The last stop Aiko decided to make was on the outskirts of the city, far away from the lake.
She and Little Ling rode an open carriage pulled by an Echo, the driver sitting on the bench in a relaxed pose. The boy was looking around curiously, having spent most of his life close to the lake — the street they were following was one of the main thoroughfares of Bastion, cutting all the way from the shore to the city gates. There were plenty of fascinating sights.
The gates themselves were not very impressive, though — in fact, there was no gate at all, just a wide open space where the departing caravans gathered before embarking on the dangerous journey across the dire reaches of the Dream Realm, and where the battered arriving caravans stopped.
Some of the caravans carried settlers, some carried cargo. Out of the latter, some were loaded with necessary resources that the Domain supplied to periphery cities in the East, while some belonged to entrepreneurial merchants.
