The city is so big! It might be one of the biggest things I've ever seen!

  Actually, no. Scratch that off. It is, without question, the largest thing I've ever seen that isn't a mountain or a forest or some other piece of terrain. It's so big it might as well be a piece of terrain!

  My judgement of “society” was far too harsh. This place is wonderful and artistic and unique and the architecture is creative and the streets aren't on grids and a bunch of other very exciting things!

  Even just looking at it on our approach, I'm legitimately floored.

  Kharbon has been our destination since setting out from our respective pasts to forge a new future together. Ayre, Olly, and I traveled farther than I could have ever seriously considered to get here. What's more, the world is bigger than I ever anticipated. Not in terms of just scale — obviously the world is a pretty big thing — but in terms of impact. Living in the fae forests my entire life and only ever seeing my best friend — who is a dragon by the way — possibly the dragon, even — in her cabin definitely didn't prepare me or her for everything we've run into since.

  I had no idea that magic was used to make things like door locks, and showers, and floating wagon things, and those machines that give out drinks and maps and all kinds of other things! Last I heard from my father, the patron Elder of the Court of Tale and Song, people were only just figuring out making enchanted light sources a few hundred years ago, so this growth feels monumental to me.

  But maybe that's just my perspective on things as one of the Fairfolk twisting my perception. Hard to say.

  What matters, though, is that we're here now!

  Kharbon is an enormous city of white stone and rainbows of banners set between the dueling peaks of mountains so tall that they can only be described as contemptuous of the dual concepts of flatness and reason. They're spackled with glittering stripes of exposed metals all the way from the ground up their spiring sides. Every metal under the sun, as they are, themselves, wrought of very little else than Mineralis — metal essence. The Ironreach!

  It sits in the gap between the peaks extending all the way to the brim of the slightly bowled valley and juts deeply into the pass they form. It's shaped roughly like a fan on the outlet from the pass and has impossibly deep chasms before it with needle-thin bridges passing over them. All through the city are huge spires covered in crystal nodules and emitters that draw and process magical essence to probably distribute it to the city and it's denizens for all of the magical delights people have, like self-heating teacups!

  It's all so cool. I could gush about it forever. And I still might, admittedly, but we're crossing those aforementioned bridges and I've been too quiet for too long and I think I might explode soon if I don't vent my excitement.

  “I want to touch everything!” As our transport glides over the surface of the distressingly frail-looking bridges crossing the deep chasms beneath my first companion on this journey, Olly, looks over at me and smiles warmly. Along with the smile, I feel a definitely bit of gentle kindness bridge the gap between the connection in our hearts that I formed after he did a silly thing and pledged his life to Ayre and I. Something I still really need to figure out more about since I was really just making it up as I went along at the time.

  Olly is a human — probably, mostly, maybe — man with coarse and messy-looking brown hair about shoulder length. He's garbed in durable traveling clothes comprised of a sleeveless vest, pants with a frankly unreasonable — and enviable — number of pockets, rugged boots, and a nacred gold sleeve over his right arm. He's got steel-gray eyes with flects of purple essence drifting around as he thinks, and deep olive

  The sleeve, made by yours truly, is a masterwork, possibly one of the best things ever produced in the history of the world. It compliments his simple gray-blue eyes and covers Olly's… complication. Beneath that golden sleeve lies his arm — the cursed arm he bears. He's also probably a prince, might be a hero, possibly is a farmboy, and definitely an amnesiac.

  That curse, though, is one of those things that makes the bearer unstable at times. Like a cursed sword that thirsts for blood, for example. He's got this strong urge to just touch things! A nice and simple act that inevitably leads to the touched thing suffering the unfortunate fate of total aetheric collapse. It's probably not his fault and he definitely can't control it, so I don't hold it against him. These things happen sometimes to princes, heroes and farmboys. Honestly, if he was a prince, he must have been a fairly negligent one to wind up cursed with all-consuming destructive power that ate his memories.

