The Hunter's Guide to Monsters

Seeing the city of Tvarglad again filled Krow with nostalgia, exceeding nostalgia.

It was a walled city, with nine walls separating the city into concentric circular areas.

The four gates at secondary points of the compass further subdivided the city with four primary roads cutting through each area, culminating in four large public squares in the second circle.

The innermost circle was the Sacred Wood, a forbidden forest spanning an area of thirty or so square kilometers.

The Primar's residence lay within, as well as Kombar's Arena where the nobles would duel over disputes under the eyes of Kombar of Creation, deity of alchemy and change, shapeshifter, often represented by a six-legged chimera, often satiricized as god of Beasts.

Between each wall, there was one to two kilometers of space divided into quarters by the roads.

Most of it was woodland, with city buildings clustering around the primary roads.

Funny, that a people who worshipped a deity of change, who were hotheaded and warminded, would design a city with foundations so delineated by order.

"Tvarglad! City of artificers!" Avan Fresland broke through Krow's thoughts.

They were still several kilometers away, but the city already dominated the horizon, the gentle hilly terrain lifting it to prominence.

"Tvarglad," Krow agreed.

A smile briefly curled his lips. The city looked great.

"Oh! I must disguise! Where are my trunks! It was this wagon, wasn't it? Or was it that one? Why are your wagons all the same colors? Ugh, it's like that ugly carriage Balbroa forced me to travel in. My good man, do you have my trunks?"

The driver of the wagon pointed silently, then gave Krow a sympathetic glance as Avan trotted his horse to the other wagon.

Krow shrugged.

He'd gotten numb to it.

He followed the Baraldore native, watched as he rather dexterously jumped into the wagon from his horse. This was the guy that tripped over his own feet getting out of a carriage? Had he been faking?

There had been no sign of the bandits the man mentioned, either.

"Why do you need a disguise?"

"So I won't be seen, of course! Why would anyone need a disguise? Oh, my cloak! This will do."

The 'cloak' was more a shawl, sheer and impractical.

One of the riders nearby snorted. "Can that still be called a cloak?"

Avan looked politely at the mafmet who had spoken. "What's wrong with it?"

Krow answered. "It attracts attention."

"Yes, that's why I bought it." He swung the cloak over a shoulder, flicked a corner to arrange the drape, smiled at them all. "Handsome, yes?"

Krow had a headache. 

Just when he thought he was used to the guy…

Enchanter's Library, he soothed his irritation by chanting the two words in his head. "You said you wanted to not be seen."

"Oh. Yes. That would be difficult, wouldn't it?" Avan mournfully returned his shawl-cloak to one of the trunks pulled from the traveling carriage. 

The caravan had to shift a whole wagonload to carry those trunks, which Krow thought was exceedingly tolerant of them.

Avan turned an expectant look to Krow. "What would you suggest?"

What would he…?

Well, he did still have that. He took the Darkfall Hooded Cape out of his Travelpack.

The other squinted at it, horrified. "It's…dark?"

"At least it's not black." 

The man still didn't move.

"No one would believe you would wear such a thing."

Avan deflated. "Your logic is impeccable." He gained back some of his exuberance. "No one would recognize me!"

"That's the plan."

Krow could see the other's hesitation even as he took the cloak and swirled it around his shoulders.

"How do I look?"

Krow contemplated for a moment, then decided on the word. "…dignified." 

At the very least, the almost gaudy ensemble the other wore was concealed under the cloak.

Avan lit up. "Oho. I could act like Balbroa!"

He squared his shoulders, pasted a stoic look on his face, and leaped onto his horse from the wagon. "Let us resume."

Krow shook his head, half-amused. The guy was an overgrown child.

They reached Tvarglad without issue, regardless of Avan feeling the need for disguise.

The southeast gate was large, with three entranceways wide enough for three wagons abreast entering at the same time.

The wall was twenty metres high.

It would take only two successive double-jumps for Krow to hurtle over that wall. And that was just using a minor movement spell.

By looks alone, the wall was insufficient.

But this world had magic.

And Tvarglad was a city with a history of raising some of the greatest enchanters in Zushkenari history.

"What's taking so long?" Avan complained. "It's never been so long before. Are the guards today incompetent?"

Oh shkav.

Said guards stiffened. So did Ebry and Calon.

The one holding the caravan papers and entry token perused them with deliberate thoroughness. "From the high mountains, are you?"

"What? I'm from Baraldore." Avan carelessly waved away the question that hadn't been asked of him in the first place.

