Maybe it was because they stuck to a main route through the city, but Elania couldn’t help but notice the overabundance of guards stationed at every intersection, and sometimes even at the entrances to smaller alleys. As expected from such a thick concentration of them, everyone seemed to be on their best behavior. That didn’t even change when they entered the first market square, which was full of raucous and overexcited merchants hawking everything from questionable produce to furniture.

Tanyan put his hand on her shoulder and filled her in.

“This is the only open market allowed in the Artisan district, and they are forced to pack up every night. Prices are a lot lower if you head to the Mercenary district and things are about the same, so it is usually best to avoid the bazaar. The Shopkeeps here can’t be beaten if you want quality, though.”

Elania wasn’t sure what prompted the explanation, but she appreciated it nonetheless. She suspected she needed to find an ‘artificer’ shopkeep somewhere around here to deal with the monster-core and a few of the questions she had about her now destroyed mana shard.

She was actually feeling quite excited at the prospect of finally getting away from the monks and Marcus and going off on her own. There was the worry about her ‘eye color status’ but she hoped now that she was in the city and was not just dealing with the annoying prejudiced members of her group it wouldn’t be as big an issue.

Maybe she could even find someone else that could explain half of the million questionable things about her demon abilities and the ‘Management’ thing. The fact that the tax orb had reacted like she was its boss was a bit worrying. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time, but she realized maybe having been classified as a ‘Manager’ was important.

Why that had happened at all was beyond her, and the entire combat with the innkeeper and taking everyone hostage was still a blur. Elania shook her head and hurried her step, as the others had pulled ahead while she was thinking. Leaving the bazaar behind, they picked their way up a street that gently sloped toward a larger building at the top of a hill.

It still boggled her mind that the cavern was as big as it was, hosting the entire city and more inside of it, the massive light crystals dangling down overhead casting an eerie but unbroken ambient glow over everything. The overall color changing from area to area based on whatever color crystal was hanging above.

She found the effect drowned out the colors of everything and muted them a bit, and that was something that continuously reminded her they weren’t simply in a nice-aboveground-type-of-city.

The architecture was stranger than the people. She’d visited Paris once, and some of the older sections of the city were the closest thing she could compare the Neftasu she had seen so far with. The cobbled streets didn’t have traffic on them other than people and some carts pulled by white skinned Ralfots.

Those had been a bit of a surprise but considering how many of the things she had seen on the adventure to reach the city, she wasn’t surprised to see them domesticated in the city and used as pack animals. It was only the color and texture of their skin that had been off as it seemed people bleached or did away with the moss that grew on the wild ones.

The buildings were less made of individual stones though, and more like they had been carved and smoothed directly out of a single solid stone. That was strange, and although it was sometimes broken up by a wall or building that looked like it had been put in after the fact, the strange ‘texture’ of most buildings was that of smooth melted stone.

Elania wondered how old those buildings were, and maybe if the current occupants hadn’t been the first owners. The massive wall that they had crossed when approaching the city, and the mention of dwerves made her think of Lord of the Rings and the massive cities the dwarves made there. Even the name Dwerves that the monk had used seemed too big a co-incidence. Maybe the stupid [System] had decided to translate like that to emphasize the similarities? Or differences between what she knew from Earth fiction and what was real here?

Did the system really take that much active notice of her and what she thought? Elania swallowed, the dizzying array of questions threatening to sidetrack her once again and distract her from what was important. Money. Shelter. Hide in a safe place for a few years.

The incline of the street angled upwards even more, and she felt a slight tightness in her legs that she knew would have been torture if she’d been expected to keep this pace back home. The others didn’t slow down though, and she found herself wondering just what kind of conditioning the monks had been given. They hadn’t slowed down much over the trip, and she realized that she really had not given them credit for that.

Not that it mattered. She was done with monks, and the rest of them. Tanyan was nice, but she suspected he’d be punished by whoever was in charge just for being nice to her. At least that was the impression she got from Taniel and the stupid novices.

The further they climbed the more and more houses were decorated with glowing crystals and other embellishments, and she realized that the pervasive dim light from above was being drowned out by the chaotic rainbow colors of the townhouses. Ahead she realized a massive building was beginning to tower over them, although it was only partially visible from the angle they were at. It reminded her of one of the massive cathedrals she had visited in Paris, which gave her an eerie sense of deja vu.

