Chapter 36: The mayor holds the keys to the city

Excerpt from the book “Dimensions” By Seng

The twilight forest, a rather ambiguous name until you realize the world is perpetual twilight. I don’t know how this is possible when it so clearly shows the same star patterns as the overworld. I spent many days searching the stars with my sextant to find it’s in the exact same universal position as the overworld; an odd fact of the dimension.

Now moving into the pork and sauce of the world. As far as I can tell it also is a similar size to the world we know. The only exception; without fail in cardinal directions only, weird shit appears. Spontaneously generating castles, rainbow sheep with riddles; weird shit. I managed to capture a ‘lich’ whom I spoke with. He claimed to have been a normal person until a great portal appeared and dragged him to the castle, chaining him to the place and binding him to its will. A very bizarre and sad story, I promptly removed his head to end his misery.

Each of these unique places holds a treasure of varying value, a trap of varying danger, and a restriction. For this dimension, I divided the danger score into two. The general world is only slightly above the danger of the overworld. While the unique locations have a varying danger from dangerous to lethal.

Waking up I find I am itching to do a spell; just some kind of spell, something exciting. Yet I push the urge down, I want to spend some time in town earning the final sum of money for land to build a house.

So, heading to town, I remove my Telepad from the main room and cannibalize my secret room; also removing the Telepad. It will all be moved to my home. Setting up shop as I always do, I find a massive line of people. I had prepared an ungodly quantity of essence berries so I won't run out. By the end of the wave, I had something along the lines of 300 silver, I stopped counting after a while.

Marching myself towards the retail building I speak with the clerk.

“I would like to buy some land within the city to build a house,” I say politely.

“Okay, I need your name, occupation, and any affiliations,” they say emotionless, I thought they were supposed to try and sell stuff not just go through the motions.

“Aeternum, traveler, and enchanter; no affiliations” the clerk finally looks up, surprise and concern wrote on their face.

“Wait right here,” they say quickly before dashing through the hallways.

They quickly arrive back “I will need you to wait right here for now, but while we wait I will continue the process.”

“Thank you, what’s next?”

“Alright, alright ‘quietly they say to their self’ What's next? Ah yes, do you have citizenship for the Imperial Empire?”

“No, I don’t, as that a problem?”

“Maybe, you must be from outside and migrated in,” they say more for themselves than me.

“I suppose I could file a special allowance letter until you get citizenship” They helpfully add.

“Please do, may I also ask how I get citizenship” curious.

“It's annoying and expensive, you must go to a larger city and file a citizenship form. What follows is an intensive interview. They choose if you are worth becoming a citizen” a slightly sour look on their face with just the thought.

“I see” mentally grimacing at such a prospect.

I spot a portly man coming down the hall, stopping near me. He speaks in a slow heavy voice. “Hello, I suppose your Aeternum, please follow me”

The clerk helpfully adds “I’ll sort your paperwork while you have a meeting” I am now rather curious what this is all about.

‘I am lead through winding corridors,’ notably cleaner than the rest of the town. ‘Stopping in front of a large heavy door’ “What's this about” I ask the important-looking man. “You will see” I see a slight smirk on his face.

‘Stepping through the door’ I see a massive room, tall ceilings and rows upon rows of bookshelves, being sorted by a small young man, scribbling notes like lightning. At the end of the room is a masterfully created wooden desk, polished with shine yet clear wear and tear in the shape of 2 arms. Arms crossed sits a man behind the desk, an older man with a white mustache and wiry muscles clearly defined under his shirt. He has a dreary tired look on his face, along with a large stack of paperwork to the side.

In a light, methodical voice “Please sit Mr. Aeternum”

‘sitting down’ mindlessly tapping my foot, waiting for the man to speak.

“You… truly have caused me so much trouble” face dropping further than I thought possible.

“I am sorry I didn’t mean to cause trouble what did I do?” ‘heartbeat quickening’ mind racing at a million miles a minute thinking about what's going on.

“My name is Miles, I am the mayor,” he says realizing he forgot to introduce himself before continuing. The mayor crap what did I get caught for. “A lot of what has caused me trouble… was not your fault. But some odd things have occurred that I must sort out; I ask you are you a threat to this city?”

Taken back by his clear question, thinking for a moment I speak. “I am strong enough to be a threat but I have no ill will I just wish to live my life”

In a deep, powerful voice “Good” with a sudden tone shift “Now let's get through the list of things I have heard about you”

“First, your face; the guards tell me you are of a unknow race” ‘removing my helmet in good faith’ “Wow you are very unique aren’t you, although I should judge by appearance so I won't ask further”

“Second, a woman by the name of Cassie, found a note signed A within her house, do you know anything about this?”

