"So...we're really doing this are we?" Gagaran said with a rare hint of nervousness in her voice. Nobody was critical of her question, the adamantite adventurer team 'Blue Rose' was standing on the northern border of the Abelion Hills, a land inhabited by demihumans, a land now controlled by an undead king, a land from which kingdom wrecking army had ventured forth.

Blue Rose was a team renowned for their courage, skill, and fortitude...but only the foolish fear nothing, only those who desire to die, feel no anxiety about risk. Being neither foolish nor desiring to die, they felt both, but with a deep breath coming out of her lungs, Lakyus replied, "Yes." and took the fateful step forward as if she expected the land itself to open and swallow her up. But step she did, and she breathed in deeply as if relieved. Then she took another step, and her team followed her.

They started walking, and for several hours there was nothing, just the green rolling hills, the twittering of birds, and the sound of wind through the occasional bush or collection of trees. Most of the day had passed before they heard something different, the sound of activity of a more artificial sort.

It was the sound of hammering and shoveling taking place over the next rise. Unsure of what lay beyond the rise, Blue Rose's five members glanced at one another, and then quickly spit off onto opposing sides of the road. Tia and Tina had taken opposing sides from one another and, being specialized in stealth they swiftly moved up to a position from which they could observe, and their mouths fell open at what they saw.

At the bottom of the hill there were skeletons digging post holes on either side, which other skeletons placed wooden posts into, and which others came behind to fill in, behind them came demihumans running wooden poles between them, and behind them came more who dipped brushes into buckets of pitch and sealed the wooden pieces together. Fences...they were making fences. On the outside of the fences, more skeletons were digging trenches, and the earth from those was laid in the center inside the area between the fences, raising the earth in those places by several inches. The width was great enough to allow three carriages to pass abreast of one another...a road...it was a road going North into what had been the border with the Sorcerous Kingdom. Farther away there were various types of demihumans hauling materials up to where the skeletons were working, looking farther away, they could see that this was an assembly line process, and most shocking of all, the saw dwarves setting stakes in place in the road area, atop each stake was a cross shaped piece of wood from which string hung, the bottom of each being secured by a weight, each odd device had stakes put beyond it, one after another the other by a considerable distance, and the ones placing lone stakes seemed to be responding to the instructions by the one at the odd device, each, adjusting their positions, and using signal flags to communicate as they went farther away from one another. Whatever was happening, each time both raised the same flag, demihumans approached and began hammering stakes in along the way, apparently indicating course.

It was all so thoroughly confounding that Tia and Tina both almost forgot to look for weapons or signs of hostility. Professionalism won out however, and they went through the usual questions of who, what, where, how, and how many, before reporting back to their companions on each side of the road.

Lakyus considered what to do, this was a new situation. Had there not been dwarves among them, she'd have recommended bypassing the area entirely, but as it was the presence of dwarves suggested nonhostility, since demihumans that were hostile would surely eat any dwarf just as readily as they would a human. She gave a hand signal and called the team back together.

"I'm going to say hello." Lakyus said.

"Are you sure?" Evileye asked, "It seems reckless."

"So is this...contract, but here we are, and they don't seem to be hostile." Tia replied.

"Give me just a few minutes, and if they're not hostile, well I'll call you to me, if they are, well I trust my roses to come to my rescue." Lakyus said with a sweet smile.

That was greeted by shrugs of acceptance, and Lakyus stepped out of their hidden position and walked over the hill, she stopped at the top and waited for herself to be spotted. When she was, she didn't get the reaction she expected, no one rushed to arms, nobody responded with hostility for the most part nobody even seemed to care.

This blithe indifference to her presence made her more curious than anything else, and so she went down the hill to investigate, eventually coming close to the dwarf most distant from the others.

"Hello." She said politely.

The dwarf paused his work with a stake, raised a hand to stop her for a moment, then took out a flag and signaled, the dwarf in the distance appeared to have put his hands on his hips, but he did stop working. When this was done, the short dark bearded dwarf turned to her and said gruffly, "Hello to you."

