Chapter 16: The City of Drosa
Drosa City is a Port trading hub. It is also located on the Northwest side of Red Lake in the Kingdom of Tallia. It is governed by a woman named Jessamine Fairchild. Her official title is The Royal Duchess of Drosa, Jessamine Fairchild. She controls not only the city but the western half of the lake, and all the land west of the Blue Wisp Marshes. On the south side of the lake, she controls the land from the Great Craig north and the Red River west.
If one was to travel the borders of The Duchesses land by horse and ship, it would take well over two months to end where you started. She is in control of the largest amount of land in the kingdom. Even more than the king himself.
The city is strategically important to the Kingdom of Tallia for many reasons. The most important two are that it is the kingdom's only major city south of the Judicator Mountains and as such controls the passes into the kingdom from the south. The second reason is the income and trade that flows through the city's gates and harbors.
The city trades with the three other major kingdoms that maintain a harbor on the lake and the Island nations on the eastern side. Land routes with the other three nations are essentially impossible due to the Eagle mountains that make up the eastern shore of the lake and going around would take weeks.
The city has a population that rivals the capital, Glens Hope. (Named after the first king and his dying wish.) The city's demographic is about 60 percent human, 20 percent beastmen, and 10 percent dwarves and elves. 5 percent are magical creatures like fairies and nymphs. The last 5 percent are made up of hybrids between everyone else. The Beastmen have come from the tribal lands far to the south some even past the scorched lands. Most of the dwarves came from the Silver Kingdom in the Iron Mountains, and the elves came from all over.
Dwarves are not short and bulky but very large and bulky. The average dwarven male stands at 7 and a half feet or 2.3 meters tall with a body built like a tank. They are craftsmen and warriors of the highest caliber. They are resistant to most magics, and an unarmored dwarf could take an arrow from a war bow to the chest at point-blank range and still, the arrow might not hit his heart. When the Dwarves go into battle they do so on foot, because they are wearing full plate armor that they had forged themselves. They carry great shields and greatswords. They swing a sword that would be two-handed for a human as a one-handed weapon. They also carry spears that stand twice their height. The last army attacked the dwarves saw the army and surrendered, knowing that they stood no chance. The dwarves just want to be left alone, but they train for war from a very young age. Their average life span is well over 800 years. The dwarven children are a century-old when they are allowed to leave the kingdom and explore the outside world.
The elves are slightly taller than humans also. Their entire race is extremely gifted in magic, there hasn't been an elf to not be born without magic, regardless of the race of the elf. The dark elves are rare and mysterious, no one knows where they came from. They are adept at stealth and night operations. They are extremely skilled in the earth, water, and dark magic. The High elves are the last remaining elven race with light skin. They escaped extinction by allying with the dwarves 10 millennia ago and that alliance is unbroken to this day. The High elves are extremely skilled in Wind, Fire, Water, Life, Holy, Plant, and Light Magic. Unlike humans, individuals are not restricted to one or two proficiencies, they can cast up to 4 different types of magic. The elves are also long-lived living for around 1000 years.
The fairies are small magical creatures the size of a mouse, they fly everywhere at high speeds bordering supersonic. They have taken up the role of messengers for the elites of this world. They are also battlefield messengers. If someone can afford their services, their words will never escape the lips of a fairy, except to the intended recipient. Their loyalty is absolute. The Fairies have been around for as long as the elves and dwarves can remember. Even they think that the fairies were on this world first. The fairies are rumored to be gods that have come down to pass the time. They are also rumored to be immortal because some fairies have served the same elven families since before the fall.
The Beastmen are a classification given to all the different species of beastmen. They range from cat people to Minotaurs, that rival the Dwarves in size. Their lifespans vary drastically from a human's average life span to twice that. The beastmen are tribal peoples that stick very close to their species. They have a distrust of humans, stemming from previous wars.
The slaves are slaves. They are mainly human and beastmen. They all wear collars that identify them as slaves. The owner's name is engraved into the collar and only the owner has the spell to remove the collar. If the collar detects force full or unauthorized attempts of removal, it sends a magical signal to the owner who can decide to activate the enchantment on the collar, causing it to explode, killing the wearer and those surrounding the slave. Slaves are normally stripped of their names and given a number.
