City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

ignore the smoke itself. Pushing it out would cost more mana. Just have a localized heal on everyone? Say… five-meter range, with a weak healing effect. It’d cost a lot still, but you could activate it when you need to for a bit… hmmmm…”

“We could take the secondary weave from the ‘Battlefield Triage’ spell. You know, the one that sweeps the body for infection? The weak one?”

“Yeah! Hmmm, that’d be useful, actually. It clears away anything that’s affecting the body, so if someone’s using a potion to boost their abilities, or a buffing spell, it’d affect that. Maybe make it run out faster…”

“That could work; maybe we could…”

“Lord Jax?” Lydia said again, and I blinked, having lost myself in the conversation with Oracle. We’d emerged into a square in the middle of the Cloudring district, ringed by manicured gardens and streetlights that gave off a mystical glow. Small faeries flitted about, and I shook my head in confusion, turning to look behind our group as we began following a new path. This one, like the others, was segmented by vents every few feet, releasing the fragrant, thick smoke to cloud the mind.

We’d just come through a large gate, entering a secure, inner section of the district, and I could see people outside the gates peering in, hoping to catch a glimpse of the private areas.

“Where are we?” I asked Yen, and she replied quickly.

“We’re in the Inner Ring of the Cloud District, Lord Jax. This area is generally reserved for those with money, or influence, or both.”

“And the Outer Ring?” I asked.

“Anyone can be in that section, but the real business of the Cloudring is done in here, or so I’ve been told. It’s an invite-only area.”

“If your name’s not on the list, you don’t get in, eh?” I muttered, snorting.

“Essentially. I and a few other of my fellow scouts have had a wander around, but none of us are ever invited into the more… select areas…”

“Fair enough. Thanks for the info.” I gestured to Lydia to move over closer. Yen moved back to give me some space, and I shook my head, pulling her back in close.

“So, what happened when you left us?” I asked.

“Well, it took a little while t' get through th' crowds, but we were ignored once we were on th' way. We saw a few o' th' Harpies swoop down to look, but they’re either better actors than we thought, or they didn’t see anythin' in us to interest 'em. When we reached the Cloudring, though, it got a bit different. Ellen said she knew someone that’d be in th' south section, so we followed along with the crowd for a bit, blendin' in. When we got to the right area, she seemed surprised the smoke was gone, but she took us to a plain little buildin'. She had a quiet word with her friends, an' they let us through. Nobody seemed to care about anythin' besides the fact she was alive, and we headed into this inner district. Not long after we got in, we got pulled aside by a group who wanted t' know where the other smugglers and the cargo were, but she said she could only tell the Arena Master, an' they let us go. They weren’t happy, though.” Lydia shrugged and Yen picked up the tale.

“Once we were inside, we got told to wait, and Ellen was taken off on her own. There wasn’t a good way to stop it without making her our prisoner. She was gone about fifteen minutes, when we were summoned to a courtyard. She was waiting for us, and the rest of this group was assembling. Few minutes after that, we were on our way to you. There’s not much more to tell.”

“Yeah, the big guy, Hector, kept tryin' t' question us about you. He acted all nice and everythin', but he wanted to know about our team’s skills, and specifically, your fightin' style.”

“What did you tell him?” I asked Lydia, and she grinned proudly.

“That you were hell to face, an' that you killed anythin' an' everythin' that annoyed you. I refused to tell him anythin' else. Yen played the star-struck follower routine, said you were ‘just wonderful,’ and ‘so brave,’ and all that crap.”

“Hey!” I complained, pretending to be hurt. Yen went white and started to explain, while Lydia just snorted and hit Yen’s arm.

“Don’t believe him; he likes t' wind people up.”

“Damn, you’re getting to know me too well,” I said, grinning at her as we turned another corner. A large building came into view at the end of the path.

With the clouds of smoke wafting about, it was hard to see far, but as the building gradually emerged, it became clear that it wasn’t a house, or even a series of small businesses.

The building was made of a yellow stone and formed into a stepped pyramid. Each floor held bordering gardens, with flowering plants climbing the walls and dangling from balconies to reach for the floor below.

Torches stood at regular intervals along each level of the construction, and a few people could be seen staggering about or passed out on benches, where guards watched over them and glared at the group passing by. The smoke that seemed omnipresent and pervasive over the district was even heavier here, but after a second, I realized that wasn’t true. The smoke here wasn’t heavier than the surrounding areas, it was stronger.

Whatever they were using, this was clearly the good shit.

We were led off to the right, passing under a series of arches and through a large pair of double doors that opened out onto a courtyard at the back of the building, hidden away from prying eyes. I felt my hackles rise as soon as we walked in.

The courtyard seemed almost empty. A solitary pair of people stood before us, waiting. One was a huge hulk of a man, covered in a mix of heavy armor and spiked plates. On a lesser man, it would