He said nothing else, just stared at her for a moment, when Lakyus seemed to lack words, he turned away saying, "Goodbye." and made to resume his work.

"Wait a moment." Lakyus said, "What...exactly is going on here?"

"Ain't it obvious lady?" The gruff dwarf asked. "We're building a road for his majesty, leading from the interior of the Abelion Hills all the way to the city of E-Rantel, as well as to Carne village and a few other places. Its a lot of work, so if you don't mind..."

Lakyus was not inclined to take the hint. "You're working with demihumans and the undead." She said.

"You noticed that didja? Sharp eyes yah got there." He said in a voice that dripped with sarcasm.

She blushed. "What I mean is, aren't you worried? You know, that they'll eat you or tear you apart?"

The dwarf stared at her like she was stupid. "Are you crazy?" He asked, stroking his beard and giving her a hard eyed look, "Or are you not from here?"

It was her turn to be sarcastic and she replied, "Of course I'm from here, don't you realize that humans live all over the Abelion Hills?"

He did a double take for a moment, and then started to laugh heartily. "Ah ye got me there lass. Alright, to answer yer question the answer is no. Those demihumans are citizens of the Sorcerous Kingdom. All of them, the goaty looking folks, the bafolk, the snakemen, the ogres and orcs, all of em, and the skeletons, they're under the control of the wand bearer, and he's a citizen too, in this case one workin for the Sorcerer King. So we're forbidden doncha know? We're not allowed to fight except in sport, or eat each other ever."

Lakyus did a double take of her own. "And...you obey these rules?"

"We're workin together aren't we?" He asked with a grin. "I'm one of the surveyors, Gimel's the name. Down there is me partner and cousin, Kivel. "

"And...what's that device your cousin is using?" Lakyus said, now intrigued.

"That's a groma." Gimel explained. "Its a tool the Sorcerer King gave us for surveying in open land, see he stakes that into place, and that weight hangs down, then I lay the stake and we look down the middle, if the weight and stake line up at eye level for the both of us, we signal, and then someone stakes out the path, and that way we keep on course. Its actually pretty brilliant. But then, so is his majesty." Gimel said admiringly.

"Remarkable." Lakyus said, thinking of the often haphazard way roads were guided in Re-Estize, by guesswork and...more guesswork.

"The trenches allow for drainage and the earth goes on top of the road to allow it to drain even more easily by giving it some height above the rest of the area around it, behind us by several days are people laying down stones to keep the road in good condition, and the fences keep people from falling into the trenches when visibility is low or someone is just not paying attention." Gimel explained.

"The Sorcerer King is...not what I was expecting." Lakyus said.

Gimel shrugged, "Never assume, not when it comes to that one." He said simply.

"So, can I and my team pass safely? We're not part of the Sorcerer Kingdom." She asked.

"You can, his majesty has expressly forbidden aggression against any traveler, as long as that traveler is not attacking anyone, then they are considered to be safe and beyond threatening." Gimel said politely.

"Thank you." Lakyus said, "I'll retrieve my companions then, and you'll pardon us I hope if we choose to pass a comfortable distance from the heteromorphs and demihumans."

Gimel grunted indifferently and turned back to his work, raising his flag to indicate renewed effort. Lakyus went back over the hill and whistled for the rest of the roses, they were quick to her side and she explained what she'd learned. It was an uncomfortable conversation, chiefly in that it lead to a defiance of their expectations by the reality in front of them.

They gave the road work a wide berth, but nonetheless could not peel their eyes away from it as they went by, to see goat men and snake men and ogres and skeletons and creatures of all kinds, whom they knew in principle lived apart from one another in all cases but the war against the Holy Kingdom, now working together peacefully? What could one say to such a sight?

Answers evaded them for two days solid as they passed along the road, keeping distance enough to be largely overlooked, or treated indifferently if they were noticed at all by those continuing the work behind the advance party, stones were laid down on a persistent basis, they could see large creatures pulling enormous wagons, skeletons laying stone and dwarves making minute adjustments. At one point well beyond being observed as those workers moved ahead, Evileye paused and everyone halted in confusion. "I want to see." She said simply. They knew immediately what she meant.

