The ground was made of stone bricks, all making a direct path towards the city; it being surrounded by a wall made it so that it was all that Luca could see. When he looked up, he was blinded by the sun, so he covered his eyes with his hand, Alyska then took that hand and pulled him along.
“C’mon Slowpoke! Aren’t you excited?” She was teasing him.
“Haha… I’m just looking, can’t see anything besides the wall without getting blinded though.” He said, smiling at her, trying to make her understand he wouldn’t turn back now, which she seemed to do. She then turned around and looked over to the city, which also blinded her, but due to the rger amount of belongings she was carrying, she couldn’t cover her eyes.
“Ah… I’ll trust you next time.” she blinked a couple times to shake off the momentary blindness. “Doesn’t matter though, the entrance is right there, look!” She nudged forward.
Luca saw a small arch in the wall that went through it, a couple other people who got off the train were talking to a guard who seemed to be checking what they were handing him, he inspected their things and gave them back to whoever was at the front of the line. The guard then told something to two other guards who were behind him and they uncrossed their spears, letting the person through.
“Oh!” He then looked at his bag of Zenith stuff. “That’s for the stuff they gave me.”
“Hm? The customs?” She then looked back at him “Oh, the 'stuff they gave you' is like passports and the guild documents and all that right?” She said as they reached the line and stood at the end of it.
“Yeah, the instructions said there was uuh…” He looked up and squinted, the wall now covered the sun, so thankfully he wasn’t blinded. “a passport for traveling, a file with the information of when I was signed up um…” He closed his eyes as he thought harder. “A card to give to the guild, the permission to enter the guild and… the director’s pass.” He looked forward, kind of proud of himself for remembering it all; he took some time studying it to remember; even if he was unsure about going, he wanted to be prepared in case he did.
“Sounds like everything, yeah… wait what’s the director’s pass?” She turned to look at him as they advanced with the line. “Is it like a letter of recommendation or what?” Luca shrugged.
“I guess? I can show it to you if you want.” She nodded and smiled at him.
When Luca turned to the bag, he realized he didn’t have a hand left, one grabbing it and the briefcase and the other Alyska’s hand.
“I think if you let go of the hand it could help.” She joked as he grinned embarrassed at her, blushing slightly, he did let go of it and started digging in his bag, but when she realized he had a sort of sad face from letting go, it made her blush slightly as well. Luca started digging in his bag, through the other documents and their instructions after he saw it, but before being able to show it to Alyska the guard interrupted them.
“NEXT!” he yelled, which startled Alyska a little bit and Luca a little more than a bit, she stepped forward and unclipped the pockets on her jacket, from them she took a little thin looking book thing that said ‘Password’ on the front of it, she handed it to the guard who inspected it.
“I assume everything’s in order?” She said while the guard inspected it, after a couple seconds of reading and mumbling, he closed it.
“All correct ma’am, welcome to Zenith, gd to have a member of your family in it.” He gave a little bow to her and a nudge to the guards blocking the way, who lowered their heads and uncrossed their spears to let her pass. Alyska nodded and took her passport back, grabbed her things and walked towards the gate. After she got through the guards, they crossed their spears and she turned to smile at Luca while she stood still under the small opening in the wall, waiting for him to enter Zenith.
“NEXT!” the guard yelled again, despite Luca already being in front of him, he dug once again through his bag and took out his passport, which he presented to the guard. While the guard inspected it, Luca looked at Alyska and smiled; she smiled wider at him, clearly excited. The guard handed him his passport back, which he then thanked him for and walked forward, only to be met with a push from the same guard, which threw him to the ground.
“H-Hey!” Alyska said from behind the blockers of the path, the inspector turned back to look at her.
“Sorry ma’am, but your boyfriend can’t enter the city; his passport is obviously fake.” Alyska got a blush on her cheeks before her face reflected her confusion. Luca though, didn’t even hear the boyfriend part, the pain in his bottom from falling and the fact that the guard said distracted him too much. He grabbed the passport and looked inside it, he never knew it opened; he only thought it was like a card or paper like everything else, but once he did, he saw the contents inside.
