The morning light slowly filled the room.

  I was already awake, though. It's just that I’ve been laying in bed, trying to formulate a plan and think of every possibility.

  After a few more minutes, I finally got up from under the sheets.

  I've already noticed it, but my physique visibly improved. Of course, it wasn't just a visual improvement – now that I've recovered my stamina, I could distinctly feel just how light my body was, and how smoothly every movement flowed.

  However, I didn't have time to admire the effects of my increased Attributes. Instead, I gathered everything, making my way to room number 14 – the room Pinpin was staying at.

  To my relief, as I approached, I heard the occasional sound of strings being plucked coming from the room. The bard was probably busy calibrating his lute.

  I quietly knocked on his door.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Pinpin…”

  I said his name in a hushed voice, which, after a few seconds, he managed to recognize.

  “What is it?”

  The bard opened the door, a partially unstrung lute laying on his bed.

  “Before I leave, I have something to ask of you.”

  “...sure. What is it, Seb?”

  I walked inside, closing the door, my voice still low.

  “If, in the near future, anyone questions you about our meeting yesterday, tell them the following:”

  “First, we met by chance when I sat at your table. You told me you're a bard, and I leaned in, offering to pay you 5 gold for information about the city... Yesterday, you said you knew quite a lot of inns in the city. So you happen to know at least five in every district?”

  “...yes.”

  “Good. Tell them I asked you for five inns in each district, with 5 gold as payment. If you don't mind, please exclude the Milky Leaf – when they get to this part, they'll already realize this was likely a misdirection, but they'll have to check all the inns anyway. Of course, you can ‘forget’ one or two to be more realistic – you can always ‘remember’ them later. Or, don't. They might be able to see through that sort of act.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “You can tell them I gave you the name Seb, and describe my appearance truthfully. They'll probably get it from the innkeeper anyway, so just tell them everything, with the exception of the fact we know each other, and my questions regarding the inn. With that, you should be safe.”

  The halfling just stared at me, tension apparent on his face. Dozens of terrible scenarios must have just gone through his mind.

  “I’m sorry you got tangled up in this… I only thought of it myself this morning.”

  I lowered my eyes. I truly did feel ashamed. If the second member of my first party died because of my actions…

  “Seb-”

  “If you feel like going underground for a bit, I will pay you. I can spare a few dozen gold-”

  “Seb. It's fine.”

  When I looked at the halfling again, the grim expression on his face was gone, replaced with a reassuring smile.

  “I’m a bard, remember? Acting is my second nature.”

  The halfling hesitated, before putting on an awkward smile.

  “Although now that I said it, it doesn't sound like something a decent person would say, ha ha!”

  I stood silently for a moment, before chuckling myself.

  “No. I suppose it isn't.”

  We stood for a few more seconds, the silence becoming heavier with each heartbeat.

  “Stay safe, Seb.”

  “You too, Pinpin.”

  Without further delay, I turned around, exiting the room with faint hope in my heart.

  Still, I couldn't dwell on it for long – after all, this promised to be a very long day.

  ***

  First thing I wanted to do – go to the nearest general shop to buy a city map.

  Thankfully, Pinpin knew of one such shop in the area. What's more, it was a factory store, located right beside such a factory, which was on the way to Eastern.

  As I moved eastward, the neatly arranged buildings were replaced with massive warehouses. Some had swarms of workers hauling goods from and to sturdy wagons or carriages, while most lay dormant, except for the odd security patrol.

  It seemed some warehouses had dedicated guards, while others, perhaps owned by the same company, had one or two shared patrols.

  Of course, none of that was of any interest to me. After walking the very long street for thirty minutes, I finally got to the real industrial zone.

  Ahead of me lay a mix of factories and large workshops of different sizes and security levels. Of course, I couldn't see them all at once, but I did see quite a variety on the way to my destination.

  Most workshops were guarded by a simple fence, while some had a proper stone wall separating them from the outside, with a few even going as far as having a wall thick enough to have guards patrol its walkways.

  The factory security was a cut above, with every single one being surrounded by a stone wall, at the very least, most having visible patrols on or around the walls, and some even having their walls shine with colorful runes or faint, glimmering lights.

  I even passed by one factory that had a large open area around it, with the men stationed on the walls wearing breastplates with the Valorian crest on them, and contraptions mounted on the walls which looked suspiciously similar to cannons.

  ‘Thomas wasn't joking when he talked about those factories – they’re treated like they’re critical to this kingdom's national security. Actually, if those are most of the factories in the Silverton province, they probably are.’

