Visiting the City

Landow was truly blessed by its geography. If someone were to observe it from a bird's eye view, the city would look like a pizza slice.

From the north it was bordered by the river FABIOUS and from the south the NARROW river, both of these rivers eventually cross as they move east linking up to make the 'tip' of the pizza that represented the eastern border of Landow.

Finally in the west, the city was enclosed by a large ark-shaped wall completing the encirclement making it look like the crust.

On top of it all the TURBULENT river came from the south and eventually joined the other two rivers to make the jade river that eventually linked the city to the sea. All of this made Landow a hub of activity and commerce because of its strategic position.

The castle itself was in the middle of the ark shaped wall in the west. in front of the castle gate that led to the city, a large rode ran straight through all the way to the 'tip" of the pizza-shaped city that was at the intersection of all the rivers, at which the city's docks was located.

This road divided the city in two, cutting the "pizza slice" into 2 smaller ones, giving the lord of the castle a straight path towards the docks at the other end of the city while the castle that hugged the wall could ensure that any potential attacker would be met by the city's strongest fortification.

All of this made it so that the city was encircled from three sides by rivers and in the fourth by an eight meters tall and three meters thick wall glued to the lord's castle making it a headache for any potential invader to get inside the city.

William with his five disguised guards took to the main road and walked straight ahead, from the memories he had access to, he knew that the city was divided into five districts going from wealthiest in the west to poorest in the east near the docks.

The first was the castle district bordered by the district for the wealthy and nobility, then the middle class followed by the business district and finally the warehouses and docks which were counted as a district of their own.

The poor lived across the rivers away from the city's perimeter, which requires them to make the trip across the rivers each day to find work in the city, mostly in the docks as cheap labor to load and unload cargo.

The main road was quite busy as William could observe many carriages going back and forth, his destination was the business district as it was the busiest, offering him many opportunities to broaden his horizon and discover the local specialties that this city offered.

After the flood of memories that he had "remembered" after his second day in this world, no new ones had been unlocked, this meant that for now he was stuck with what he got and though he had an idea of how Landow was as a city having someone's memories and experiencing things himself with his own senses were two completely different things.

It took them about half an hour to reach their destination and what greeted them was a very lively and crowded place full of stalls, shops and restaurants. Before leaving the castle William had instructed his guards to stay inconspicuous and as far away as possible so as to not draw any attention onto himself.

While strolling around, William made sure to pay attention to all the local and non-locale specialties to try to situate this world or at least this region on the technological scale.

After all, depending on what the people of this world had access to, he can not only make money by providing what they needed, ha can also gain a lot of influence.

Just because he was a marquess's son William was not willing to completely rely on his family to ensure his security and prosperity, life is cruel and unforgiving and today's prosperous noble household can quickly turn into nothing more than a memory.

After a couple of hours of touring the busy business district, William had a pretty clear idea about what was available and what was lacking.

He decided to go and get something to eat in some nearby restaurant while he contemplated on what he saw so far, suddenly he spotted a group of what he could only describe as thugs surround and quickly drag a man to a nearby empty alley.

What surprised him was the fact that even though some people saw what had happened, no one lifted a finger; instead, they quickly resumed what they were doing as if the incident had never happened.

The incident and the people's reaction to it brought about a foreboding feeling to William, as it meant that such incidents are probably frequent.

Since no one raised an eyelid he could only assume that, either they were scared of the "thugs" or that whatever passed as the police in this place was incredibly ineffective and William did not know which one would be worst.

He decided to turn towards the guards he brought with him and asked if any of them knew about what had just happened, to which one of them replayed.

"They are probably debt collectors my lord, the man they had dragged had probably borrowed more money than he can return and now they have come to collect what they are owed".

William was quite intrigued by his reply and so he asked him. "What is your name?"

The guard saluted before he replied. "My name is Lancelot, my lord."

"And how do you know that they are loan sharks and not robbers or murderers?" asked William

"My lord, the city patrol is not the best at its job, but even they would not allow robbers and murderers to roam freely in the business district, after all, I am pretty sure that a sizable portion of the city's taxes comes from here. Lord Ulric would skin them alive if it were to ever happen".

Replied Lancelot and paused to allow the young lord to absorb the information he had just provided before he continued.

"Other than the reason I just mentioned, I happen to come from a small merchant family and before I became a guard I had witnessed plenty of people turn to these financiers to solve their financial troubles only to find themselves in more debt than they can ever repay".

"What do you think they would do to him in there?" Asked William once more.

" Nothing too serious my lord, they would probably rough him up a bit to get him to pay what he Is due or provide something of equivalent value if he does not have the money, at worst they would beat him up pretty badly and then leave" answered Lancelot.

William thought about all of this new information that had been presented to him for a while pondering about what to do with it until an idea popped out in his head.

It was a gamble, one that would probably not work but none the less he did not have too much to lose and opportunities like these don't come by every day, not organically at least.

William turned around towards his guards and said. "Follow me from afar and be ready to intervene at a moment's notice. If you see me holding two fingers behind my back, know that that is the signal"

Before the guards could even respond and ask what the hell was he talking about, William already took off walking briskly towards the ally that the "loan sharks" had gone into with the hopefully soon to be confirmed merchant.

"Here comes big daddy to save the day". William declared with a big grin on his face.