[The slave trade is a common thing and is not frowned upon in this world due to the constant wars and the greed of people.]
The different official guilds in the city consisted of the Adventurers, Merchants, Labor, Fishing, Hunter, Scholars, Mercenaries, and Mages. The unofficial guild in the city is the Silent Hand.
The Adventurer's Guild is taking on people wanting to see the world and get paid to do missions while out on the road. They have the second-highest turnover rate of its members after the Mercenaries guild. Few people ever make it rich in this guild but if somebody loves killing monsters and wants decent pay this is the Guild for them. This guild effectively acts as a proving ground for the Mercenaries Guild, besides death the reason most people leave this guild is to go there.
The Mercenary's Guild is the guild where Fighters will make the most money. One key difference between this guild is that a person does not choose their mission. The guild deploys groups of people to fight in wars. The missions to help communities from monsters do not interest the Mercenary Guild, they do not take escort missions unless it is for a Marquess/ Marchioness or higher noble rank. Even other guild leaders cannot hire the mercenary guild unless of course, they are conducting a large-scale war.
The Merchant's Guild is what controls all commerce inside to city. From the stalls in the market to the trade caravans and ships. They have their hands in all their coffers. The Merchants Guild is who keeps records of everything bought and sold in the city and even in other cities. A Merchants guild wouldn't be very good if it didn't know the prices of its competitors. They often hire members of the Silent Hand for espionage, sabotage, and assassination.
The Labor Guild is mainly comprised of those that we're unable to unlock the magic. These people go to the guildhall every week and get assigned jobs. They are sent out to the different guilds and businesses to handle the manual labor. If a worker stands out to an employer they will get called back, which looks great, and they tend to get raises. This Labor Guild also enforces standards for the workers and ensures that their people get paid fairly for the work done. If a business fails to meet those standards the guild will blacklist them, and that business will fail. This guild has the highest number of workers, and they also are the owner of 90 percent of the slaves in the city.
The Fishing Guild is just that. A guild for the fishing boats and their crews. They help maintain the population of fish in the lake by setting limits and seasons different types of fish can be caught in. The Hunter's Guild is essentially the same except on land.
The Scholar's Guild is the place to go if you want to be educated or already are. This guild hires out scribes to the different guilds and always keeps staff out in the field gathering information about the world. They dress in bright yellow robes adorned with a scroll and quill. The main mission of the Scholar's Guild is to accumulate all the knowledge of the world. They are respected as non-combatants by all the countries of the world. They have guild halls in all the major cities. They have their caravans to transport knowledge between cities. The guild does have its armed guards though because when it comes to the knowledge you can never be too careful. The Scholar's guild members are the only people that can walk through an active battlefield and the soldiers on both sides will actively try not to hit them. This is the "retirement" position for adventurers and mercenaries that don't want to put the sword down quite yet but are getting tired.
The Mages Guild is the guild that takes almost all the mages from Arcane College. All the mages that are part of the other guilds are part of this guild. They have a partnership with all the official guilds in town. The mages that don't join lose out on advanced spells, cultivation techniques, and precious materials for their research. The guild operates just like the Adventurer's Guild as in there is a job board and they take jobs. Those that have created a good relationship with adventurers tend to stay as their dedicated mages.
The Silent Hand is the underworld. They control the crime in the city. They specialize in infiltration, sabotage, abduction, assassinations, and espionage. The kingdom allows them to continue to operate due to the information network that they have. A Baron cannot sneeze without the Silent hand knowledge about it. This guild prides itself on its professionalism and skill. When someone wants to hire them, they normally show up in the middle of the night at the bedside of the employer and leave a note saying they will do business. They do this to not only showcase their skills but to show the employer that they could've killed them and anyone they loved just as easily as leaving the note. They have even been known to leave a sealed letter on the desk of their employer in the middle of the day while the employer was sitting at it, undetected. But those are just rumors because no one would actually say if they hired them or not, because they "don't" exist.
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