Free City of Nollemburg

LAYLA FENIN

It had been 4 days since Layla had woken up from her **** state, opening her eyes into more darkness. Or at least that’s how long she thought she had been awake, having slept three times, presumably three nights passing by. It was difficult to tell much of anything in her bound and blindfolded state, and who knew how long she had spent ****, being dragged along.

It was the third day in her journey, yesterday, that her captors removed her restraints and blindfold, allowing the light to hit her eyes, momentarily blinding her after living in darkness for days.

Once her eyes readjusted, she found herself at the edge of the forest, a massive river stood in front of her. It must have been 200 or 300 feet across, flowing so rapidly that there was no hope of crossing it by normal means.

Down the bank, perhaps a mile to her left, Layla could make out a bridge connecting the shoreline to an island. High blackened stone walls rose up, blocking any view of what lay beyond them. Beyond that there was nothing by wilderness in any direction she looked.

Layla had been paying close attention to her captors’ conversations, few and far between as they were. She had managed to gather that they were heading to meet someone, and more importantly that they were heading east.

This meant that Layla was most likely looking at the Free City of Nollemburg. It sat on the Nollem River, dividing her own Kingdom of Boarir, and the Kingdom of Thalen. Despite many attempts from both Kingdoms to claim the city as their own, the extremely defensible position it held, as well as its military prowess allowed the city to exist outside of both Kingdoms for centuries.

A few harsh words of warning from the two men standing with her that she could now see for the first time explained why they had untied her: they were headed to Nollemburg and wanted to avoid detection from the guards at the gate. Layla knew that a better chance of escape would come, and making her move on a bridge without knowing for sure whether or not the guards would help her didn’t sound like the best idea. Especially with the Lava Hawk, a member of the Flamma Family, resting on one of the men’s shoulders, inspecting her.

So deciding to comply, Layla and the two men crossed the bridge, making it past two guards adorned with black plate mail and into the city without issue.

Upon entering, the gate opened directly into the main road of the Nollemburg, crowds of people moving to and fro from shops and restaurants. Along the outer edge of the city were homes, packed closely against the outer walls, with many built directly attached to the wall itself, hanging high off the ground and supported by stilts. This odd building method left the homes stacked on top of each other, some reaching almost half way up the wall.

‘How do they even get up to their own house to get inside?’ Layla wondered as she took in the scene unfolding in front of her.

Before she could do any more exploring however, she was taken by the arm and dragged off down a narrow corridor by the man in black trimmed cloak.

He weaved in and out of buildings, walking through throngs of people, all the while dragging Layla behind him. His companion in the gold trimmed cloak seemed to have broken off from the two of them at some point, not that Layla could tell as she was well and truly lost at this point.

They finally stopped in front of a nice house, probably costing more money than Layla had seen in her lifetime. It was made of a pale white granite stretching two stories tall, with an oddly slanted roof extending all the way to the ground, forming almost a right triangle of a house. Along the first floor were floor to ceiling windows, allowing Layla to peek through and see lavish furnishings inside.

After a few quick raps on the door, clearly some predetermined signal, the door opened quickly and a man in a similar cloak pulled them both inside. Layla was quickly usher to a staircase, and climbed down into darkness **** forward without a word by the two men.

——-

It had been another three days by Layla’s estimate inside the basement that acted as her cage before light poured down the staircase. Thinking it was her usual meal delivery she got twice a day, Layla stood and moved to the staircase before pausing.

Two sets of footsteps came down the staircase, breaking the norm of what she knew of when a guard brought her food. Two men appeared, the light framing their bodies as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

One of them was one she recognized, still wearing his damned gold trimmed cloak, his Lava Hawk pokeGirl nowhere to be seen, but the red gem on his finger ever apparent. Next to him was a tall man with jet black hair as if he dyed it to keep up appearances in his older age, and a perfectly maintained beard, equally black. He wore the white cloak like all the other men before him, but his differed in the trimming, a blood red instead. On his right hand sat three rings, all of which had white, foggy gems.

“This is her?” The new man asked, looking a little skeptical at her.

“Yes, Master Gythaden, I saw it for myself when I first came across her,” the familiar man responded, showing the new man deference.

Gythaden stepped forward toward Lyla before commanding her, “Look at me woman.”

Meeting his eyes with her own, she stared into his hazel pupils, watching the man muse to himself, before noticing his eyes narrow. He stepped even closer still, and snatched Layla’s face in one of his hands, smushing her cheeks together. A flash of anger ran through Layla’s body as she was about to resist his advances.

As quickly as he grabbed her, he let go, avoiding Layla’s anger. Nodding to himself he turned to his companion, “You did well. Ready her for some transport, we will be traveling many miles over the coming days.” He patted him on the shoulder and exited without looking back, booted feet creaking on the stairs and his footsteps got more and more quiet.

The gold trimmed man, whom she still didn’t know the name of, walked toward her, muttering what sounded like an apology. Letting out a pained yelp, Layla’s world turned black once more and he struck her ****.