Lyn:

Aston and I were still bickering as we arrived, the gates of the Capital towering over us. The massive wall surrounding the city seemed to be made of a single, enormous slab of marble, formed solely for the purpose of sheltering a city precisely the size of the capital. The way the legends go, that was exactly what happened, in fact. Definitely not the work of Evokers and Geomancers working in concert for the single greatest feat of magical engineering before the Engineers were a thing.

“And Lyn’s not even listening to me anymore,” Aston said.

“Make a new point and maybe I will,” I replied. “The long and short of it is that our plan doesn’t work if there’s no Apostates to carry a warning to the rest.”

“If we leave it at that, what’s going to stop them from harassing other travellers?” he asked.

“The fear of the Lady of Light, if they’re smart,” I said.

“They’re clearly not,” he said. “They thought Emett was The Bulwark.”

“In their defense,” Emett said, “I had a sword and shield and basically ignored mundane weapons. It took a hell of a fire blast to put a dent in me. That earth spirit’s a pretty cool guy.”

“Gnome! The earth spirit is Gnome!” Aston said, raising his voice. “How do you not know this? You’re The Summoner!”

Emett shrugged. “I never really bothered over The Summoner, growing up. They’ve always been categorically the most useless Disciple, so I figured if I was selected as one I’d just hide in a corner somewhere. Never expected to actually get this much practical power.”

Aston took a breath in to respond, but let it out in a sigh. “I can’t even really argue with that, that’s a very fair analysis of the previous Summoners.”

As we rode into the city, Emett waved down the mercenaries, and I approached Gustav. “What are your plans from here?” I asked him.

“Oh,” he said, “I was planning on setting up a shop in the marketplace here. I’ve made some contacts to get supplies into the Capital without having to go personally, and, well, I’ve been meaning to settle down. It’ll be a nice change of pace. How about you?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, sighing. “Getting to the Capital was basically the end of the plan.”

Gustav pondered this for a moment. “I’d try stopping by the King of Light to declare yourselves, first. Hopefully by the time you finish with that, you’ll have a next step.”

Emett approached us. “That sounds like a plan to me. We’ll probably be in the Capital for a few days, so I sent the mercenaries back toward home with a message to our parents letting them know what happened and why we vanished. They said they could be back by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“I guess this is us going our separate ways, then,” I said.

Gustav nodded. “If you need anything, I’ll be around, but I can’t imagine a dye trader will be a huge asset to you as you move on to bigger and better things. It’s been nice to meet three of the four Disciples, though,” he said.

“Same to you,” I said, waving Aston over. “Come on, guys, let’s go see the King of Light.”

“And where would he be?” Emett asked. I pointed toward the giant castle in the center of town, and he slapped his head into his palm. “Yeah, that’s really obvious, in hindsight.”

It didn’t take long to get to the castle. All of the roads led directly to it, with the city apparently having been built around it. It was awfully convenient, honestly. The castle was surrounded by another marble wall, much like the one outside the city, albeit smaller. The gate, this time, seemed less prepared for a siege. It was made of golden bars overlaid with ornate leaves and vines of various precious metals, guarded by two figures made entirely of marble. Other than a mostly humanoid shape, and a single hole in the middle of the head radiating yellow light, they were completely featureless. As we approached, the heads whipped toward us.

“State your business, mortals,” said an unnaturally monotonous voice emanating from the two glowing holes, in unison.

“Uh,” Aston started, hesitating. “I am The Archmage, along with The Armsmaster and The Summoner,” he gestured to each of us in turn. “We’re here to present ourselves to the King of Light.”

“Validating, please wait,” the voices said. After a moment, the gate swung open. “Welcome, Disciples. Please proceed to the audience interface.”

We stepped through the gate and into the courtyard of the castle. The garden was immaculately kept, with flowers of all sorts growing in neat arrangements to look as natural as possible while staying cleanly out of the way of the path to the castle proper. More of the marble golems stood motionless around the courtyard. Despite the beauty of it all, I found the stillness of the place unsettling. Nothing was moving, here. There were no birds or insects around the gardens, just the plants and the golems.

We hurried through the courtyard into the doors of the castle, and found ourselves in a large room, lined with chairs, with no obvious other exits. On the side opposite us, set into the wall, was an orb radiating the same kind of light that came out of the golems’ heads.

“I don’t understand how the King lives here,” I said, shuddering.

“What do you mean?” Aston asked.

“This place is so soulless,” I said. “It’s driving me insane, and I’ve only been here for a minute or two.”

“Oh, I don’t disagree,” Aston said, “but it’s not like the King is very particular.”

“I don’t get it at all,” I said.

Aston chuckled, and started walking toward the orb. “You will soon.”

As we approached, the orb whirred to life, floating slightly out of the wall. The monotone voice started droning again, this time from the wall. “Audience interface activated. Disciples verified. Please select Boon to continue.”

A Notice appeared before me, another selection box, like if I pull up my Status notice. It was filled with options, and I was to select one to be, essentially, my competitive edge as a Disciple over the common rabble. The list of choices was extensive. My intuition was already pointing out which would be best for me. I selected it, without thinking too much.

“Armsmaster Lyn recognized as a Prodigy,” the voice I’ve come to consider the King of Light’s said, “please accept this letter of introduction with the Engineer’s Guild. Further benefits will become apparent as your level increases.” A small drawer in the wall underneath the orb opened. That was interesting, there hadn’t been a seam in the wall before the drawer appeared. I approached to find a sealed letter. I removed it, and placed it in my basket. As I did, the voice spoke again.

“Archmage Aston recognized as a Dragonlord. Please accept this letter of introduction with the Mage’s Guild, as well as this dragon for your own personal use. Further benefits will become apparent as your level increases.” Another drawer popped out of the wall beneath the orb, and a large section of the wall to my left raised. A somewhat dazed looking yellow dragon wandered out. Was that back there this whole time?

“Summoner Emett recognized as the Wielder of Ars Goetia. Please accept this letter of introduction with the Summoner’s Guild, as well as Ars Goetia itself. Further benefits will become apparent as your level advances.”

A third drawer, containing a letter and a book. Emett grabbed both, and started flipping through the book. “Hey,” he said, “this is blank.”

The King droned on, undeterred. “Disciples acknowledged. Please proceed to your respective Guilds for introductory training.”

I sighed. “We’re not getting anything more from the King,” I said.

“Why not?” Emett asked.

“It can’t answer more,” I said. “It’s not really sentient, and it’s done what it can for us.”

“Now you’re getting it,” Aston said. “Let’s get out of here and to our Guilds. We can work out the rest from there.”

As we left the audience interface behind us, I started running ahead. This place was getting to me, and I intended to be out of it as soon as possible. I turned around after running a little bit and waved. “Bye, guys, I’ll see you later!” I turned again and ran, not giving Emett a chance to protest. I was scarcely outside of the golden gate before running into a solid mass of flesh. A woman’s voice came from it, obviously not used to being concerned. “Are you alright, little girl?”