Shades of the New World

The City of Smog wasn't a welcome place. The scenery, the people, the smells… It all felt like the house of an unkempt man, who just refused to tidy their house, nor themselves up.

The group's carriage and horses were stored away by Rith, and they were walking towards the center of the city. Evin asked what they were doing here, but he didn't get a reply from the old man.

'This place is shit,' Evin had made his mind about the city in the first hour he walked in it. During this hour, three beggars tried to cling onto him, five people tried to rob him and one kid even tried to steal Rith. The boy's face when Rith started talking back to him was quite amusing to say the least, but these incidents helped a lot in Evin's swift disdain for the city.

Not to mention the cacophony of smells that radiated in the air. It was like a sauna without good ventilation and no showers prior. Karan commented how even the sewers of Tower City did not smell as bad as this.

Rotten garbage filled the streets with rats and dogs fighting over them, with no regard to the humans that surrounded them. Evin saw a few people betting some coins on those random animal fights, cheering and jeering at the dirty animals.

Some of the guards, ones which Evin thought were supposed to stop these gatherings, had instead joined in on the fun, with one of them threatening another man to pay up the bet.

Evin saw scenes like these in bars and underground clubs in his previous life, but never in public. But the atmosphere wasn't unfamiliar to him, so he didn't take things at face value.

But Arza, on the other hand, seemed to have trouble keeping his thoughts to himself. The boy was still barely four years old. The situation in the city really did not sit well with the boy's sense of morals.

Evin had to keep him in check a few times, since the boy was very prone to start a fight with some people he found… Unjust.

Evin sighed countless times during this walk, but they seemed to finally reach their destination. In front of Evin was a tall, grey castle watchtower.

"We're almost there," Ssatsko beckoned the group to follow him into the watchtower.

The group followed behind mutely. Entering inside, Evin saw many guards that were warily glancing at the group. Ssatsko didn't seem to mind the attention, and he confidently walked towards a sturdy steel door.

The guards in front of it motioned the group to stop.

"Permit," one of them said.

Ssatsko pulled out a folded paper out of his pockets and handed it over to the guard. The latter looked at the paper with a scrutinizing gaze and nodded.

"Enter," the same guard said and opened the door.

The heavy door opened smoothly, not making a single sound, making Evin genuinely impressed at how well the door was maintained.

Then, Evin saw a spiral stairway leading downwards behind the door. Ssatsko lead the way and the group followed behind wordlessly. Inside of the stairway was akin to hell for claustrophobic people, with brick walls surrounding you from all sides and a thin pillar that somehow supported the whole stairway downwards.

The group walked for a good five minutes until they finally reached the end of the downward tunnel. Ssatsko opened the door with a slight smirk and a miraculous scene welcomed the group. The door lead to a platform that showed the entirety of a mystical and magnificent underground city.

"Welcome to the City of Nevernight," Ssatsko introduced

Underneath the foul excuse of a city lied another city, one much more beautiful and fantastical.

Veins of shining white metals were lodged into the Earth that towered over it, illuminating the maze of buildings that spanned beneath. Evin could see that they were some kinds of metal that were imbued with the energy from the Luminous World. They did not pulse like mana lodestones, but they certainly shone like them. A look down from the platform showed a river of glowing blue water, running through the City of Nevernight.

The city itself was much cleaner and more amiable than the one above the ground. Evin couldn't spot a single broken wall in the entire city, and the denizens inside it looked content and calm. A clear contrast to the above.

A glance at the residents of the underground city also showed a very colorful scene with some of the population donning one or two horns of various colors. About one in every eight persons had a horn.

While he was walking through the City of Smog before, Evin was wondering where were all the infamous Ivari Horn Bearers, since the only Horned individuals he saw after coming to the North were Purzo and Hector.

None of the residents in the city above had a horn. Evin could guess that receiving a Horn was like an instant upgrade to your life, since the powers they gave you were extremely sought after.

But it wasn't the Horn Bearers that surprised Evin the most. Alongside the Ivari were tall individuals with six arms poking out of their sides. Their heads were covered by a mask, but none in the city seemed to mind them that much, expect, of course, Evin and Arza who were rudely looking at them with evident shock.

"They're called the Cobfolk, a race that waged a war against the North, back in the day and lost," Ssatsko started narrating.

'First ant-people and now spider-people? What's next?' Evin thought in his head.

"But instead of being sent to the South alongside the other losing races, they were allowed to stay in their territory, but the race's rulers were forced to take an Oath of Loyalty to the North. The race hates the glare of the sun, so they mostly dwell in the underground. There are a couple other cities that are this big, but there are a lot of smaller ones as well, most of them the size of a village," Ssatsko narrated as he walked.

"Why have we come here?" Evin had to ask.

"We'll meet the Cobfolk representative here and you two can receive the Oath of the North. We'll also visit some shops here. I'm sure you will find many things that would be useful to you," explained Ssatsko.

The rest of the trip was made in silence, as Evin and Arza were more focused on the miraculous city and its secrets. Evin didn't know how it was possible, but every part of the streets were illuminated fully with the light from above.

Ssatsko explained that the glowing metal was natural sorbothium ore veins infused with Luminous energy. Noticing that Evin was staring at the veins greedily, Ssatsko explained how the punishment of taking a piece of the ore is getting your mana-core crippled.

Evin was rich, but human greed was boundless and insatiable. Looking at the veins of precious metal looming on top of his head was like looking at piles of gold scattered on the ground.

The group found their way to one of the taller buildings in the City of Nevernight. A flag with a heroic depiction of a Cobfolk, with six different kinds of weapons in its arms, could be seen on its walls.

"What's that flag for?" Evin asked.

"It's the flag of the Underworld Tribe. One of the Ten Great Tribes of the North. They specialize in the World of Earth," Ssatsko explained. He then went on to talk about the system of tribes to Evin and Arza.

Compared to the noble system in the West, the Northerners were divided into Tribes, ten most important ones in total. And different tribes had different specializations. It was not hard to guess that the Ten Tribes represented the ten Worlds of magic, with the Heavy World and the World of Time excluded.

It was similar to the Ten factions in Tower City. They were also divided according to the Worlds they practiced. And also, similarly to the various smaller organizations in Tower city, there were also many smaller tribes that specialized in very specific things.

For example, the tribe that Ssatsko comes from is the Undying Flame Tribe, where its practitioners dedicate their lives to the mastery and combination of two Worlds, the World of Fire and the World of Life. One could see how many different tribes could be made if we followed this trend.

And they all fell under the rule of the Paradra Tribe. The Paradra tribe's name essentially meant under-dragons, or below-dragons. It was a weird name for a Tribe to have, but if one thought about how strong dragons were in this world, it was quite an ambitious name.

The Paradra Tribe acted similarly to a unifying government of the other tribes. They took care of organizing and monitoring the other tribes, and they were also largely responsible for foreign communications. They were also responsible for deciding who got sent to the South to do battle with the Colossi and the Griffins. So one could call them the face of the North.

The most elite of mages and horned commoners filled its ranks, and it also had the most advanced studies of various Worlds in the North. The highest honor for a Northern mage was to be recruited to the Paradra Tribe, not only that, even mages from other countries of the Empire wished to be part of the Paradra Tribe.

This was the basic situation in the North that Ssatsko was able to explain, before the group reached the doorsteps of the Cobfolk representative.