Chapter 126: Sudden Plate City

Another day arrived, Ned woke up and wore his black clothing: a black vest with a faded undergarment, black pants, and boots.

After he finished preparing. Ned reached the outside walking stairs and bricks.

The crowd does not differ at all. Be it in the evening or the morning, it looked almost the same.

Murmurs of hunters expressing their adventures. Merchants sharing their thoughts about the current market. Nobles looking behind their shoulders, uncertain.

Ned returned to the main branch of House of Woods with a thought of skepticism. For all he knew, his quest looking for Roy Eldon of Moorkeg could take him weeks or years. In the first place, how would he find a man who doesn't want to be found? I must find a way. Ned thought.

An over-decorated carriage passed by across the House of Woods. People inside screamed. A scream they enjoyed. Party nobles. Ned sighed. Looking at the carriage with a shiny metal lining that was followed by another carriage. Probably their guards, as it was filled with serious-looking people. Hunters perhaps. Since hunters were mostly ignored by other people no matter how scary looking they are.

For freeborns, even nobles, they knew that hunters ran most of their economy.

After the carriage passed by, Ned proceeded to the foyer, where the same man greeted their clients as usual.

The worry that the city guards would approach you for being suspicious was gone by having a House of your own. Ned thought as he passed by the crowded area of the House of Woods.

"Master Woods expected me," Ned said after he approached the man with a queerly smile.

The youngest client the House of Woods had was Ned. But a kid seated not far from him, little older than Ned, came along with a bulky man acting as his guard. He looked at Ned with wary eyes. Not just him, even others that took the time to wait looked at Ned as he approached the attendant.

Their interest was even piqued when Ned was led back to the room of Master Woods.

"Are you sure you want to do this, kid?" Master Woods said, puffing a smoke. White clouds brushed his shoulder 

Ned nodded.

He wheezed and coughed, and bit the smoking pipe once more. "Deylan was a friend," he said. "And it was rare for him to send me a letter—a recommendation letter to say. He must have taken a liking on you, kid. Anyway, the man you're looking for was last seen in the middle part of the Du'kki forest. Remember this, Ned Sskat: Du'kki island, Du'kki forest, and Du'kki Mountain. You only need to go to the Du'kki forest middle parts. Not the inner part, but the middle part. If ever you didn't found him in the middle part; let it go, kid. Going deeper the forest is far more dangerous than the middle part. And I won't say the mountain. The only allowed to go inside the Du'kki Mountain were Hunters ranked Silver—not even solo hunters were allowed."

Ned took the letter Master Woods had written. He didn't bother to put it inside his spatial inventory, for it was enough inside his pouch.

"Thank you, Master Woods," Ned said bowing with hand clipping his left chest.

Ned left the House of Woods. Took a carriage that led him to the cliff.

Ned passed by orange bricks structures, fat and thin trees grew atop each building. The carriage cut crowd gently as it turned left and right against the buildings on the flat orange bricks roads.

Not far from Ned was the Canton of Commerce: an achromatic dome of massive structure centered the capital of Bogmoor. Beneath it was the broad river controlled with a slope of cemented edges and bridges that connects the city to the Canton.

It took the carriage an hour to reach a building guarded not by the city guards by the hunter themselves. Different armors, ranging from thin chest plate to expensive ones. Some wore leather with bows and crossbows slung behind them. One of the guards, a lady circling the building together with its massive feline: a tiger looking cat with dotted black, instead of lines, against its orange fur.

From time to time, these hunter guards took the time to examine passerby by asking them their identification. Strangers walked away from their gazes.

After Ned gave a sufficient amount of silver to the hunching coachman, he walked straight to an elevated platform together with a number of crowds.

Instead of the usually burned bricks, trees, and plants. The unlabeled building was decorated with dark and brown irons, some floor to ceiling windows attached to another iron that acted as a roof.

Ned could hear raging waves coming from his right. To his left murmurs of the public reached Ned's ears.

"This will be my first time entering the city of Sudden Plate."

"Follow the rules and you'll be fine."

"Well, if you're brave enough to run amok and get the attention of the hunters, then, why not?"

A party of three came talking figuring and helping out one of their team. They weren't hunters, as they do not have the necklace Ned saw common to the hunters.

