There were six guards standing at the entrance to the Labyrinth. One armsman from each of the Five Families, and one soldier from UNLOA, the United Nations Labyrinth Oversight Army. Each one of the guards was wearing the uniform of their respective employer, but even without those uniforms, the allegiance of each was plain to see.

The UNLOA soldier, one of only two plain humans among the guards, was wearing her dress uniform, shoes and cap shined to the point where they could be used as mirrors. A Belgian Five-seveN, the standard issue sidearm for UNLOA was holstered at her belt, and she was aiming a Kirlian-Bjørnson scanner at anyone entering the Labyrinth.

The only other human guard was, naturally, the armsman from the House of Adam. He was at least 180 centimeters tall, and his wide shoulders seemed even wider covered by a severe white tabard over heavy plate armor. He was leaning on a huge shield with the symbol of his house, a stylized "HoA", a large mace hanging from his belt. Like the other Armsmen, he had no need of a K-B scanner. Instead, he had a Sliced Aura Vision Shard, and could see at least the number of Shards Sliced by anyone who approached the entrance, if not their type and tier.

The representative from Tŷ Bwystfilod was a large, imposing markhor-kin. Standing even taller than the House of Adam paladin, the huge screw shaped horns on her head would probably scrape the ceiling of most modern homes. She was wearing a plain leather jerkin in the brown and green of House Bwystfil, a huge warhammer that looked far too heavy for even an Olympic weightlifter to handle resting on the wall behind her.

Domus Tenebris, true to their name, sent what appeared to be nothing more than a shadow to guard the entrance. Ever shifting and fading into the background, "vaguely humanoid" was the only description that could be applied to whoever, or whatever, was there.

An old gnome clad in red robes was obviously a member of The Brotherhood of Hermes. The golden embroidery on his robes could have been the runic script of a majestic enchantment, or a recipe for blackberry pie in an ancient language nobody outside the Brotherhood could read. Dwarfed next to the other guards, the Hermetic was easy to underestimate. A mistake most people only get to do once.

Last but not least, the Bjørnson guard was a tall, handsome elf clad in an exoskeleton made of bronze. Copper gears whirred noisily whenever he moved, and he was looking at the world through the blue crystal lenses of his clunky looking helmet. He was holding a weapon that might have started its life as a crossbow, but it was impossible to know for sure beneath the gears, tubes and crystals covering it.

Approaching the entrance for the first time, Eduard felt the weight of five pairs of eyes and one magitech scanner falling on him. A second later, and it was obvious that the guards could see that he was Sliced. Getting a sneer from the paladin and gnome, Ed entered floor zero of the Labyrinth, home to the great bazaar.

It was impossible to accurately gauge the size of the bazaar. The main hall (or cave, flying island, forest clearing, or one of dozens of other options, depending on the day of the week, alignment of stars, or just the whim of whatever unseen entity created the Labyrinth) of the bazaar was hundreds of meters wide, and an ever changing number of kilometers long. And that was not counting the offshoots. Thousands of stalls covered the floor of the bazaar. Some selling clothing, armor and weapons for any era. Others selling food made from exotic plants and monsters found in the Labyrinth (Try our famous chimera kebab! Best eaten with a side of behemoth tzaziki!), potions from the best (or worst) alchemists, and Shards of any type.

It was the last which drew Ed's eyes the most. Danger and combat lurked in every corner of the Labyrinth, beyond the safety of the bazaar, and having a combat skill Sliced would make his survival a lot more likely. Unfortunately, the last of his money was spent on buying Phantasmal Worker. Even that useless Shard cost him the sum of five years of saving. With a last, regretful look at a proudly presented Greater Bulwark Shard, which would let a man armed with any melee weapon parry all attacks aimed at him for a period of ten seconds, Ed turned his gaze towards an Escheresque array of stairways, slides and corridors taking up the center of the cavern.

The entrance to the Labyrinth proper.