“You ready to go?" Zoe asked Emma as they stood outside their home with Joe.

  Emma tapped on the silver bracelet on her wrist. “Yup!”

  Joe coughed and placed his hands on his hips to take a deep breath. “You two have fun. I’ll make sure the cats don’t get up to anything they shouldn’t.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” Emma hugged Joe.

  “No problem. You’ll be back often, yeah? They’ll miss you, I’m sure.” Joe said.

  “I know, but I do wanna get out and see things sometimes too. Make sure they’re well fed and happy, okay?” Emma asked.

  Joe smiled, his lips barely poking through his thick gray beard. “Of course. You two have fun.”

  “Thanks, Joe.” Zoe held out her hand for Emma to grab, and the next moment they were off, dozens of kilometers away towards the capital. They slowed down outside the south-east gate and walked up to the guards outside.

  Emma was brought in to the room at the side of the gate and forced to sign her life away to the royals as everybody was on their first visit, and met up with Zoe on the other side. “That was neat.” She said.

  “Yeah, and weird. And invasive, kinda.” Zoe laughed, leading Emma down the streets, through the several districts to the home she was renting.

  “I know you talked about it but wow. They’re all so different.” Emma said, her head on a swivel looking at all the buildings as they passed through district after district.

  “Yeah, I’ll show you some of my favourite ones later. But for now, let’s get home. I wanna introduce you to Bruce too. He has the cutest bunnies.” Zoe said.

  Zoe and Emma chatted about the districts they walked through — the buildings in the royal district, the sports played in some of the nearby arenas and gyms. The smelting and enchanting, the carpentry and knitting, until they arrived at Zoe’s home.

  Nothing had changed in the past few days since Zoe arrived, but when she opened the door she found a familiar slip of paper on the floor inside.

  “What’s that?" Emma asked.

  “Gotta go pay rent.” Zoe answered.

  “How much did you say it was? Like twenty gold per month? That seems like a lot for just somewhere to live, honestly.” Emma said.

  “The scale of money here is really different. With so many dungeons, inflation’s really bad, I guess? I’m not sure. But stuff’s a lot more expensive. Royal stuff, at least. They take their cut in basically everything.” Zoe said.

  Emma nodded, looking around the home. “Pretty barren, huh? A table and chair, a kitchen and what’s that back there?” Emma leaned over to try and get a look through one of the doors at the other side of the building. “Bedroom?”

  “Yeah. I don’t spend too much time here, really. I’m mostly in dungeons. Or at Bruce’s. Or just wandering around, really.” Zoe responded.

  “Hmmm. Well, give me a tour. I wanna see the castle first.” Emma said.

  “I haven’t actually really gone that way yet, to be honest.” Zoe said.

  “What? Seriously? You’ve been living here for so long, and haven’t even bothered to check out the castle? No, lets go. Right now. Lets go see it.” Emma said.

  Zoe chuckled. “Alright, sounds like a plan to me then. But first, we’ve gotta pay rent. The district’s on the way though.”

  Emma followed Zoe through the streets to the nearest royal office where they waited in a short line to be called up to one of the employees working behind the counter. Zoe handed them the bill she found under her door, along with a small handful of coins totalling seventeen gold and put in a request for a new larger home that could support the cats for a while.

  The walk to the castle was a long one — Zoe’s home was somewhat close to the entrance to town, at least relative to how far away it was from the castle at the center. They passed through dozens of different districts, each with their own passions before they arrived at the outskirts of the large area allocated to the royals.

  A pristine white wall, maybe fifty or sixty feet tall was erected surrounding the vast area around the castle’s central hill, with no entrance to be seen at the end of the road Zoe and Emma followed. They wandered along the edge of the wall for a while before they made it back to one of the main cardinal roads in the town where there was a large black stone door set in the wall. The door alone towered over the nearby buildings, with gold embossed creatures covering it from top to bottom. Dragons and tigers, moles and golems, humans and… goblins, Zoe wondered? All peaceful and serene, cooperating together to hold the door shut.

