Walking the streets of Kolyug made me realise how little I had seen in the months I had played Road to Purgatory. Kolyug was the first city I was in, and I felt like a rube from the boondocks, seeing the bright lights for the first time. Not that the lights were bright, but the city was solely constructed out of grey stone - almost certainly with magic - and its uniform nature made it clear that it was not coincidence that it looked like it did. This city had not grown organically, with new people constructing their living space and roads forming so that people could get from one end to the other. No, this city had been planned, meticulously so, and a strong authority had made sure that nobody stepped away from the plan.

Another thing that was different took me a few moments to notice, mainly because the thing that stood out was the absence of the stinging, bad smell I had been subjected to in Yaksha and Yari. Kolyug did not smell like roses, there was a certain smell in the air, a smell I would later learn was the smell of unwashed troll. The best description I could think of was that it smelled of wet rock dust, slightly stinging and maybe a little metallic. All in all, there were worse thing to smell, like unwashed human or, even worse, the noxious miasma of sewage. Part of me was curious how they had managed a sewage system in an arctic climate but a bigger part simply went with the knowledge that it worked and treated it like sausage and laws. Great things to have, but detailed knowledge of the processes involved was better avoided.

With those thoughts tumbling in my head, I decided that now that we were inside the city, I could return to the place where I felt best when around other people, hiding in Sigmir’s shadow. There, I could let her deal with those around us and I was close to her. It was almost as good as being alone with her, out in the wild.

After following Adra through the grid-system that were the roads of Kolyug, we got to a small square, with quite a few people milling around. What made me take notice was the set of stocks built in the middle of the square, a massive contraption made from dark wood and a short glimpse through Lenore’s eyes showed me that it was brimming with magic. Adra ignored them and headed towards a building with all the aesthetics of a government office. Drab, grey and boring. The only thing that made it slightly more palatable was the sword-and-bow-symbol of the Adventurer’s Guild on a sign out front.

The inside was not a whole lot better, a counter similar to the one in Yaksha was the only real furniture, there was nothing inviting one to stay. A board took up one of the walls, orderly hanging papers decorating it. What made it slightly more interesting than your average government office was the being behind the counter. I had thought I had seen large trolls, but that one, he put them to shame. When I saw him, I wondered just how in the hell he got through the door of the building; he was that big, both in height and in width. I felt like a dwarf, just looking at him, standing about eight feet tall, towering even above Sigmir, but even more impressive was his width. Part of me wanted to test if his shoulders were wider than I was tall but I felt that annoying him would be a bad move. His muscles’ muscles had muscles on their muscles and next to the table was what I could only describe as a small tree, only that it was made out of metal, undoubtedly his weapon of choice, a club that could easily double as a siege-ram if there was need.

“Yes, what can I do for you?” the troll asked, scanning over us, without outwardly noticing me. I had trouble keeping myself from laughing at his voice, with his stature, I had expected a voice only slightly above infrasound, deep and rumbling. His voice, was not that. He sounded relatively normal and pleasant, maybe a baritone and without an especially resounding quality.

“Good afternoon, my companions and I are a travelling group of adventurers and wanted to check for the usual jobs.” Adra took the lead in speaking.

“Hrm, yes, sure. There is the bounty board - just remember, the Guild will take no responsibility if you get hurt because you overestimated yourself. Most jobs have some sort of estimation of the enemies you will face but those are just guesses.” the troll explained while Adra walked over. Sigmir stood back and I noticed that the troll was muttering under his breath and was able to catch that he was adding information because some Travellers had gotten themselves into trouble.

“Morgana, how long do we plan to stay here?” Adra asked from over by the bounty board, so I stepped forward, leaving Sigmir’s shadow to take a look and as I walked over, there was a soft, possibly surprised, grunt from the troll. The bounty board had quite a lot of different papers, most were straight forward, like killing a number of animals in the area, others were earmarked as only for certain ranks and dealt with escorting or delivering someone or something. I remembered Saya explaining that the rank was a measurement of trust from the guild, to make sure that the Adventurers escorting were not in reality bandits, ‘escorting’ their prey directly into the underworld.

“Is there a rule how many jobs we can take on at any given time?” I asked, thinking about taking a week or two to do a few hunting quests in the area, maybe go, look for another dungeon, it would give good EXP.

“No, there is not, why would there be?” the troll answered, clearly over his surprise of me appearing.

I continued studying the jobs, when Rai spoke up behind me.

“Those stocks out there, what are they for?” he asked the troll.

“The Kol installed them as a warning, some foolish Adventurer mouthed off to one of the keep-guards so now, those who disturb the order are put into the stocks for a day the first time, branded the second time. If they don’t learn their lesson, they are killed - and banished, too, if they are Travellers.” the troll explained, making me shudder a little. ‘Disturbing the order’ was such a nice, incredibly specific law, so nice in fact that I made a note not to interact with officials if at all possible.

“What is a Kol? And is there a list of rules that constitute your order?” I asked, hoping for some easy to follow rules.

“The Kol is the family head of the ruling family, they ruled over Kolyug ever since they built it. And for rules, just follow common sense and you will be fine, probably.”

“Wonderful…” I muttered under my breath, thinking of all the ways that could go wrong. But the mention that the ruling family had built Kolyug made me curious; unless I was grossly mistaken, the city was made with Earth Magic and I had a nice staff to boost just that. Maybe, I could either sell the staff or trade it for information.

“Any restrictions on selling items? I don’t want to try selling something that you regard as contraband, I have heard of communities placing restrictions on all sorts of things, from types of meat to specific herbs or drinks.”

“No, none of that. Just that five percent of everything traded in the city is taxed by the Kol, but it is the store’s responsibility to take care of that. There are quite a few stores here in Kolyug, mostly buying and selling what others hunt and gather in the north before selling it south.” the troll volunteered, making me realise that he might have been bored before we turned up.

“Thank you. Could you give us a recommendation which inn is good? The last one rented their beds to far too many bugs for my taste.”

He laughed a little and sent us to an inn, just on the other side of the road, specialising in the Adventurer-trade. Their prices were a little higher but they knew that those living rough outdoors enjoyed having a undisturbed night for once.

I thanked him again and registered a couple of hunting quests, all targeting an area on the other side of the lake, estimated levels between fifty and seventy. In addition, there were bandits in the area, making me almost giddy with excitement, after all, hunting bandits was one of the staples of any good role-playing game and I was looking forward to do it here in Mundus. The quest spoke of a hideout that had to be located and either reported without being spotted or wiped out. Wiping them out was better rewarded but only if certain identifying effects of the bandits could be produced. It was a quest that required us to register it with our Guild Cards and if we were found to have thwarted the guard by warning the bandits, we might be penalised.

With a nice amount of quests registered, we thanked the troll, who had introduced himself as Lagor when we had given him our guild-cards, and left to check out - and possibly in at - the inn.