Chapter 3. Taros — The NPC
Nevus City smelled like three things simultaneously: baking bread from the district bakeries whose stone ovens had been firing since before dawn, the metallic-sharp scent of mana crystal dust drifting from the artisan quarter to the east, and the specific living warmth of a city of two million people going about their morning.
Lucus walked slowly, the way he used to walk when he visited a city for the first time while researching with his eyes moving faster than his feet, cataloguing everything.
He had the notebook open in his left hand and was writing in it while walking, which he'd always been capable of despite the poor handwriting it produced.
'Nevus City, capital of the Denmud Empire. Population: approximately 2.1 million, including the outer districts.
The city is divided into four main quarters: the Administrative Quarter (northern), the Market and Trade Quarter (western), the Awakener and Guild Quarter (eastern), and the Civilian District (southern).
The academy sits on Nexus Island, a separate landmass connected to the eastern quarter by the Grand Bridge construction begun 200 years ago, finished 180 years ago, mana-reinforced, can support the simultaneous crossing of 10,000 fully armored soldiers or the equivalent weight in cargo.'
He had written all of that. Knowing a thing and standing inside it were separated by a gulf wider than he'd expected.
The streets were wide enough for four wagons abreast in the main thoroughfares, narrowing to intimate corridors in the older residential sections.
The architecture layered centuries older buildings of dark stone with carved decorative trim, newer construction using the white crystal-veined stone the empire favored for its dual function of structural integrity and mana conductivity.
Above the rooflines, he could see the floating marker-lights that served as the city's nighttime navigation system: mana crystal orbs tethered at various heights, not yet active in the morning light but faintly luminous with stored energy.
People moved through the streets in a mixture he found simultaneously familiar and alien. The human majority, yes, but also there a pair of Beastkin with the distinctive amber eyes and slightly elongated canines of the wolf-type subspecies, wearing the uniform of the city watch.
A short figure with broad shoulders and elaborate braided beard, carrying a crate of mechanical components that clinked metallically with each step: a dwarf, unmistakably, heading toward the artisan quarter.
And there—he slowed—a pair of figures with the telltale slight point to their ears and the quality of physical stillness that marked half-elves.
Not full elves; full elves were far rarer in the Denmud Empire, mostly residing in Eldonian to the west.
Half-elves were more common here, particularly in academic and trade circles.
He had written all of these races. Studied actual mythology and anthropology to build them out beyond generic tropes. Standing in the midst of them felt like stepping into a painting he'd made knowing every brushstroke, but still astonished that it had colors.
He was so absorbed that he walked directly into a dwarf.
The collision was significant. The dwarf was approximately four and a half feet tall but built like a small cliff dense with the kind of muscle that comes from actual physical work, not aesthetics.
The impact stopped Lucus completely while the dwarf rocked back exactly one step and looked up at him with eyes the color of old bronze.
"Watch yer feet, lad," the dwarf said. His voice had the particular quality Lucus had tried to describe in his world-building notes as "quarried" deep, with resonance, like sound coming out of stone rather than a throat.
He had a Northern Valhalla accent, identifiable by the slightly rolled consonants.
"Sorry," Lucus said immediately. "I was reading while walking. Terrible habit."
The dwarf looked at the notebook, then at Lucus, with the assessing expression of someone who had encountered many different kinds of people and filed them efficiently.
"Reader, are ye? Or a writer?"
"Both. Currently neither. I'm—" He stopped. Recalibrated. He needed to be Lucas Martin right now, not Lucus the author.
"Student. Incoming NEXUS first year."
Something shifted in the dwarf's expression a slight upward adjustment that, on a less stoic face, might have been called warmth.
"Ah. Another one. They're flooding in from the whole Empire right now, the young ones."
He looked Lucus up and down with frank assessment.
"Don't look much like a fighter."
"I'm not. Not yet." Lucus looked at the crate of mechanical components balanced on the dwarf's shoulder.
"You're from Valhalla? The Forge Kingdom?"
The dwarf set the crate down on the edge of a nearby cart with practiced ease and crossed his arms.
His beard was braided in three thick ropes, each ending in a small bronze clasp stamped with a rune Lucus recognized: the mark of a Runemaster-class craftsman.
"Taros Blackthorn, at yer service. Artificer, second rank. And how does a minor-house kid from the western provinces know Valhalla from a hole in the ground?"
"I read," Lucus said. "A lot."
Taros studied him for another three seconds with those bronze eyes. Then he reached back into the crate and produced, apparently at random, a small mechanical device—a sphere about the size of an apple, brass-colored, with a ring of smaller gears visible through a crystal face. "Tell me what this is."
Lucus looked at it. He had written about Valhalla's tech in his world-building document, though it hadn't appeared much in the actual chapters. A brass-cased device with visible gear mechanisms and a crystal face could be several things, but the specific arrangement of the gear ring suggested a particular function.
"Detection compass," he said slowly. "Mana signature mapping. That crystal face is a display medium—it would show a directional map of local mana concentrations when activated. Useful for dungeon navigation or finding beast dens."
Taros Blackthorn was quiet for exactly four seconds.
Then he laughed. It was the sort of laugh that came from the stomach, genuine and a little startled.
"Sharp eye, that," the dwarf said, taking the device back.
"Most folk think it's a fancy compass for directions. It is that, secondarily. Yer right about the primary function."
He looked at Lucus with new attention—the kind that assessed, rather than merely observed.
"What class do ye think they'll place ye in?"
"Class C," Lucus said, because that was what the letter said Lucas Martin was assessed for.
"Maybe B if the entrance exam results go well."
"And what do ye want?"
To Be Continue....