During the five-hour riverboat trip downstream to Highhill Sam spent all of his time looking out at the scenery. It was a stunning sight to behold, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of it. The time went by fast as the trip remained uneventful other than the odd occasion when Patrick came over to chat with him. Before long the sight of Highhill came into view. They were still about 30 minutes out from the city, but he could see the castle sitting atop the hill of Highhill. The castle was surrounded by a wall which on the other side had what appeared to be large houses. There was then another wall around them and the rest of the city spread out from beyond there. Sam assumed that the houses owned by nobles and rich folk were between the two walls. The houses were a bit like that in Rimour although they weren’t separated by a wall.
The cities docks were located within a small outcropping in the bend of the river where the city itself was located. It appeared to be manmade, and he assumed it was to lessen the rivers current from the docks. The boat pulled into the docks which appeared to be about 5 times the size of the those in Rimour with multiple boats tied up to a single pier rather than only a single one like in Rimour.
Once they had tied the boat up to the pier Dan the Captain came down to address those onboard. “Those of you who are continuing on to Pexicon tomorrow are welcome to stay onboard and spend the night in one of the cots down below deck. For those of you who want to get off and stay at an inn we will be departing at 5:30am sharp. It will take us around 13 hours to get to Pexicon depending on river conditions and traffic so leaving early is essential if anyone wants to be able to find an inn to stay in tomorrow night” Dan explained. Sam already knew he had an inn booked so he went down into the boats hull to grab his bags. He decided to leave his large bag in the lock box and just bring his smaller bag as he wouldn’t need everything he had packed with him, and he didn’t want to have to carry it all the way back to the boat himself in the morning.
As Sam disembarked Patrick reminded him not to be late in the morning, so they didn’t have to wait for him. Once Sam reached the end of the docks he went into the reception building to ask for directions to The Rivers Bend inn. There was a small queue of people waiting in line and it took about 5 minutes before he was able to speak to one of the receptionists. “Good afternoon, how may I help you” the elderly receptionist greeted him. “Good afternoon, Yes I’m wonder where I could find The Rivers Bend inn” Sam asked. “Go straight down the road from the entrance and then take the second right. You should be able to find it halfway down the street with a sign with a bending river on it” replied the receptionist. “Thank you for your help” Sam said as he headed for the main street.
Just like the receptionist had said Sam found The Rivers Bend inn in the middle of the second right street off of the main road out from the docks. It was a brick building that we kept in good condition with the brick looking recently cleaned. He assumed the Royal Academy must have had certain standards for Inns that they were booking as it was the nicest inn he had ever stayed in. Once Sam got settled in his room and ate dinner which was included in his room he decided to cut the day short and get to sleep early. He did want to explore the city but knew that if he didn’t get to bed early he might end up being late for the boat, especially considering he had woken up late the last few days.
The moment Sam placed his head upon the pillow he fell into a deep restful sleep. When Sam woke up he quickly checked his pocket watch to ensure that he wasn’t running late. It was 5am which gave him time to change and get back down to the docks. Sam changed into a clean set of clothes and left the Inn leaving the key in a drop-off box on the reception desk. He could hear people working in the kitchen, but the reception desk wasn’t yet manned. He made his way back to the docks where he boarded back onto the Flying Trout. There were a couple of new faces sitting on the benches, new passengers headed for Pexicon. He stored his bag back in the lock box below deck and returned to the bench he had sat on yesterday. Patrick approached him and they chatted for 10 minutes or so before the time for departure came.
Sam spent the early morning sitting on the deck of the boat enjoying the cool breeze blowing off the surface of the water. This however didn’t last as the wind died right down and Sam and most of the other passengers retreated into the hull to keep out of the heat. It was cooler in the hull as it was mostly surrounded by water. Sam probably spent the least amount of time below deck as after an hour he started to feel like the air was getting a bit stale and the heat from everyone crowding together began to overpower the cooling of the surrounding water. Sam spent some time assisting Patrick with some work on the deck. Originally Dan had refused to let him assist as he was a paying passenger, but Sam wasn’t paying as it had been paid for him, and he was beginning to get a bit bored of just sitting around and watching the scenery.
Patrick had been tasked with tying knots into some replacement ropes that had been bought the day prior, and Sam was taking the opportunity to learn how to tie the knots himself. He spent around 2 hours tying different types of knots with Patrick before a familiar sound chimed in his head ‘Ping’. Sam immediately looked at the notification. ~ Natural Skill Gained. ‘Knot Craft’ LV1~ Knot Craft, an interesting name Sam thought out loud. “I see you gained Knot Craft as well. It’s a fairly easy one to gain. Questionable name though for the skill, not sure what the system was thinking with that one” Patrick laughed.
Sam spent some time assisting with cleaning and a few other chores around the ship gaining a level in his ‘Cleaning Skill’ as a reward for his efforts. It was around 1:30pm when Sam stopped to have a rest and a bit of something to eat. As he was sitting on the bench looking out onto the river he noticed that the river traffic had picked up quite a bit. Curious he asked Patrick about it “Hey Patrick, I noticed the river traffic has picked up quite a bit is there any reason for that. I thought we were still quite a way out from Pexicon?” Sam asked the boy. “We are. The reason for the increased traffic is that we’re coming upon the river’s intersection with Marshcrest River which runs through the Gordon Barony. It runs through 3 other Baronies as well as the North of the Sallimar Dutchy so a lot of trade boats run through from this point as it’s cheaper and quicker to transport goods by land to cities along the Marshcrest River and then send them down through Emberlain River by boat to Pexicon than it is to ship them around to the other side of the country via the ocean” Patrick explained.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Sam spent the rest of the trip watching the various boats carrying logs, stone and other things up and down the river. Most of the boats were made out of wood but there were a couple of larger ones that looked more like floating platforms than boat that were made out of metal. He once again asked Patrick about them, but he didn’t know much, only that they were fairly new and he had only seen the first one on the river about a year ago. This made Sam assume they must have used some new invention or newly discovered item that made their creation possible. He was travelling into what was essentially a new world for him and he was already brimming with curiosity at all the new things he was seeing, and he hadn’t even arrived in Pexicon yet let alone the Royal Capital.
