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Jacob led Pelu down one of the countless side streets that branched off from the main road. As they walked, Pelu became aware of a growing noise in the air. It became louder and louder as they walked further down the street. As they came upon a side alley he finally understood what the noise was.

The alley was filled with vendor's carts and people were packed between them. Hundreds of people were gathered there buying and selling. The noise of it all was almost overwhelming to Pelu, who had never been in such a large crowd before. He hesitated for a moment but Jacob walked right in, nimbly dodging between the carts and countless patrons. Pelu tried to follow but constantly found himself bumping into other people. At first he apologized to each person he ran into. He soon gave up on that as he didn't have time to finish one apology before hitting another person.

Pelu realized that in his attempts to avoid colliding with other people he had taken his eyes off of Jacob. He searched in every direction but saw no sign of him. Panic began to overtake him as the crowd closed in around him. He felt like they were closing off his supply of air and began breathing faster and faster, trying to take in enough clean air, but all he could find was the thick scent of humanity tainted with the smell of spices he didn't recognize. Pelu's knees grew weak and his legs began to tremble. Just then he felt someone grab his arm. He expected a confrontation but as he turned he recognized a familiar face instead.

"Come on" Jacob said. "I'll get you out of the crowd for a while. I almost lost you for a moment. I forgot you aren't used to the city." With that, Pelu allowed himself to be pulled by the arm through the sea of bodies until they reached a side alcove that had no people in it. The smell of bodies was replaced by a more putrid one but he breathed freely now that he had some space around him.

"What is this place?" Pelu asked. Jacob responded "This is where they dump their trash. Goods that go bad, things nobody wants to buy, the core of an apple, they all end up here. All the vendors pay a small fee to use this area and part of that fee pays a man to cart all the trash away each night. It doesn't smell that good but it's the nearest place we could get away from the crowd."

A grimace crept onto Pelu's face. "I meant all people. Why do they gather here?"

"Oh. That. This is the bazaar. It's one of many in the city but this is the biggest one near home. People who can't afford a shop or don't want to sell their goods to a shopkeeper who will mark them up for a profit come here to sell things directly. You can find a lot of things here that are fresher and less expensive than any of the shops nearby carry. The crowds keep some people out so the shops still have business. It works out for everyone. I come here most days to get what we need for dinner. I also deliver things for some of the vendors sometimes."

"I've never seen so many people in one place before. It's overwhelming."

"If you want, you can wait here while I talk to a few people. It won't be long. Just don't go anywhere and don't take anything anyone offers you. You can trust most people around here but not all of them."

If you are new to this blog I suggest you go back to the oldest post and work your way forward. On with the story:

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Pelu awoke early, as was his custom, and made the bed he had slept in. When he walked out to the main room he saw Dima washing dishes. A pot of porridge was warming on the stove. Dima greeted him and explained that her mother had already left for her new housekeeping job and her father was at the shop he worked in. "It won't be long before I have to go out to the laundry" she explained. "You can stay here if you like, or you can go along with my brother Jacob for the day. If you stay with him you won't get lost." Just then, Jacob emerged from the small bedroom. "I'll show you around" he said. "Maybe we can even make some money on the side while we're at it." With that, he scooped porridge into a pair of bowls and handed one to Pelu.

After their simple breakfast Jacob led Pelu out into the city. "This is Brownburgh. If you remember that much you should be able to get back here if you get lost. Number ten. Same as the number of letters in Brownburgh. Makes it easier to remember. The neighborhoods in the city get richer as you get closer to the center. When you get right up to the center you find the palace, the temple and the Inventor’s Guild. Around them are the nobles, clergy and inventors. Further out you get the rich folks and then move out to the slums around the edges. Outside of the slums are the farms. People treat the farmers worse than the beggars around here. They smell like their animals but at least they work for what they have."

Through all this they were slowly working their way toward one of the main roads that penetrated to the heart of the city. Jacob continued to tell Pelu about the city as they turned onto the main road. "This is the Gold Road. The city has three main roads that go from the outer wall all the way to the center of the city. The gold road goes right up to the front gate of the palace. The White road goes to the temple and the Brown Road goes to the Inventor’s Guild. Each of the three main roads has a royal raceway in it. That's the middle part. Don't walk in that part unless you're crossing to the other side. You can get arrested for it. That's where the horseless carriage runs."

