The rhythm of the rails provides a steady, low hum as the locomotive cuts northward through a lush, vibrant forest. Far to the east, past the dense canopy of trees, the faint tips of a great mountain chain pierce the sky, the sun slowly climbing above their peaks and casting its first pale light across the land.
Inside the passenger carriage, the air is thick with the warmth of a crowd. Lleuad stands amidst the throng, his hand steady against a brass railing. He recently surrendered his seat to a woman with child, who joined the journey at the previous station. Around him, the cart teems with life. Children press their faces eagerly against the windows, their eyes wide with wonder at the blurring green world. Adults fill the remaining space with the warm murmur of small talk, voices weaving together in an unhurried tapestry of everyday life.
Lleuad turns his gaze outward as the forest thins and gives way to endless stretches of farmland. In the far distance, the first silhouettes of buildings begin to gather along the horizon, rising slowly as the train draws ever closer.
As the hour passes, the open fields vanish, replaced by the sturdy elegance of stone architecture. The buildings lining the streets are grand, their facades trimmed with intricately crafted wooden panels painted in vibrant colors. Even here, at the outermost margins of the city, the paved streets bustle with people going purposefully about their day.
The train slows and mounts a viaduct, carrying its passengers high above the crowded streets below and deeper into the city's heart. It pauses at station after station, and at each stop more passengers press in than filter out, the cart growing warmer and closer with every departure.
Another hour passes, and the train's pace drops to a crawl. The single pair of tracks widens and splinters into a sprawling web of rails, all converging deeper into the city.
Finally, the grand platforms of the central terminus emerge — polished grey stone adorned with veins of green marble. Above them, vaulted coverings of stone and stained glass filter the morning sun, bathing the platforms in a warm, kaleidoscopic glow. On adjacent tracks, other trains sit in quiet patience, waiting for their hour of departure.
— — —
The iron hiss of the steam engine fades as the train settles into its final stop. A deluge of passengers floods onto the platform, their frantic movement creating a sea of trench coats and travel-worn bags.
Lleuad lingers inside for a moment, waiting for the initial surge to dissipate before he finally steps out onto the stone, swinging his travel bag over his shoulder in a single practiced motion.
Before him, the station rises in a display of architectural opulence. Built from high-quality stone and accented with deep green marble, the structure feels more like a cathedral than a transit hub.
Lleuad ignores the frantic pace of the crowd, his gaze drifting upward to the stained glass that spans the ceiling. The glass is a vibrant tapestry of folklore, each pane depicting scenes from ancient fairytales. He strolls forward, his eyes fixed on the history above rather than the path ahead, navigating the platform with a calm, practiced grace.
As he enters the main hall, the space expands into a soaring chamber. Massive stone pillars, evenly spaced and inlaid with green marble and silver, support the weight of the station's majesty. Intricate carvings wrap around the columns, depicting knights and huntsmen of old standing firm against the kingdom's enemies.
Above, a series of domed vaults arch over the hall, each one a canvas for a different fairytale of the past. At the crown of every dome, stained glass admits the sunlight and shatters it into a kaleidoscope of colors that drift and pool across the stone below.
Lleuad maintains his steady stride through the erratic swarm of travelers. When he reaches the central dome, he pauses beneath a scene he knows by heart: The Greatest Huntsman stands with his sword raised high, a blinding light pouring from the blade and consuming the Grimm that writhe and fall beneath him. The tip of the sword reaches up to touch the white stained glass at the dome's peak, and the sunlight pouring through it sets the whole scene ablaze, as though the Huntsman himself is calling down the light upon the monsters below.
The floor beneath Lleuad's feet is laid in mosaic — a sweeping pastoral scene of humans living in quiet harmony with the natural world, each tile placed with patient craft.
Along the walls hang portraits of the great kings who have shaped the Kingdom of Vale across its aged history. At the center of the north wall, two portraits dwarf all the others. The first depicts the Sorcerer King — a man of rich brown skin and striking platinum-blond hair, his bearing composed and imperious. Beside him hangs the Wizard King — a ruddy-faced elder with hair as white as winter, his painted expression carrying the weight of long years. Stone lions bear the base of both portraits, while eagles carved from green marble crown their tops, holding the images aloft as if offering them to the hall for all to see.
High above the founders, a monumental clock anchors the hall. Its inner workings are exposed, a complex dance of gears ticking in rhythmic unison, adorned with intricate carvings of stone, silver, and green marble, marking the steady, indifferent passage of time over all the history displayed below.
