51 Dangerous Encounters

The first sign of Galahad arrival at Diagon was the massive stone wall he made his way to. Him and the other adventurers were told to line up by the security stationed along this particular entrance through the walls.

Since he wasn't carrying dozens of items or equipment in a carriage, he was put in a shorter line meant for singular travelers. The one-count people in this line were those that ventured alone or were only out running an errand out of the city.

It was supposedly the express lane of the security checkpoints . . . supposedly.

Half an hour passed in the line and Galahad finally made his way to the front. He readily handed his Karmic plate to the long-haired guard with most of his blonde hair tied in a bun. The guard inspected everything inside Galahad's two bags while wearing leather gloves with glyphs written along the surface. Seemed their security outfit was designed for detection and risk assessments that potentially entered the city.

The man ended the inspection with a wave of the Karmic plate across a white cube that revealed Galahad's statuses. He squinted at the numbers at first glance, noticing the abnormally low level for someone who looked to be in his early twenties.

Galahad gestured at the aging bandages along his arm, indicating he experienced a hard level reset. The wrappings were going very nasty from his latest adventures, it was covered in dirt, soot and a bit of different people's blood. The wrappings were still doing their job and hiding his healed skin, deceiving the security until he was a high enough level to not need the facade.

"Reason for visiting?" The man asked, not really questioning the abnormality. He was more curious as to why Galahad was walking into Diagon with a large pile of randomly decent armor in a tent bag.

"Business," he replied. Galahad then rehearsed a response he had planned out during his wait in line. "I'm dropping off gear for some acquaintances in the outer limits. Everything in there is spares from the family shop that we're selling just to get rid of them."

The guard glance at the ornate twin daggers confused as to how they could be considered spares. Galahad responded with a shrug and saying it's too expensive to sell in a smaller town like Teramore, Diagon citizens are always willing to spend more.

Galahad lied as smoothly as he could, giving the guard a simple smile to play off his deceit. He wasn't worried in the slightest though; if the man grew suspicious of where Galahad obtained such luxurious items, he could easily search files under Mystroff and see both a business and incident report. The man would see everything as Galahad told him, it was a simple lie angled to match the truth.

The man glanced down at the bag again and nodded, motioning Galahad to keep moving. Galahad then had to walk another two miles within the walls before finally reaching the outskirts of the massive city.

Diagon was a shaped like an enormous circle made up of three sections; the outer, middle, and inner rings. The residents of the city mainly lived in the outer ring, as it was one of the largest areas for housing and was loosely defined as the cheapest. The middle ring was composed of shops and businesses with very few places to live. The land inside of Diagon was completely surrounded by thirty-foot stone wall

The inner ring was special, it contained one of the largest dungeon entrances in the continent of Gylantra. The enormous structure standing dead center of the city was the gate; it stood much higher than the puny bell tower in Teramore. As soon as he saw it, the place Galahad desperately wanted to dive inside and start hunting for power.

*****

Galahad walked straight through the outer limits, having no interested in the housing or citizens living there. He nearly found himself lost in the maze of streets and alleyways, having to use the giant Spire in the center of the city as a compass of orientation.

It took nearly half an hour to make his way to the shopping districts closer inside Diagon. He walked inside a few different shops to sell the leftover equipment as individual pieces of gear.

He learned from many of his mother's tactical strategies of selling goods, that one should avoid selling everything as a singular item or cluster. Going to certain storefronts with one item at a time will make the merchants more inclined to only buy at a slightly lower price, versus bargaining a whole cluster of gear with the defense that they can't sell all the random items they aren't normally known for. It was only an expense of time for him, nothing worse.

By the end of sales, he had emptied the bad and earned himself over nine-hundred credits, far more than he originally anticipated. He was finally out of the red after his spending spree for food in Bluewalk. Galahad could only hope things would stay that way once he found a place to sleep and eat that didn't cost him everything.

For now, it wasn't a problem. He wanted to take a moment to see the kind things sold in a big city like Diagon. Galahad had never been anywhere farther than Bluewalk and before he knew it, he was checking out all the different shops and vendors around the busy streets. There were grocery stores, cafes, raw materials, plant shops, weapons and armor dealers, and even an occasional shop with rather obscene products advertised for 'Satisfaction' on their front windows.

He even found a neat little pet shop that sold Familiars to adventurers. They were normally tiny little creatures that hung around whoever they were imprinted to, that was mainly the person who fed them the most often. They weren't super useful, but a good one would drop feathers or fur strands that worked well as ingredients with potion makers or crafting apparel.

If someone was truly bathing in credits, they'd buy a larger or more dangerous familiar to tame. Managing to keep a high ranking familiar domesticated with you practically meant a bodyguard was watching at all times.

A rather eccentric businessman made his way to Teramore a few years back and wore a strange yellow scarf with thick fur on it when he first arrived. A gang of adventurers thought its be funny to jump him and mess with his scarf the night he arrived, not knowing it's worth. They were found paralyzed in the street that morning, and all of them had markings of being mauled by an animal along their unconscious bodies.

As it turns out, the man's scarf was actually a Tyhaon. A little, hairy snake creature with two little front paws and fangs that could stun a full grown human in under four minutes. The adventurers were given medical treatment and forced two months in the Etherite mines for their actions, they're jests against a major contributor to Teramore was their ultimate downfall that day.

Galahad then realized that he didn't have a lot of time to gawk at the strange, little creatures that fluttered around the windows. He saw midday was starting to pass and he hadn't met the Count's old friend yet. He pulled out the unopened envelope out to look at the address again, reading the red paper carefully.

