I stood in the shadow of the Library's grand overhang, the heavy stone providing a temporary sanctuary from the sun that clawed at my skin. I pulled the silken veil tighter around my face, but I couldn't block out the weight of Nikolai's words.
"Are you sure you can handle yourself, Eirene?" he asked,
Nikolai voice thick with a fatherly concern that felt out of place for a man who knew my family's name.
I nodded, my eyes already scanning the street for a shortcut back into the darkness of the alleys. But as I turned to leave, his voice stopped me one last time.
"Before you go, Eirene... can you tell your sister, Elicia, thank you for saving me back then?"
I froze. I slowly turned back to him, my brow furrowed in a look of genuine confusion. Elicia, the Offspring Goddess. She was the reason I was in this sun-scorched city, the reason I was hunting Oksana. But Nikolai talked about her as if she were an old friend, not a distant, legendary figure.
Without a word, Nikolai reached for the buckles of his lightweight City Guard armor. He peeled back the leather and the linen shirt beneath, revealing a horrific, jagged mess of scar tissue that spanned the entire width of his abdomen. It was a map of a wound that should have been a death sentence.
"Thanks to your sister, I'm still breathing. I remember it clearly, my intestines were spilling out onto the dirt, and Elicia just... she pulled them back in and stitched the soul to the flesh like it was nothing."
I let out a distilled expressions my face twisting into a mask of grim realization. The world felt smaller, tighter.
"Ah, yes, before I became the gatekeeper, I was a member of Elicia's party. She was our leader. Our healer. Our light. She didn't just mend bodies; she kept us whole."
Nikolai said, a bittersweet smile touching his lips as he buckled his armor back into place. He looked at me, his gaze lingering on my one visible eye.
"You have her steel, Eirene. But don't forget she had a heart, too. Don't let this city turn you into just another ghost in the sewers."
I gave him a final, lingering look. The fact that Nikolai was a former comrade of my sister changed everything. He wasn't just a helpful guide, he was a link to the person Elicia used to be before she disappeared into the rumors and the shadows.
But the sun was rising higher, and the burning sensation on my neck was becoming unbearable. I had to go. I gave Nikolai a sharp, respectful nod, a silent promise to carry his message, and sprinted into the dark mouth of a nearby alleyway.
"If you want to ask questions Eirene, no, I don't even knew the map of Sisiphon City, in fact, this is the first time I visited this place." Plasma interrupted
I had a few hours before the meeting at the Emerald Spire. I needed to get to the Sisiphon Academy. If Nikolai's old party leader was my sister, maybe there was something in the Academy's restricted archives about the healing she used, or where a former leader might hide.
I stepped out onto the street, now just another student in a heavy cloak, heading toward the ivory gates of the Academy.
I pulled the heavy captain's cloak tighter around my shifting frame, the fabric acting as a shield against the punishing heat. Sisiphon wasn't just hot, it was predatory. The sun felt like a weight, pressing down on my skin, reminding me that I was a creature of the moon and shadows, far from the temperate forests of Caria.
I needed an Academy uniform, ivory and gold, but finding one meant navigating the crowded market. As I moved through the shimmering heat haze of the stalls, my one good eye caught a flash of familiar, dusty leather and the scent of aged parchment.
There, sitting behind a table of maps and trinkets, was Brick.
The same merchant who had given me a ride and sold me that purse back in Caria. In a city of millions, the bounty hunter had a funny way of bringing back familiar faces. I approached the stall, my hood lowered just enough for him to see my face.
Brick's eyes widened, his jaw dropping as he recognized me.
"Oh! Traveler! You again? In the outskirts of Sisiphon, no less! Well, greetings, greetings. What can I do for you today? Looking for another purse to fill with gold, or perhaps a way out of this furnace?"
I pointed silently to a detailed Map of Sisiphon pinned to his table. It was far more granular than the one the Archivist had shown me, marked with student routes, shop names, an, crucially, the whole area of Sisiphon Magic Academy.
"Ah, a scholar's guide! For you, a loyal customer? Only 2 silver. It's got every alleyway and hidden fountain in the city. Helpful for avoiding the sun, eh?"