The sight of Pexicon finally came to view after they rounded the corner of a large hill. They were still 3 hours out from reaching port, but the city already looked larger than Highhill. From their elevated position in the hills they could see down on the city. The main castle wasn’t recognizable due to how much there was crammed behind the walls. The city had been built around the river with the river running through the left side of it. Sam could never have imagined a city so large to exist. He knew it was a big city but in comparison to even Highhill it looked to be at least 10 times the size. He knew that the Royal Captial was huge and the largest city in the country. After having seen Pexicon from afar he couldn’t even begin to imagine the size of the capital.
Three hours passed and the Flying Trout finally entered the walls surrounding Pexicon. When they had reached the entrance to the city they had to drop anchor and wait for guards to come by and inspect the boat and confirm that they had the correct paperwork prepared for entering the city. Sam closely watched on as Dan went over the paperwork with the guards. Sam found it interesting how the guards kept track of so much information. He assumed it was all imputed into some sort of system controlled management menu that helped people to keep track of everything as doing it manually seemed like it would be impossible.
It was around 7:30pm when the boat finally pulled into the dock along the river. Sam learned from Patrick that there was a separate dock for sea faring vessels on the other side of the city. Sam collected his bags from the storage locker and thanked Patrick and Dan for their service and disembarked the boat. The docks in Pexicon had signs everywhere pointing people in the direction of a plethora of service buildings. Sam eventually found an information centre that he could ask for the location of the Inn he had been booked. He spent nearly an hour in line waiting for someone to speak to him as there were over a hundred people waiting in line in the information centre. He nearly left the line in order to find his own way there but after remembering the sight of how large of a city it was realized that it was a terrible idea and that he would surely get lost if he tried to make it on his own. Once he finally got to the service counter he asked the receptionist for directions to the “Pexicon Grand Hotel” which he knew was a higher class establishment to an Inn. The receptionist passed him a folded map of the city which had the directions to a lot of points of interest within the city including the Pexicon Grand Hotel. The map cost him 5 copper coins which he thought was a lot considering it was just a map until he activated it by pushing a bit of his mana through it.
After he pushed some mana into it a system selection menu popped up in front of him with a list of locations and then a button at the bottom that said to select your own location. Sam selected the Pexicon Grand Hotel option and an arrow suddenly appeared in front of him and a line lit up on the map from his current location to where it marked the Pexicon Grand Hotel. Sam was momentarily stunned by the appearance of the arrow in front of him. He had never in his wildest imagination believed anything like this even existed. This just went to show how much of a country bumpkin he was.
Sam eventually composed himself and followed the arrow to the Pexicon Grand Hotel. When he finally arrived he was left standing in front of a huge painted brick building that was the size of a whole city block and what looked to be 6 stories tall. Sam immediately felt intimidated and looking down at himself realized he was under dressed. He was wearing his work clothes for travel as he didn’t want to get his nice clothes dirty while travelling however the people that were coming and going from the entrance of the hotel were wearing clothing he had only ever seen on the sons of Baronetts. This was clearly one of those upper class hotels where pretty much everyone staying there was more than flush with cash. Sam cautiously entered the hotel getting dirty looks from some of the better dressed people within the lobby. Sam noticed that the lobby was filled with magic lanterns which alone would cost a fortune. The rich and vibrant décor made Sam’s plain and rough clothes stand out like the moon in the night. Sam quickly made his way over to the reception desk and in the politest language he knew explained that he had a room booked here for a few days.
The clerk didn’t show any displeasure at the sight of him unlike some of the other folks that were giving him unnerving looks. Sam passed his Travel card over to the clerk. “Mr Samuel Holdridge. This says that you have a 3-4 night variable stay booked in one of our single suite rooms is that correct” the clerk asked him. Not really knowing the finer details of the booking Sam just replied “Yes, that’s correct”. “I see.” The clerk replied as he placed his hand on a clear crystal square plate looking device. The device glowed slightly before the clerk removed a large key from the wall behind him and passed it to Sam. “Room number 405. You will want to go down the right hand corridor and take the first staircase up to the fourth floor. You should then be able to follow the signs on the wall to your room” the clerk stated to Sam. “Thank you very much for your assistance” Sam replied as he took the key and headed toward the right corridor to look for his hotel room.
It didn’t take Sam long to find the room after reaching the fourth floor as it wasn’t far down the hall from the staircase. Sam put the key into the lock and turned it. As he did he felt some mana run through the key before the door unlocked. Sam then proceeded to walk into the most luxurious looking room he had ever seen. The room’s floor space was about the size of the kitchen and dining room of his home in Kait combined. It had a huge window that overlooked the city and beyond that he could see the ocean. The room was positioned at the front of the hotel which was facing the direction of the sea. He couldn’t see it very well as it was dark and the lights in the city were making it hard to see but he was sure it would be quite the sight in the morning. Sam was once again exhausted and decided to skip dinner in favor of getting some much needed sleep. He had three to four days to explore the city, so he wanted to be properly rested for the adventure to come. He got changed out of his travelling clothes and took a shower, yes an actual shower in the bathroom that was also in his room. Normally Inns had communal bathing areas, but this place had its own bathroom within the hotel room. After washing himself he flopped down on top of the bed. It was so soft and comfortable that Sam sunk down into the bed, he barely managed the through of its comfort before he fell asleep.