  Sometimes, the factory guards would throw suspicious looks at me, and so would the patrols on the streets; I have already removed the bandages from my face on the way, throwing them away in some side alley, but perhaps my battered armor and overall look raised some concerns.

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  At this hour, which was around 8 to 9 in the morning, there were hardly any workers going to the factories - however, the few who did usually wore grim expressions.

  ‘Reminds me of when I was a child.’

  Back when I was in pre-school, we lived in a small town, and our school just so happened to be located near a textile factory.

  By the time I went to school, their first shift would already start, but occasionally I would see a few late workers, and their scowls would be similar to the ones I saw now.

  ‘Although those guys used to be much more…’

  The factory workers in my memories were just ordinary people. If you took them and put them in a crowd – on the street, a bus, or a shop, they wouldn't really stand out.

  On the other hand, most people here were visibly impoverished, their clothes often ragged or dirty, the hair of many of them unwashed. There were quite a few children, too. It was clear they were the dregs of society, who had this type of occupation not out of choice but out of necessity.

  The air was also filled with a cacophony of different smells, most giving off a sour or an acidic scent.

  I noticed most of the factories released no smoke, and those which did released very little – perhaps there existed a contraption that helped create heat without burning coal, or perhaps one that captured the smoke.

  I was quite certain this was done less out of concern for the environment, but mainly due to the elevated central district, which was considered the “high society” district, whose southern side would catch quite a bit of smoke, had it been allowed to escape freely.

  ‘There it is.’

  I quickly dismissed those thoughts – every city had its slums, and perhaps if those factories didn't exist, most of those people would now be starving on the streets, or part of crime gangs similar to the one from yesterday. The situation was clearly complex, and that complexity was none of my business. However, what was my business lay right in front of me.

  ding

  Accompanied by a ringing doorbell, I walked into a small shop, located directly beside a large red wall - not due to paint, but rather due to the natural color of its bricks.

  “Can I help you sir?”

  “Do you have a map of the city?”

  “We do, sir!”

  This store specialized in various paper products – maps, calendars, notebooks of different sizes, and so on. I could only presume the nearby factory either produced paper, or bought it en-masse from one of the neighbors to produce the contents of this store.

  “This will be one silver, sir!”

  I tossed over the silver coin.

  “Actually, do you happen to have…”

  For a total of just over 1 gold coin, I bought the road maps of the Silverton and Central provinces, which were (physically) 4 times larger than the city one, and had a small overlap in the area between the two provinces.

  I also spent 1 more gold to buy a few envelopes and a thin stack of high quality paper, suitable for letters. Considering 3 gold was the monthly salary for the average commoner, paper was definitely not cheap in this world, but it was relatively affordable, perhaps in large due to factories like this one.

  With my newly added wealth from yesterday, I still had over 100 gold left.

  I also considered buying a calendar, but my inbuilt countdown clock made that purchase redundant, at least for now.

  Thanking the boy at the counter, I continued on to the southeastern inner gate.

  Apart from the circular wall around Central the city had four other inner walls, each connecting an outer gate to the central wall. At the gate, they created an intersection which allowed passage between districts, and outside the city.

  Obviously, while passage between districts was normally unobstructed, the gate from and into the city was heavily guarded.

  Those inner walls had another gate, around two-thirds of the way from the outer to the central wall. This gate was called the ‘inner’ gate of each wall, and was typically called by the combined names of its neighboring districts..

  The central wall also had four ‘inner’ gates, each connected to one of the districts, and located exactly midway between each two inner walls of that district.

  Last night, after casually bringing up the subject of the map, I heard from Pinpin that the architecture of the city remained largely unchanged since the days of the Thousand-Flames Empire, over one thousand years ago.

  The unassuming naming convention was retained from that era as well – the old empire used to favor simplicity and practicality in their names, at least in certain cases.

  During the city's last war, some of the inner walls were destroyed, but everything was eventually rebuilt under the Silverton family…

  As I was admiring the city's design, keeping one eye on the map in my hand and the other on the street ahead, I made my way to the inner gate.

  It had two guards standing watch, but pedestrian traffic was flowing smoothly – individual inspection was likely not part of their regular job. They were probably just stationed there to prevent certain emergencies, or even more likely – to provide a baseless sense of security to the passing masses.

  Making no effort to hide amidst the crowd, I simply walked past them. They only spared me a passing glance. Clearly, the sight of an armed man with clear signs of a recent battle was not as suspicious here as it was in the warehouse or factory zones.

  The atmosphere across the gate was in stark contrast to the one in the industrial district.

