Chapter 24: Chapter 24: The Copper Citadel

The sun was high in the sky when Nikola checked out the carriage window. The horses' hooves were beating against the loamy earth just like they had been before she had succumbed to yet another bout of rest.

She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Her slumber had been dark and featureless, free of whimsy. Beside her, Luke was tidying up after the morning's shenanigans, gathering breadcrumbs and carrot tops that gone uneaten.

Nikola was just opening her bag when the carriage slowed, the hoofbeats spacing out more and more until they were completely absent.

"We've made it to the Copper Citadel," the driver bellowed as the cart became motionless beneath them.

"Awesome!" Luke gathered his stuff, finding it much easier to zip his backpack shut this time around. He hoisted it onto his back, and then looked down at the red-haired girl with a grin.
"Are you gonna put your backpack on too?"

The raven-haired girl blinked, and looked down to the same place where he was looking. Could he be talking about...?
Nikola sighed and reached down to grab her twig-like wrists from the floor. "Yes." She had to get out of the carriage to successfully maneuver the other female onto her back, but she did so, tucking her hands in the spots under her knees to support her.

The former NPC may was well have been a shelf in that moment. She had an over-the-shoulder bag stuffed with her belongings, a belt with two pouches attached, and she was carrying somebody.

If she had wanted to find a way to become less scrawny, lugging a whole other person and her most prized possessions everywhere would do it eventually. Hopefully, she and the red-haired girl would both fill out in their time together; her with muscles, and the red-haired girl with, well, anything.

"Thanks for the ride, sir," Luke said as he started towards the city.

"We beat the water here," Nikola noted as she glanced around and saw only dry, swishing grass.

"Yup, and even if we hadn't, this place has some pretty robust defenses."

The two of them approached the burnished metropolis they had paid to travel to, and Nikola looked up in awe at the elaborately spiked walls that encircled the entire city. They had a chunky lattice of metal at the top that resembled barbed wire, but chunkier.
This place was much larger than her home village, or even Flapnap. This was a capital city, and it was bustling with activity.

"Why did we flee to this place in particular?"

"Well, if my friends are anywhere, it'll be here." The adventurer lagged as they got closer to the entryway. "You know how you chose a starting city? This is where we chose when we all logged in and got started."

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As they passed the city gates, everything opened up. The Copper Citadel had a castle smacked in the middle of it; it was sitting in a bed of trees so massive it was difficult to see the castle at all, but the couple of towers that scraped the sky made it partially viewable from the entrance.

Nikola noted that the houses here were larger than the ones in her village, and each one resembled a little brother or distant cousin to the castle in the distance. If there was a distinguishing feature between the dwellings, it was some variety of carving or embellishment made out of glittering bronze. One house had a wavy, knotted strand of copper weaved around the door frame.

"Do you have any ideas for where to begin looking?" Nikola glanced left and right, a little lost in the scale of the place. There was a forge within eyeshot and a smattering of inns for weary travelers.

"Yeah. We rented an inn as soon as we finished grinding some slimes outside the city; let's go see if they're there." Luke beckoned for Nikola to follow him, and they cut through the crowd together and entered one of the nearby inns.

The inside was well-furnished and homey, with lots of reds, golds, and the city's signature orangey-brown. The two of them strode purposefully across the hardwood and up to the front desk, behind which there was a woman.

She was in semi-formal attire, with a button-up dress shirt coupled with a flowy skirt that reached down to just below her knees. Her distant gaze turned into a focused, joyful one as they approached.

"Hello and welcome to the Rectangular Prism Inn! Would you like to rent a room for 5 Coppers?" Upon further inspection, her 'buttons' were sharp at the edges, forming a flat rectangle.

"Nope," Luke replied, "I should actually already have a room, I'm just looking to get a key to it. I should be registered for Room 4; I'm Lukeknight64."

The girl hmmm'd and flicked through the ring-bound binder to her left, looking between Luke and the pages in front of her. A ding of recognition crossed her fair visage when she found his name. "Ah! Here you are. Yes, you are indeed registered for Room 4. You seem to have already been issued a key - may I ask where it has gone, and would you like to pay the 1 Copper fee for losing it now or later?" The innkeeper's lips turned up in a vestigial smile.

"I didn't lose it," Luke sputtered, "the other people I was with just-- oh, never mind. Yeah, I'll pay the measly 1 Copper." He reached into his bag and loosened his coin purse, digging out 1 Copper and placing it on the counter.

The innkeeper slid the Copper off the smooth surface and into her hand, and put a key down to replace it. "Here you go. Please enjoy your stay at the Rectangular Prism Inn." She leaned forward and grabbed the sides of her skirt, bending her knees into a curtsy.

"Thanks," he said as he took the key and headed up the stairs, looking behind him for Nikola, who was still carrying around the life-sized doll of a girl she was randomly obsessed with. Of all the things for her to form an attachment to, it had to be one that was the size of a full-grown person and had like six lines of dialogue ever.

He slotted the key into its intended hole and turned, and the door swung softly open. The adventurer was hoping to see a flurry of activity behind it, or be greeted by the excited voice of one of his comrades, but what sat before him was a few mussed-up beds and some half-eaten food, just the same as they'd left it.

It was exactly the same as he remembered it, which was of course not a good sign. It meant that not one of his friends had returned to their room, and they hadn't returned the key to the girl at the front desk either. "Damn," was the only thing he could utter as the news sank in like a bullet.

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