  Or maybe he wasn't negligent! Maybe it was on purpose in a bid to seek power! Or maybe he's just an unfortunate farmboy who touched the wrong artifact. Hard to say. I'm rooting for prince though. Royalty would make sense maybe. He does have a quicksilver ring on his cursed arm that's nearly identical to one of the ones my father wears, and as far as I know, my father, The Traveller, is the only one who has any of those rings.

  “It's been a while since I've seen you this excited, Lilly. Probably since that day the both of you dragged me out of that river.” His smile shifts as he concentrates to a more thoughtful mien, probably searching through his memories to confirm — he does that often because of his condition and situation. “Definitely since the river. Maybe when you met Slinks for the first time, as a close second.” He turns away and looks out the window of our transport, watching other identical ones glide by going the opposite direction out towards the edge of town alongside countless people moving in both directions on the bridge into or out of the city.

  “I think I'd probably go with meeting Slinks. That other day was one I'd rather not think about.” Ayre, my longest, biggest, bestest, scaliest, fieriest, dragony-est, prettiest and strongest friend I've known basically my entire life, grimaces as she thinks about how that day shook out. Probably thinking about how Olly nearly killed her probably on accident and put her into a coma for a few days.

  It was very awkward and required my direct intervention using the full magical might of the Court of Tale and Song to repair her soul after he broke it. Frankly, it was very rude of him even if it did set interesting events into motion that led here to this moment. So I suppose I can't complain over-much.

  She's a dragon, copper of scale, strong of heart, and brainy in mind. She's long been my favorite person in this blessed world of ours, and going on this journey together — some minor relationship-annihilating mixups, a kidnapping, and a mugging aside — has been everything I dreamed of and more.

  She's wearing baroque scalemail armor made of interlocking brass and silver segments. Its set up specifically with her unique biology in mind. Still being a rather young dragon, her body looks mostly like most mortal kyn. Two arms, two legs, two eyes. Those simple features aside, she stands out slightly more because of her broad wings, body covered nearly entirely with copper and white scales with patches of verdigris green in older scales, hands and feet that are distinctly draconic in appearance and nature, a broad, thick tail, and a crown of two rearward-swept white horns with many segmented lines shaping them.

  Her other favorite feature of mine that starkly stands out is her metallic hair. Hanging down to just past where her wings connect to her shoulders, her hair is copper at the roots — literally metallic copper, not figuratively “kind of orange” copper — and grows into a verdigris green at the tips, complimenting her very pretty emerald eyes quite nicely.

  It is all, unfortunately, visually contrasted against her right wing being, in a word, destroyed. It was attacked with heat magic in our last encounter with some terrible monster of monsters that tried to kill and eat us. A terrible monster of monsters that is the kind of monster Olly is supposed to be, actually. Another something I need to look into. I'm not sure how something so dangerous and insidious was never covered in any of my books…

  I keep trying to heal the wing, but since Ayre is an elemental of Ignia(fire essence), my own magic isn't as effective at fixing her. She needs someone who can command her element, I think.

  When she leans over to talk, I hear the tap of her weapon on the floor of the transport and see it peeking over the high-backed chair. It's an overlong glaive with three angry bits at the dangerous end. A lance head, an axe, and a plunging spike on its reverse, all cast in a metal that I've never been able to identify — a gift from her late mother alongside the armor.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  She spits a little fire and ash when she speaks again, “That aside, how are we even going to find our way through this city? That town was the biggest thing I've ever seen up until that point and we managed to get lost in there several times. This is a couple orders of magnitude larger and if the view from the distant hill was anything to go by, far more complex in its layout.” Her tone is deeper than most people might assume looking at her obviously feminine features but falls more into the “grrr strong dragon” type of femininity than the more traditional expectations people might have from someone quite as pretty as she is. By my reckoning, anyways. Olly said she was pretty too, but only under duress. Need some more opinions.

  I respond through my own beaming smile. “You're worrying too much! There'll be signs, and everyone has been really nice so far. There's no way that this enormous city won’t have good signage and nice people. I mean, look at everyone here!” I gesture to the adventuring party we’ve been traveling in the same direction with for the last while to a round of smiles. “We’ll be fine.”

