CHAPTER 19: Bureaucracy and Bullshit
The line was long.
Not absurdly long but long enough that I stood baking under a sky that looked like it was still deciding if it wanted to storm or sweat. The dust kicked up from the road settled on everything, clothes, boots, skin, even the gatehouse's stone foundation.
Farmers ahead of me tugged carts with produce or baskets strapped to their backs. Behind me, a woman with a crying baby and a goat on a rope. Somewhere down the line, someone was hawking baked bread that smelled way too good for how hungry I was.
The city gate loomed ahead, thirty feet tall at least. Built from thick grey stone with a slight green tint from age or moss. Iron gates were partially open, but flanked by two outposts, wood and metal booths where guards sat behind desks like bureaucrats with swords.
Everyone stopped there.
Showed papers. Got checked. Either waved through or escorted out.
No one caused a scene.
And no one looked particularly surprised about the process.
Which meant this was normal.
I… didn't have papers.
And that was going to be a problem.
After about ten minutes of shuffling forward, I stepped up to the wooden desk. The guard sitting there looked like someone who'd seen far too many people and cared about none of them. Broad-shouldered, lightly armored, short brown beard and a little too much skin around the eyes like he hadn't slept in years.
He didn't look up right away.
Just reached for a dull quill, dipped it in ink, and asked flatly:
"Name."
"Kaizen."
"Occupation?"
I hesitated.
He finally looked up.
I cleared my throat. "Freelancer."
That made him squint slightly. "Which guild?"
"Not registered."
Pen stopped mid-scratch.
"No guild registration?"
"Nope."
"No travel permit? No merchant sigil?"
"Nope."
He stared at me.
I stared back.
He exhaled slowly, leaned back in his chair, and gestured with his quill at my chest like he was aiming a crossbow.
"Alright, Kaizen. You see the problem here?"
"Not really. I'm just trying to enter the city."
He smirked, not in a friendly way. "That's the problem. No guild ID, no travel documents, no permit, no identification of any sort. Which means you're a vagrant. A risk. And a paperwork nightmare."
"Sounds about right."
"You carrying weapons?"
I gestured to the sword slung on my back.
"Any contraband?"
"Not unless attitude counts."
He snorted once. Then grabbed a thick leather-bound ledger from under the table and thumped it onto the desk.
"You want in," he said, flipping through the pages, "you need a civil permit. Standard for unregistered entrants. It gives you provisional rights to remain in Torak for two weeks while you sort out registration with the Guild or find a sponsor."
"Sounds reasonable."
"It costs a thousand Pele."
I blinked. "What the hell is a Pele?"
That stopped him.
He looked up again. Really looked.
"You don't know what Pele are?"
"I'm from a pretty isolated place."
"No kidding."
He pulled out a small tray from the side drawer and dropped three coins on the table. One copper, one silver, one gold.
"This is a copper. One of these is a base unit," he said, tapping the smallest. "A hundred of these gets you a silver. Ten silver gets you a gold."
"So one gold is a thousand copper."
"Exactly. The permit is one gold, or a thousand Pele. Named after the imperial banking system."
I stared at the coins.
So much for pretending I wasn't clueless.
"I don't have a sense of worth in the outside," I said honestly. "How much are these worth in terms of buying power?"
"A copper buys you a piece of bread or an hour of stable time. A silver might get you a night at a modest inn. A gold? A week's rent in a city apartment or a solid horse and cart."
"So… it's not outrageous."
"No, but it's not pocket change either."
I opened my pouch.
Three gold. Ten silver. Seventeen copper.
Still had everything from the goblin raid.
I started counting out loud. "One… two…"
The guard raised an eyebrow as I laid the third gold piece down. His tone changed immediately.
"Well, would you look at that," he said, flipping the ledger to a blank page and dipping his quill again. "Lucky day."
I didn't comment.
"Name again?"
"Kaizen Vale."
"Any known criminal activity? Arrests? Public duels?"
"Do I look like someone who wins duels?"
He ignored the joke and scribbled for a while, muttering under his breath as he filled in boxes. After a minute, he slid a small parchment square toward me. Stamped with red wax, official seal, my name on it in crisp block letters.
"Civil permit. Valid for two weeks. Don't lose it."
"Appreciated."
He gave me a pointed look. "Visit the city registry office near the Guild Square if you want to extend your stay. Or join a guild. Or not get thrown out when this expires."
"Understood."
"One last thing."
He leaned forward, just slightly.
"You don't ask what Pele are out loud in Torak. That'll get you robbed, cheated, or worse. You sound like you just fell off a monastery cart."
