Chapter 11

Tulia spoke up, “Boys, what do you want to do. Spend some time here and explore city life? Or should I book a passage south today?” Though she didn’t need to ask she just wanted to see the excitement in their faces as they both shouted, “Explore!”

“Should we go to the Alchemists Guild? They have good housing for members,” Duncan asked his wife.

“Nah, let’s find an inn so they can the average experience. They won’t always have guild housing to rely on,” Tulia thought aloud. “Gen. Remember what I said back at the village, do not condense your Aspect if you can help it. Okay?”

Gen nodded in understanding as he recalled her serious face at the time.

The wagon slowly pulled up through the crowded street to an unimpressive inn; but through the eyes of the boys, it may as well be a castle. The houses within Golden Bark village were all made from the growth of saplings and seldom did they have homes taller than 2-stories. The inn in front of them has 4 whole levels, they had to crane their neck upwards just to see the top.

Upon handing their wagon to the stable boy, the family of four walked up to the counter where a scrawny pale man met them. “What can I do for you fine folks,” the innkeeper asked.

“Two large beds please,” Tulia said.

“How long will you folks be staying? Two large beds for 3 days is 3 square coins, 1 triangle for a week,” the innkeeper said trying to upsell.

Tulia turned around to look at her sons and she’s met with eager eyes. “A week please,” Tulia said while placing a silver coin on the counter. “Go unload the wagon and store our belongings into the rooms, I’ll go get us a table,” she said to her sons and husband. Tulia looked at the innkeeper, “a meal for four please.”

“Yes, yes. Right this way,” the man led her through a set of doors and into the dining area. The layout of the inn was quite simple, as the entry opened up into the parlor and it branched out into the upstairs bedroom and the dining room. The bedrooms at the bottom floor of the inn spanned from the dining room. “Here we are ma’am, what would you like to eat?” the innkeeper asked as he personally saw her to a table.

“Mm, give me 4 servings of whatever you have roasting, and 4 hearty stews.” Tulia casually demands. The boys found her easily within the dining area and arrived just as the food was being served. “Mm, looks delicious honey.” Duncan comments. Just as the serving girl began to retreat back into the kitchen, Duncan grabs her attention, “Uh. Miss,” he said as he raised a square coin, “Do you know of anything fun to do in this city?”

Seeing her potential tip, the serving girl racked her brain for an answer. “Towards sunset there is a magical display near the docks at the south side of the city. Our markets also have many fascinating things to purchase. Oh! Though it isn’t as big as the arena within the capital, we do have a fighting pit where you can watch some duels,” the girl said, and with that she walked away with an extra bronze coin.

Looking at their sons Tulia asked, “So, what do you two boys want to do first?”

Without even thinking about it, “I want to watch the duels!” Gaius responded while his brother said, “I want to go to the markets!”

The two boys looked at each other to see if the other would relent, and then Duncan said, “We can go to the markets after eat, then we’ll just go to the fighting pits after. How does that sound?”

After they finished eating and walked out of the inn, the sun had yet to reach the middle of the sky and the early morning mist had already evaporated. The family of four began to walk randomly through the city streets, following the large crowd of people.

“Wow, these streets are so hard,” Gaius thought to himself and actually spent some time observing the surface, “I wonder if the whole city’s streets are made of stone?” Gaius eventually looked up to the wonder of the city streets. People went about their day in a mishmash or chaotic order. The sides, though not officially within the market district, had stalls lined up hawking snacks and tchotchkes. The thing that was the most assaulting to his senses were not the loud noise of travel or the voices of vendors, but the scent of so many unwashed people.

Seeing his son pull his shirt to cover his nose, Duncan chuckled and began to condense his aura around his body. “Oh, hey. That’s strange, it doesn’t smell anymore?” Gaius thought to himself as he cautiously lowered his shirt and took a small sniff. “Ah, I wonder where what happened,” Gaius looked around to see if anyone noticed his behavior only to meet the cheerful, almost playful smile of his father.

“Haha, it’s a common trick. It is probably one of the first things people learn to do in these cities. Since everyone uses aura to cover themselves, they don’t get dirty as often and also can’t smell each other which makes them less inclined to wash themselves,” Duncan clarified.

Gaius was astonished about that behavior, “Why not just wash yourself? So you don’t have to condense auras?” he thought.

Gaius let out a sigh, “Man, there seem to be no limit to the wonderful things you can with aura. I wish I could do some of this stuff,” he thought. “Dad,” Gaius said “if you can condense an aura to cover your body, could you do that to someone else to trap them?”

“No, perhaps if an expert tried it on a baby, then maybe. However, aura has no substance. That is to say that they do not affect the material world unless you condense a lot of it and channel it into a spell or something. Watch my hand,” Duncan instructed. Suddenly a thick dense rich cluster of brown aura of Wood Aspect surrounded a pebble atop his hand. Then Duncan flipped his hand over and the pebble fell right through. Duncan again picked the pebble up and said, “Now watch how much aura I use this time.” Soon a small sliver of brown aura slipped and slid around the pebble until it condensed into brown thin vines wrapped around it. When his father flipped his hand over this time, the pebble remained constricted within the vines in midair.