I handed him the coins, the silver cool against my palm for a brief second before it vanished into his till. I didn't linger. I found a shaded bench beneath a wide-reaching desert palm and spread the parchment out.
"Anyways Eirene, this is more simpler than the whole map in Caria, it is understandable." Plasma muttered.
The map reveals that Sisiphon City is a compact, dense fortress of power compared to the sprawling territory of Caria. While Caria covers 135 SQ km, Sisiphon is a concentrated 40 SQ km, divided into five distinct districts of exactly 8 SQ km each.
For a better look, see for yourselves
The Five Districts of Sisiphon
Northern District (The Scholar's Sanctum): Home to the Sisiphon Magic Academy and the Great Library. This is where the ivory-robed gifted students that was granted a magic based human skill from the gods, they study magic and where you must head next to maintain the Zenni persona.
Southern District (The Noble's Reach): The territory of the high-born and the seat of the Alchemist Guild's Emerald Spire. This is your final destination for tonight's meeting with Oksana.
Western District (The Merchant's Plaza): The commercial hub where you met Brick. It is a maze of stalls, gold exchange, and high-end imports, serving as the city's economic lungs.
Eastern District (The Riffraff's Den): The slums where the Eastern District Clan resides. It is the most dangerous sector, filled with peasants and the desperate who have been discarded by the Alchemist Guild.
Central District (The Royal Heart): Much like Caria's layout, the center is reserved for the King and the High Council. It is the most heavily fortified 8 SQ km in the city, acting as the pivot for all political power.
The map spread across my lap revealed a city designed with a rigid, geometric precision that felt like a trap. While Caria sprawled across a vast expanse of 135 square kilometers, Sisiphon was a dense and claustrophobic contrast, compressed into a mere 40 square kilometer footprint.
The city was a perfect square of power, divided into five distinct districts that each spanned exactly 8 square kilometers.
The Southern District housed the nobility and the looming Emerald Spire where Oksana held court, while the Western District served as the bustling hub for merchants like Brick. To the north lay the scholarly sanctuary of the Sisiphon Academy, the very place I needed to infiltrate, while the Eastern District was a jagged sprawl of riffraff and the violent territory of the Clan. At the heart of it all sat the Center District, the seat of the King, anchoring the city in a layout that mirrored Caria's royal structure but with a far more lethal density.
I traced the boundaries with a scarred finger, realizing that in such a compact space, every move I made would be whispered through the walls of the neighboring districts in minutes.
The 8 square kilometers of the Northern District felt like a world away as the desert sun continued to bake the stones of the plaza. To cross into that ivory-towered domain, I had to move through the Western Merchant District first, using the crowded stalls to mask my heat-sensitive flinching.
My eyes kept returning to that small, hand-drawn mark over the Academy's Restricted Library on the map Brick sold me. If the districts were truly this small and strictly monitored, a prodigy like Zenni would have been noticed every time he crossed from the soot-stained South to the golden North.
I stood up from the bench, folding the map and tucking it into the inner lining of my cloak, the silver coins jingling softly. I needed to move toward the Western District to perfect my clothing on the border of the Western and Northern districts to secure my disguise, but the sight of that symbol, my sister's symbol, stayed burned into my mind like a brand.
I looked back at Brick's stall one last time as he haggled with a traveler. The proximity of the districts meant that the Clan I had fought in the sewers was likely only a few blocks away from where the Nobles sipped their tea. This wasn't a city, it was a powder keg waiting for a Rynd to strike a match. I pulled the hood of Dorin's cloak lower, shielding my sensitive skin, and began the trek toward the northern border, keeping my gaze low and my mana suppressed to avoid the detection of any roaming Academy sentries.
I folded the map and tucked it into the inner pocket of my cloak. The Northern District is my immediate priority. To get there, I'll need to cross through the Merchant's Plaza without attracting the attention of the City Guard, who are likely still on high alert after Nikolai's scene at the inn.
With the sun still high, the 8 km hike to the Academy gates will be a test of my endurance under this heavy cloak. I need that ivory uniform, and I need it before the afternoon bells ring.