The capital was impressive in a different way once you actually entered it. It was akin to a modern city filled with skyscrapers, not unlike Avalon, but the buildings were made of marble and were tightly clumped together. As such, the city streets were surprisingly dark. Orbs of light floated above their heads to make up for it, highlighting some of the mud of the streets and the ivy crawling up the walls. It was cold, too, no doubt due to the fact they were basically in the middle of where a mountain range used to be.

  The carts were being turned off through other thoroughfares they barely fitted through, people plastering themselves to walls to make sure they could pass. James looked up to see people looking down at them from windows and balconies, a few of them pointing: either they knew they were the heroes of Sable or adventurers were just a rarity in a place as urbanised as the Capital.

  “I’ve never seen a game that consistently renders so many high quality NPCs,” James said. “Any other VR game would be lagging like crazy rendering this stuff.”

  “James, at least try to roleplay a little,” Amelia teased him.

  “I-I mean, it’s…really crowded round here. Those houses looked packed. Are they flats of some kind?”

  “The buildings here can house as many workers as the city needs,” Delarius explained. “Even with how big they are, the towers can get very crowded. I can tell you that from experience.”

  “That sounds rough.”

  “I’ve been telling the Castle that they need to give this place a do-over,” Delarius explained. “I don’t think they were listening. They tend not to.”

  “Do-over is an understatement,” Patrick said, bitterly. “You need complete economic reform.”

  “It reminds me of Haelshire’s inequality,” Grey admitted, moving on before Patrick could say anything else. “How did you manage to create buildings this high? They’re this tall in our world, but I don’t know how you have the technology.”

  “Gotta be magic,” Amelia said. An orb of light floated towards her and she tried to bat it out of the air, only for it to fly away at the last second.

  “Partly,” Delarius explained. “The residue magic left here turned a lot of the nearby mountainside into marble, which was mined and built up into these. Whatever magic is in them makes them immune to gravity, and they will only begin moving when an alternate force is acting upon it. Even if the structure around it collapses, the rest will stay in place until a sentient being touches it. Curious.”

  “Y’know,” Patrick said, “isn’t it weird this fantasy world knows what gravity is?”

  “Just roll with it,” Grey replied. “We’ve accepted weirder things about this world.”

  As they rode through the city, the incline of the road began to increase. The streets got quieter and cleaner until they broke out of the dark streets, almost blinded by both the sunlight and the gleaming white palace that stood before them. It was a building with many spires, more reminiscent of the gothic spires of Kries than the blocky, brutalist architecture of the rest of Corigrad. Surrounding it were many gardens and greenhouses filled with various unusual plants, trees, and fruit. Purple windfall apples littered the pathway, being collected up by the gardeners. The carriage stopped just outside the gardens.

  “His majesty loves the gardens,” Delarius said as he climbed down. “It is best we do not ride over them. Besides,” Delarius pointed at two figures under an apricot tree, “It would be rather impolite to stand over emissaries of the palace.”

  The party climbed off the carriage and walked towards the two. One of them was a man with white hair down to his shoulders, an ornate white and gold suit and a rapier strapped to his belt. The other was an old woman with a walking stick, but despite her age was still the tallest person there and had an air of elegance. She wore a golden gown and had pointed ears: the first elf they’d seen in this fantasy game. Well, were meant to see anyway.

  Delarius got down onto one knee. The party members awkwardly followed suit, assuming they were talking to royalty.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “You may stand,” the man said in a soft voice. “We’re indebted to you more than you’re indebted to us.”

  Delarius and the party did so.

  “If I remember right,” Grey said, “you’re the Prince, and you’re the other Baroness.”

  “I am Prince Regis, and this is Baroness Lillian Lightbreaker. We’ve heard about what happens from our contacts in Kries. Please, walk with us.”

  The group walked through the gardens towards the palace.

  “I must say, I’m disturbed about what happened to Kiula,” Lilian admitted. “She was a close friend of mine. To think she betrayed our country in such a way…regardless, all of the magical artefacts in the Tower of Night have been accounted for. The structure had returned to its original layout when it was audited.”

  “Even the ones we blew up?” Amelia asked.

  Lilian glared at him. “Their magic is stronger than you think. Her plan failed with minimal loss of life, that’s what matters”

  “We have manned the garrison in Haelshire again,” the Prince added, “and we’ve begun a crackdown of gangs in the city. We do not want Valzekt providing them with such weapons again.”

  They left the gardens and began to walk up a marble stairway towards the palace.

  “Do you think any of them were right about the kingdom falling apart?” Patrick asked.

  “It was the musings of the insane and corrupted,” The Prince replied. “Pay it no heed.”

  “It’s just, we’ve seen a lot of disparity between the rich and the poor around here.”

  “I trust you, the king does what he can to make sure the people of Corinth are well protected and can live stable lives.”

  “They might now,” James said, “but it’s on a knife edge. If people turn to Valzekt of all people, and think he’s better than your governance, it must be worse than what we’ve seen, right?”

  “My father is a good king,” The Prince growled, close to shouting.

  “Maybe it’s just Kabletech pushing their own beliefs on the game’s story,” Patrick added.

  The two NPCs shot glares at Patrick, with an intensity the party hadn’t seen from the other characters in the game. They looked like they were doing everything they could not to murder him on the spot.

  “So, um, what’s the king like?” Grey said, hurriedly changing the subject.

  “He’s a firm ruler,” Delarius said, “but he has a kind heart beneath the exterior. He carries the Holy Sword Excalibur, a weapon said to have been forged by the gods to guard humanity against monsters. It is a truly beautiful weapon, befitting His Majesty’s…um, well…majesty. It is said that only one who has the true heart of a hero may wield it.”

  The palace was a maze in itself, with the most nonsensical layout the party had ever seen in a building. Corridors that led to dead ends, stairways that lead upwards to brick ceilings, and endless criss-crossing junctions. All of them were filled with rushing servants, closed doors with murmured meetings behind them and an inordinate amount of fine paintings. Even Lillian got lost multiple times leading them to the throne room.

  “I really hate your architect.” Amelia panted as they climbed down what she could have sworn was the same set of stairs she just went up.

  “The palace has a complex design so it can resist invaders,” Lillian explained. “If anyone tries to storm the palace, we will be able to divert the invaders to certain rooms and easily rout them.”

  “I’ll be honest,” Delarius whispered as they climbed down another stairway, “I think this palace is designed to show off all the paintings.”

  Amelia laughed and whispered back, “They are good paintings, though. And I don’t usually like art that much.”

  “If I’m being frank, nor do I.”

  The two laughed as they continued on. Eventually, after what seemed like an endless amount of stairs, they reached the highest room of the palace, looking out over the skyscrapers of Corigrad. Two massive gold doors stood before them.

  The prince swung open the heavy doors to the throne room, only to find a dark hall that was deathly cold. The lights in the throne room had dimmed to a pale glow, and the sunlight from the huge windows felt so far away. Thin mist covered the floor, but it did little to obscure the blood and bodies that litter the room. Standing in the centre was a massive figure, twice as tall as any of the party, draped in a black cloak. In his long, dishevelled hands was the body of an old man dressed in a thick red cape, a white and gold sword hanging from his hands. It only took a look at the Prince to realise what had happened: the king of Corinth was dead.

  The cloaked figure hissed with a voice that was calm, but laced with venom and hate.

  “Welcome, travellers from another world. My name is Valzekt, the Dark Lord of Bradelgard. I am here to declare war.”