— — —
Lleuad strides with a calm, rhythmic grace through the station, cutting a steady line through the churning crowd. Ahead, the eastern entrance opens through the northern wall of the main hall — two tall steel doors standing ajar, masterfully wrought, their surfaces alive with the ornate, sweeping curves of the nation's crest rendered in deep relief. He allows himself a brief moment to take them in before stepping toward the threshold.
A voice meets him there, courteous and measured.
"Sir. Would you please step aside with me?"
Lleuad turns to find a police officer in his twenties whose height is accentuated by a slender, athletic build. He is impeccably groomed—clean-shaven with short, disciplined oak-brown hair—and his police uniform is spotless, free of even a single stray thread.
"I'm Officer Alphonse Moreau. I need to check your weapon permit." He offers a polite, shallow bow, pressing his right hand across his chest in a gesture of formal respect. The bow is unhurried, practiced — the gesture of a man entirely at ease with courtesy.
Lleuad takes him in: the careful composure, the easy confidence, the way he holds himself like a man who has never needed to raise his voice. Moreau's face radiates a warmth capable of disarming even the most guarded of travellers. But Lleuad's gaze settles briefly on the officer's dark green eyes, where something sharper lives beneath the courtesy — and drops lower, to the left hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword.
"Of course." Lleuad's tone is instantly warm, his expression softening to put the young lawman at ease.
They step clear of the flow of passengers.
"You've got quite a sharp eye," Lleuad remarks pleasantly, drawing out his identification paper and placing it into the officer's waiting hand.
A short smile crosses Alphonse's face as he takes the document and lifts it for inspection. Inside, he finds the details of a Military Courier — a designation he encounters often enough. He reads through it carefully, line by line, and finds nothing out of the ordinary. In the bottom right corner sits the stamp of the Vale military, its authenticity unmistakable to his trained eye.
"Are you on duty?" Alphonse inquires with diligent focus.
"Yes," Lleuad answers plainly.
"Then I won't hold you any further," Alphonse states, snapping the identification closed and returning it to its owner. "Safe travels."
Lleuad accepts the paper and offers a shallow, respectful bow before turning back toward the exit and continuing his journey.
— — —
Upon stepping out of the railway station, Lleuad is met with a breathtaking sight.
A broad street runs east to west before him, alive with noise and movement. Open-top, double-decker trams groan along the center of the street; their decks bristling with passengers and their bells cutting through the general din. Across the street, a large park stretches away into the distance, its trees dense and varied — rich greens pressed up against the deep reds and amber golds of trees that seem to carry autumn in their branches year-round. Together they form a long curtain, hiding everything beyond except the peaked tips of rooftops on the far side.
He turns his gaze east. There, at some remove, a tower rises above the rest of the city — bold and commanding, overseeing the entire city from its vantage. Behind it, a mountain chain extends north to south, filling the horizon. Even at this distance, something in the tower's bearing sets it apart — its architecture older, heavier, more deliberate than the polished plaza and park spread before him.
"Gong!"
The sound rolls across the park, deep and resonant. Lleuad glances up behind him to find the station's clock tower, its face reading ten o'clock, the last echo of its voice still fading into the morning air.
— — —
Lleuad takes a breath, drinking in the view a moment longer, then descends the steps to the street below and boards the first tram heading east.
"Excuse me, sir." He addresses the driver. "Does this tram head toward the old town?"
The driver does not look up. Unshaven, dark curly hair escaping in every direction, bags deep beneath his eyes. "Yes," he grunts and offers nothing further.
A moment later the tram lurches into motion, its bell giving a single crisp ding to clear the tracks of pedestrians.
As Lleuad moves deeper inside, an elderly woman seated just behind the driver turns to catch his eye. Her face is lined with decades of wrinkles, softened by the warmth of her smile.
"You'll want to get off at the intersection of Greenwood and Viridian," she says. "About five stops from here. Then you take tram number one, heading north on Viridian."
"Thank you kindly," Lleuad replies, smiling warmly.
He makes his way down the aisle. The lower deck offers no space to stand or sit, so he climbs to the upper level — and finds it just as full. A narrow gap opens in the middle of the walkway, and he takes it, wrapping a hand around the railing at the nearest seatback, and turns his attention outward.
