I was simultaneously surprised that it took a week to reach Diamond Lake, and not surprised at all. Surprised because I’d seen rough maps of the region before, and Diamond Lake and Metro appeared to be rather close. Not surprised because our transportation isn’t exactly efficient.

Still though, this journey took a fortnight. It’s somewhat fortunate that we didn’t run into any additional unavoidable encounters: We are not a well-balanced group. We have no tank so even against comparably powered groups we would fold under pressure rather quickly, and we lack a capable scout, so we tend to find out about potential problems at about the same time as they find out about us. We did run into people and creatures that we could have fought, but none of us wanted to engage, and fortunately for us the same seemed true for them.

To be completely honest, I thought we were dead when we saw a group of 22 orcs riding dire wolves heading in our direction, but whatever their purpose was they merely rode past us sparing little more than a glance. Similarly, at one point I saw a giant bird, it looked somewhat like an eagle, but so large that it made me think of Marco Polos claims of birds that could lift entire elephants and fly away with them. Obviously, he was probably just a liar, but this bird could almost certainly accomplish exactly that, so perhaps Mental Me merely felt like pulling a prank and fed him a few sights from another world and passed it off as “the east”. It seems unlikely; one would assume that godlike beings probably have better things to do, but then again I have not seen or heard of anything that I think might have merited sending me to this world. Perhaps once you reach a certain point in time, many of your actions end up being to alleviate your boredom?

Nonetheless, although luck certainly played a noteworthy role, we arrive at Diamond Lake without any problems. Although I’ve asked about nearby villages, towns, and cities before, explanations have, historically, been very basic. Since Diamond Lake was a bit more immediate than most of the other places I’d heard about, throughout the week I asked for and was provided some additional information than I’d previously known about this city.

Diamond Lake is, by quite a fair margin, the best developed city in the immediate region. Although my companions don’t know the actual population, they are comfortable saying that it exceeds 10,000, and that no other city within 1,000 kilometers is larger. That is not to say that it’s a bustling metropolis, because it isn’t, not even by the standards of this world. It’s a frontier city, and only by those standards can it be considered large or metropolitan.

Diamond Lake got its start as a natural extension of a diamond mine discovered several centuries ago, somewhere around 600 years according to Jims best recollection, and for that reason it was initially very prosperous despite the violent and hostile area. The lake which shares the cities name spans over 100 kilometers, and serves as a reliable food source, with the majority of the truly dangerous beasts that originally inhabited the lake having been killed in the intervening years.

Once the diamond mine ran dry, the city probably should have turned into a ghost town, but due to the Archmagi Marzan having chosen this as his home base, it retained a sense of security not found elsewhere within the region, and was able to make the jump from a mining town to a small trade center to a prosperous frontier city. Although it has been attacked many times and has come close to being razed several times over the centuries, the city has weathered one storm after another and has a long history of self-reliance, attracting hardy frontiersmen and adventurers eager to plumb the depths of some of the ancient civilizations that used to lay claim to the world.

More than anything else though, the key to this city’s long and successful history is that even though he is rarely present in the city itself, in its darkest hours the Archmagi has consistently appeared to fend off the challenges that were able to overwhelm the ample defenses the city has aggressively developed. None one knows how powerful the Archmagi Marzan truly is, because no one knows of him ever having been defeated. To be an archmagi at all, one must be able to cast the highest possible tier of mortal magic, and Archmagi Marzan was an Archmagi prior to the founding of the city.

With all that said, the actual appearance of the city was rather… Shabby. The stone walls are a respectable height, standing somewhere around 7 meters tall, which certainly qualifies as a military fortification rather than the mild speedbump that metros wooden fencing consists of. But the rest of the city…

The buildings are an eclectic mix of wood and dirt-stained stone, and although some two and three story buildings are visible even walking up to the gates, the layout is haphazard, even the main thoroughfares are generally cramped, and that stout wall fails to contain the entirety of the city with numerous buildings. Most of the buildings in my current view could more appropriately be called shacks than proper structures, having spilled outside of the walled area, some of which are directly leaning up against the wall itself. Most of these structures are single story, though a handful of two- and three-story buildings are present even along the outermost fringes of the city.

The worst part though? It’s not the dirty creatures, mostly human, walking around casting furtive glances at each other as though they’re preparing to attack or be attacked by them on a moment's notice. It has nothing to do with the children, many of whom are criminally malnourished. None of that.

It’s the smell. My vocabulary simply does not allow for a precise description of what tens of thousands of humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, halfmen, horses, pigs, chickens, and much more besides, none of whom believe in daily bathing, will do for an odor. Some sort of a sewage disposal system must be present, it must be right? I’m not seeing literal rivers of human excrement, after all. But dear lord it smells like there are rivers of excrement somewhere around here.

Remember that I live in a literal swamp. I have long ago become accustomed to eating mushrooms and maggots and raw meat, sometimes meat that has already begun to turn, and so on. I sleep on a dirt and mud floor, and live amongst creatures who have no knowledge whatsoever about hygiene. Most Lizardfolk have actual mold growing directly on their scales. They are filthy. Beyond that, my nose is not particularly sensitive.

With all that in mind, I would have thought that the living conditions I was accustomed to would be inferior to what the so-called advanced races would experience. But the smell that is assaulting my nose right now flies in the face of my expectations, it reaches down through my throat into my stomach and it punches me in the gut from the inside, screaming all the while that it will have no mercy. It’s worse than urine, worse than feces, worse than body odor, worse than socks that have been reused for a week straight by a strapping bearded mountain man named Butch.

This smell is what I imagine you would get if you could combined the source of all of the worst smells you’ve ever experienced, thrown them together into a pot, heated them at a delightful 100 degree simmer for 12 to 14 hours, stirred frequently to really bring out the flavor, and then had your head dunked into that stews contents. I haven’t even entered the city proper yet, this is just the approach. This is worse than Paris in the summer. This is worse than walking into Seoul right after a bunch of Ahjussis have finished an all you can eat kimchi buffet. This is worse than a midsummer day in a pig farm. I have never, ever experienced such a horrific olfactible experience. Thanks Mental Me, for the opportunity to broaden my horizons.

I don’t throw up. I refuse to give any onlookers the satisfaction of seeing me brought to my knees for any reason. But I keep having to fight off the need to do so.

“Sorry guys, I need a minute” I eventually choke out between gasps “This smell is. It’s a bit much.”

At this point Joaqim, whose nose is scrunched up in distaste, says “Yeah it hits me the same. It’s always a bit hard to return to civilization after having been away from it for a bit. Have no fear, you’ll get used to the smell soon. I'll tell you a secret, this is part of why I’m such a big fan of traveling. I wouldn’t bother to return if I didn’t occasionally want to see another human face, but every time I get back to civilization it's like getting slammed in the face by a rotten trout.”

“This hardly qualifies as civilization, this is just a little frontier village, not even part of a proper nation. They actually know how to dispose of waste in the Empire.” Jim sneers.

“Oh yeah I’m sure Anival smells like peaches and roses” Joaqim retorts.

“Nothing so crude as peaches. That’s barbaric. Nothing but the scent of Roses, lilac, and gardenia in the capital” Jim flatly states.

How he manages to keep a straight face while delivering THAT piece of chicanery I’ll probably never know, but my appreciation for his sense of humor went up a notch in that moment, and my laughter causes me to inhale another bout of the perfume de toilette known by Joaqim as civilization, forcing my attention back to the threat of an imminent reversal of my standard gastrointestinal process.

“Welcome Braza, to Diamond Lake, your first experience with the comforts of this wretched hive of scum and buffoonery.” Jim delivers with a flourish.