He was now in search for the location of the address.

Galahad made his way to the spot listed on the letter, no name was given, but the street name and building was quite apparent. Galahad figured a quick stare down would allow him to learn more about the man than the Count ever let him know during their meeting.

While walking between shops earlier, he found himself near one of the crystal resonance towers sprouting out of an older shop building, clearly renovated back when the communication portion of Karmic crystals were invented. When Galahad entered, he noticed a sign reading: 'CRT No. 27,' meaning it there were at least twenty-six more of these towers scattered along the city. That number proved just how much bigger the city of Diagon was than his little home of Teramore.

After lying about the level reset once again, Galahad was now able to identify anyone he met, as long as they were within the walls of Diagon. The preparation he made for his meeting with the stranger seemed small, but he needed to take every advantage he could and be careful on how he approached the situation. If this man had a chance to find his friends, Galahad needed his help no matter what.

At the street corner Galahad peered around the sides of a building and almost walked by the place he was looking for. The address written on the envelope matched to a very slim, two story tall market shop covered in a faded yellow paint.

The building was practically a quarter the width of the neighboring structures and had no sign to signify its purpose. Galahad looked around to double check he was in the right, hoping for solid proof he was truly there. Weeks worth of planning and development lead to this moment, whatever stress wasn't suppressed with Galahad's emotions were starting to fluttered in his stomach.

Galahad took a deep breath and walked up to the door and knocked lightly against the nearly rotten door. There was no answer. Galahad knocked again, still nothing.

He was about to give up and start looking for a place to sleep for the night, when a soft metallic click went off from the inside the building.

Galahad instinctively ducked, feeling the imminent threat to his life that equaled the elf's arrows in the forest. Right before Galahad's palms hit the stone sidewalk, he heard the large explosion of wood being shattered above his head and raining down on his neck and back.

'Well this is starting off well.' Was all he could thinking when he rolled off to the side.

"What in the blazing depths of hell are you dropping that canister for ya netterwit?!?" Shouted a gravelly rugged voice from inside the door frame. Galahad was too busy rolling to a fighting stance and away from the splinters to fully comprehend the statement. He wasn't focused until he completely unsheathed his non magic sword to prepare for battle.

The loud and angry voice continued screaming from within. "That's the last fucking straw! Last week you burned down my alchemic storage, you've failed to keep the equipment clean, and now look what you did to the bloody fucke'n door! Get the hell out! OUT!"

Galahad twitched at the person running out of the broken entryway. He stopped himself from attacking once he saw it was simply a scrawny boy close to Brett's age about to start bawling as he fled to the other street. The boy didn't even acknowledge Galahad and his sword; it seemed the Count's friend was much too terrifying in comparison.

Once the fight or flight adrenaline started wearing off, Galahad took another deep breath and stepped closer to the doorframe. He could hear the voice yelling earlier was now faintly muttering to himself, an occasional clanking and creaking noise followed the man's words.

Galahad had never heard such an accent before, wondering if the person inside may have been from another country or even continent. He was about to step inside and introduce himself, when a connection suddenly clicked inside his head.

'Oh gods, I should have figured this out before. A device capable of tracking plates and pulling people out is not something one human being can create themselves'

"Oy! And don'tch you forget to fix the damn door you destroyed!" Shouted the three-and-half foot tall, heavily bearded man that waddled into view of the entrance.

'Only a singular dwarf could.' Galahad thought as he felt his last chance to save his friends crumble right before his eyes.

*****

Neita collapsed at the side of the carriage. She had been awake for over twenty-four hours now and was physically overactive the entire time.

After she watched the boy disappear into the night sky, she focused on keeping her only survivor alive. The woman was severely malnourished from three days laying there and the infections in her mouth were taking advantage of that. She was going to need medical treatment if she planned on living longer than another week at best.

Neita took a section of non burnt tent fabric and made a improvised stretcher to start dragging the woman all the way back to the carriage.

Once the driver saw her returning over the last hill with wounded, he ran out to help her and together they put the woman in the cart. Color was slowly coming back to her face, but the Dryad's tear was only a temporary fix. She needed an actual healer to help whatever else had happened to her.

Neita was exhausting herself trying to check on the unconscious survivor. She had a Karmic plate in one of her pockets when looking for something that might help treating her, but Neita couldn't check it's information without a mana reader in Teramore, the place she hoped to arrive to as quickly as possible.

The driver pushed the horses to move as fast as the enchanted harnesses allowed them, and all three of them arrived to the city just before noon. The first stop was the medical center.

*****

A few hours passed in the first floor lobby of the medical center. The driver was taking a report of the burning tents and mass of bodies to the main guild office for Neita while she waited to hear about the patient she brought in.

Eventually exhaustion took over and she slept in the chair for nearly two hours. She was nudged awake by one of the nurses that came down the lift with news.

She blinked the sleepiness out of her eyes the best she could before realizing the drastic news she was about to be given, that woke her right up.

The nurse pulled out a crystal table that matched Neita's and began walking her towards the lift. Neita recognized it was the same nurse that was in the medical wing when she talked to Galahad and Venora.

"So what do you plan to do with the criminal?" Pavell asked. The elevator slowly began rising with a slight hum, making Neita wonder if she just heard the question correctly.

"I'm sorry, who are you referring to? I was the one who brought in the patient from the victim of the destroyed camp, not a criminal."

Pavell looked at Neita with a question in her mind before realizing her blunder. She shook her head and started filling the guild worker in on the situation.

"The woman you brought in is Symora Vantré. She not just some victim of an attack, she's a bandit from the Fangs of Nyt."