The tram moves at an easy pace down a broad street that winds through the city, shedding one name and taking on another as it goes. The city offers no quiet stretches. Small gardens appear between buildings at intervals, each one busy with children — their laughter carrying outward into the street, lending the whole avenue a quality of settled, untroubled life. Merchant plazas open up at wider intersections, stalls crowded with goods from across the kingdom and beyond, the vendors calling out with the easy confidence of people who have never had trouble drawing a crowd.
— — —
Lleuad steps off at the intersection of Greenwood and Viridian and walks north at an unhurried pace, taking in the street around him. Before long, the rhythmic clang of the northbound Line #1 catches up to him. He boards once more, finding it just as congested as the last, and maneuvers his way to the upper deck. This time, he secures a vantage point at the very front, where the city unfolds before him like a sprawling map.
The tram follows Viridian's meandering course northward, and with each passing minute the tower ahead grows taller, its true scale gaining a staggering new perspective with every passing minute. The buildings around him change as he draws closer — not in their upkeep, which remains proud and careful, but in their character. Stone facades give way to older profiles, to roof lines and archways that belong to a different century, each style layered against the next like sediment, the whole street a quiet record of how long this city has been standing.
Then the gatehouse comes into view.
Its gates stand open, a steady stream of people passing freely in and out of the old city that lies beyond. As the tram draws closer, detail emerges from the stonework: two knights, colossal and still, carved from the gatehouse's own grey stone, stand sentinel on either side of the arch. Their armour is traced in gold and silver. The arch itself is fitted with green marble.
The gatehouse wears the scars of ancient sieges beneath its current finery; its sturdiness remains, yet it has been dressed for peacetime, its enduring strength now framed in the opulence of a city that has long since grown beyond its ancient walls.
The tram turns onto the street running alongside the city walls — great, carved lengths of stone, hung with woodwork and relief, softened without being diminished. At the next stop, Lleuad descends and passes through the gate into the old city.
Inside, Viridian street continues — but it is a different creature here. It meanders more sharply, bending without warning, throwing off narrow passages at irregular intervals that disappear between buildings before declaring where they lead. Without the guidance of street signs, the layout would be a certain trap. The design, it becomes clear, was never intended to be legible. These streets were built as a weapon — corridors that could be held, corners that could be defended, passages that would disorient any force that forced its way through the gates.
The buildings press close on either side, each one built flush against its neighbor with no gap between — no alley, no passage, no weakness. They are raised in ancient grey stone, as though they are not separate structures at all but extensions of the wall itself, the whole of the old city one continuous fortification. Every so often, a second gatehouse interrupts the street, and Lleuad passes through it without slowing.
Yet the city breathes. The narrowing of the streets does nothing to thin the crowd. Small stores occupy the ground floors of ancient buildings, and workshops still operate within the old city's walls. In an age of industrialization, the craftsmen of the old city set their wares out with quiet pride, and people come in considerable numbers to find them. There is a quality to what is made here that a factory floor cannot replicate.
Walking these passages, Lleuad finds himself overtaken by a feeling he cannot entirely dismiss — the sensation of having stepped clean out of his own time. The centuries press in from the stone around him, and the city as it is now begins to thin — replaced by an older image, sharper and darker. Torchlit streets. Shuttered windows. Citizens at their posts on the walls above, holding the line against something that does not negotiate and does not tire. The creatures of that older world, the ones that exist now only in stories told to children, feel briefly present here — as though the stone remembers what it was built to face, and has not entirely forgotten.
— — —
Viridian street opens without warning into a large city square, the tight labyrinth of the old city releasing Lleuad into open air and light.
The plaza is broad and unhurried, its paving stones laid in a pattern that only resolves itself from a distance — small colored fragments arranged into a sweeping mosaic: the lush green forest to the south of the city on one side, the crimson canopy of the Forever Fall to the north on the other, the two halves of the world meeting beneath the feet of everyone who crosses it.
At its heart sits a monumental fountain of deep green marble, its basin traced with veins of silver and gold. Great stone heroes rise from the water, their blades forever locked in the act of slaying Grimm, while clear streams pour from the wounds of the fallen monsters.
Across the square, a fortified mansion dominates the far side. It sits behind its own wall, though the wall does not quite contain it — the mansion's upper floor rises above the parapet, its windows looking out over the square with quiet authority. A moat encircles the whole of it, still and dark, the only crossing a drawbridge that extends from the mansion's gate to the square's center. The fortifications, like those of the gatehouse, bear the marks of a more serious past — yet here too, peacetime has left its additions. Elaborate patterns of carved stone have been carefully worked into the walls, decorative in intent but applied with a practical eye, as though whoever commissioned them wished the place to remain as defensible as it was beautiful.