"Seriously shorty?" Gagaran said incredulously? "You want to go look at the road?"

Evileye nodded. "I do."

"Its just a road." Gagran said. "Why take the chance on being seen?"

"We've already been seen." Evileye pointed out, "Twice now in fact, but we haven't seen what the final product looks like up close."

Gagaran sighed, "Fine, but we shouldn't all abandon our position and you shouldn't go alone."

Lakyus nodded in agreement. "Tia, Tina, back her up, but stay hidden, we'll remain farther back to intercede with you if we need to. Tia and Tina disappeared from view as they made use of their ninja skills, and Evileye walked casually up to the road like she hadn't a care in the world. When she reached it, she looked around, left and right, up and down it's length, and then stepped on it with one foot, like she was testing a bath to see if the water was too hot or not, and then gradually she put her foot down to the heel. She paced around the stone and took a closer look. The stones were cut to uniform thickness, and on either side of the road there were slightly higher stones creating a kind of border, and every few feet there was a gap in the border that had a ramp shaped stone, clearly for draining, but what struck her most profoundly was that the stones on the border had glowing markings on them, each in the same place on the stone, meaning they'd obviously been mass produced.

She walked back to Gagaran and Lakyus, glad that her mask hid the expression of awe on her face. Tia and Tina promptly reappeared, and Evileye said, "He's enchanted the road. I don't know with what, but many of the stones on the road border are marked with runes, I don't read runes, but its been mass produced, whatever it is."

Lakyus, the daughter of nobility, knew all too well the cost of magic, to use it on a mere road was...unthinkable in Re-Estize. (*AN: I cannot claim credit for this idea, though it probably would have occurred to me, the one who thought of it before me is the author of 'Masks They Wear' and if you haven't read that story, you should.) For him to do this showed not only an abundance of resources, but also a dedication to long term thinking. She thought of the rain drenched roads of the capitol, she thought of the ones in the country that turned into muck and sinkholes in the heavy rains, the way travel was slowed and sometimes made dangerous or even impossible on them. She shook her head as if trying to shake away an unpleasantly positive thought about the Sorcerer King.

They resumed walking, and the following morning after a silent breakfast and more silent walking, found themselves nearing what appeared to be a large town, that in and of itself was jarring, because while they knew the Argland City Council State had demihuman cities, the Abelion Hills was chiefly tribal, made up of small villages and chiefs who came together only loosely, there WERE no large population centers.

They paused again. "Decision time Roses...do we go in, or do we stay out and bypass it?" Gagaran took out her hammer and rested it's formidable head on the ground. "That dwarf said we're safe, and we've passed by several groups with no trouble. I normally wouldn't want to chance it, but...by the gods the uncertainty is eating at me." She sighed heavily, Tia and Tina nodded in unison and agreement.

Lakyus looked at Evileye. "I agree with Gagaran, we're already in uncertain territory, and it can only get more uncertain the less we know about what lies ahead of us, let's go in, if they're hostile, well...we're Blue Rose, we'll fight our way out and remind them what it means to mess with Adamantite ranked adventurers." Evileye's voice was vigorous and feisty, it warmed Lakyus's heart to hear it.

"Alright, we go into the lion's den." She said, not coincidentally as she saw a lion man approach the town's gate.

They kept their hands near their weapons, but approached the gate with the confidence of veteran warriors, the confidence of the strong, and when they reached the gate, a bafolk watchman looked at them in surprise. "Humans?" he said with surprise.

"What are you doing here?" He said incredulously.

"Are we forbidden from entry?" Lakyus asked.

That gave the fellow pause. "No...but...we don't exactly see a lot of humans here." He replied.

"Well, we're travelers and we'd like to stay overnight, if we're not prohibited from entry, will you open the gate for us?" Lakyus asked.

While she waited for an answer, she looked the defenses over, the walls were logs, single pieces with the tops sharpened to points at the top, there were small towers at regular intervals, but what caught her eye most was that those intervals were precise, and intended to allow the different towers to cover one another. Though it was not exactly an impregnable fortress, as a town fortification, it was well above the norm.