  The buildings that filled the street, a mix of residential houses with a few stores, were far tidier and cleaner than those in similar streets in Southern, and far warmer and lively than the cold, oppressive and sterile feeling of the previous area.

  The people seemed more lively, too, and many children were playing outside, often under the watchful gazes of their mothers or neighbors.

  Consulting the map, I confirmed the path I needed to take to reach the Steel Cog – however, I decided to take a small detour, roughly ten minutes, to a small marking I saw on the map which looked vaguely familiar.

  I began to walk in a slightly different direction, and after a few minutes, I could see the top of the tower, peeking from behind the nearby buildings. As I got a little bit closer, to my left was a small plaza, with the object of my interest in its center.

  It was a tall clocktower. A real, working clocktower, standing tall amidst the surrounding buildings. Its hour hand was resting on the digit 9, while the minute hand was slowly, near-imperceivably moving away from the 25-minute mark, slowly making its way to the very bottom of the face.

  I slowly moved closer, evoking a short glance from the heavily armed guard, standing by the heavy metal door at the base of the tower. However, his gaze did not linger long - visiting adventurers admiring the clocktower must have been a common enough occurrence.

  As I got close enough, I could hear the barely audible sounds of turning gears, grinding metallic belts, and the clicking of unknown mechanisms from inside.

  Standing below this feat of engineering, which would be seen as fairly impressive even on Earth a few centuries ago, I couldn't help but miss the convenience of a simple watch.

  ‘Maybe there are watchmakers here? This is supposed to be where the high-end artisans are, after all.’

  Turning my back to the plaza, I continued on to a different street, and after 10 minutes, I finally made it to my destination.

  It was a fairly unremarkable two-story building, the only things suggesting its identity as a workshop being the sign in front of it, and the thin horizontal slits replacing proper windows on the second floor.

  Entering through the front door, I found myself in a small reception area.

  The shelves on the sides housed various cogs and gears, clearly placed for display purposes alone, and between the shelves on each side was a large, comfortable-looking sofa.

  In front of me was a small reception table with two armchairs at the front, and a good looking blonde woman with neatly tied hair sitting behind it.

  When I walked in, the chiming bell caught the woman's attention.

  “Welcome to the Steel Cog, sir.”

  The woman’s tone was polite and professional. As she threw a quick look at me, she hastily added.

  “Just to make sure, we don't sell adventurer contraptions here. If you're looking for combat or exploration equipment, I can recommend an excellent shop nearby.”

  I did my best to smile politely.

  “I’d gladly hear that recommendation, but that's not why I'm here today. I came to see… Horton Webmire, if I remember correctly.”

  She subtly squinted her eyes, trying to maintain the same polite demeanor, but failing to hide her suspension from my sharp perception.

  “Master Webmire is currently unavailable. If you'd like to set an appointment, could you please tell me who you are?”

  “My name is Sebastian. The one who referred me to this place was a blacksmith from Pine Harbor named Goromir. Mr. Webmire is an old friend of his, or so I'm told.”

  Upon hearing the name, the receptionist fell into contemplation, until her face brightened ever so slightly, seemingly remembering the name.

  “Please wait a moment, sir.”

  With a swift stroke of her hand, she pulled a lever under the table, and a click from the door behind her could be heard.

  She quickly turned around and went inside, leaving me to stand between the two armchairs (as sitting would require me to remove both my backpack and sheath).

  After a minute, a different set of footsteps came from behind the door, which soon opened once more.

  “Sent by Goromir, are you? I'll be the judge of that.”

  Below are some maps.

  new tab to zoom in on PC, or zoom in manually on mobile. (The city map is hard to make out on mobile even when zoomed in, but, that can't be helped)

  Partial City Map

  Not fully drawn, just the places where Alex / Sebastian have been so far. Scale is accurate. You can guess the designation of the zones from the chapter: merchant / trade zone, warehouse zone, industrial zone (Southern), industrial / artisan zone (Eastern).

  Can also see Seb's destination next chapter.

  Silverton Province (with some of the surroundings)

  You can guess which are the cities (and which of them are 'major cities', which are the towns (all towns and cities are mapped), and which are the villages and other tiny settlements (not all of those are mapped, or even known).

  Since this is a Valorian map, a publicly available one, too, Luskar isn't mapped there.

  The darker areas are those where the geography is done, but major settlements / roads are missing (not on the story map, I just didn't have time to get to that).

  The gray-out areas do not belong to the province (well, Valor's End is on the in-story map, being basically a border city).