-Ish'din-

[The capital of the Demon Realm.

Formerly a holy site, the city was built after people

Made their holy pilgrimage and decided they wanted to stay.]

I awoke in the early afternoon, an hour or so after Oroske, Nadred, and Kared had woken up. Then Jarou woke up shortly after me. Ranfa and Fyr apparently woke up and left before Oroske woke up somehow. “You’re both free to roam the city as you please for the day, just make sure you’re back here before midnight,” Oroske said, pausing his conversation with Kared and Nadred as Jarou and I walked in, “The conference begins tomorrow morning. We’re just discussing the conference and all the topics we’ll be covering during it, and making a plan for our approach on things. After we discuss with the Lords and the other Clan reps, we’ll probably hit the town ourselves. Stay out of trouble, and remember you’re being monitored.”

“What do you mean we’re being monitored?” Jarou asked.

Oroske lifted his hand and showed the stamp on his hand. “These are made with magic, and report your locations to the city’s officials. If anything happens and you’re there when it happens, they’ll know.”

Suddenly everybody being free to roam as they wanted made a lot more sense. I was not a fan of having my location be known at all times, but I supposed it was a small cost to not have to be tethered to other people all day.

Oroske gave Jarou and I some venn to spend on food and stuff, and the two of us left together. It was only a little past midday, and while the sky was nice and bright, the city itself felt almost exactly the same as it had during the night. The only major difference was that there were some shadows being cast by buildings in the sunlight, and the small dim spots between lights were gone. The streets were just as busy as well.

“I guess they weren’t kidding,” Jarou muttered, “It really is always daytime here.”

“Looks like it.” I breathed.

We walked around pretty much aimlessly, just taking in the sights. Ish’din was pretty similar to Sanctis in terms of the style of buildings. Though it felt a lot less military-based. The majority of the buildings only featured small bits of wood for accenting and extra support, and the main building material present was the same stone the mountain was made of.

I would later learn that the stone was primarily sourced from digging the Underground, and that for the city’s first hundred years or so, Ish’din’s primary trade was the stone. However, once a city called Quarry was founded in the Human Realm, Ish’din lost a lot of that market.

Every now and then, full wooden buildings, and buildings made of other materials would dot the space between the stone buildings. While many buildings had a good amount of height to them, the tallest buildings - save for the palace - were dwarfed by the City of Tower’s average buildings.

The city’s layout was a bit maze-like, save for the main street that led from the gate to the palace. Sometimes we’d even hit a flat out dead-end. Whether that would be running into the natural walls of the city, or just having the path blocked by a building.

After a while we started looking for a good place to eat. Almost every other building offered food, even if it wasn’t the store’s main trade. And all of them smelled incredible. Except for one, which was primarily a potions and alchemy shop. The food on display smelled and looked like death. I won't deny my curiosity almost got the best of me, but the smell was enough to drive me and Jarou away from outside. I don’t know if I could’ve withstood being right next to it.

Eventually we realized we were just making it harder to decide where to eat. So we stopped, reviewed all the places that sounded good and realized even between them it was a tough choice.

“Why don’t we just keep walking until we find another place and just go there?” Jarou suggested. I had no complaints, so we did that.

We ended up walking for a while, in what ended up being a U-shaped loop of entirely residential buildings. Not long after we finally got out of that section, we found our first food place. It was the alchemy shop again. We looked at each other and silently agreed to go until we found a different one.

We ended up finally eating at a place that offered a “traditional Ish’din dish,” which Jarou and I both decided to order. While it smelled great, it was quite disgusting looking. It was essentially just slop with chunks of meat, served in a big bowl. It would have looked more appetizing if the slop, or I suppose broth, part of it wasn’t a deep purple color.

“Is it… supposed to look like that?” I asked our waitress.

“Yep! It’s not very pleasant to look at, but I can vouch for its taste being incredible.” She said happily, “The purple coloring, as well as the primary flavoring, comes from a plant found on the mountainside, high above Ishen. It’s an herb primarily used in healing tonics, as it strangely has naturally infused vaia magic.” As she spoke, I realized we were in for an explanation on par with Nadred’s best lectures. Not that I minded. “When the empress regained power over the Realm, after the Grand War, her son, the prince, fell ill. He was a horribly picky eater, and wouldn’t consume the bitter plant, even though it would help him feel better. The empress called in the most skilled alchemists and culinarians the world over to create a dish, which incorporated the herb, that her son would eat. One of the cooks found a way to alter the taste of the herb, transforming it from an unpleasant, bitter taste, to a sweet, slightly spicy taste. All without losing the healing potential of the herb. Her son ate it happily, and recovered quickly. Since then, the dish has been made into a staple here in Ish’din, and it’s the only place you can reliably find it in its true form.”

“I see,” Jarou and I both muttered as we anxiously picked up our eating utensils. She said she hopes we enjoy it, and left us to eat. I forced a scoop into my mouth. I was shocked at how good it tasted. As the waitress said, it was a sweet and spicy flavor, which paired very well with the chunks of light meat.

Once we had taken that first bite, we quickly finished our meal, and got back to exploring the city. The meal had definitely helped rejuvenate us. Not long after we left, we ran into Oroske and Nadred, and told them of our adventure so far. We spent the day walking together, exploring and chatting about random stuff.

Kared, on the other hand, was nowhere to be found. We’d later find out she made an excursion into the Underground, to meet up with some members of the Crimson Twilight.

She’d later regale us with the story, “There are a handful of spots where you can enter the Underground, and almost all of them are heavily guarded and monitored. However, there are a couple spots scattered around the city that are not. The hard part is blocking the location tracking from the stamps, and how and when you do it. The stamps themselves are actually a hybrid between magic and energy manipulation. The magic is an advanced application of an already advanced magic called ‘Gate Compass,’ and it essentially is what obtains your location data. Then, an extremely complex web of energy manipulation commands transmits that data to a facility within the palace.

“Therefore, you have a few decent options to stop the tracking. First is to block the flow of World Energy, which is the energy used in manipulation. However, this method fully cuts off the location tracking. Which would just raise a red flag, since you’ll effectively just disappear from the system. They can then use the last reported location to quickly track you down.

“So instead, it’s better to alter the Gate Compass to read in a different location. All forms of ‘Gate’ magic are quite difficult to use reliably on the fly. So instead, I used energy manipulation to copy and redirect Nadred’s location to my own. It’s a complicated process, but if ever the occasion arises that one of you needs to do something similar, I can teach you.

“Anyway, after all those shenanigans, I just had to sneak over to an un-guarded entrance to the Underground. It’s important not to get spotted by any guards, since there’s a good chance they’ll spot the energy manipulation techniques and stop you on your way. Once Underground, it’s just a matter of navigating the mazes to wherever you’re trying to go.

“As for why I needed to go down there, I was asking the members of the Twilight to back us up on the plan Danfis asked Oroske and I to take care of. As well as taking care of some - let’s just say - personal business.” She finished her story. It was the most I’d ever heard her talk in a single sitting. Probably more than I’d heard her talk than every time I’ve heard her talk combined.

As we had discussed earlier in the day, we made sure to be back to our lodgings by midnight. We ate dinner with all the members of the Peace Party that were present, a grandiose dinner on par with the breakfast we had in Sanctis the day before. From what Oroske and Kared told me, we already had a solid game plan for how the conference was going to go on our end, and that Oroske is the one who will be doing the talking for our Clan.