[The walled city that acts as the gates to Ish’din.

Its name predates the Grand War, and its meaning is unknown,

Though it is commonly thought to mean Sanctuary.]

Oroske woke me up super early again, shaking my body and forcing me to reluctantly get out of bed. The room was very dim, and looking out the window I could see that the sun hadn’t even properly risen yet. The pre-sunrise light had begun flooding the valley, slowly lighting it up. “What are we doing today?” I asked Oroske, still half-asleep.

“We’re departing from here early,” he said flatly as he swung his cloak and bag onto his shoulders. “Everyone’s already awake, most of the group is outside already. Decided I’d let you and Nadred sleep a little longer after your tough battle yesterday. So get dressed quickly, the sooner we leave the better.”

I sleepily lumbered around, picking up my cloak and shirt off the ground. As I put them on, I noticed Nadred writing in a book, his eyes betraying his desire to sleep. “What are you writing?” I asked him as I slipped my arms through my jacket sleeves.

“Oh, this?” He looked up at me, “It’s just a journal. I don’t write in it every day, but I try to do so on a somewhat regular basis.”

“What kind of stuff do you put in there?”

“Just the general things that have happened since the last time I wrote. I try to log anything new I’ve learned and any new experiences I’ve gained. This entry I’m writing about everything from when we left Al’din to now. I was just finishing up writing about our battle yesterday.” He fell silent as he looked back down at the page. He looked sad for a moment, but then looked back at me with a smile, “You were very impressive yesterday. I’m glad we were able to take out such a strong Sigil without any injuries. That’s mostly thanks to your quick actions.” He looked back down, the same sad face appearing once again. “Now if only I were just a bit stronger. Had Oroske or Kared been fighting with you, the fight could have ended much faster.”

“Stop beating yourself up about it, Nadred,” Oroske’s voice sounded from the door, “What you lack in physical and magical strength, you more than make up for with emotional and mental strength.” He walked over to Nadred and put his hand on his shoulder, “I know we’ve had this conversation at least a couple dozen times by now, but this stuff bears repeating.”

Nadred smiled at the words of his friend, “Thanks, Oroske. But, I still wish I was better in fights.” There was a small, slightly awkward pause before Nadred spoke again, “Well, I’m gonna finish writing this entry. Do you think I should work on a report for that Sigil? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that type before, it might be new.”

“I think that’d be a good idea. It’d be good information for the Clan to have regardless. But it’ll have to wait, at least until we arrive in Sanctis. We really need to get stocked up on supplies and get out on the road, lest we arrive in Sanctis too late.” Oroske urged us to be quick, and went out to reconvene with the rest of the party.

After slipping my shoes on, I told Nadred I’d meet him out there, and went outside. The inn we stayed in was different from the others I’d been in so far. Instead of hallways connecting to all the rooms, all of the rooms were connected by outdoor walkways. The building made a U shape, with the center being a courtyard type area, which is where my comrades were gathered. I remembered climbing stairs to get to our room, but I didn’t realize we were on the fourth floor. I was already tired, and dreading just walking down the stairs to the ground level. I tried to keep my mind off the fact we have a very long walk to Sanctis ahead of us.

I was rubbing my eyes as I joined the group, who were all chatting quite loudly about random stuff. I just stood around, resting my eyes as we waited for Nadred to show up. Thankfully, we weren’t waiting very long and we were able to get moving quickly. We stopped at a small shop near the city’s West gate to procure supplies. Mostly food and water, but Oroske bought everybody a drink called Selr’tur Water. It had a very refreshing looking light blue color to it, but it smelled awful and tasted worse. He bought it because it was made to give people a lot of energy, and I gotta give it to the creator, it certainly woke me up. I wondered if the feeling of pure revulsion to the taste is part of the energizing process. As I was wondering which Guardian allowed the creation of such a concoction, I noticed the majority of the Humans in our care were actually enjoying the drink. I asked Raen, who I’d come to find was the most approachable out of the group, despite being a Lord and the leader of their party, how they were able to enjoy it.

“Well, this is actually a rather popular drink in the Human Realm,” he started, “It's most certainly an acquired taste, I remember hating it as a kid. But as I got older and I started drinking it more, I started to enjoy it. I think that’s probably the case for most of us.”

“Why did you start drinking it in the first place?” I asked as the group began walking out of the city.

“Terib, my right-hand man, gave me some of his when the drink first started becoming popular. It started being popular because people would give it to their unsuspecting friends to watch their reaction. He drank it, and it’s more, shall we say, potent, predecessor long before then. Guys like him, and the military in general drink it a lot because they have a lot of days like the one we just had, and are having. Where you work really hard, don’t sleep very much, then the next day work just as hard.”

Now that we were outside of the city, and across the bridge, Oroske and Raen began dividing up the groups. We ended up deciding that we’d keep things mostly the same from the previous day, but shake up where the Tsumi Clan mentors are. Nadred and Ranfa were brought up to the front group with me, Raen, Vai’ra, and Terib. Oroske joined Fyr in the center group, and Kared was with Jarou in the back. I felt a little bad for Fyr, as he seemed more than a little intimidated by Oroske and Kared.

Once we were all in position, Raen led the march away from Oru’ou. The road here was a refreshing change of pace from yesterday’s forest-lined dirt path. The path followed the river North, at a slight incline. To our left about a mile away were massive, towering cliffs. I had to almost strain my neck to see the top. I had seen the mountains in the distance as we walked before, but I never really realized how steep they were. I was assuming they were just very tall, probably somewhat steep hills, but in reality they were practically just sheer cliffs. At least, that’s what I could see from where I was, maybe it was different on the various plateaus. Their orange-brown coloring was also a nice change from the greens of the forest and hills we’d traversed over the past few days.

