Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Tula
"How much of it have you actually seen?"
"Novastar mostly. Bits of the eastern continent, early in my career, before I settled into steadier Guild work." He nodded toward a distant line of hills, hazy blue on the horizon. "Tula sits close to a trade crossroads — you’ll see merchants from three kingdoms in a single market day, sometimes more. It’ll feel like a different world compared to Brightwood."
He spent the remaining days filling in practical details rather than history — how Guild ranks translated to real opportunities in a city that size, which districts to avoid after dark, how academy tuition typically worked for someone without noble sponsorship, what kind of quests a fresh F-rank could realistically expect to find on a proper city’s board.
"Don’t expect Tula to hand you anything," he warned, as the city’s outer walls finally came into proper view on the seventh day. "Village respected you because you earned it in front of them. City won’t care about any of that. You start from nothing there, same as everyone else who walks through those gates without a name attached to noble blood."
"Good," I said, and meant it. "I’d rather earn it there too."
---
Tula announced itself long before we reached the gates — walls of pale gray stone rising higher than anything in Brightwood or the estate town, wide enough at the top that I could make out patrol guards walking their rounds even from this distance. Beyond the walls, the city sprawled in a way that made even the estate town look modest by comparison — towers and rooftops stacked in dense, layered districts, smoke rising from countless chimneys, the distant hum of thousands of lives happening at once reaching us even before the gates did.
The gate guards processed the entry line with brisk, practiced efficiency, barely glancing at Thorne’s Guild token before waving us through into a press of noise and color that made Sharp Soul Perception spike sharply enough that I had to clamp down hard on the flood.
Merchants shouted over each other in at least three languages I didn’t recognize. A noble’s carriage rattled past, gilded and impractical, drawing irritated mutters from pedestrians forced to step aside. The smell of roasting meat, tanned leather, and unfamiliar spices tangled together into something almost overwhelming after a month spent mostly in forest and farmland.
"Big," I managed, which felt like a wholly inadequate word for what I was actually looking at.
Thorne allowed himself a small, knowing smile. "Wait until you see the Chapter house."
---
The Guild’s Chapter house in Tula bore no resemblance to the small canvas tent or modest stone building I’d grown used to. It occupied an entire block near the city’s center — multiple stories, a wide courtyard busy with adventurers sparring, comparing gear, or arguing over posted bounties, and an interior that hummed with the particular organized chaos of a genuinely large institution.
Thorne guided me through the main hall toward the registration desk, past boards thick with posted quests ranging from mundane pest control to what looked like genuinely dangerous escort contracts into contested border territory.
"Transfer registration," Thorne told the clerk, producing my Guild token. "Village post out near Brightwood."
The clerk, younger than the examiner who’d tested me weeks earlier, scanned the token’s records with practiced efficiency before her eyebrows rose slightly. "Shadowfang Ruins extraction credit," she said, glancing up. "That’s a rare notation for an F-rank record."
"Circumstances were unusual," Thorne said, before I needed to offer my own deflection.
"I’ll flag it for the assessment office regardless," she said, stamping the transfer paperwork. "Standard procedure for unusual credentials — nothing punitive, just a formal interview at some point, whenever their schedule allows. Could be weeks before they get to it, given how backed up assessments run here."
I filed that away — one more thread of institutional curiosity trailing after me, same as the estate town clerk’s earlier warning, same as the Shadowfang examiner’s note. Apparently a clean core extraction simply wasn’t the kind of thing that stopped drawing attention, however quietly I tried to carry it.
"Welcome to Tula’s registry, Master Ailfos," the clerk said, handing back my updated token. "Quest board’s open to all registered ranks appropriate to your tier. Good hunting."
---
We spent the remainder of the afternoon securing lodging — a modest room above a tavern in one of the city’s quieter districts, affordable enough on the coin Harlan had pressed on me weeks earlier, though I suspected I’d need considerably more if I intended to stay here long-term.
"This is where our roads split, for now," Thorne said, once the practical business of settling in had wound down. "Guild’s sending me south within the week — assignment’s been waiting since before Shadowfang, and I’ve delayed it about as long as I reasonably can."
I felt a genuine pang at that, more than I expected given how briefly we’d actually known each other. "Thank you," I said. "For all of it. The training, the hearing, standing beside me against the orc. I wouldn’t have survived this month without you."
"You’d have found a way," Thorne said, though something warm flickered behind his usual composed patience. "But I’m glad I was there to make it easier." He clasped my forearm in the same formal gesture Harlan had used. "Keep training that circulation. Keep the sword work honest. And whatever else you’re carrying that you haven’t shown me yet—" a faint, knowing smile, "—use it wisely, kid. Tula’s bigger than Brightwood in every sense, including the kind of trouble it can offer."
"I’ll be careful."
"See that you are." He shouldered his own pack, pausing at the door. "Guild paths cross more often than you’d think, in a world this size. I expect we’ll meet again."
"I’m counting on it."
He left with the same unhurried, confident stride he’d carried since the day he first found me in Brightwood’s square, and I stood alone in the small rented room, feeling the particular, unfamiliar weight of genuine independence settle over me for the first time since waking in this world.
---
I spent that evening walking Tula’s streets alone, letting Sharp Soul Perception map the city’s rhythms at a pace I could actually manage, cataloguing districts, watching adventurers of ranks far beyond F-tier move through the crowds with the casual confidence of people who belonged here in a way I didn’t yet.
Back in my rented room, I opened my Status properly, weighing what came next now that Thorne’s steady guidance wouldn’t be shaping my decisions anymore.
[System Points: 90,419,900]
[Level: 58]
[Rank: Mortal]
Resources enough to buy almost anything the city’s markets or academies could offer. A domain waiting quietly, hidden, holding richer land than most kingdoms could claim. And now, for the first time since waking in this borrowed body, no one steering the next step but myself.
I thought about the Guild’s quest board, thick with posted bounties and contracts suited to registered adventurers of every rank. Practical work. Coin, reputation, the kind of steady, documented growth Thorne had always advised.
But that wasn’t what I actually wanted first.
I thought instead of Zayne Ailfos — the boy whose body I’d woken up in, whose name I still carried, whose mother’s locket had started an entire chain of consequences stretching from a village bully’s grudge all the way to a Baron’s court. I knew almost nothing about him beyond scattered fragments — an orphan, quiet, hardworking, unremarkable enough that nobody had thought to watch him closely.
I didn’t know how his parents had died. Didn’t know if the locket held any deeper history worth understanding. Didn’t know if anything of the boy whose life I’d inherited still lingered anywhere in this world, waiting to be properly honored rather than simply worn.
*Before I chase Guild rank, before I chase power for its own sake,* I decided, turning the small, worn locket over in my Inventory with a thought, *I want to actually understand who I owe this life to.*
I opened the Shop one final time that night, searching not for combat skills or elemental mastery, but for something considerably quieter — an investigative aptitude, a tracking or research-oriented skill suited to chasing down a dead boy’s fragmented history in a city large enough to actually hold answers.
I intended to find out exactly who Zayne Ailfos had been, before I finished becoming whoever it was I was turning into instead.
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