"I'll keep that in mind."
"Good. Welcome to Torak."
The guard waved me through the gates with all the enthusiasm of a man swatting a fly off his desk. I stepped under the archway, stone worn smooth by decades, maybe centuries of foot traffic and just like that…
Torak hit me like a punch to the senses.
The noise.
The smells.
The sheer size.
I'd seen cities before. Earth cities. I'd been in traffic jams, airports, even that one time I got lost in Manhattan. But this? This was something else.
The first thing that struck me wasn't the buildings, it was the skyline.
The buildings here rose high. Not skyscraper high, but easily three to four stories on average, some towering with pointed rooftops, curved steel balconies, and archways that seemed to fuse Victorian elegance with medieval bulk. Their foundations were stone—ancient-looking, dark and pitted but the upper floors branched into newer wood, polished metal beams, even glass-paned windows.
Some of them had what looked like pipes, actual pipes coiling like mechanical vines up the sides of buildings, belching faint steam or glowing with enchantments I didn't even want to guess at.
And the streets?
Packed.
Crowds surged through the avenues like blood through veins, nobles in carriages with inlaid sigils, merchant carts drawn by muscular lizard-creatures with goggles strapped to their heads, kids darting between legs and wheels like this was their personal racetrack.
The air was a blend of sweat, coal smoke, spiced food, and arcane discharge. I couldn't tell if I was going to choke or salivate.
Everything felt like it shouldn't work together but it did.
It was medieval charm duct-taped to early industrial might, and then wired together with magic nobody bothered explaining.
Torak was alive.
Messy.
Huge.
And absolutely dangerous.
I stepped off to the side of the road, narrowly avoiding a small steam-powered cart hissing past, its brass-rimmed wheels rattling over cobbled stone. A thick-jawed man in a sleeveless coat barked at pedestrians to move as he steered the thing around a corner and disappeared into an alley thick with laundry lines and lanterns.
There was order here but only because chaos had grown tired and hired someone to manage things part-time.
And then I saw it.
A group of chained demi-humans.
Four of them. Two men. Two women. All beastkin of different types, canine ears, feline tails, hunched shoulders, and expressions carved from exhaustion. Their clothes were rags. Barefoot. Wrists and ankles cuffed in metal shackles etched with glowing runes I didn't recognize.
They were being dragged by a man in a dark green cloak, leather gloves, and polished boots. He rode on what looked like a mechanical horse, half gears, half sinew, steam leaking from vents in its sides like breath. Two armored soldiers flanked him.
A noble.
Of course.
I watched them pass, face cold.
No one stopped them. No one blinked.
Just another day in Torak.
"Slavery," I muttered under my breath. "Of course there's slavery."
And not subtle, underground, black-market kind. This was the open trade type. The "accepted by law but only talked about in hushed tones at nice parties" kind.
I glanced around, scanning the crowd again.
Humans. Humans everywhere.
Tall. Short. Pale. Tanned. Dressed in everything from roughspun laborer gear to shimmering coats lined with gold thread.
Here and there, I saw beastkin, not all enslaved, but most clearly poor. Kept to the edges. Eyes low. Walking fast. Clutching bags or crates or children.
But no elves.
None.
Not a single pointed ear.
Not one tall, elegant, ethereal snob pacing the streets like they owned the place.
I found that... curious.
Even in the crowd, even with all this chaos, if there were any elves, they'd stick out.
And they didn't.
"Interesting," I murmured.
There were a lot of things I still didn't know about this world.
A lot of assumptions I'd brought with me, fantasy tropes, patterns, logic built off years of reading books where elves were always the diplomats, the spies, the pretty-faced assholes with ancient knowledge and questionable ethics.
But here?
They were gone.
Or at least hiding.
And that said something.
Another cart passed, this one full of fruits the size of my head, carried by a bored-looking man with goggles and a cigar clenched between his teeth. A woman in a velvet coat nearly tripped over a cluster of kids chasing each other with glowing sticks. A tavern door flew open to the sound of music I didn't recognize, a fast rhythm, strange instruments, and voices singing in a language that tickled my ear like I should know it but didn't.
I stepped deeper into the city.
I'd expected stone streets. I found cobbles lined with glowing runes.
I'd expected horse dung and mud. I found a city where tech and magic lived together in an uneasy marriage, steam carts sharing road space with wagons, spellcasters walking past mechanics, alchemists arguing with rail station workers near smokestacks.
It was modern.
It was old.
It was alive.
And I was just one more nobody in its bloodstream.