Elway’s establishment was relatively recent compared to the other kingdoms; but it's elven origins have played a part in its rapid growth and development. The royal family was originally part of the Highland council; before being exiled for reasons unknown. The city attracts scholars, adventurers, and mages alike; and its creation of the Tower of Magic, the central hub for the innovation of all things arcane; has only bolstered its spot as one of the premier kingdoms on the continent. The monopoly Elway holds on magicians and the production of magical items is incomparable. The kingdom’s growth was never impeded by the Idil Empire thanks to the Archmage’s presence acting as a military deterrent.

~‘FOUNDED: Elway, Volume 2’ by Larissa Frynd

“You have a keen eye, lad. People forget that we’re the ones running this whole show behind the scenes!”

Roy Lanes was a man dedicated to his family business. Years of managing one of the most lucrative companies in the kingdom came with many benefits. His outfit was expensive, made from the finest materials the continent had to offer. His mustache was sculpted, and his balding hair was neatly styled. Roy exuded charisma and a liveliness rare for a man at such an advanced age.

“It's honestly amazing how you run your business. Tell me, how old were you when you took over the company?” The blonde wearing eyeglasses asked, writing with a quill on a small stack of parchment.

They entered the building that featured marble flooring and walls, giving the area a majestic feel. Inside was crowded with people of all kinds, taking part in the multiple auctions happening all at once.

‘Crowded. Perhaps their storage facility is separate from the building? I’ll have to look into that.’

“Twenty-three! My father passed early, and I was forced to take hold since.” He puffed up his chest, and his hands went to twirl his graying mustache. “We sell hundreds of items everyday, and they are only the highest quality items coming from imports around the world!”

Roy enthusiastically pointed out the numerous spots, each featuring an auctioneer calling out bids and an item placed on a pillar beside them.

“We’ve divided the main floor for customers to find what they’re looking for. On the left are predominantly items tailored for magicians and sorcerers, while the right is more for the adventurers and dungeon-explorers looking to improve their armor and weapons!”

Chester hummed in feigned interest. He did notice that the floor had been segregated; the left side was full of people that looked like they belong to the set of Harry Potter. The other had a greater variety of people; humans, elves, and dwarves were looking for items with interest visible on their faces. Many were grizzled warriors, occasionally having battle scars that showed that they were veterans in the field.

There were a few rough-looking adventurers that had come to peruse the wares inside. They noticed the timid man following the auction house owner seemingly not paying attention to his surroundings, scribbling something down on a small notepad with his quill.

One of them smirked, gesturing to their party to look at the individual coming their way. The man was slightly taller than the blonde, with considerable bulk to his frame. His shoulder-plate collided into Chester with a considerable amount of force. He had expected Chester to fall due to the difference in size and stature.

Instead, his shoulder smacked into a wall. At least, that’s what it felt like to the adventurer. His momentum was completely halted and the gobsmacked adventurer had stumbled to the floor. The man briefly wondered if the blonde had been wearing steel armor under his baggy, worn down robe.

The blonde man looked down on him with feigned surprise. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there.” His glasses glinted dangerously as he bent over, picking the rowdy man up by the shoulder and setting him back up on his feet with unnatural ease. His shoulder creaked in pain from the force of the not-so timid man’s grip.

'Assholes are everywhere, even moreso than Earth.'

“Take care to watch where you’re going, eh?” Chester whispered into the adventurer’s ear before slipping back into his shy persona, hurrying off to keep up with the auction house owner.

The intimidated adventurer would notice later on that his coin purse was missing, long after Chester had left.

Unaware of what just transpired, Roy turned to see the blonde man lagging behind. He was slipping through the crowd, making minimal contact with people as he tried his best to catch up.

“Come along now, sir Carvell! There is much more to show!”

He went upstairs, steadying himself with the golden railings. The crowds shrunk as they ascended five or six meters above. Roy pushed a beautifully crafted door that led into a massive room. It was lined with gold, precious jewels glittered along its surface.

Similar to a church’s seating layout, straight rows of velvet, padded benches were on either side of the room; easily capable of housing dozens of people from Chester’s estimates.

The man ushered him down the singular aisle way down the middle, closer to the podium where a massive, cylinder glass display stood. Chester’s perceptive eyes noticed markings on the bottom of its design in a concentric pattern.

‘Runes?’ Chester guessed. ‘I remember reading about them while I was trying to learn their native tongue, but I’m not exactly an expert on this…’

“Say, what happens to be that thing there on the podium?” He asked, doing his best to seem like an inquisitive mind. The man had done his best to make his backstory for his façade, Wayne Carvell, as detailed and convincing as possible on his way here. Chester decided to add some spice, giving him a tragic backstory as a man who was working to provide for his ailing mother, hoping to make it big as a journalist in the big city. Chester had crafted an entirely different personality to suit his needs. There was no need to go so far, but he enjoyed the process. He always had a flair for the dramatic, and fantasized about the idea of being an actor in his past life.

