Making our way back through the gates and back into the city was much easier than I thought it would be. Frankly, a band of possible mercenaries causing trouble just before re-entering the empire was more than common, and there was an unspoken rule that as long as the battle occurred outside the border walls it wouldn’t be looked into past that. Frankly this suited us perfectly, so I wasn’t exactly complaining with this revelation. Along with that it was also noted that a band of half dead adventurers (us) wasn’t exactly a new sight either, so our lack of identification wasn’t an issue. I let Salome do all of the talking, with my band of praetorians looking as menacing as possible behind us.

Frankly I was overall impressed with Salome's communication skills–she managed to continue a conversation with me privately while talking to the few border guards that had shown up to oversee the re-entry into “civilization”. The re-entry procedures were simple, each party would slowly make their way through the gates which were now raised, and it was as simple as that, at least from the outside. With some Salome’s inside knowledge apparently the gate was meant to signal (somehow) when a non-human entity had made their way through the gate, a bit of worry crossed my mind with is information, but as Salome was unperturbed and a modicum of trust had been established between the two of us I decided to just trust her with this one; After all our fates were now intertwined and I felt that she realized that.

And without any fuss we were able to make our way through the gate with no resistance once so ever, apparently the seer operating the gate was either far away or much stronger than I, since I did not sense hide nor hair of them throughout the whole process. After making our way back into Uurak territory, a detour was taken to retrieve the stash of weapons, food (useless) and a smaller cache of weapons. Inside the little safehouse which was basically a hole in the ground with a door, was a small array of weapons. It was a strange thing to see, considering none of these weapons were those of assassins nor were they of notable quality, with the best of them only being made out of steel mixed with copper. I already had my weapon, plus I wasn’t planning on taking an active combat role. It was less an aversion and more of a necessity, I had very little combat power without the Void and there was no way I would be willing to expose myself properly.

Salome seemed to sense my doubts about the origins of the weapons, since she soon mentioned,

“These weapons were meant for when I needed to go undercover, I was expected to be able to play most roles without any issues and as such these weapons were crafted for me. Some of them are quite sturdy even with the somewhat shoddy forging material–I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

[Ya, Ya whatever I believe you, you should go clean up the wound on your arm, I didn’t really do much to it]

Rolling her eyes, Salome soon headed deeper into the hovel, apparently looking for some medical supplies.

Turning to look at my five praetorians I was soon greeted by quite an intimidating sight. Two of the guards had chosen some form of staff weapon, one had selected a polearm with curved blades on either end, curving opposite to each other, the other had chosen a large halberd. One of my praetorians had skipped the selection of weapons entirely, instead grabbing two larger tower shields. The final two chose much simpler, less conspicuous weapons, well in theory. One of them chose a crossbow, but then proceeded to grab a dozen or so odd daggers, and the strangest part was with subtle movements the daggers soon all disappeared within the confounds of their bulky armor. It truly was a strange sight and was almost captivating to watch. Finally, the last one, the one who seemed to be acting as the de facto leader of the group simply just grabbed a short sword and a longsword, attaching the short sword scabbard to his hip, with the longsword being strung over his back.

With the return of Salome, it was soon clear our little merry band had finally come back together again and were ready to head into the city. Our identities were simple, just some mercenaries who had struck a small fortune in the wilderness and were now heading to the safety of the capital, where I would enroll within the academy. We would need to purchase new identities, but mercenaries striking it rich and wanting to start anew was common enough that a fairly simple procedure was in place. For the cost of two gold pieces a face one could create new identities that would gain them entry into the capital.

A quick identity check would be necessary, and I doubt my mask would raise any problems once they saw the mess my face currently was. Almost as if reminding me of its existence, my face seemed to bubble up again as if the heat of the flame was pressing into my skin again. Grimacing, our little party made its way back into the city.

Now able to enter through the main gate of the city, my little group was able to gain official access to the city for a whopping fourteen gold pieces. That sum of money was enough for a serf in the countryside to live like a king until he was killed by a neighbor or roaming imperial agent off of a whim. Money was truly a marvelous thing; credit was even more so. What a strange concept, I feel like there was some form of irony here, but there truly was no point in musing over it.

But soon, my musing had once again left me running on autopilot and soon I found myself in queue to use the portal to return to the capital. Only then did the thought strike me about what had all come down on me in the past half a year. The true weight of the emotions I had felt seemed to weigh down on me. Yet, as this weight began to weigh down on me it almost felt like I was holding up a weight that was not mine. It felt like these emotions belonged to someone else, like an amnestic remembering something that they could identify as their own, a foreign memory burying into my mind, drilling its way into my very psyche.

Feeling my heartbeat rising, the Void within me started to swirl and revolve-almost as if it was waking up and getting ready to break free of my control and just consume. Everything, my entire being, everything within the radius of my scream would be reduced to nothing.

Yet as my body seemed to reach this breaking point, I felt a hand grab my own, and heard what sounded like the voice of the Void itself humming into my ear, slowing calming me down and settling me back into my own skin. Sighing closed my eyes and slowly forced my thoughts in an orderly rhythm of calm. Soon, I reopened my eyes and finally recognized where that hum was originating from. It was coming from my mind, and it wasn’t the Void reaching out to me, instead it was Salome.

The captured part of her soul was whispering a song into the vast expanse of mind, it was just a faint echo–yet it had such an extreme calming effect on me. Slowly opening my eyes, I gave the hand a slight squeeze as a word of thanks, and then simply let the hand go. Even with the hand gone, the singing never stopped, continuing to comfort me.

It was a strange feeling, it was one similar to persuasion, it wasn’t coercion instead it was a song of patience, a song of freedom, a song of rebirth. Regaining my sense, my breathing calmed down and I was soon ready to enter the portal.

By the time it was our turn to enter the portal, I had completely calmed myself down and with a simple blip our entire group passed through the portal and into the capital city.

The trip back to the capital was taken in almost an instance, with no interference from the Void this time, yet I could still feel the Void’s embrace upon entering the portal. Mr. Emperor sir don’t think I didn’t notice what you did.

The capital was as noisy and busy as I remembered, making our way past security was an easy task especially with our new identities. My mask and Salome’s missing arm didn’t attract much attention from the guards yet drew a lot of attention from people as we walked through the city.

Salome had grabbed a new cloak from her cache, but the sleave flopping around left quite a striking image to the relatively sheltered population of the capital.

Finding housing large enough to fit our group wasn’t that difficult, the entry exam for the Uurak University (UU) wasn’t for another year. Unlike lower education which ran every year, UU held opening every four years, with schooling lasting four years. This meant that there was only ever one year of students within the university at any point in time. While this seemed somewhat inefficient that was almost the point. It meant that UU was allowed to be much pickier with who they let in, since there was no minimum quota that needed to be filled, those who were deemed acceptable were let in, and those who weren’t either had the chance to try again in another four years or simply attempt to addend some other form of training.

UU didn’t have any on campus housing, which meant there were many houses up for rent on the outskirts of the campus, and many would only rent once they got into university. The house we picked had one of the largest yards, but also was the most isolated of any of the buildings. It was about a twenty-minute walk from the university and had an interesting structure. The yard was located in the center of the building, with the housing made up of a ring surrounding the yard.

Settling into our new accommodations we only had another eleven months to prepare for the university exams…