Restart Again: Volume 4 by Adam Ladner Scott

Author:Adam Ladner Scott [Ladner Scott, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

13. MEETING

A loud, wet smacking sound hovered close behind my ear while we walked between a line of market stalls. “How are they, Siv?” I asked, arching an eyebrow back in her direction.

“The best!” she exclaimed, taking another bite of the dark purple orb she cradled above her mother’s head. I had been delighted to discover that the berries Siv had been craving were asperfruits, the delicate cream-filled berries I had instantly acquired a taste for after my first meal with the Corells. To my surprise, we had found the large berries alongside an entire row of stalls selling fresh fruits and vegetables at the center of Syndrai’s market district. Kord explained that the produce was imported fresh each morning from Marsta, the eastmost of the three Joined Cities, but I continued to struggle imagining an underground garden large enough to supply an entire city.

“We’ll be heading right at the next intersection,” Kord informed me from his place in the center of our tight formation. “It’ll be a straight shot to the capitol building from there.” I gave him a curt nod and led the way through the dense foot traffic that surrounded us. We walked in a tight formation that shielded Kord, Tyr, and Siv from contact with the sea of potential Mimics swarming around us, each of us ready to draw our weapons at a moment’s notice.

Luckily, the need never arose. We made it to the intersection without incident and turned the corner to reveal our final destination off in the far distance: a towering sandstone keep built directly into the cave wall, stretching so far in either direction that its full majesty was blocked by the surrounding buildings. Cream-colored banners emblazoned with black diamonds hung from the dozens of towers that sprouted out of the fortress’s center. The absolute immensity of the structure put the Kaldanic capital of Yoria to shame, and it served as my guiding landmark as we made our way across the city.

The gigantic sandstone castle had been the first thing to catch our eye when our ruined rail carriage emerged from the cave wall, but despite its awe-inspiring architectural prowess, I had found myself slightly disappointed by the city as a whole. What I had hoped would be a staple of the underground cities, the celestial projectors, turned out to be a feat of engineering exclusive to Jor; instead, a large, unadorned glass orb hung over Syndrai where I had expected to find a weave of gilded arms, covered simply by a dull metal shutter which allowed measured amounts of sunlight into the cavern to demarcate the time of day. Otherwise, the capital appeared almost identical to Jor in its construction and layout, with similar seamless stone structures filling the majority of the cave.

As Kord had predicted, word of our arrival spread quickly. Although our detour to the market had taken less than ten minutes in total, we found the main road to the keep lined with increasingly dense pockets of interested onlookers

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