  Next to the enormous black door was a smaller, normal sized golden gate with a small building set up next to it. An older man sat in the building, looking out a window at the people wandering down the street. His eyes met with Zoe’s and he smiled.

  “Think we’re allowed inside?” Emma asked.

  “I dunno. Castle’s still pretty far away so maybe it’s just a bigger royal district? But I don’t see anybody else going in either, so maybe not?" Zoe suggested.

  “One way to find out, I guess.” Emma started walking up towards the older man, his grin widening as she did.

  “Greetings.” The man took his feet off the window sill and sat up in his black cloth chair when Zoe and Emma approached. “What might I do for you on this fine day?”

  “Can we go inside?" Emma asked.

  The man laughed, his muscular body rumbling with joy. “Of course you can.”

  “Do we have to sign something?” Zoe asked.

  “Nope.” The man said. “You’re free to enter.”

  “Is it unlocked?" Zoe asked.

  “Sure is, miss.” The man said, his body language oozing anticipation that matched what Zoe felt from her Vampyric Empathy.

  Emma walked up to the golden gate and tried to open it, but it rattled against the metal lock. “Uh, it’s locked?"

  The man erupted with laughter, clutching his belly. "No, no miss. The door’s unlocked. The gate’s for me.“

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  Zoe looked at the enormous black door covered in golden art and back at the man. He nodded.

  “Yup.” He said.

  “That door opens?" Emma asked.

  “Sure does.” The man said.

  “And we just push it open?” Zoe asked.

  The man nodded, the joy radiant from his ear to ear smile that filled his eyes with light.

  Emma looked at Zoe, and they both shrugged as they walked up to the door.

  “And we just push?” Emma asked. “Really? You’re not tricking us or anything?"

  “Nope. Just go ahead and open it.” The man laughed.

  “Okaaay.” Emma drawled. “Guess we push then. You ready?" She asked Zoe.

  Zoe nodded, placing her hands on the door.

  “Three. Two. One.” Emma said.

  Both the girls shoved their bodies into the wall, trying to shove open the massive slab of black stone but it wouldn’t budge at all. Zoe noticed several of the people walking nearby giggling to themselves.

  The man burst out laughing, clutching his belly and slapping his knee. “I’m sorry girls, I’m sorry. I don’t get much entertainment here, so when I see people who look so out of place like you two I’ve gotta take what I can get.”

  Emma scowled at the man. “You said you weren’t tricking us.”

  The man laughed. “I lied. What can ya do?"

  Emma looked around at the people giggling with a frown. “That was rude.”

  “Oh, terribly.” He wiped a tear from his glowing eye and sat back down in his chair, leaning against the counter at the window. “But so much fun. You can enter if you like, but I’ll need you to sign some paperwork first, if you could come join me at my little window here.”

  Zoe and Emma followed him over to the window, and he pulled out a few sheets of paper that he handed to both of them. “Simple stuff,” he said. “I’m sure you’ve seen it all a thousand times before by now, but we’ve gotta get you to sign it all at every step.”

  The agreement was simple, and much the same as what Zoe had signed numerous times before. She wouldn’t break the law, wouldn’t attack the kingdom, wouldn’t incite political revolution and violence. No teleportation within the city limits and no movement over certain speeds. All the normal stuff, so Zoe signed on the dotted lines.

  Emma signed a moment later when she saw that Zoe was alright with it. “Now can we go in? For real?" Emma asked.

  The man laughed and walked to the golden gate. “Sure can,” he said, pulling some jingling keys from one of his pockets to unlock the gate. He swung it open and stepped aside. “Enjoy your stay, ladies.”

  “Thanks.” Zoe said as they walked through the gate.

  “What an ass.” Emma said on the other side.

  Zoe laughed. “Yeah, but it was probably funny for them.”

  “Doesn’t mean it’s alright to make fun of us like that.” Emma frowned.

  Zoe looked around at the area beyond the wall. It looked much the same as outside — a wide road from the towering black doors leading to a distant castle atop a hill, buildings that lined the street and people wandering up and down the road.

