Chapter 3.5: Leaving the Walls

At half an hour past dawn the next day, Penny was nearly to the lower ramp of the Melandru High Road, tugging at the reins of a dolyak, as though it meant anything to the creature at the other end. “Come on, you smelly sack of fur,” she rasped through clenched teeth. “It’s right there. The ramp is right in front of us. Just move!” It snorted, sniffing at a tuft of weeds coming up from between the cobblestones.

She’d been fighting this animal for the last hour, just to get it across the Western commons. And that had come on the heels of an hour-long wrestling match to wake the creature and mount a cargo platform on its high back. As the keeper pointed out, a stable hand would ordinarily have done that for her, but none of his help was on hand before dawn. He further explained that the additional fee Penny had paid for such an unusual pick-up time was not enough to cover his assistance either.

“Gods, I thought your owner was bad,” she said, throwing down the reins. They still hadn’t made any progress away from the weeds. “Fine,” she huffed, crossing her arms. “Just stay there. Enjoy that— whatever the hell that is. I’ll just wait here until either you decide to move or Vent comes down and shoots a lightning bolt up both our asses for making him late. He’s not exactly—” She trailed off, letting her face fall into her hands. “Gods, I’m talking to a dolyak. I may actually be losing my mind.”

The sound of clopping hooves cut into her thoughts, and she looked up to find the dolyak strolling toward the ramp again. She shook her head and followed. “I hate you.”

Penny retook the reins but had no need to pull. She and the dolyak simply walked up the stone ramp toward the meeting spot. By the time she was halfway up the ramp, though, the other four members of the party had noticed her and started down in her direction.

“You’re late, Penny,” Ventyr said as he approached her. “The rendezvous time was—”

“Dawn, I know,” she sighed. “You would not believe how hard it is to wake a dolyak and put all this crap on it.”

Ventyr crossed his arms as the two new party members came to a stop behind him. The woman wore a knee-length skirt of dark green and a black leather trench coat. Her charr partner dressed in a warlike combination of thick, boiled hide and metal plate on his thighs and shoulders: completely usual attire for a charr. Minkus appeared last, stepping out around the others and toward Penny. His oversized pack swayed in time with his arms and ears.

“The rest of us arrived before the sun was even visible over the wall,” Ventyr said. “You could have done the same.”

Penny put her hands up in defense. “I swear to you, I was at the stable over two hours ago. It took forever just to get this thing up and moving. Then the back mount and straps, muzzle, extra food, my turrets— and gods, the amount of time it took to make it walk here. I hate living things.”

Minkus looked uncomfortable between the woman and the sylvari. “Well, you’re here now,” he said.

Penny nodded. “Yes I am, so let’s quit squabbling and get this trip on the road.”

“Yes,” Ventyr said, pulling the charcoal hood up over his head, “let’s go.” His crusaders followed suit, and all began to walk down the slope back toward the Western Commons.

Minkus waited alongside Penny as she slapped the dolyak in the rear to get it moving again. “What’s its name?” he asked as they started moving.

She rolled her eyes. “How did I know you were going to ask that? I refuse to let you call this thing by a name.”

“He does have a name, doesn’t he? I knew it!” Minkus smiled.

“No.”

He looked at her with a raised eyebrow, still grinning. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just have to give him a name, like Fezz. Or Radd. Oh, I know. Dolyy!”

“Oh gods. Fine,” she conceded. “The owner called him Buck.”

Minkus ran his three-fingered hand through the creatures coarse hair and gave it a pat. “Hello, Buck. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh, wait.” Penny paused. Minkus and the dolyak stopped as she reached into her hip satchel. “Here. This is yours,” she said, handing him a small metal object about the size of her fist. “Or rather, it’s your sister’s.”

“Oh!” Minkus beamed, rotating the cylindrical device in his hand. “It’s my payment, my gift to Jinkke. It’s— what is it?”

“It’s my own design. I call it a killswitch.” She tugged on the reins to get the dolyak moving, but nothing happened. “Shit,” she spat. “Not this again.”

Before the words had finished leaving her mouth, though, Minkus absently continued on, and as he stepped past the dolyak, it sniffed the air and followed, keeping pace with the asura. Penny buried her face in her hands. “I hate you,” she mumbled.

“So what’s it do?” Minkus asked, still focused on the device in his hand.