Ebry jumped on the reprieve. "Found him on the road. Kindhearted as I am, could I leave him there?"

Escort leader Calon sent Krow a look.

Krow reached to tug the hood over his assigned protectee's head. A reminder and a warning.

"What? Oh, of course. Balbroa." Avan fell silent, obviously a great effort.

The gate guard's eyes softened, but only slightly. "Hm."

He still studied the papers for a bit more time than necessary before waving them in silently with a perfunctory gesture.

Krow, feeling the cold reception, was a little taken aback.

Calon saw something in his expression. "Never been to Tvarglad before? It isn't the kindest place for draculkar."

Oh.

Krow should've expected…

As much as draculkar disparaged the vargvir race, it was logical that the vargvir would scorn them just as much.

Calon clasped his shoulder. "Stay close if you feel uncomfortable. Unfamiliar places can feel scarier than they really are."

He guided his horse away, heading for another rider.

Krow was grateful for the comfort, but Tvarglad was not unfamiliar to him.

The problem, really, was that he'd been here before.

"Krow!" Avan nudged his horse closer to them. "I'm going to see my friend. Will you go with me that far? He'll probably send people for my things." He swished the Darkfall Cape. "I'll return this to you then. It may be growing on me!"

"Really?"

Avan laughed. "No, not really."

Krow snorted. "Alright."

A split second of surprise flashed across Avan's face. "You are accompanying me?"

Maybe he hadn't hid his irritation as well as he thought.

"Sure." 

He still had to finish the escort quest. Besides, the other's interruption had jogged him out of thoughts that were spiraling downward.

He looked around the familiar city, the familiar skyline. His excitement to see Tvarglad again was still there, but now mixed with uncertainty.

Avan beamed at him. "Forward, then!"

The caravan was left in the seventh circle, as Avan led him onward. 

The closer to the Sacred Wood, the more prestigious the district.

Within the fifth wall were the so-called inner districts, where the wealthy and elite of the city dwelled. It took them a half hour at a canter to get there from where they left the caravan.

"Oh, that's the theatre where the Aberskan Players first put on Gared and the Maiden's Wish. I was at the premiere, you know, you just have to hear the music. It is inexpressively moving."

Krow suddenly became a tourist, and relaxed on his horse, content to listen. He'd visited the inner districts before, but he had nothing like Avan's knowledge of the place.

Now that he had a second look, this Tvarglad was subtly different from the Tvarglad of his last two lives.

When he first saw the city, it was still Redlands, but a year from now even this massive fortress city would have been touched by war.

Then after the Quake, riots broke out as transmigrators panicked.

This was likely as pristine a Tvarglad as he was going to get.

"The arenas are livelier than the last time I came by. Should we go to see?"

Krow quickly derailed that thought. "Shouldn't we see your friend first?"

He didn't want to be in a fighting arena with a bunch of hyped up vargvir. The odds that they would throw him, a draculkar, into the pit were too high.

"Oh, yes. He should be waiting."

Krow blinked. "He knows you're coming?"

"His spies would've told him already." Avan said it casually, as if it were commonplace to have spies in the everyday.

His friend was definitely the Primar. If not, then someone in the family.

"Is that something you should be saying to people?"

"What could they do about it?"

Krow snorted, amused at the sudden sass. "Harsh."

Because ouch, he already knew he was a nobody, alright?

"Oh, this is it."

It was an alley.

Avan expertly maneuvered the borrowed horse through the narrow pathway behind buildings. Krow followed, uneasy. Was it because the buildings were too close together?

"Why here?"

"I've always come this way. Hadi, my friend, has peculiar ways. When I take the front doors, he doesn't like to talk to me. Actually, sometimes, when I take this way, he still doesn't talk to me."

Wasn't that just yanking your chain? Krow's bemused smile quirked into existence briefly.

The uneasy feeling persisted. Was it because the draculkar-vargvir feud threw him off?

The alley wasn't that narrow. It was a back way to some of the buildings around. A few people looked up from stoops and back courtyards to glance at them, but either way, they were ignored.

"I remember it was this way." Avan turned a corner.

Krow only had a split second to react to the horse's scream.

Avan's horse fell, front legs disappearing in a spray of blood and flesh. Krow grabbed the man, already tipping forward dangerously, hauled him behind the saddle, urging his horse forward toward the ambush.

The path was too narrow to turn back.

The horse had been inured to attack by the encounters on the road, and unhesitatingly jumped its writhing companion and charged the three people blocking the alleyway.

Weeping skies.

Obviously, he'd spoken too soon.