"Horseless carriage?" Pelu had never heard of such a thing. "Yeah. The Inventor’s Guild made it. It can take a full load of people from the center of the city to the wall faster than a horse can gallop. Only the most important people get to use it. The royal stables are at the outer wall so they can get a regular carriage from there if they need to go anywhere. People say they use water to make it go so fast. I don't know how they do it but the water from the aqueduct stops flowing whenever they use it."

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As the reality of his situation settled over him, Pelu began to despair of ever reaching the Inventor’s Guild. He had no money or friends and he was further from home than he ever thought possible. Something happened at that moment, just as despair was closing over him. He heard a voice cutting through his thoughts. "Why don't you stay with us for a while and get used to the city. It must be a hard place to get used to. Friends aren't easy to come by in these parts, but you can count on us to help you out if you need it." Pelu was shocked by the generosity of the offer. It seemed impolite to take so much without giving anything in return but he had no other choice unless he was to become one of the vagrants living on the streets. "Thank you" he said. "How can I ever repay you for this?” Dima's father winked at him. "I'm sure you'll find a way when the time is right. Come on, I'll show you your bed."

In addition to the main room, the house had two smaller rooms. One was shared by Dima's parents and the other was shared by Dima and her brother. A small bathroom was shared with the house next door. Dima gave up her bed for Pelu, who protested to no avail. She was firm about giving up her bed for him since he was a visitor. She laid out a pile of blankets on the floor of the main room and slept on that instead.

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Sitting at the table in the small main room of Dima's house, Pelu almost felt like he was at home again. It had been weeks since he had eaten a home cooked meal. Most of his food had been dried rations that wouldn't spoil as he traveled. It was a simple meal of stew and biscuits, but it tasted like a meal fit for a king to Pelu. The meat and vegetables were fresh and the biscuits were warm and soft. There were flavors in the stew that he had never tasted before. The capitol city was a hub of trade, and even those who didn't have much still had access to ingredients that were unknown in the countryside. He ate with gusto, not speaking and hardly hearing the words that drifted across the table around him.

As his hunger subsided Pelu finally became fully aware of the room around him and people he was sharing it with. It was a small, dark room. The walls were papered with a simple pattern and only a few small oil lamps lit it. One corner was filled with a range where the stew was being kept warm. A few cabinets and bureaus provided a useful adornment for the rest of the room. The stone floor was covered with a thin rug that looked well worn. The table he was seated at filled the center of the room. He shared it with friendly young woman he had met earlier along with an older couple who had been introduced as her parents and a boy who was her brother.

Pelu glanced at Dima and sensed that a smile was hiding just behind her gaze as she looked back at him. He suddenly realized how rude he must have been as he focused only on eating, and he became embarrassed. "I'm sorry" he said, "it's been a long time since I had a real home cooked meal."

Dima's mother smiled at him. "No apology needed. It's a compliment to my cooking to see you enjoy it so much. Tell us, what brings you so far from home?"

"Well," he began, "I grew up in a small village at the outer edge of the kingdom. We didn't know much about the capitol except the stories we heard from traveling merchants and the soldiers who came to collect our taxes. Everybody agreed that the royals were good for us. They protected us from invaders. Everything else was a mystery. People were content to raise their crops and livestock. To cook their bread and smith their plows. We had everything we needed right in our own town and everybody seemed happy with that. Except me."

"I always felt like there was more to life. Like there were things to see, places to go and people to meet. I felt like there was something bigger and greater that I could do to make a difference instead of just living each day like the last one. Some of the traveling merchants had told us wondrous tales of the Inventor’s Guild and the magnificent things they created. I have dreams and ideas, and the guild is filled with people who create things that change the world, so I decided I would go find a way in. Now that I'm here, though, that dream seems further away than it ever did before I started following it."

Pelu was very self-conscious as he sat on the bench he had found in a small grassy park. There weren't as many prying eyes here as out on the streets but he felt even more out of place. The few people who did enter the park didn't stay long after they caught sight of him eating the last of the food he had brought with him. There were no signs saying this was an exclusive garden but the looks he got told him it was. He ate as quickly as he could and walked back out to the side street he had turned onto to get to the garden. As he looked to the right he could see the gigantic main road he had been traveling on for what seemed like a full day. To his left he saw a seemingly endless row of buildings occasionally separated by smaller roads that split off to both sides. If he went back to the main road he could at least find his way back to the city gate eventually. If he went the other way he might never find his way back out. It all looked exactly the same.

