About an hour later, it was finally their turn to approach the gate. Ember had watched as dozens of people were ejected, many of them returning to the sides of the road where small tent cities had been set up.

  Just ahead of them, a family of four was turned away, the father pleading while the mother held a crying child. The guards didn't budge. Within minutes, they'd trudged back toward the tents.

  “Is that not dangerous?” Ember asked, pointing them out.

  Chris nodded. “Yeah, they’re basically telling monsters to come eat them. Which is cold-hearted, even for the froniter. I wonder why.” The tent cities were large, holding at least several hundred people. Even from here, Ember could see the sad state many of the inhabitants were in. Many malnourished, their faces gaunt. It was a grim sight.

  Chris urged the horses forward and rolled up to the guards. They were dressed in fancy-looking armor, shiny silver breastplates with a giant sea serpent emblazoned on the front. Their pauldrons and arm guards were shaped like waterfalls. The shoulder guards served as the source, and water flowed down the upper and lower arm guards, with the wrists acting as the endpoint, stylized as crashing water. Azure capes draped down their backs, matching the cloth that peeked out from the metal.

  “Business?” one of the men asked.

  “We’d like to get into the city,” Chris said.

  “Of course,” the guard replied, sounding bored. “That’s why you’re in this line, is it not?”

  Chris stuttered. It was the first time Ember had ever seen him flustered.

  The man sighed. “Do you have a pass, a permit, anything that can get you into the city?”

  Chris thought for a moment. They hadn’t received a pass. Then his eyes lit up.

  “Oh, give me one second.”

  He hopped off the cart, rummaged through his pack, and pulled out a small emblem, a token showing a man in scraggly clothes with a mask over his face. He handed it to the guard.

  “I see,” the guard said. “So you’re on the pilgrimage.”

  He went quiet for a moment, then handed the token back. “We’ll need to verify with the Pilgrim Outpost.” He motioned to one of the other guards, who disappeared through a door beside the gate. Guess the pilgrims have influence here, too. I wonder how large they are? I’ll ask Chris when I get the chance.

  “Seeker rank?” the man asked.

  “Why do you need that?” Chris asked defensively.

  The guard stared at him in silent judgment for a few seconds. “Seeker rank is basic information. Most cities and sub-cities ask for it so we can manage your threat level.”

  Threat level, Ember thought with a shiver. That’s a morbid reason.

  “Mid-transitional,” Chris finally said, his voice with a light strain behind it. It was obviously something he wasn’t comfortable telling him.

  The guard stiffened. He pulled up his visor, revealing a middle-aged man with a well-manicured mustache and piercing gray eyes.

  “Do you have anything to back that claim?”

  Chris sighed. “I mean, I don’t walk around displaying my cup, do I?”

  The man frowned, then turned his gaze to Ember.

  “He’s a commoner.”

  The man’s eyes returned to Chris. “Transitionals are rare around these parts. I’d advise you to watch yourself. Some people might get ideas.” He lowered his visor and circled his finger in the air. “Open up.”

  “Just like that?” Chris said. “Weren’t you really standoffish before?”

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  The guard didn’t look up from his clipboard. “Fundamentalists and above get automatic entry. We need every hand we can get.”

  “Oh,” Chris said quietly.

  “Please, head on through. I advise you to report to the Adventurers Guild as soon as you can. They’ll issue you a permit for free passage in and out of the city. You should know the drill.”

  The gates groaned open, massive and reinforced with black metal bars.

  Inside, the city was just as modern, in its own way, as Basintown, if not more advanced. The roads were neatly cut cobblestone, the houses built of stone and glass, and streetlights stood at every corner. Unlike Basintown, however, trees and shrubs lined the streets, giving the place a refined appearance. Running down the center of the street was a glass divider inside the road, water running gently through it.

  “Wow,” Ember gaped as their cart rumbled through. “This is more impressive than Basintown.”

  “Yeah,” Chris said. “Makes you wonder why Basintown’s the major city and not this place.”

