29. The Capital
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As the Champion of War walked off into the distance, L furrowed her brow. "What do you think he means? Is it possible that there is a blessing that can be triggered by speaking about it?" V shrugged "It is possible. After seeing a blessing that fuses living beings together, I’m ready to accept virtually anything as reality. Although, we should probably not follow this line of thinking too far. If something like that does exist, it’s better to just not discuss it at all unless we know that it is safe to do so." L nodded and fell silent, contemplating. Eika opened her mouth as if to say something, closed it, and opened it again. She had a look of concentration on her face. "Don't think about it too much Eika, let’s just keep moving." She nodded and excitedly responded "You know, I don't remember a whole lot from before I came to The Shivering Shackle, Eika is really excited to see all the... sights!" Walking forward, V lead the party onward, toward the capital.

A few days passed, the rest of their journey proved relatively uneventful, mostly hills, plains, and silence. They saw more and more travelers as they got closer to the capital, eventually they happened upon a wide cobblestone road. "This most likely means we are close. I would bet that we will see city before the end of the day." Eika nodded happily, while L kept vigilant. After their run in with Time and War, L had been even more vigilant than before. When V inquired about it, she simply told him that she was worried that the Champion of Time would try to ambush them. As V had predicted, a few hours before nightfall the Capital City came into view. In his opinion, it looked like a classical medieval city that would appear in fantasy stories in his old world. It was large, walled, and travelers were coming and going from the front gate, in the middle of the city stood a large keep, there also seemed to be a massive cathedral who's top could be seen over the walls. "Do either of you know what God that church is dedicated to?" V looked at Eika and L, who both shook their heads. "Well, let's hope it’s not to the God of Slaughter or something..."

V had been wondering about this aspect of their journey. If L refused to hide her Champion status, any town, city or organization they visited would be risky. If this city, or indeed, the whole kingdom, followed a specific god, one would assume that they would be hostile to Champions of other Gods. Although, after the interaction with War and Time, L only kept her class unhidden, she was willing to keep her blessing hidden. So perhaps they could get away with pretending to be sympathetic to whatever God the city followed... As V contemplated the ramifications of L's stubbornness, their group approached the city gates.

The City Guard was doing visual checks of most travelers, they stopped a few people who had large wagons or suspicious goods, but overall people passed through the gate freely. V checked the guard's statuses out of curiosity.

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Class: City Guard Lv 10
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Class: City Guard Lv 11
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That did answer a question V had, the guardsman of the starting town had the "Town Guard" class. He wondered how specific this world’s classes were, this would seemingly give him the answer of "Very specific." He wondered what the differences were between the two classification of Guard types... As they began to pass through the gate, one of the men stopped them "What’s this? Another champion visits our city?" The guard appraised L for a few moments. "Well, you are a lot easier to look at then the last one. I’ll tell you that much!" V was unsure if the man was trying to be funny, or if he was just stupid. Either way, L's eyes narrowed. V really did not want to start a fight here so he stepped in "Ah, yes sir. The champion is very exhausted from her journey, is there any problem with us entering the city? We very much would like to find a place to rest." V put on an air of a diligent attendant, clasping his hands and bowing. After a few moments the man laughed "Just don't cause any trouble. There are few other champions in the city right now, and we really don't want any of their nonsense disturbing the city. L nodded and forced a pleasant voice out "We are not looking for trouble, no need to worry about us..."