"Yes, you may enter," he said, "welcome to the town of Commonton."

The gates swung open slowly, and Blue rose slowly walked through. "Thank you." Lakyus said politely, receiving a grunt of acknowledgement as they passed out of sight.

Inside the town the buildings were also mostly made of solid trees cut to length, but not a few were of stone, all of them were large, but the size seemed to be standardized, and it took a moment before Lakyus realized that it was so any of the varying races could enter any building. The roads were, shockingly enough, also paved, and the streets were patrolled by armored demihumans, mostly bafolk, but several lionmen and snakemen as well. They moved in disciplined ranks in groups of eight, and seemed to be following a specific route. The common buildings were readily apparent by virtue of signs hanging outside, much like a human town the symbols for inn, tavern, blacksmith, and so on were obvious.

The adventurer team walked slowly but confidently, and drew a fair number of strange looks, but nobody accosted or even approached them as they went to building evidently marked as an inn...to Gagaran's relief, below the sign for inn, there was the universal indication of a tavern hanging below that, telling her she could also get a drink there. At this stage of the journey, she found herself in need of one.

Lakyus lead the way to the building, and inside she heard something she'd never heard from demihumans before...it was music. They were playing music and...singing?

With a baffled expression, she opened the door and found a bafolk playing a two headed flute and bounding about on stage, and various demihumans were singing a drinking song while waving mugs around, the entry of the five humans gave a gradual pause to the evident festivities, but they did their best to ignore the demihuman stares as they approached the bar. The bartender was a snakeman with several heads, it was giving instructions to servers of various races, but turned two of those heads to the five adventurous humans while it cleaned a mug in its hands.

"You're far from home." It said in a voice that was somewhere between threatening and disbelief...as near as Lakyus could tell anyway.

"We are, we're on our way to fulfill a contract, and we're passing through here...obviously." She said flatly.

"Well, welcome to Commonton." The demihuman said simply with a mild shrug.

"This town?" Lakyus began to ask.

"What about it?" The bartender probed.

"Can you tell me about it?" She asked.

It shrugged. "Why not? Commonton is short for 'common town' after the Sorcerer King conquered the area...and all the other things that happened afterwards, a lot of tribes were very low in numbers, that fight in the human kingdom did not go as well in the long term as it did in the short." It paused, "Your people are more fierce than we anticipated." It added.

"Thank you. We rather have to be, look who we must compete with?" Lakyus said, and it puffed up a bit at the compliment, and she detected an air of hostility melt away somewhat.

"Anyway, after we were beaten and our numbers decreased, the Sorcerer King proclaimed that the weakness we suffered most from had now been made worse." He began, and Lakyus raised her hand slightly to ask...

"Weakness?" Her voice had some curiosity.

"Yes. We were divided, like fingers twitching on a hand, he said we should be united like a fist, and with our decreased numbers, our separateness had made that weakness even worse. So he decreed the formation of common towns, where all of us would share space with each other. Orc, lizardman, lionman, bafolk, and all others. The only ones who don't live here are the Zern, they ventured North into the Sorcerer Kingdom, along with some of the orc tribes that didn't settle in towns like this one. This one is called 'Commonton' because ours was the first to be completed, there are around a dozen towns that I know of, with villages surrounding many of them." The snakeman's two heads said in unison.

"You don't fight each other anymore?" Lakyus asked.

"We actually do...but in a small arena this town built, but we don't fight to the death, we fight for glory and for fun and for profit, but the Sorcerer King said anyone worth fighting once, is worth fighting twice, and anyone dying without need was dying to soon, so he decreed an end to both our bloodshed and our feuds." The snakeman seemed to smile. "Its the first time I've had a clutch where all my young got to live without some other tribe raiding, capturing, and eating some of them.

"So you...support this?" Lakyus said with surprise, her worldview rocked further as she imagined for the first time, that a demihuman race like this might actually care about it's young.

"I'm a mother, of course I do. I want my children to grow up." The snakeman...snakewoman, said. Lakyus nodded numbly as the most natural sentence in the world came from the most unlikely source imaginable to her.