Ned took a step as the line of the crowd moved. At the far end of the elevated platform were people in full plate armor checking the crowd.

The sun will soon set high up. The crowd moved at a steady pace: mannered but now slow.

"What House was you enlisted?"

A whisper came humming ahead of Ned. A lady, meager build, brown long hair. The one who asked, another thin guy: not a hunter.

"Luckily, the lesser House of Ventura took me," said the brown-haired lady and stepped forward.

"Lucky for us Companions, House Ventura enlisted us under their House even just temporary."

Whether they like it or not noble houses ran the system. Ned thought. Part of a sys—

Ned sensed soft and well-composed energy. It wasn't struggling like Kwan, it was calm and observant. Ned spun his head, he saw hundreds of crowds behind him, doing the same as him lining to enter the iron building.

The cool raging waves echoed to his right and the smell reached him at an unknown distance. With the crowd, Ned couldn't pinpoint where the smell was coming from. But, the soft and aromatic smell was very familiar to Ned. He frowned, sensing the person giving him a strange feeling. "Swift—Sasani?" Ned whispered and for some reason, the scene of his dream slash nightmare ran through his head. Instead of Toni, it was Sasani who was haunting him from the top. Ned gazed, swords shimmered under the sun, iron-tipped arrows danced behind a hunter.

Ned dashed his head left and right, throwing the scene off his mind.

"Kid, move," said a kid in front of Ned with gawking eyes.

The scent was gone and after a time of pushing through Ned reached the hunters in plate armors.

"Why Sudden Plate, kid?" Said the knight in silver.

Sudden Plate, a city inside a city. A city controlled by both the Kingdom of Griffith and Hunter's Guild Association. Making Bogmoor a neighboring city.

"Porter," Ned said. Folding open the paper he took out from his dimension away from his pouch, and another one Master Woods gave.

The knight read the paper and gave it back to Ned: 'Ned of House of Sskat', and read another one after a minute or two he kept hold of the paper Master Woods gave.

Proclaiming he was the patriarch of the House. The knight nodded to the man behind him holding an iron lever and behind him was a door.

"If you're new," he said. Dark eyes and hair cut to cover his forehead. "Proceed to the Hunter's Guild Association Sudden Plate branch. Proceed to the lift"—pointing to the man behind—"and follow the lead after exiting."

Ned entered the lift: wooden floor, iron bars structured to compliment the wall. After some time and waiting for an additional six people—one of them a Hunter who will lead them. The man standing outside the iron lift pushed a button and the lift rumbled.

The bright and warm beam of the sun entered the gaps of the lift. Between these gaps, buildings stood on the horizon, short and tall, mostly tall. Hills divides some of the buildings, random growth of trees along the edges of some rivers scattered the city of Sudden Plate. Along the rocky edges of the cliff were the lifts. Firmly attached to give a smooth loading from top to bottom. And at the bottom of the cliff was the city Sudden Plate.

Seven people inside the lift, elbow to elbow, some shivered, some stood relentless. No necklaces, sweating, and fingers fidgeting. Ned concluded, except for the leader, they were the same as him. Applying as Companions.

After the lift descended for almost four to five minutes. The man who led the group exited and with a simple gesture of his hand, the rest followed.

Ned walked behind the group. They then stopped across a carriage enough for them to fit. Ned sat at the end of the wooden carriage. To his right was a kid much older than him. To his front another kid fidgeting his fingers.

Unlike Bogaressi and Bogmoor. Sudden Plate took the ambiance of a more medieval-like structure. Dry and cemented ground, horses come and go, wooden houses; some were bricks, triangular roofs with orange patches of woods.

The carriage stopped. "Hunters Guild Association' was written broadly atop the building. White and Greek-like pillars stood in front supporting the massive roof that acted as a veranda. The group walked the elevated platforms and stairs as they gawked at the massive two storey building. At the edges of the cemented roof were ornamental carvings.

The group was led not to the entrance but to an alley beside the Hunter's Guild Association building. A small alley that led them to another room they entered. The crowd fitted the room. But before they could enter.

The group leader, who presented himself as iron ranked hunter Benn, gave the group a piece of paper.

Ned received the paper flipping it on the other sides and read as 'Hunter's Guild Association Companionship Contract'.