  But there was something different that stood out to Zoe. It lacked that magical diversity that everywhere had outside the walls. The buildings all looked the same, made from a white stone with gold inlay forming eye catching patterns. The people that wandered wore heavier clothes, with brighter colours and there wasn’t a single carriage to be seen down the long road.

  “Looks more boring. Boringer.” Emma said.

  “I agree. Lets go see the castle?" Zoe asked.

  “Yeah.” Emma agreed.

  The two wandered down the road for a while, approaching the distant castle and not once passed through another district before they got to the much smaller, more ornate wall surrounding the castle. Every inch of the wall covered in gold and silver threads, with the crenelations atop the wall each capped in solid gold. Guards in heavy, golden armour walked along the walls, peering down at Zoe and Emma gawking at the opulence on display.

  “Think we’re allowed in there?" Emma asked as they walked along the edge of the wall. A couple guards followed along after them, just out of sight with the tips of their pointed metal hats poking out between the crenelations.

  “Now that, I don’t know. We’re pretty close to the actual castle now. Even if we’re allowed in, we might need to make an appointment of some kind?" Zoe suggested.

  Emma scoffed. “Should’ve had Joe make an appointment for us so we can go visit the castle.”

  “Maybe.” Zoe laughed.

  The two girls walked along the wall, with no entrances in sight as they passed through alleyway after alleyway. Even by the time they’d finished a walk around the entire distance back to where they started, there wasn’t even the hint of a door or gate, or any kind of passage through the wall. Even to Zoe’s Cosmic Vision — she could see the odd room within the walls, and the corridors that led down the length of it, but they never even showed the slightest sign of exiting on the side Zoe and Emma were on.

  “Guess not.” Emma said, pouting. “Oh well. Royals probably wanna keep their castle to themself. Probably best, I guess. I’d do the same thing if I were them. I wanted to get a tour of the castle, though.”

  Zoe heard some muffled chuckling from one of the guards who had followed them as they walked around the length of the wall and hushed whispering. “A tour of the castle, she says.” One of the guards whispered to the other.

  “Come on in, visit the royal family to say hello.” The other guard whispered back.

  Emma clapped her hands together. “Oh well. That was fun anyway.”

  “Back home?” Zoe asked.

  “Yeah. I wanna meet Bruce, and his bunnies.” Emma answered.

  Zoe and Emma walked back through to the same exit they’d come through and watched as the massive black doors creaked open. Two guards pushed each of the doors open, scraping the dark stone along the pristine road sending small clouds of dust and debris aside as the ground almost seemed to quake beneath its immense weight.

  Two horses in golden armour with silver reigns pulled a jewel encrusted wooden carriage with a white cloth tent, with six guards that walked along either side wielding various weapons. Polearms, swords and shields. Even two with ornate, carved wooden staves.

  The guards holding the door open followed up behind the carriage when it passed through, letting the heavy stone doors slam shut as the gold inlays stretched back across to pull them shut. People stepped aside, bowing their heads as the carriage trotted down the road past them.

  “How’s it gonna get inside, do you think?” Emma asked.

  “Teleport? Maybe they just open the wall with magic?” Zoe shrugged. “I dunno.”

  “Wanna watch?” Emma asked.

  “Mmm. Kinda. But we did just walk all around the castle wall right before whoever this is showed up, then walked over here right as they showed up. And if we watched them enter, we’d be following them back to the castle again… Seems pretty suspicious and I’d rather not get interrogated.” Zoe said.

  “True. True.” Emma nodded her head. “That’s true. But on the other hand?”

  “On the other hand, we’re not actually doing anything wrong, technically?" Zoe chuckled.

  Emma grinned. “Nope. Nothing wrong at all. Lets go watch them.”

  Zoe and Emma followed the carriage down the road, with several of the guards near the back eyeing them with suspicion and the slightest hint of anxiety. The carriage stopped outside the wall for a moment, before the white stone squished off to the sides and the carriage passed through. As soon as it was through, the walls slammed into place with a crash, and all that was left was the now muffled trotting of horse hooves and the wheels dragging along the road beyond the wall.

  “I was hoping they’d teleport.” Emma said. “Teleporting would have been cooler.”

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