  The remainder of the ride into the city center is wondrous. Most every building is one-to-three stories tall, made of a white stone at their base, and many are painted in vibrant colors to break up the monotony of the streets. Grand streamers hang off of each building, adding motion to the heights of the city above the absolutely bustling street.

  Any direction I look in has more people than I’ve ever seen in one place at any point in my life. All shapes and sizes. Ancestries common to this land and abroad. Countless beastkyn, humans, the occasional titankyn, and a few dozen other I’ve never heard of or read about! I want to talk to every single person, find out their stories, and share them with the world. It’s so exciting!

  But, all too fast, our transport comes to rest in amongst a long row of similar or identical transports of various sizes. Things ranging from two to probably forty people. They're one of the most fantastically interesting things I’ve seen so far since leaving home. Skyglides: intricately carved, hovering, personal transports that operate in an around the city to move people around free of any sort of charge. Ours brought us about thirty minutes of travel from the outskirts of the city’s magical influence and into the central station where they seem to be returning to refill their essence reserves and head back out where needed.

  When it settles down onto its little landing legs, the doors pop open with a pleasant series of chimes to announce our departure. We obey the gentle demands of the transport, filing out one after another and out onto the noisy street — the noon sun reaching high in the sky and preparing to duck behind the nearby mountains to cast an early night across the city. Nearby, there’s a line of people that have presumably formed to board the one we’re departing.

  I turn to the group of people we traveled here with and give them my brightest beaming smile. “I want to thank you for traveling with us and setting us up for success here. We’ll have to be going.”

  The first woman steps forward — the one I’ve long sussed out as being the leader of the group. She’s a tall, lithe type with dusky skin with fairly athletic-looking robes and walking with a bow-stave. She’s also, notably, heavily imbalanced towards order essence, as is evident by her speech patterns. “Humble statement: It has been a joy getting to know each of you, and we wish you well. Hopeful: If the winds of fate should bring us together again, I will look forward to it.”

  She gives me a staggering display of emotion from her otherwise placid face — the smallest of smiles, the ghost of a grin, where the corners of her mouth only barely turn up at the edges. Afterwards, each of us say our goodbyes, and they head off to turn in contracts. Which is something we’ll need to do eventually too, but that will have to be after we find this house that Olly apparently inherited a few days before losing his memories and setting all of these shenanigans in motion.

  We’re left standing on the the broad walkway with people parting around us like a diverted river, heading to and fro with everything from desperate speed to casual plodding. I take a moment to just look at the clothes. There’s definitely an “in” style — knee length oversized tunics seem pretty common and are viewable in a ton of styles and colors. Different cuts from form-fitting and tantalizing to loose-fitting and comfortable. All made with fairly heavy fabrics to counter the cold of oncoming winter.

  I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn to see Ayre looking unamused. “You alive in there, Lilly? Olly and I have been discussing what to do first and thought we’d get your input if you were available.” Olly’s peering at me between her wings with a somewhat silly-looking face of curiosity.

  “Oh, yeah, I think we should go to Olly’s house first.” I give the simplest answer I can, and both of them nod along in agreement. Whew.

  “The question,” Olly says, “is how we find it. I know it’s in a noble quarter of some stripe, but that’s all I have to go on.”

  “And it's not like either of us know any more than you.” Ayre adds as she glances around with a bit of discomfort. She’s having to tuck her wings in tight because of the crowds and clearly feels all of the gazes coming in from all around her as people show interest in what must be the most interesting-looking person they’ve seen in a long time. She resorts to just looking at the ground to avoid the eyes. I tried to offer her a glamour, but noooo.

  I just sigh. They’re both clueless. “Give me the document, Olly, I have a plan.” He fishes the deed out of his little spatial storage bag with a whump. All spatial manipulation magic whumps; I'm not sure if that's a truism of reality or just the fact that everyone expects it to whump, so the magic follows those expectations. I'll have to find out someday. It shouldn't be too hard. I just need to find whoever made magic. Or the world at large. How hard could it possibly be?