He pocketed his accessories, only keeping the amulet which increased his INT stat as it was easy to hide using his robe.

“That’s a teleporter; we hashed out a deal with the Tower long ago to get these babies!” Roy explained, putting his hand on the glass display. “Not only are they great for transporting our shipments across the city with little issue, they’re also a way of impressing our customers! Come, I’ll show you how it works.”

A subtly hidden backdoor revealed a space teeming with workers. A harried-looking elven woman ran up to the man upon his entrance. Long, pale blonde hair dropped down to her shoulders, and she pressed a clipboard to the owner of the prominent auction house.

“Sir! We’ve got a problem.”

The gray-haired individual excused himself, before turning his full attention towards her. “What’s the issue, Polkins?”

“A bandit group has been causing a ruckus near Idil, and the shipment from the Highlands is going to be delayed. It’s likely it won’t be here in time for the event.”

He waved his hand, dismissing it. “Send out a notice. We’ll replace them with our spares. Has the Flask of Sealing arrived?”

The elf nodded, her ears bouncing as she did so. “Yes, it arrived yesterday. Shall we use it in place of the Highland wand?”

“That sounds ideal. Anything else?”

“No sir, everything seems to be going smoothly aside from that. We have also begun to prepare accommodations for Duke Warner and his entourage. They will be arriving in two days.”

Roy turned to Chester, who had watched the entire interaction play out. The older gentleman walked towards him with his secretary in tow.

“Sir Carvell, this is Baudelaire Polkins. She has been my secretary for the past ten years.” He introduced her, and Chester responded with a small bow.

“Pleasure to meet you, Miss Polkins.”

She returned his greetings, before Roy demonstrated the teleporter and she went to resume her work. A bit further, he saw a similar structure, but this one was without the glass display; merely a large, black circle on the floor. He sifted through his pocket, bringing out an expensive-looking pocket watch.

Roy placed it down in the middle of the circle, before asking one of his employees to teleport it to the main room.

After several seconds of fiddling with the controls on the side, a purple forcefield began to form around the circle, before the pocket watch vanished.

He walked back to the main room, and saw the item inside the massive display. Roy followed from behind with a small smile on his face.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” The portly man asked. His employee went to the podium to repeat the process, sending it back into the main room. "We transport our shipments to the backroom first to prepare the item for viewing. Its a logistic nightmare, and it takes a lot of coordination. My employees have refined the process so its almost seamless from our customer's point of view. There is some pros and cons, but our profits have only risen since its installation!"

“Truly it is; have you ever tested this technology with humans? Or animals?” The man was not completely floored by the technology. Although teleportation was extremely outlandish, one of his first experiences was fighting off a massive wolf that breathed fire. He had been desensitized to what magic was capable of. If one said that he could use magic to reverse time, he wouldn't have blinked.

As an avid consumer of all sorts of action and fantasy media Chester knew how great magic was. The sky was the limit when it came to the numerous applications, and he wanted to find greater use with his current powers.

However, he wondered if there was any modes of transportation that used teleportation. He expected it to be extremely expensive, and figured that it would be a good idea to look into the possibility. If they had created some sort of flight technology, he surmised that the trip to Garbrandt would be done within a day.

Roy placed the watch back in his pocket, before shaking his head. “No, no, no. I’ve asked the mages and they said it was only limited to inanimate objects. They even warned against using it for items possessing an ego or a soul, so we’re forced to use the regular method for items of that nature whenever they’re sold here.”

Chester wrote some more notes down on the paper. He wrote using English, and even then, used utmost caution when he wrote down what he learned.

‘If a person from Earth was working here, they could screw up my chances…I’m not taking that risk.’

The tour continued, and it became more mundane as time passed. The businessman had taken to discussing the difficulties of managing such a grand franchise. It had taken Chester all he had not to fall asleep, and to appear interested in the man’s ramblings.

“But this is where it becomes critical; we do background checks, ensure they have the appropriate documents, sanctions and guidelines so we can do business with them, even in..”

The man had grown accustomed to occasionally responding with words of affirmation or occasionally repeating Roy’s words back to him so that the man would continue the tour. He checked his status; to see how much MP remained. It had been almost three hours since he casted the Change Self spell.

CHESTER EVERHEART

PERK(S):

Underdog II - Deal a finishing blow to an opponent with a higher level and superior stat total. +10 to all stats, 5% increased damage.

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Level: 21

Race: Human (Earth Variant)

Class: Illusionist (Unique)

HP: 670/670 (3.3 HP regen/min)

MP: 1320/1320 (6.8 MP regen/min)

His massive mana pool and regeneration allowed him to keep the spell on for such a long period of time. The spell’s upkeep cost was completely negated. It was truly a broken ability.

