Chapter 51: Far Felsen

Chapter 51: Far Felsen

A thick, blocky fortress rested on top of a tall cliff overlooking a dark sea, the whole structure made of gray and blue stone. One large tower lorded over the castle, a bright yellow flame burning at the top, acting as a beacon to any ship or sailor treading the water within sight. Huge structures showed themselves built into the side of the cliff, leading down to the shore hundreds of feet below where a walled town had been built against the base of the rock face. Beyond the strong walls and three-story buildings dominating the city’s skyline, the white sails of dozens of moored ships peeked into view.

Far Felsen was an impressive sight, one that had Jadis’ inner fantasy geek squealing in delight. This city was exactly the kind of place Jadis had been hoping to see when D had first told her about the fantastical nature of Oros.

From what Gerwas and the other mercenaries had told Jadis' several selves, Far Felsen as a city wasn’t all that old, relatively speaking, but the fort on the top of the bluff had been established nearly five hundred years ago. The place hadn’t changed much since that initial founding, until after the last demon invasion had been repelled some one hundred and thirty years ago. The emperor at the time had ordered the port around the fortress expanded, the city built up around it to support the needed infrastructure, all so settlers could be encouraged to move to Weigrun.

The exact details were still a little nebulous to Jadis, but the gist of the situation she’d gotten from the mercs was that Weigrun had been a largely untamed land in the south with few inhabitants until some intrepid explorer had discovered eleria in the mountains on the north side of Weigrun.

Eleria was a rare and valuable material necessary for crafting enchanted items, like the tool Ludwas had used to identify if Jadis was a demon or not. With the revelation that large deposits of the magical mineral were to be found in the Kalters Wall Mountain Range, thousands of people had hopped onto ships and made their way to Far Felsen and Weigrun, hoping to strike it rich.

Jadis supposed it was a bit like the American Gold Rush, just more magical.

A lot of money had been put into the infrastructure of the blossoming colony, the previously empty land growing in population by leaps and bounds over the course of a century. While not as fast growing as the American frontier as Jadis understood it, Weigrun had spawned dozens upon dozens of small mining towns all over the north part of it, with dozens more farming villages set up to feed the growing populace. Up until about two years prior, there had probably been hundreds of thousands of Imperial citizens inhabiting the southern land.

With the demonic blitz, though, that number had shrunk significantly.

Those ordinary farmers, miners, and townsfolk that hadn’t been killed by the initial surprise attack of the demonic invasion had undergone a massive evacuation. Tens of thousands of men and women set sail from Felsen and the other smaller ports, heading back to the central continent and perceived safety. The growing communities that dotted the land had turned into ghost towns, not unlike the village Jadis had found herself living in. The populace dropped to a mere fraction of what it had been at its height.

Not everyone evacuated Weigrun, though. There were thousands of soldiers and stubborn ordinary people who had stayed to defend the city of Far Felsen, as well as a few other large towns elsewhere on the subcontinent. The empire had withdrawn much of its citizenry from Weigrun, but it wasn’t a complete retreat. The value of the Eleria mines couldn’t be discounted.

Once the demon lord’s war-of-attrition-plan had revealed itself, the empire had put great effort into reclaiming Weigrun so that more Eleria could be mined. Hence, six months ago, the Second Prince Kestil had hired multiple mercenary companies to occupy the land around Felsen, slowly working their way inland, slaying the demons infesting the hills and forests to make the place safe for workers to resume mining operations.

All of the information Jadis had learned about Weigrun, Far Felsen, and the demonic invasion of the land she’d learned about during the day long wagon ride to the city had prepared her for a medieval fantasy city that had been worn down by war and rife with refugees. She imagined the place had to have struggled to feed and safeguard the thousands of fleeing people that must have passed through its gates for the past couple of years. Maybe it had at one point, but the city Jadis saw before her was anything but worn down or overwhelmed.