“Oh, so the aura itself cannot affect the pebble because it’s a physical object. So does that mean smells are non-physical?” Gaius astutely asked.

While father and son were busy discussing the finer points of aura effects, Tulia and Gen were off to the side—not too far away, looking at the knickknacks each stall had to offer.

“Actually, some sages have found that smells are actually really small physical dust-like particles. It’s just so small that a bit of aura is enough to block them, even if they’re not condensed into a spell,” Duncan instructed.

“What about light? Is light a non-physical thing, can aura block someone’s eyesight?” Gaius kept asking questions.

“Hmm, what do you think?” Duncan turned the question back at him.

“I don’t know, that’s why I asked you,” Gaius said.

Laughing at his son, Duncan said, “Well, think it through. If light is a physical object, then . . . ? Or, if light is a non-physical object, then . . .? Answer those questions and try out your answers.”

“Hmm,” Gaius thought to himself, “If light was a physical object, then aura should not be able to block eyesight.” After a bit of thought, Gaius told his dad, “Can you condense your aura in front of my eyes?”

Up ahead of Gaius and Duncan, Tulia and Gen picked up a curious clear stone that had a purple star within its center. It was quite a pretty stone to look at, but without sensing an aura it was just another mundane stone. The mother-son pair placed it back onto the stall and continued ahead.

A sudden dense thick aura appeared before Gaius’s eyes blocking his vision before him. “So light is a non-physical object,” Gaius triumphantly replied.

“Are you sure?” Duncan asked.

“Yes, my eyesight is blocked. So light was distorted, blocked, or reflected by your dense aura,” he replied.

Duncan looked ahead at Gen and Tulia and asked his son, “How about your brother, Gen. What happens if I condense a thick dense aura around his eyes? Do you think he’ll be able to see normally or no?”

Gaius was stunned, he forgot that he could see all Aspects and that’s why his vision was blocked. If his father was to condense his aura in front of someone that couldn’t sense the Aspect of Wood, then he wouldn’t be blinded at all. Gaius slumped into confusion as he didn’t even need his father to condense his Aspect to know of the outcome.

With a smile Duncan said, “Light is an odd thing, some of the sages say it is physical while others say it is not. Most believe that it is both.”

“How can something be both physical and non-physical?” Gaius asked.

“One of the Heavenly mysterious. If you find out one day, let me know. I’d like to know the answer,” Duncan said with a smile.

The father-son pair finally caught up with their counterparts and continued down the streets until they finally reached the heart of the market district. Unlike the stalls at the side of the road that led up to here, these vendors had actual store-front buildings and sold things of real value and not just trinkets. The center of the market district was located at the northern end of the city, not too far from the gate where the Wyn family entered the city.

At the center of the district was a tall grandiose building about 3,000 square meters, and a wide street encircled the building. Atop the building stood a flag with a pile of coins as the image, the same image was used as banners hung on the side of the building flapping in the wind.

“Whoa! How big!” Gaius thought to himself. “I don’t think you can build a building any higher. Hmm. Why is there a picture of money on the flags?”

Seeing his son’s wonder, Tulia smiled and said, “This is the Merchant’s Guild, this small building is only a branch. Most of the guilds are headquartered within the capital.”

“What? This is a small building?” Gaius shouted.

“Mom, why would anyone join a guild?” Gen asked.

“Hmm, well. There are a lot of reasons to join and not to join, it’s quite complicated. But one of the easier reasons to join is that they have perks. Like, if you join the Merchant Guild here, you can use their vaults to store your money so that you don’t have to worry about being robbed at home,” Tulia answered. “Let’s go in, yeah?”

Upon entering through the massive ornate double doors, Gaius was surprised to see the hustle and bustle. Shelves covered the entirety of every wall around the whole room, and before each was a counter to segregate customers and workers. And behind the counter every few meters, was a worker talking to a customer. Gaius and his family slowly made their way to the closest counter, which was to their left. He looked up and noticed a colorful and decorated board depicting a parchment, quill, and inkwell. Looking behind the counter, Gaius noticed that scrolls, books, pens, and quills lined several shelves. “Boards separate and identify which counter is in charge of which service or tradable goods. This one here is the sign for the scribe,” Tulia answered an unasked question.

“What do they do?” Gen asked his parents.

“Well, not a lot of mercenaries or farmers know letters or numbers. So they seek out a scribe to forge a contract they can use for services rendered. Let’s pretend you’re a mercenary,” Tulia said to Gen, the boy perks up at his heroic image fighting monsters as a mercenary and she smiles at his childish dreams, “And you want to sign onto a caravan for a few years, but don’t want to be cheated out of your wages and working conditions. So you come here to have a scribe write a contract for you. Most of the time the contract is written in front of the two parties to save going back and forth amending the thing.”

“So, if we know letters and numbers, then we don’t ever need a scribe’s work?” Gaius asked from the side.

“Well, you can write your own contract, yes. But only the Merchant Guild’s scribes have the power to imprint the Alirian seal onto a contract. Without the seal, the contract is not enforceable by the Alirian kingdom and its supported guilds. So you can write your own contract to save some money, and then just pay for the seal imprint separately, it’s a lot cheaper that way,” Duncan finished explaining.