Penny looked up again. “What’s what— oh, the killswitch.” She walked up beside him. “That’ll fry the electrical system in just about anything. That side there, the dark side—” she pointed. “It’s magnetic. Flip the switch to activate the magnet, throw it at your target, and get down. After about ten seconds, bam! It releases an electrical charge strong enough to crisp— well, anything I’ve ever built.”

Minkus’ eyes widened. He still analyzed the object in his hand.

Penny continued, “Your sister can use it in her work or whatever. I’ve had to use mine to shut down a project or two.”

“It’s great. Thank you,” Minkus replied, sliding the device into his pocket. “I’ll send it to her as soon as I can.”

“Good,” Penny said, looking ahead as they strode down the streets of the Western Commons. “We’re even.”

Minkus nodded. “Yes. Even.”

Tightening the waist strap on her backpack, Penny hopped twice to settle it for the walk ahead of them. “Gods,” she said, “I’m glad I unloaded this thing.”

Minkus cocked his head, suddenly paying attention to the thick-canvas bag on Penny’s back. “What do you mean you unloaded it?” he asked. “Didn’t you pack it for the trip?”

“Of course,” she replied, raising an eyebrow, “but that meant I had to unload some of the tools to make room for everything else. And that was after losing some weight in general. This is going to be a long walk, Biggie.”

He stared at her blankly.

Recognizing his confusion, she shook her head. “SP-1, three-sixteenths.” The pack whirred and groaned, and a small mandible popped out beside her hip. She took the little wrench from its grasp and tossed it to Minkus.

He bobbled the small wrench once or twice before getting a good grip on it. “The golem— er— smartpack? I’ve never seen it covered. You’re— you’re bringing it with you?”

“Well, yeah.” Penny frowned. “You think I was going to leave it behind? There’s still work to do, and more than enough time to do it. Gods, we’re going to be doing nothing but walking for a long time. Besides, it might prove useful in a pinch.”

Minkus held the wrench, still staring blankly as his pace slowed.

She took him by the shoulder and directed him on. “Come on, Biggie. Carrot-stick’s already pissed.”

The two sped up, with a little prodding to Buck, and caught up with the other three. Together, they strode silently through the Commons, between stalls filling with their respective vendors, past Hronsonn’s, and onto the Dwayna Low Road.

Penny watched as Minkus’ attention moved away from the wrench still in his hands and on to what stood around and over him. “You OK there, Biggie?”

He smiled at her, but his eyes quickly went back up to the Dwayna High Road as they passed under it. “Yes, I’m fine, Penny. I’m more than fine. I’ve been here for half a season, but it’s still— amazing. I don’t know, just the scale of it. I felt so small when I first came into the gates and saw this. I still do.”

Penny scowled as she craned her neck to see the high road overhead. The six low roads in the city ran beneath the six high roads, each named for one of the human gods. In truth, high was an understatement, as the roads all made climbs a few hundred feet up into the center of the city. But to Penny it was still just the Dwayna.

“Yeah, I guess it’s pretty big,” she admitted, shrugging. “But it’s just a road.”

Twice as wide as the other god roads, the low Dwayna was under the open sky, with separate high roads on either side of it, connected by stone bridges crossing back and forth all the way up toward the upper city. Penny realized for the first time in many years that seeing the sky beyond those stone walls made the high road seem even taller. Planters overflowing with rose bushes ran the length of each wall at the very top, with ivy creeping down along the crevices in the stonework. That, most people said, added a sense of life to the road’s massive presence, but Penny couldn’t feel it. She was too busy remembering the last time she’d paid attention to this road, the first time she’d paid attention to it, when she was just a girl entering the city. She scowled.

The group passed beneath the portcullis and through the massive main gate. Penny looked out at the town of Shaemoor a couple of miles down the road. Everything she’d built for herself was inside the walls, protected from the outside world, but now she was beyond those walls, exposed.

Ventyr slowed, allowing Penny to catch up beside him. “I always miss this city when I leave it,” he said.

She nodded.

“You’re leaving Eddie in charge of the shop in your absence?”

She blinked. “Yeah. The kid’s got it,” she replied slowly. “He’s not always the sharpest tool, but he knows what he needs to, to keep a shop running for a quarter season. He’ll be fine.”

He nodded, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You’re right. He’s a good young man. He’ll do just fine.”