"Wowowawawaw" Eika looked around at buildings and throngs of people in the streets. "Eika has never seen so many people at once!" She kept close to L and V, her eyes and ears picking up every sight and sound they could. V had immediately noticed that most of the people here were, at-least visually, human. A few people had animal features akin to Eika's. A few catkin, a few wolf, or perhaps dogkin, and one who had ears that reminded him of a rabbit, but who had eyes of a snake. Perhaps he was some animal type that did not exist in V's old world. Or maybe just an experiment gone wrong, V's thoughts traveled briefly to his time with E. "The first thing we should do is find someplace to stay, no?" L's question helped refocus V. "As long as we can afford it. We don't need to worry about keeping a low profile, as I suspect it will not be long before the city knows a new champion arrived. News travels like wildfire in places like this." As they wandered around the city, V speculated that he could make a killing as a pickpocket, or with other criminal means. The simple fact was that compared to his old world, this place was like a candy jar. No cameras, no GPS tracking, no digital currency to track or be frozen. Compared to the types of schemes you had to run in his old world, this place should be easy pickings. Well, other than a certain divine champion who would certainly turn murderous if he was to rob the place blind...

They stood in-front of an Inn; its sign read "The Green Panther." Well, at least he knew what sort of animal this inn was named after, but he wondered if it was normal for Panthers to be green in this world... V had picked out this particular inn due to a few factors. First, it was far enough away from the main streets and plazas of the city that they could expect a certain level of privacy, and perhaps more immediately important, could expect to be able to pay for it. Second, it was not too far away from the main avenues of travel in the city, so they could still expect a high level of security. V had seen a few other places further toward the city edges, but if it was anything like his old world, you’re just asking to get robbed if you stay there. Thirdly, he was exhausted, it was late in the day, and did not want to keep searching for an inn. As they stepped through the door, noise and the smell of alcohol assaulted them. The place was crowded and rowdy. As far as V could tell, it seemed as the inn was having a celebration of some sort. As their group pushed toward the obvious owner of the establishment, V heard an interesting bit of drunken rambling "... and then do you know what she did? She took my cart and brought the pigs back to life! Damn Champions running around doing whatever they want..." the drunken man's companion scoffed "You expect me to believe that a bunch of meat turned into pigs and walked off? You better come up with a better lie than that if you wana not be held responsible for the missing food..."

"Sorry for the chaos! One of my regulars came into a bunch of money recently, so he decided to throw a party with him and his fifty best friends!" The man spoke loudly over the chaos. "It’s normally much more reserved in here." The man took out a thick ledger, as he spoke to L. "I’m going to need your Name and Primary Class, if you get into any trouble with the guard they are going to want to know where you have been. L quickly glanced at V before responding. "Well actually, my class is Divine Samurai." The man laughed "Right well if you want me to write that down I can, but falsifying a residence record is highly illegal here..." L shook her head "You can simply check my status." After a second the man went wide eyed. "Oh! My goodness. Very well. I mean, what a sight. Normally I wouldn't expect. I mean I like to think our inn is well respected but..." The man stumbled over his words for a few moments before clearing his throat "*ahem* Well. Madam, you must be new to the city. You see, the church has convinced the king to decree that all of the champions within the city be cared for on the king's dime. Free lodging, free food, you could even probably swing free clothing if you wanted. As you might not know, our cities church is not dedicated to a single god, but the Gods in a more generic sense. There are priests and followers of all types within their congregation. In order to maintain this neutrality, the church has maintained that the city both support and abstain from the champions business in equal measure. I'm not sure the specifics as I myself don't pay much attention to that sort of stuff, got an inn to run." V realized why the man was so surprised now, his inn was obviously a middle of the road sort of establishment. If the costs of lodging were being paid out by the treasury, one would normally stay at the most upscale location they could find. However, for now, V still wanted to stay here, at-least until they got their bearings.