His face was a drawing of him, which to be completely fair looked like him, only angrier and kind of menacing; the space for the name had ‘Luca’ but the st name one was empty; also, gender was marked ‘Male’. Then he started seeing the issues; under age it said ‘20-25 (young)’, under race it said ‘looks human’, the role of Zenith had ‘Guild member’ and next his guild member number, which seemed correct, but the final nail in the coffin was under region of origin, which read ‘Somewhere between Zenith and the south coast’. He closed the passport; did the old man Kreaspell fill this out himself? He did a good job with the drawing, but everything else…
“L-Listen sir-” he stood up slowly, only to be met with the guard towering over him.
“No, you listen kid! I’m here to make sure no one who isn’t worthy enough gets into the city, and a little smartass like you who thinks can trick us has no chance of getting in. So scram, before I turn this into a bigger issue.” He leant closer to his face, clenching his jaw, Luca leaned backwards to avoid him, all while rummaging through his bag without looking, finally he found what he wanted and pulled it out.
“H-Here! Read it, please!” The instructions said that, if all else failed, show the pass the director signed, so he did.
“W-What the- how did you get this punk?!” He snatched the pass from his hand and looked at it incredulously, then noticed the sign with the symbol of Zenith on it, which made him squint his eyes and look at him suspiciously. “Listen here, runt, if you pn on making me think that y-”
“Oi boss, do you need me to check that? I think I see the old director’s stamp on it from here!” yelled one of the guards who blocked the path in, Luca saw Alyska look at the scene from behind the spears. The ‘boss’ grumbled before standing straight and walking to the guard, who he handed the paper to, as Luca stood up, the spear guard inspected the paper and then handed it back to his boss after nodding. The boss got a terrified look on his face, and seemed to go pale in a second.
“Y-You sure?” He almost whispered that part, when the other nodded, he opened his eyes wide and put his lips inside his mouth, then he turned around, cleared his throat and spoke, much more politely this time, “P-pardon me sire, I-I must have confused you for someone else, clearly this is fine; a-and so is the passport, the portrait just looked like, someone else.” Luca raised an eyebrow, he understood what was happening, but he didn’t understand why he chose to bme one of the parts of the passport that were accurate. The guard then handed him the director’s pass back and bowed, “P-Please enjoy our great city, we are happy to have you.”
“Y-yeah…” Luca didn’t know how to respond, he put the pass inside his bag again while the guards uncrossed the spears, standing behind them was Alyska, relieved. “T-Thank you everybody.” He walked past the guards, nodding to the one who read his pass, who nodded back, then smiled at Alyska, who offered her hand to him.
“No going back now!” She had a smile from ear to ear and started walking at a brisk pace through the tunnel, Luca grabbed her hand tight, gd to be holding it again, he didn’t realize how much he had missed it in the short amount of time they weren't holding eachother.
Exiting the small tunnel, Luca was blinded by the sun after having had his eyes accustomed to the shadow the wall provided, while they got used to the light, he marveled at the scene before him. Buildings made of stone and wood stood at either side of the street, decorated with flowers and pnts and with ceilings made of tiles of different colors on each building, making an incredibly colorful sight, aided by the different types of wood. The street extended itself forward, towards another big structure, which resembled the walls they just went through. The big buildings to both their sides blocked sight of anything besides them, but looking forward, one could see, with the sun in the distance slowly nearing the horizon making it silhouette, the jewel of the crown.
Raised above the inner wall, atop a stone ptform with others nearby floating, stood proudly a castle-looking structure, marble-white in color, with a couple towers erecting themselves off of it. The main tower sat in the middle, the top decorated in a pointy twisted shape that seemed to almost pierce the sky; this was, of course, Zenith’s fortress, which oversaw the entire citadel. Luca felt Alyska tighten her grip on his hand, with good reason, he retaliated with the same action, for he also understood what that pce really was: the pce where the most powerful leaders of Zenith worked, the only pce the dungeon could be accessed from, and finally, the pce where the guild operated, where they would work from now on.