As he turned to go back toward the main road, Pelu felt a hand on his arm. He turned quickly, afraid a soldier might have come to arrest him for a crime he was unaware of. Instead of the armored visage of a soldier, he found himself looking into the eyes of a young woman who looked just as out of place in this part of the city as he did. "You're a ways from home. What brings you to this part of the city?" she asked with a smile. It was the first smile he had seen on any face since he entered the city, and somehow it instantly put him at ease.

"I am far from home. Much further than I've ever been before. I came here from the village I grew up in to try to get into the Inventor’s Guild. I don't even know what it looks like or where to find it though. I just got to the city today and it's so big I don't know how anybody can find their way around in it."

As he finally voiced his concerns, Pelu began to feel how far from home he was and how lost he felt in such a large city. For the first time since he had left his home he began to doubt his plan and his abilities. He began to wonder if there even was an Inventor’s Guild and if they would even want him there if it did exist. In the sea of people that surrounded him, Pelu felt like the smiling face at his side was the only human contact he had, and he was suddenly terrified of losing that.

"Well, you're heading in the right direction if the Inventor’s Guild is what you're looking for. Though between the two of us, I wouldn't go there if I had a choice. Anyway, you won't get very close to it looking like that and you certainly can't just walk up to the front door and expect them to let you in. Some people even say there is no front door to walk up to. The only way in is to know the secret passages. Come on back to Brownburgh with me. You can have dinner with my family tonight. Maybe we can help you out a bit. Nobody gets anywhere in this city without knowing people."

With that, she started walking back to the main road, pulling Pelu along by the arm she was still holding on to. Just as he caught up to her pace she abruptly stopped and pulled him around to face her. "Oh! I almost forgot. I'm Dima".

"I'm Pelu" he sputtered as he took the hand that was thrust out to him. "Nice to meet you. Welcome to the city. Now come on." And with that she pulled him off again by his arm.

Dima hated going to the upper class parts near the center of the city. Everybody there was so rude. They thought that they were better than the rest of them just because they had money. Anybody born into the right family got money. It wasn't her fault she didn't have much. She certainly worked harder for what she had than all those rich snobs. It couldn't be helped though. Her mother had been offered a job in one of the upper class homes and needed an appropriate dress. Dima had to get it because her mother was busy with the last day of her current job and Dima had the day off. At least she only had to pick it up; the dress had been ordered a week earlier.

Stepping through the gate was like stepping into another world. A world so full of people that there was hardly room to move. Even though there were open fields on the other side of the gate, nobody stepped so much as one foot off of the cobblestone road. Pelu was nearly crushed by several ox carts before he realized that the horses and carts stayed toward the inside of the road while the foot traffic flowed more slowly along the outside of the road. He tried to strike up conversations with the people around him as he walked. Most of them ignored him, but a few exchanged pleasantries with him. It quickly became clear that people around here weren't as friendly as they were back in his village at home.

He walked silently for several minutes, caught up in thoughts of how he would find a place to stay and what he would do now that he had arrived in the capitol. He hardly noticed as he started to pass some small scattered houses, and then more densely packed houses. He was roused from his reverie as he passed into shade and discovered that buildings now lined both sides of the road that was wide enough to fit another whole house with room to spare. He was almost trampled as he stopped a moment to take in the sight of such densely packed buildings. Most appeared to be houses, though some had signs declaring the names of businesses. Mostly small shops that didn't seem to be lacking customers.

Eventually, the buildings started becoming less dirty and more ornate. Pelu could tell he was moving into a richer section of the city. Occasionally he passed small parks amid the clutter of brick and mortar. The people joining him on his long trek toward the center of the city looked different as well. The ladies wore more brightly colored dresses and the men wore felt hats instead of cloth ones. Everybody seemed cleaner.

As he drew further toward the center of the capitol, Pelu began to feel out of place. He didn't have a jacket like most of the men he now saw and some of the women were staring at him as he walked by. He was determined though, and he didn't know where to go so he reshouldered his pack and kept walking. He knew that eventually he would have to stop for directions though. Unlike everybody around him, he didn't know one building from the next and had no chance of finding the Inventor’s Guild without help. He began to get peeved at the complete lack of signs except those announcing business names. For the moment, however, his pride was too strong and he simply continued walking, hoping that the road he was on would lead him where he wanted to go.