‘I hope this stupid thing doesn’t consider it as an error…But who knows, I might get something out of it again.’

Chester remembered when he discovered a glitch in the system; an exploit that had allowed him to duplicate his stat points. For a few weeks, he had enjoyed quadrupling his stat points per level before the blue box had grown wise to his triumph over the system.

He still remembered that momentary bliss of being able to fight off the monsters in the forest on even ground. The adrenaline of transcending his body’s limits within an instant. His growth was so extreme that the forest monsters went from life-threatening to difficult annoyances. That rush of power filling his limbs for the first time was akin to being shot with a syringe full of caffeine. Chester's physical capabilities went from below-average to superhuman in the span of a few days.

The man shivered, knowing full well that without that exploit, he would’ve never survived the encounter against the titanic bear. The villagers in Pesodonia refused to believe he fought one and survived, saying that the bear he had described only existed in the colder regions further north. Chester confirmed this when he read in the library; and wondered how it could've strayed so far from its natural habitat hundreds of kilometers away.

The box had gone haywire, and granted him an odd title that doubled his stat points as a reward. Not as good as the glitch, but still an extreme improvement over his previous state. He deigned to think on the brighter side of things.

Chester began to theorize on the system; was it made by some omnipotent being, and if so, why was it vulnerable to bugs and glitches?

His brain began to churn out ideas, and more questions surrounded those ideas before Roy got in his face, taking up his vision and catching him by surprise.

“Are you alright, sir Carvell? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

His distracting thoughts were put away, and he gathered himself as best as he could. Chester put on a nervous smile, falling back into the façade he had made.

“Ah, I apologize…I was just thinking of what I’d need to bring to my mother when I visit home. She is suffering from sickness and work fatigue, and I’ve been doing my best to provide for her.”

Roy held his chest, clearly touched. “What a devoted son! Here, you can have this.” He went to the shelf by his office desk, pushing past souvenirs and toys. The older man handed him an inscribed amulet, glistening like a diamond.

TALISMAN OF PROTECTION

- Upon use, clears most negative status ailments and conditions.

- Regenerates 10% of HP instantly.

- One-time use only.

- Weight: 0.1kg

“It’s a talisman of protection. I had bought this from a traveling merchant during my excursion to the Highlands, but I think it’d find more use in your hands. Anything your mother is suffering from should disappear. Think of it as my thanks, for listening to an old man’s chatter.”

Chester was moved by the man’s generosity. It had almost made him feel guilty for planning on robbing the man.

Almost. He wouldn't have survived this long as a conman if he had a conscience, after all.

“Th-thank you, sir Lanes…I’ll never forget this debt.”

“Please, call me Roy.

The tour had finished, and they talked for sometime inside his office. Chester bid the man farewell, before taking off his stolen glasses. The prescription was beginning to give him a headache. He snuck a look on the documents on his desk, but was unable to do anything without blowing his cover.

As he exited the office and made his way past the workers, he began to make plans. Chester now knew that the items weren’t stored in the building, but warehouses. It would take some time for him to find them, and the added task of finding a map, and its security details would be time-consuming.

He discretely inspected his surroundings, hoping to see anything that he could potentially use or steal. Chester noticed the elf assistant from before heading towards him.

A small, devious idea began to formulate in his head.

“Ah, Miss Polkins?”

She stopped and turned to make eye contact with the blonde man. Even though he was above average height, almost six foot, the elf still looked down on him.

“Sir Carvell. How may I help you?”

He made eye contact, taking note of her body language. Although he didn't have a lot of cues to base it off, she didn't seem guarded or closed off. His analytical skills were sharper than ever; his INT stat had only served to boost his cleverness and allowed him to absorb more information at greater speeds.

"I'm quite new to the city, and I was wondering if you'd like to go out with me. I'd really like to learn more about any good spots here in Elway."

She seemed surprised by the request. Her eyes narrowed, but it was clear she was considering the idea. He prayed that his CHA stat acted like how he assumed it to behave. “I am not opposed to it. When?”

“Tonight, whenever you are free.”

Her hands were on her hips, clearly pondering the benefits. She gave the man a once-over, and he did his best to remain as non-threatening as possible. Chester inwardly thought that researching the effects of CHA would be a worthwhile investment of his time.

“...I’ll be done by nine o'clock.”

“Great!” He gave her a wide smile; it was a good thing he had crafted his false appearance to be somewhat attractive. “I’ll meet you at the entrance of the auction house; I’ll give you some time to get ready.”

They quickly came to an agreement; and she hurried away to finish her job. Chester fist-pumped; not only did he score a date, this also gave him an added chance to find some more useful information.

As soon as he left the auction house, he made a beeline for the shops; Chester refused to wear mediocre attire for his date. He entered the high-quality clothing shops, browsing through their catalog with renewed enthusiasm.