Guards or Pigs

Bringing the carriage with them was possible, however, it would be tricky to explain why they had it. They were sent on an escort mission, which they failed, if they come to town with the carriage it would raise unwanted eyes.

They kept on following the road, they used the map detailing the bandit camp to find Blue City. In retrospect, they should probably have studied a bit more about the mission. They were truly unprepared. Luckily, it seemed as if they only had to follow the road in order to reach Blue City.

After a few hours of walking, they finally saw Blue City. The city was built just on the edge of the land, there were many harbours, and they saw multiple boats. Some were bigger than the houses there, others seemed to be fish boats. The city had a misty atmosphere to it, it felt like the entire city was constructed with wood. The roads were all made of rock, that seemed very worn out. Even though it was the middle of the day, they did see very little movement in the city.

The city had a completely different feel to it than First City, Rudolf got goosebumps looking at it and started walking towards the city with a passion. As they closed in on the city they noticed a line at the gate, they decided to stand in the line and wait. The people in the line were very different. Some were clean and seemed rather noble, others were dirty with overused clothes and near dead eyes. The line was long but proceeded rather quickly, eventually, they got to the near the entrance.

The guards standing at the entrance were quite ugly, they were short and quite fat. Jake noticed something peculiar, the guards would haggle the poor in the line for money whilst letting the richer people just walk by. Apparently another person also noticed this, and they stepped out to say something about it. It was a short kid, a boy and it was clear that his mother was horrified as he stepped out, trying to drag him back but he resisted.

"What are you doing, why do you only take money from some, and let others just walk in, how is that fair? You are supposed to be good, right." he loudly said, almost trying to convince himself.

The entire line turned silent, the guards were practically staring at the child. Then one guard started slowly walking up to him, he was wearing metal armour which made a clanging sound as he moved. He stood in front of the child and looked at him, the child stood there looking him straight in the eyes.

The guard kicked him straight to the chin with his metal boots.

The guard did not stop there and kept on kicking the boy on the ground, the boy was in a fetal shape covering his vital parts. The mother ran in to stop the guard, but she got thrown away. Everyone in the line went silent, almost as if they were not part of this. "We treat", he kept on kicking the boy on the ground, "everyone equally and how do you dare accuse of us" he kicked him for each word he muttered.

All of a sudden, the guard stopped talking. Then, when the line looked, they saw a burning man standing above the guard, it was Rudolf. Rudolf had gotten filled with anger as he watched the child get beaten, eventually, the anger got the best of him and he ran forward wanting to kill the guard. His entire body was burning now as if he were a demon straight from hell. He beheaded the guard with one fell swoop. Then. he stood on his corpse burning the armour and with a deep voice muttered.

"Who's next" as he stared at the other guards, which at this point had shit themselves.

"Reinforcements" the guards screamed as they ran away, "we need reinforcements". You could hear their shit bouncing around in their metal armour, eventually ending up in their boots, as they ran you could hear squish noises. The entire scene was quite comedic. At this point the child had looked at Rudolf like he were some sort of hero figure. On the other hand, Jake was having a headache, Rudolf had undoubtedly made getting into the city a lot harder.

At this point, Rudolf was out of his flame form. Jake ran towards him and said that they need to dip. They started running towards the forest, which was not that far away but when they looked behind them, they say an entire platoon charging at them. Arrows started flying around them, Jake had entered his demon form, and with his eagle eyes, skill dodging the arrows was a breeze. Rudolf, on the other hand, got hit every other shot but did not care as his armour tanked a majority of the arrows and the rest got healed by his Pheonix like healing. They eventually made it and disappeared into the depths of the forest. The guards gave up the chase and returned to their post.

At this point Jake had an even bigger headache, 'Rudolf just haaad to act like a fucking hero, didn't he' Jake thought. They sat in the forest waiting for the situation to de-escalate, before returning to the city. Well, not exactly the city rather the forest bordering the city, they could not enter through the main gates anymore. Like, how would that go, "Hey, I am the guy who killed ur friend? Can you let me in now?". They had to find another way into the city, they scouted the city for any weak points they could infiltrate through from the forest.

The city had three-meter tall stone walls covering it, the only virtual entrance to the city was through the gate. However, the city had two sides to it. The seaside and the ground side, they could enter through the harbour. However, maybe there were dangerous fish in the water, and maybe they had patrol boats just for this reason. They kept on scouting the city to find an entrance.