  It didn’t look as large as their last city, and there weren’t as many regular townsfolk, but there were far more adventurers. Pop-up shops lined the road, selling food, supplies, and weapons, most of it survival gear. The majority of the people walking the streets wore some variation of armor, from basic leathers similar to Ember’s to full body plate armor.

  “Seems to be a major trade outpost,” Chris muttered. “Lots of adventurers here.”

  “Hey, so what’s Seeker Rank?” Ember asked, eyes scanning the crowd.

  “When we get to the guild, they’ll explain it,” Chris replied with a sigh. “It’ll make more sense if you see it on paper. I would’ve told you back in Basintown, but we didn’t really have time.”

  Ember didn’t reply, instead transfixed on the city.

  Every few dozen feet, a large sign with an arrow pointed straight ahead. Ember couldn’t read it, but Chris could.

  “That’s pointing to the guild hall. Judging by the number of adventurers, it’s probably the most important place in town.”

  Several times, peddlers approached, offering to sell their wares. Ember kept his eyes forward, but Chris politely declined each one.

  Unlike Basintown, there was no town square, just a massive building rising ahead of them, at least four stories tall. From a distance, it looked more like a castle than a guild hall. Elegant carvings of fish leaping from waves lined the walls, and statues of the same sea serpent from the guards’ armor stood flanking the entrance.

  There were two large square buildings that jutted out from the back, at least a hundred yards each. No signs or indicators revealed what they were.

  Ember stared. “A little extravagant, don’t you think?”

  Chris scoffed. “Tell me about it.”

  He climbed off the cart and pulled their packs from the back. “Grab the essentials. We’ll leave the cart and the horses — someone’ll come get them.”

  “Will we get our horses back?” Ember asked.

  “Yeah. There should be a stable nearby. If we’re lucky, they’ll saddle them for us for free. Though, considering it’s the guild, I doubt it.”

  They walked up the grand path beneath the towering serpents, their stone heads arcing together overhead. Chris grumbled the whole way about money and the guild; clearly, he had some history with them.

  Inside, the hall was entirely different from the one in Basintown. Water trickled down as small waterfalls and flowed into pools and fountains, and the lighting had a faint, unnatural blue hue. The place was massive; hundreds of adventurers milled about, a constant low murmur filling any silence. The air smelled like a lake or river. It was both refreshing and a little off-putting at the same time. It was also cold. Surprisingly so. The air stung his lungs slightly, but it wasn’t cool enough to warrant a heavy coat.

  A sign pointed to a food hall beyond a set of double doors, and another led to a training area. In the center stood a circular desk where six attendants sat sorting papers and talking to adventurers. Behind them, a huge board was covered in posters.

  “There’s too many people here for such a small town,” Ember observed.

  “I was just thinking that,” Chris replied. “Pretty strange.”

  They approached the counter. A woman in a fine suit with her hair pinned up in elegant swirls looked at them.

  “You must be the new adventurers from the gate,” she said.

  They both nodded.

  She pulled out two sheets of paper and handed them over. “Please fill out your names, Seeker ranks, and your reason for being here.”

  Chris pointed to Ember. “Could you give him a brochure on the Seeker ranks? He’s been asking about it.”

  “Of course.” She smiled, then handed Ember a rough piece of paper. “Seeker ranks are the basics of adventurer knowledge. Please help yourself to the information.”

  Ember looked down at it, but of course, he couldn’t read it. He gave Chris a look.

  Chris laughed. “Sorry. I forgot you can’t read.”

  “You didn’t forget,” Ember said glumly.

  “I did. Sorry about that. Reading is such a basic skill that it’s easy to forget. It doesn’t help you carry yourself like a studied man.” Ember couldn’t help but chuckle at the irony. If anything, I studied my way out of college.

  They sat down at a nearby table. Chris filled out both their forms, Ember’s being simple, just a name and “commoner.”

  As Ember looked around, the sound of flowing water filled the entire hall, drowning out even the chatter. It was a beautiful, overwhelming sight. They got several strange looks, and many pointed to the sword at Ember's hip. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, so he hid it under the table and waited for Chris to finish.