  Once it’s withdrawn he hands it to me. “Alright, you two wait here. Don’t get robbed or kidnapped.” I hop up onto a bench and then further onto its back to get a better vantage point to see over the crowd. Which also gets everyone looking at me instead of Ayre. Two birds, one stone.

  As I scan, I wave at various people giving me appraising looks, causing many to turn away blushing. That gives me intense satisfaction, even if I know I have two deeply unfair advantages in my ability to shape myself however I see fit — atop the natural fae predisposition towards beauty. But I spot my goal down one block at a street intersection. I hop down with a small spinning flourish and start to skip my way down the street. It’s much too exciting of a day for walking, and running is far too much effort.

  Thus, I skip with gaiety, flitting between people with little twirls and hops until I reach my target. A rather handsome-looking human with short, messy blonde hair and a nice beard, about average height, clad in bright white metal half plate with a patterned red skirt over his legs and beneath his armor.

  He spots me approaching and spins lazily around the spear he’s leaning on to face me after we make eye contact. The eye contact elicits an easy smile from him that I find myself very inclined to share.

  “Howdy little miss, what can I do for you?” Without arresting his lean on the spear he puts one gauntleted hand across his belly for a half bow — a somewhat silly act since he's already basically doubled over because of his lackadaisical slouching.

  “I was hoping you could help me and my friends? We’re coming to the city for the first time and don’t really know how to get around. My friend inherited a home in one district, but we’re working with basically nothing.” I put on my best feminine wiles and see him react exactly not at all.

  “Do you know the address? If it’s not too far I’ll see about taking you there or setting you up with someone who can.” I offer the document feeling a little morose at the disinterest, but keeping my smile regardless. He eyes it up and down for a half a minute or so before rolling it back up and handing it to me. “It’ll be a brisk walk, but if you get your friends, I’ll get you where you’re going.”

  As if on cue, the other two appear from the crowd with Olly following behind Ayre clutching his arm to his chest to keep it away from the dense crowd of people. “This is them! Are you sure you can leave your post? I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  He scratches at his beard, raising an eyebrow. “I’m on general watch. I’m supposed to be moving around but was taking a break while remaining visible in case any folks wandered by needing help. Bit’a serendipity that you came around!” He fixes all of us with a warm smile and rises to his full height, standing about six feet, even with Ayre if I don’t count her horns. Which I do. She's taller. It's important for dragons to be the biggest ones in a room. It's how all the stories always describe them.

  Thus, the guard is now five foot nine inches.

  Sorry guard, but it's the rules.

  He gestures for us to follow and starts to pick his way “Ya’ll seem like a motley group. Where are you coming in from?” He hesitates on Ayre for a little longer than Olly or I with interest.

  Ayre but not me? Ugh. Fine.

  Olly chimes in, “Silverbrook, and Meadowfields before that. Made it here just in time for the first snowfall!”

  “Mmm, coming in out of the sticks and into the noble quarter? Sounds like something that has a story. Anything ya can share?” He asks amiably as we make our way. “Not askin’ to interrogate ya or anything. Askin’ as an interested citizen, not as Marius The Emberguardsman.” None of us seem to be champing at the bit to respond, so he waves the question off. “Not a problem. Like I said, just makin’ 'conversation—hold up a minute.”

  He raises a hand for us to stop, visibly tensing up and tilting his head like he’s listening to a far-off noise. Immediately after, I see essence starting to coalesce to collect around his spear and chestplate.

  “What’s going on?” Ayre asks first, assuredly feeling him calling for Ignia in her presence, she would assuredly be acting as a source for it for him. She grips her glaive tightly and her pupils dilate as I watch and she starts to scan around.

  Glancing back over his shoulder, he gives us the same easy smile. “Nothin’ to worry about. Something fairly routine. Monster coalesced inside the city. Give me a couple minutes, stick here, yeah?”

  Monsters can appear inside cities! Who knew!