"So...how do things work here?" She asked, "Oh and can my friends and I have a beer?" She asked further as the rest of Blue rose sat along the bar.

"None for me thanks." Evileye said.

"I'm out of the dwarven stuff, the dwarves drank it all, you alright with a local brew?" The snakewoman asked.

"Sure, set us up." Lakyus said, and laid down some silver Re-Estize coins, the bartender began to pour and set the mugs out as she spoke, "Well each race has a council seat, the council seat holders are selected by the members of each race, and the council sends its requests up to the Sorcerer King. For crimes the Sorcerer King imposes truth spells, so you acquit or convict yourself, and are released or punished accordingly. Most punishments are with hard labor, but more serious crimes can be punished as highly as being sent to the Sorcerer King's home, nobody returns from that." She shuddered, and Lakyus became curious.

"Does it happen often?" She asked the bartender, taking a drink as she waited to hear the answer.

"No. Its really just murder or banditry, and nobody among us has much of a chance against his bandit hunters, so with a few exceptions, everybody has to learn how to make a peaceful living." The bartender said. "So long as any individual keeps the social contract, they're accorded the full protection of the law. Now, I have only so many heads and much to do, I wish I could spend more time with you, but I do have other customers so..." She held out one hand palm up, prompting them to finish their business.

"Oh...yes of course, thank you very much, you've been very helpful. We'll need a room for the night for the five of us." Lakyus said, and held out several coins.

The bartender took them and then reached under the bar and took out a key. “Up the stairs and fifth door on the right, you'll need to be out by the cock's crow tomorrow or pay for another day." Lakyus nodded and the group finished their drinks, "Excellent brew by the way, tell the local brewmaster he should be proud, its as good as any dwarven ale." Gagaran said as she stood up, and the bartender gave what seemed to be a smile, fearsome as it was, "Our brewmaster is a bearman, he'll be very pleased to hear your praise."

Blue Rose mounted the stairs together, the tavern area had long since resumed its merry atmosphere, and as odd as the human band might have seemed to them all, to Blue Rose, seeing this was far, far more strange.

They spent the rest of the day in their rooms discussing what they'd seen, drawing no firm conclusions except that the Sorcerer King had been very busy reforming the areas he seized control of, what most disconcerted the entire party was summed up best by Evileye.

"His reforms are very...humane." She said.

"Its disturbingly rational." Lakyus said. "I suppose we should be glad he's not just killing wildly but...to see such a considerable break with the normal behavior of the undead, I don't know what to make of it."

"Maybe you're overthinking it?" Gagaran suggested tentatively.

"How do you mean?" Tia and Tina asked together.

"Well, think about it, suppose the only experience anyone had with human women was limited to those of peasant villages, and then they met us, we'd throw them for a loop wouldn't we? We'd be way beyond the norm of their experience." Gagaran said uncertainly and took a deep breath.

They paused to let her finish, and she continued, "Well, we're an exception, maybe instead of thinking of this undead as a normal undead, we should treat it as if its something we've never seen before." She said, and spread her hands questioningly.

There was a round contemplative expressions after that, though behind her mask, Evileye's was hidden, silently kicking herself for not having thought of that herself. After all, almost all vampires simply saw humans as prey, but here she was an undead vampire who loved her human sisters and protected humanity. It brought a pang to her that she had to remain hidden behind the mask she wore, but that was the price to be paid, and she paid it willingly.

The hours waned and they gradually grew tired. "Shall we set a watch?" Tia asked.

"Yes." Lakyus said, "It seems safe, but I don't like the assumption. Two hours each and we leave at dawn. Tia, you're up first, then Tina, then Gagaran, then me, then Evileye."

"Understood." They said together, and they took their respective positions. The room was sizable, meant for a party, and the beds were larger than average, clearly meant for larger races, it was all in all, fairly comfortable, with the wooden furniture simply made and the mattresses stuffed with straw, perhaps not a noble establishment, but good enough in its pragmatic construction. It was plenty for a team used to roughing it outdoors, and one by one they drifted off, as Tia settled into the first shift, the rest dreamed good dreams.