As L finalized things with the proprietor of the inn, V scanned the room. He realized that at some point since entering, they had lost Eika. "Ooohhhh" after a few moments he caught the sound of her voice through the noise. Following it, he noticed what got her attention. A few men were playing five-finger filet as another strummed on some form of stringed instrument. "Eika never saw someone almost stab themselves on purpose before!" V navigated the crowd toward her. He felt like this was leading to a bad situation. Unfortunately, he was correct. "Eika wants to try! I bet I can do it!" The man with the knife laughed and cleared a spot on the table. "Sure thing girl! One of the fastest knifers I ever seen was only ten years old!" V sighed and starting heading directly toward Eika, pushing drunks out of the way, he had been trying to be subtle, but Eika was surely about to cut her fingers off. Eika started to stab the knife slowly between her slender fingers. "Ohhh this is scary!" She exclaimed. However, as V neared the table, Eika's stabbing became faster and faster. Just as V got within arms range, a strange look had come over Eika's face. The knife was flashing between her fingers faster than V would have expected the girl to have the courage to risk. "You sure you never done this before girl? You’re a natural!" V grabbed Eika's shoulder, startling her and causing her to drop the knife. "Eh! what? Oh. V! Look look! Eika did something dangerous!" He nodded and spoke sternly "I know the city has you excited, but you need to control yourself. What if you wandered off and someone like E grabbed you?" Eika's happy expression faded "Oh...right... Eika is sorry..." She meekly thanked the man for letting her play, and stood behind V, pulling her ears down over her eyes.

V headed to the stairway, to wait for L before heading up to a room. While standing there, three large drunk men approached V. As soon as he saw the expression on their faces, he knew there was going to be trouble. "Oi! What is that doin 'ere?!" The lead man pointed at Eika who whispered "Oh no..." and hid further behind V. "I thought this place was for upstanding citizens! Not those things." The man strode directly up to V and Eika. "You bringing those types to my favorite bar?!" To say that the three men were drunk was an understatement. V was certain it would be extremely easy to bring them all to the floor in one or two swift moments, but he was hoping to avoid being the cause of a bar brawl. "Sir, I’m sorry for whatever is bothering you. But we are just standing here, and we will soon be out of your sight as soon as our companion finishes speaking with the- " The lead man cut V off and grabbed him by the collar. "I don' care what your doin! You bring one of those floppy eared bastards in here that is your own fault!" As V calmly tried to reason with the man. Another one of them grabbed Eika. "Eh look! Her ears and tail are the same color as the one that cursed ma!" Eika weakly tried to get out of the man’s grip "Please, Eika did not do anything, Eika is not cursed. Mamma was not cursed..."

A cracking noise issued forth from the man gripping V's shirt collar as his arm limply lost all strength. The man fell backward screaming and crying. It took a moment for everyone, including V, to realize what had happened. L stood here, her sword was drawn and the flat side of the blade has slapped the man’s arm. Unfortunately for the man, this resulted in most of the bones in his upper arm shattering into pieces. V was no warrior, but he had been around killers, and for a moment he saw killing intent in L's eyes, before she regained control of herself. "You are not permitted to touch my m- companions." V looked at the man who was holding Eika. "I would suggest letting the girl go." The man nodded silently as he dropped Eika and quickly retreated. The majority of the crowed had turned, attention drawn by the man, who was scream sobbing about his arm. V suggested they quickly retreat upstairs, before the situation spiraled any further out of control. As they headed upstairs, he was thankful that the speed at which L acted had stunned everyone, otherwise this might have been a much worse situation.

As they sat in their room, Eika sniffled slightly. "That was scary..." she softly spoke. "Do you know why they acted that way?" V inquired of both his companions. "I’m sure you have not neglected to notice that the general opinion on Rabbitkin is fairly poor." L responded flatly. V did remember Eika saying something about the Rabbitkin tribe being enslaved. "Oh right. Rabbitkin fought against the church or something if I remember correctly." Eika nodded "I don't know any more then what I told you when I met you... People say we are cursed, its why the entire tribe was enslaved ages ago. There are now some free Rabbitkin clans in the wilderness, some of us have been freed of slavery over the years, but most any Rabbitkin you see alongside other races will be a slave." They sat quietly with their thoughts for a little while before V spoke up. "Well, regardless, we need to get some sleep. Tomorrow we will look into Eika's class, and how to improve it. V also hoped that they would be able to overhear more rumors regarding the other champions in the city, rumors normally had at-least some truth in them.

 

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