To one side of the mansion, the tower stands in its full presence — seen now not as a distant silhouette but as the immense thing it truly is. It occupies nearly a third of the land within the mansion walls, its mass rising in tiers of ancient stone before tapering to a conical roof whose tip seems to threaten the clouds themselves. Its architecture is older than the mansion by a considerable margin, older perhaps than anything else still standing in the city, suggesting it was among the very first structures raised on this ground. And where the mansion's walls received their decorations as an afterthought, the tower's carvings appear to be original — Grimm rendered in deep relief across its entire surface, circling the base and climbing toward the roof, as though the structure was designed from the beginning to unsettle anyone who approached it.
Lleuad takes it all in from the edge of the square.
The mansion's original purpose is not difficult to read. This was once the residence of the city's ruler — the tower its sentinel, the moat and walls its last line of defense. But that purpose has long since passed. Now, uniformed government workers move in and out across the drawbridge in a steady, businesslike stream, their arms full of papers and ledgers. Around the square, the surrounding buildings have been similarly repurposed — each one marked with a sign bearing the name of a different governmental department, and before each one a queue of citizens waits with the particular patient resignation of people dealing with bureaucracy. The entire square has been remade into a city hall, the old seat of power now given over entirely to the administration of the everyday.
— — —
Lleuad strolls across the wide expanse of the plaza and steps onto the heavy timbers of the drawbridge. He pauses to glance down into the moat and finds the water there clear enough to see the bottom — which is, in keeping with everything else in this place, decorated. Mosaic images of underwater flora and fauna cover the floor of the channel, visible through the still water as though framed beneath glass.
He passes through the open gates and into the narrow strip of garden that runs between the outer wall and the mansion itself. It is a calm and colorful place — beds of flowers in full bloom pressed close on either side of the path, their colors vivid against the grey stone that borders them. He moves through it without hurrying and enters the mansion.
Inside, Lleuad finds himself inside a well-lit lobby, immediately warm in character. The floor is laid in the finest green marble, and the walls and ceiling are paneled in high quality wood whose deep tones lend the space a relaxed and settled ambience, as though the building itself is unhurried. Portraits of the kings of Vale line the walls here as they did at the railway station, and once again the two founding kings are given the place of greatest prominence — the Sorcerer King and the Wizard King centered above all the others, rendered with the same gravity Lleuad encountered that morning.
On the far side of the lobby, a reception desk spans the width of the room. Five clerks work behind it, heads down, fingers moving steadily across their typewriters. Others move between them, exchanging documents and disappearing down corridors. The building is not quiet exactly, but it speaks only in the language of work — footsteps, keys, the soft displacement of paper. Voices, if they exist here, do not carry.
Lleuad approaches the center of the reception desk. One of the clerks looks up and meets him there.
"Good afternoon." Her manner is polished and unhurried, her aged appearance carrying an air of professionalism and elegance that the cut of her uniform only reinforces. "How may I be of service?"
"I am here on important business." Lleuad draws out his identification paper and opens it on the desk before her.
Under the clerk's steady gaze, the ink and parchment seem to shift; the credentials of a Military Courier bleed away, replaced by those of a Huntsman. This version, however, differs from the one he presented at Clairforet. It carries something more: his rank, listed plainly as Hunter, and in the bottom right corner, a silver emblem in the form of a Grimm's head.
The clerk regards the paper with calm, unhurried eyes. Not a trace of surprise crosses her face.
"Of course." She bows her head, reaches beneath the desk, and produces a folded sheet of paper. She returns both it and the identification to Lleuad in a single, efficient motion. "The instructions are on the paper." Nothing more is offered.
Lleuad glances down at the page — directions, written in a clear hand — then back up. The clerk has already composed her expression into a farewell, polite and final, the kind that does not invite a second exchange.
Lleuad dips his head in a short bow and steps away.
The hallway to the left of the lobby takes him into the building's interior. He moves through a succession of corridors, passing workers at every turn, each room he glimpses through open doorways busy and purposeful. The quiet industry of the lobby extends throughout the whole of the building.
Eventually the corridors deliver him to a door at the back of the mansion, and he steps out into a larger garden on the other side — broader and more open than the one at the front, more given to shade, the trees older. He crosses it at an easy pace, passes through the rear gate and over its drawbridge, and out into the old city's streets, where the maze closes around him again. He walks at an unhurried pace, the paper in hand, following each turning as directed.