I suddenly recalled being able to see the Royal City of the Human Realm from Tsumi’din, and realized I hadn’t caught even a small glimpse of Ish’din this entire time. Curious, and not wanting to interrupt Nadred and Raen’s conversation, I asked Ranfa about it.

“Ish’din is high and deep into the mountains,” She explained simply, “It’s not the kind of place that’s very open. If you knew exactly where to look and you looked really hard, you could see small bits of the city’s taller structures from near Al’din. Beyond that, you won’t really see much of it unless you’re in the city. Which will only happen if you get permission while in Sanctis.”

I asked her what she meant by that.

“Oh, you don’t know? In order for anybody, and I do mean anybody, to enter Ish’din, they must pass through a security checkpoint in Sanctis first. They’ve got really strict rules for who can and can’t enter the city. For example, only Parliament approved merchant companies can go in and out of Ish’din. Any other merchants will sell their goods to these companies so that they can be sold in the city. Even us Hunters, and the Ishen and Incol guys aren’t always allowed in, surprisingly.”

“Wait, really? I’m guessing we only get to go in when we’re hired for a job?”

“Yep, more or less anyway,” she confirmed. She suddenly adopted a very angry look, “The parliament will do everything they can to not work with the clans. Particularly us Tsumi.”

“Why is that?”

“Who knows,” she said with a shrug, “about ten years ago the current ruler took the throne, and our relationship with the city hasn’t been the same since.”

Around an hour and a half after our discussion finished, the road began to curve away from the river, and start going towards the mountains. We decided to take a short break at that point. From where we sat, Nadred pointed out to Ranfa and I that if you went to the edge of the river and looked straight upstream, you could see the tips of the bridge spires.

We unfortunately didn’t sit around very long, as we needed to get to Sanctis a few hours before sunset, and we were only one third of the way there.

We walked in silence for another hour or so, until Nadred whispered something to Raen, and approached Ranfa and I.

“Hey, I wanted to pick you two’s brains for a second, do you mind?” He asked.

“Not really, could use a mental distraction from the heat and all this walking,” Ranfa responded first, “Though do you have to word it like that?” That last bit elicited a small laugh from Nadred, who then looked to me for my answer.

“Sure, if you think I’ll be helpful.”

“Great, Raen and I were just talking about the bridge situation, and I kinda wanted to see what you two think of the whole deal,” he explained.

To be honest, I hadn’t really thought much about it at this point. Thankfully I had some time to put my thoughts together since Ranfa answered first. “I think it’s pretty evident that some group has definite malicious intent behind it. Normally in a case like this I’d immediately think some Human group is behind it. But the bridge is so deep into Demon territory, an attack on that scale would be difficult to pull off without someone getting caught. My best guess is it’s a group of Demon bandits looking to divert traffic into the forest, where they can easily pick on people for money and goods.”

I had to give it to her, she not only said what I was thinking, which was the bandit’s from the forest angle, but her reasoning was much more sound than mine. “I was thinking the same thing, though I hadn’t taken into account the possibility of Humans being behind it,” I voiced.

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Ranfa said, “You probably don’t know a whole lot about the on-going hatred from some members of each realm, huh?” I simply nodded to tell her she was right. I figured there was at least some aggression from the Humans against the Demons, going off of the story Oroske told me about how I died, since that involved a Human-led terror attack on Al’din. I just hadn’t realized that the hatred may be to a much larger extent than I imagined.

“Raen and I are more or less in agreement,” Nadred said, “But some information he shared with Oroske last night, and with me today suggests it may have been both.”

“What do you mean?” Ranfa and I asked in unison.

“According to Raen, there are rumors of a group of Humans and Demons that are working together, possibly even with some Half-Demons. Rumor has it this group was behind the Al’din attack a few months ago, and are now behind this. Of course, this is all just rumor and hearsay, so we don’t actually know the truth just yet.” He explained, “But if it’s true, that means a group of Humans could have been assisted by un-affiliated Halves to get to the bridge, and Demons could have even helped supply the tools and weapons used. And, if there is infact a group working together, they could probably start making bigger and bigger moves.

“What do you think, Ranfa? Do you think there’s a possibility of a group like that existing?” Nadred asked only her, I’m guessing because I was too inexperienced to give a good answer. Which I would agree with, I have no idea whether or not there could be one.

Ranfa thought for a moment, “It’s certainly possible. The only question to ask would be what’s their endgame? What’s their goal? Y’know?”

“I agree. Raen theorizes they could be attempting to overthrow the Realms’ governments, and take over. Another theory he posed is the possibility that they may just be trying to ignite another Grand War. Why they would want that is beyond me, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried it.”

“Well, you’re not wrong about that,” Ranfa conceded, “Crazy to think that was almost fifteen years ago now.”

Nadred laughed and agreed. I, on the other hand, had no idea what they were talking about. I mentally shrugged it off, figuring I could ask Nadred or Oroske about it later.

“Well, I just wanted to see if you thought it would be a credible theory,” Nadred said, “Helps to have more minds on a problem, right? Anyway, Sanctis should be within sight soon. We’ll probably arrive in another hour or two.” He sped up his walking pace and caught up with Raen, and began speaking to him again. Eavesdropping in on them revealed he was relaying the conversation he’d just had with us to the young Lord.

Within another twenty or so minutes, we crested the small incline we had been walking up almost the entire day. From the crest of the hill, it went back down a short way, and you could see the walled city, Sanctis, nestled into the mountains. We still had a bit of walking left to do, and I figured Nadred’s estimate was dead on.