a break. The ceiling didn’t follow them, instead of carving itself upward into what would have been a massive dark expanse above, except for the hundreds of massive chains that were bolted into the rocky ceiling. Each length had hundreds, if not thousands, of light crystals of varying sizes hanging below them. 

It lit up the entire spectacle of the city, which was still miles away. A massive lake covered the closer side of the cavern to them, and a gigantic waterfall that would have challenged Niagara falls plummeted into a black abyss that disappeared into a black mist that even her [Darkvision] didn’t penetrate.

But it was the lights from the city that drew her attention the most. The light crystals were built into the structure of everything, and the myriad display showed that even if it was a city buried deep underground, it had taken the ‘city of lights’ to a whole new level.

The massive scale of everything threw Elania off. She realized that the city still had a huge wall, two or three stories high, built around it, but at some point, the population had expanded out of that confine and throughout the entire cavern. Massive towers jutted out from the chaotic sprawl, with spiraling works of unbroken crystal dancing up their structure. They were all topped with lighted beacons, and she realized that all the towers were connected to a central structure in the city center by wires.

‘Really long power poles?’

That was the first thought that came to mind, but that seemed silly to her. 

“Are you coming?”

Elania looked down at Tanyan, who had paused to look back at her, the awed expression on her face prompting a bit more, “We’ve seen it all our lives, so I guess it has lost its effect. This is definitely the best view any of the checkpoints have though.”

She just found herself nodding. Topping the sight would be a major challenge.

 

---

 

She’d been lied to. They had spent hours climbing down the cliff-like path down to the floor of the cavern and then winding their way around to reach the city. There hadn’t been any more checkpoints, and the press of humanity had slowly become more apparent as the ‘road’ they were on became more cluttered with people. 

That was something she had to get used to, as the weeks being nearly alone has ill-prepared her for the sudden noise and press of people even if the waystation had been a small inkling of what was about to come. 

But for all of that… getting through the checkpoint had not meant they’d arrived in the city. Thus the lie.

The buildings alongside the main road they were on all had the same run-down appearance. They were made of solid stone, though, and she supposed that the area was not prone to earthquakes, or half of them would have collapsed by now. Despite their appearance, she noticed the people didn’t seem to be in too sorry a state, with few beggars or others in sight. 

The reason for that soon become evident when she noticed two guards ganging up on a haggard-looking man. He looked the part, anyway, and when he tried to escape, the guards had beat him and lifted him up and dragged him away between them. 

“What did he do?”

“Not our concern. Don’t ya go poking yer nose in things, girl, if ye plan to stay here.”

Marcus’ non-explanation made her feel bad, but she decided he was right. Whatever the man had done, she didn’t need to add other people’s trouble to her own. Not right now. She already had enough problems.

They were heading up into the ‘Old City’ within the walls. It was there that the main markets and the Conclave was housed, along with the other important quarters of the city. The sprawl outside the wall was mostly housing with smaller markets geared for domestic use. One thing was made clear to her, she needed to find an artificer if she was going to sell her Monster Core, and they were mostly in the Artisan district inside the walls.