— — —
After traversing a seemingly endless knot of streets and shadowed alleyways, Lleuad has made a full circuit of the walled city. The ink-stamped instructions offer no further destination; they simply dictate that he retraces his steps, leaving the duration of this repetitive loop entirely unmentioned.
He continues walking. The circles accumulate — two, then three — and he lets them, his pace unchanged, his expression unhurried. He has known for some time that he is being watched. The knowledge sits with him comfortably, without alarm, and he occupies himself by picking out as many observation points as he can along the route, cataloguing them quietly as he passes.
Eventually, Lleuad turns into an alleyway narrow enough that the buildings on either side nearly touch overhead. He moves down it at an even pace — and stops.
A wall faces him. He turns.
The passage behind him is no longer open.
He faces forward again. A moment passes. Then a section of the wall to his side shifts and draws back, moving on some mechanism that makes almost no sound, and a woman steps through the gap.
She is short, black, and appears to be in her thirties, her bearing compact and unhesitating. She wears dark green trousers and tunic, black matte boots, her short black hair and the serious set of her round face entirely in keeping with the no-nonsense cut of what reads unmistakably as a military uniform. Her amber eyes fix on Lleuad the moment the wall opens, and they do not waver — sharp and assessing, as though she is checking something off against a mental record.
"Welcome, Lleuad Sulienson," she says, her voice echoing with formal precision. "We have been waiting for you."
She steps aside, gesturing toward a flight of stone stairs that plunges into the earth. Lleuad follows her through, and the wall section closes behind them — a soft, definitive sound — the last of the daylight gone. The passage ahead is lit by small lamps set at even intervals into the stone, casting a dim and steady glow that reveals the stairs and little else. The air changes immediately: cooler, stiller, carrying the particular quiet of a space that has not been open to the outside in some time.
"Have you been here before, sir Sulienson?" the woman asks, without looking back.
"A long time ago." Lleuad answers, his voice steady in the enclosed space. "I still remember the entry process, Ms.—?" The question folds itself neatly into the answer.
"Najwa Khafi." She answers the question without breaking stride. "Should I assume you're familiar with the procedure, then?"
"Yes, Ms. Khafi."
— — —
After several minutes of steady descent through a network of cramped, light-starved tunnels, the path opens without warning into an underground platform.
A train waits alongside it — but not the kind Lleuad arrived on this morning. There is no smoke exhaust at the front, no suggestion of steam — whatever drives this train operates by different principles entirely, and its design reflects that, its lines cleaner and more deliberate than anything running on the surface.
"This way," Najwa directs, her voice echoing off the vaulted stone as she leads him toward a heavy door on one of the passenger cars. She pulls it open and gestures for him to enter, following closely behind.
Inside, the interior is unexpectedly comfortable. The floor is laid with a plush green carpet woven into intricate patterns of crimson, azure, and deep charcoal. To his left, a well-stocked snack bar stands ready, while ahead, an open door reveals a compact shower suite situated beside a heavy oak wardrobe. A low coffee table, flanked by two inviting couches, anchors the center of the cabin.
"You will find your uniform inside the wardrobe," Najwa states, remaining rooted near the entrance. "The transit will take approximately one hour. Once you arrive, an agent will be waiting to receive you."
"Thank you," Lleuad replies, his tone warming.
"For the Everwatch," Najwa returns with a sharp, disciplined nod before retreating from the car, the door closing behind her.
The train departs almost immediately. Its acceleration is nothing like the surface line — swift and decisive — and Lleuad, caught unprepared, shifts his weight sharply to recover his footing before finding his balance again.
He straightens, moves to the wardrobe, and opens it.
The uniform hangs neatly inside, same in character as the one Najwa wore. Dark green trousers and tunic, cut for function — the kind of garment designed by someone who understood that it might eventually see combat. The material has a quality to it, neither stiff nor soft, that suggests range of motion without announcing it. The tunic's buttons and border trim are silver, used sparingly enough that the overall effect remains plain. A white shirt is folded beneath it, intended to be worn underneath.
At the base of the wardrobe sits a pair of boots — matte black, solidly built, the craftsmanship evident in the even stitching and the weight of them in the hand. Functional. Reliable. Made to last.
The single concession to distinction sits on the shoulders: epaulettes bearing a silver Grimm head — the same emblem as the one on his identification paper.
With an hour ahead of him and nothing pressing to fill it, Lleuad sets the uniform aside and steps through into the shower room, making use of the time to clean himself up before whatever is waiting at the other end of the line.