Helmet removed I couldn’t hide my emotions on my face, coming clean. “I… ‘trying to find my words’ was lost in the wilderness, to find civilization I used a dangerous warp device to randomly teleport me across the world, I appeared within her house. I felt awful for invading her privacy so I left a letter and some small items.”

“Aside from the sheer danger of such actions, it's admirable you would go to such lengths for your moral code, although I will inform her so you can apologies in person”

“That’s fair” I accept.

“Now, a warp device inside your room at the pub, this is what I am curious about truly. An unaffiliated man has such powerful technology, and he just leaves it in his room.”

“it's my only method to head home, it's very far away”

“Then why on overworld do you want a home here?” frustration and confusion in equal parts.

“Well, so I have easy access to civilization instead of living out in the wilderness” I carefully say.

‘he audibly sighs’ “Alright, now something that really concerned me, why do you have a secret base as you call it under the town”

Mouth agape, I don’t really know what to say. ‘After a long pause’ “Errm sorry about that, I recently removed it. I built it when I first found the town as assurance in case something happened to me” I say ashamed, I’m so stupid.

He sits there for a while, mouth ajar. “It makes sense, but I cannot stand for having unknown tunnels under the town, it’s a safety concern and irresponsible. You ever build one again I will remove you from this town”

“Again sorry, it is gone now, since I am planning on building an official home”

‘sigh’ “Fine, fine the final order of business, is more so annoying than anything you did. Your enchanting business, it's such a good deal the town is going crazy, I will give you beneficial deals to buying land but please, I beg you; add a limiter or something.”

“Alright you got it, thank you for being fair”

“Alright head to the clerk and buy your land, we will talk more another day”

I am guided by the same portly fellow back to the front desk.

“What did I do to deserve this,” The mayor says out loud after he left

Such a massive, naive pain in the ass, he has secrets for sure. Should I eliminate him for the safety of the town? Yet that breaks my moral code of accepting all but criminals. The amount of paperwork that a single man has generated is staggering, I might punish him by dropping the paper on his head.

“Silence”

“Yes sir?” a dark shadow says

“Keep an eye on him, and report back anything out of the ordinary or you feel is a risk to public safety”

“Il do the sir”

I hope that’s the end of it but I thoroughly doubt it, rumors have started to spread about him. Local powers are curious about his origins. He throws his weight around like a toddler who doesn’t know they are holding a gun. And that Armor, how odd I wonder what it is made of.

Finding myself in front of the clerk once more, the portly fellow whispers into the clerk's ear. “Okay good, you have the all-clear, shall we look at prices?”

After over an hour of price searching, I spent a further 2 hours looking at places I wanted. an annoying; stressful process. After what felt like a century, I finally found an area I am happy with.

I selected a medium-sized plot of land within the lower-left section of the city, not too far from both the market and high-value zones; yet still within the low-value zone so it's within my budget.

Handing the clerk most of my earnings from working here I head to my neatly marked plot of land. Roughly 40x40 blocks in space. Not too bad, it's also coincidentally near the house of the women I accidentally disturbed. ‘wincing internally’ “sorry” I say. Getting to work, first I build a small wooden shack containing a Telepad. Using said Telepad I head home and gather massive amounts of wood [a large variety] and lots of stone brick.

Using these supplies, I create a large mostly square home, with a circular outcropping on the side holding a large glass-bottom floor observatory and a balcony on top of it. I convert the observatory into a small library. Extending the building to 2 floors I create a master bedroom, washroom, and a spare room on the top floor. The bottom floor holds a large front room with an open window into a kitchen full of useful utensils and equipment. I also created a small indoor garden and a backdoor leading towards a garden. This garden is small with a little pond and a rowan tree. A few seats for decoration.

I also surround the house with brick, creating a neat pathway leading onto the road. I also convert parts of the support and floor of the house into the stone brick to change up the decorations. The corners being logs, the walls a mix of stone brick, and wood. I used a variety of witchery and normal wood to create a colorful, yet grounded color pallet. The roof is a slanted roof made from mostly hawthorn for the beautiful white tint, creating a small overhang supported by alder beams. I also created a small tower with a beautiful glass cover, resulting in a wonderful view.

With that all done I start the basement. I create a secret basement under the stairs using ‘secret blocks’. Within the basement, I moved my Telepad to a secure room. I mostly made the basement from obsidian and quartz for a clean look. I create several rooms within the basement, which is over 20 blocks deep, surrounded by obsidian. A room for my clone, a room for my Telepad. An armory and a storage area. I also created my power system within, wiring it up into the main house. I also placed a tier 1 shield generator, covering the doors and Telepad with a shield only I can pass, unless I intentionally turn it off.

With that, I am happy; I finally have a safe comfy home within civilization, a very productive day.