Far Felsen’s stout walls stood tall and clean with colored flags and pennants flying high. The road leading into the large gates was wide and clear, with a steady, orderly line of people moving in at an efficient pace. There were no shanty towns or decrepit buildings lining the outer edges of the walls, no camps of starving asylum seekers begging for entrance to an uncaring city. The city was, for lack of a better word, shockingly clean.

At least, Felsen was clean on outward appearance. Jadis wasn’t sure if the image would hold up once she was inside the walls, but first impressions indicated the people in charge were running a tight ship, keeping the populace safe and fed while maintaining a strong and disciplined defense.

Jadis wondered if that was the doing of the magistrate she’d heard the mercenaries mention, the prince who was supposedly backing the whole reclamation of the area, or if the way Far Felsen looked was just an accurate example of how all cities in the empire were treated. Demonic invasions were a reoccurring thing on Oros, from what she understood. It made sense to Jadis that any group of people that had been around for generations of the attacks had probably learned well how to deal with such situations in an efficient manner.

As Jadis mulled over possibilities, the wagon drew up to the gates, bypassing the short line of what looked to be farmers and workers being checked by the gate guards before being allowed entrance to the city. Passing by the line of about forty men and women, Jadis couldn’t help but stare at some of the people she saw. More than half of them were humans no different from the mercenaries she’d already met, but several were elves like the one man she’d seen back at the camp, though they had different coloration, looking more reddish in color compared to the mercenary elf’s blue skin.

“Evening, Bean Pole,” he said, “And, ah, Ludwas, what happened to you?”

Jadis couldn’t help but notice the way Aila’s face went stiff and blank when the guard called her the nickname Volker had told her about.

“Long story,” Ludwas grunted, still lying splayed out on the back of the wagon. “Short of it being we were ambushed on the way here. Might be bad luck on our part but might also be that some matriarch or two has gotten past the line and is breeding a new wave somewhere in the hills.”

The two guards voiced their dismay, peppering Ludwas and the others with questions as they did a perfunctory search of the wagon. Jadis wasn’t sure what they were looking for, but inspections like this seemed to be the standard practice for anyone entering the city.

“Well, you three are an oddity,” the short guard stated, grabbing Jadis’ attention.

He stared up at the three of her, one hand holding the letter up while the other rested on his hip. As he spoke, Jadis recognized a faintly different accent to his words, different from the Germanic inflections that Aila and the mercs had. The man sounded similar, but also somehow smoother, almost rhythmic in the way he spoke, like he was just about ready to break out into a song but never quite got there.

“From anyone else I wouldn’t believe it, but from Renz... Well. I will be confirming with a Detect Stone, you understand.”

It didn’t seem like he was asking for permission, unlike how Ludwas had, but Jadis got the feeling that the tiny guard very much had a say in whether or not she was allowed to enter the city. Not seeing a way around it, nor seeing any negative reaction from Aila or the mercs, Jay, Dys, and Syd all shrugged their assent.

“We’re not demons, so go ahead,” Dys answered, leaning against Syd, her hurt leg raised up a bit to avoid putting much weight on it.

The guard pulled out a stone with a hole in the middle, identical to the one Ludwas had used the day before. Speaking the word aloud three times, the guard used detect on all three of her, brow furrowing a little.

“The letter says you should all be level thirty,” the guard gruffly pointed out, his eyes faintly accusing. “How do you explain the difference?”

Jay waved behind her, indicating the road that disappeared into the hills to the north. “We fought some demons on the way here. It gave us two levels each in our secondary classes.”

“What, did you fight another matriarch?” he asked, his tone a little mocking as he flapped the letter in his hand a bit.

“No, it was a grundwyrm,” Aila called out from her seat on the wagon.

“And a dozen twisted wretches,” Ludwas added with a labored voice. “Can’t forget those...”

The guard looked between Aila’s stony, serious face, Gerwas’ nodding head, and the three pale giants who all simply shrugged in unison.

“Get inside the gates,” he said with a disbelieving sigh. “We’ll need to hear the full story on this one.”