Except nothing she had seen in France was painted by psychedelic rainbow crystals, and her family was replaced with people she barely trusted.

‘Bad train of thought, Elania. Let’s dwell on what we can deal with.’

When they finally crested the top of the hill the street opened up into a large square. After everything else, the massive cathedral-esque building that towered stories above them still managed to be impressive. A fifteen-foot stone wall was built directly into its sides, and it stretched out across the entire plaza. It didn’t just make a small box, but encircled an entire other district. It was built directly into the cave side, and buildings and structures towered up above them like some type of massive cliffside fortress.

“Always impressive the Conclave. They really know how to do their entrances, don’t they?”

“The Conclave is older than you, Mercenary, and will be there long after you’re gone,” Taniel answered, before waving the novices forward. Elania realized for them, home was in sight and she guessed the ordeal they had all been through would be over soon. Hers wasn’t going to stop.

Tanyan turned to her and smiled. “This is the end of the road. You should head back down to the market and see about finding that Artificer. There are a few Inns here in the square you could stay at after you have some coin.”

He nodded toward one in particular, “That’s the Dancing Lion, I’ve been there a few times, if you want, we could meet there in a few days so I can check on you. We can use returning that outfit as a pretense for the meeting, assuming you have one of your own by then.”

She looked down at herself and realized she was still wearing the borrowed monk outfit. It had never been said that she’d have to return it, but she realized that she had taken a lot of things for granted in the name of basic necessity.

“Ok,” Elania smiled and nodded but it was hardly the same line of thought going through her head.

‘Check on me? What a load of crap. The fact we need a pretense at all says everything. Well, no point in refusing and burning bridges.’

Why had she followed them all the way up to the Conclave square anyway? It would have made more sense to cut off on her own at the bazaar. She realized it had become habit, that she’d followed them because she had been following them for what felt like weeks. She needed to clear that thinking.

“I’m going to end the contract now.”

A sudden bit of fear filled her, that wasn’t going to help her position much, ending the contract.

“Tanyan do you think you could---” a sudden message interrupted her request and she felt her heart fall.

[Contractee Initiated Contract termination.]

[Contract Completed]

[No violations have been assessed.]

[All clauses fulfilled. System-termination of Contract completed.]

That message seemed a lot wordier than a lot of the other system prompts, and Elania wondered if there was a reason some parts of the system felt different to her. Especially the Contract and Management screens compared to the normal status messages and the like.

She still hadn’t managed to ask about that to them, but she felt like she’d be able to find someone else to give her answers. She frowned at Tanyan who looked at her apologetically.

“Ok. Well, I guess we could meet at that Inn in two days, then? If you really want to. Hopefully, I will have settled in by then.”

“Let’s do that then. Good luck Elania.”

Marcus waved at her as well, “Yer gonna need the luck, girlie. ‘Specially now. Sure you don’t want to cut a ‘contract with me now?”

Elania stared at him until he finally broke the uncomfortable silence, “Worth a try. I can understand ye dislike for the idea, but I’d not treat you unfairly. Not ‘eeryone will be able to say that.”

She wasn’t sure what his definition of ‘unfair’ was, but she didn’t feel any regret when he turned away.

It was Taniel who was last to say goodbye. “Don’t think you are a bad demon. Hell, you might even be just about normal for a person. Goodluck.”

“Uhh. The same to you?” She shrugged and he nodded, and then the group was going on toward the massive building without her and she was alone.

Or at least as alone in a city as a person could be. The square wasn’t crowded, but there were still people sitting and talking and walking about. Cities it seemed, were about the same everywhere, whether on Earth or in some strange fantasy place.

She turned around to look at the path they had just come up, and then began to take stock of herself and her belongings. It also took the others out of her view. It felt strange. She was alone again, and for all the issues of being part of the strange group that had got her here, she had been part of something. Had someone to watch her back at least a little. Even if she had to worry about them stealing her things or worse, now she was alone.

That was a liberating and scary feeling. She’d known the risks and had grown used to watching out for Marcus trying to trick her or the novices getting handsy with her backpack. Taniel taking a swing at her... just...

It was a new beginning now, she told herself. There wouldn’t be any [Darkwalker] or [Manzitore] coming to eat her.

Looking out at the small stream of moving people, why didn’t she feel relieved?

Elania decided that keeping on the move was her best bet and pulled her backpack strap tight and headed back down to the large market bazaar. Maybe she would have some luck looking for that artificer.