The wanderer stepping onto the steps out of the Borough Hall an hour later, felt not the gazing sensation. But the light's progress towards the 'evening's horizon'.
It wasn't enough to invite him away. Away from Ashtrim.
But his sleep deprivation was enough. It drove him to ask Ulrina where is the closest place he could get sometime alone.
She was quite flustered. Eyeing the gallery above as if the wanderer asked a question that she just couldn't answer.
With red cheeks and glancing the wanderer too, she guided him with his scroll. Pointing out a select few places on it.
The wanderer jogged to one of them. A hostel for to-be adventurers.
The wanderer's scroll had a new imprint on it as proof of that. Along with the imprints Slin made on the scroll.
Several people passed by the wanderer, he still didn't adjust his brown overcoat.
One of such groups of people had a few teenagers. They were all coming from a different road to the one the wanderer was on.
Each of them wearing heavily-padded armour, all made from cloth rather than leather. A peculiarity given there were guards as well in the crowd, all in roughened and tested leather armour.
Two of those teenagers just glanced at the wanderer and then to the direction he was onto.
"Mm, hmm! So eyeing new targets, are we?" struck one of the other teenagers. He was indistinguishable from the group.
"No…obviously not", replied one of the teenagers.
Another sigh from a different teenager, "you do know you could just go to the hostel later, right?"
The teenager, who hadn't spoken yet but did look at that wanderer in brown overcoat, coughed and replied, "well, we could… but it's best to, you know, umm not to also? Just have a bit of faith in us too, Litora!"
Litora sighed. Her cadence changing slightly and she walked away from the group.
Not to the hostel for to-be adventurers. But to Borough Hall, the Borough Hall of Adventuring, the name it's called as by the locals of central Ashtrim borough.
The wide doors of the hall opened. A slim, umber haired, teenager walked in, she looked just a bit older than the wanderer, which in truth she was.
Litora scoured the hall with her eyes. Nodded to Mina and Ulrina's inquisitive looks, and went back out. She didn't find what she came to look for. While that shield wielder was nowhere, and Ulrina was rushing out to someplace she deemed important.
The wanderer, in the meanwhile, had just reached the to-be adventurers hostel. It's name quite clear and cut, 'To-be Adventurers' Hostel'.
"Huh", the only response to that lackluster name. The wanderer didn't spare much and lodged himself in.
He was in his rented room, happily falling asleep for the second time since the start of his journey.
Litora meanwhile, she went to the first Borough Hall. The one closer to the gate on the Earthen wall Slin was patrolling at.
The Borough Hall of Receiving was it's name. She did not receive her search's answer there too.
Litora marches on. And on to the other Borough Halls. Not to find what she came looking for.
None questioned her. The people in the Borough Halls, every old visitor of the hall knew what her search was of.
At the end she gave up on it and went to where Slin was. To relieve him, maybe herself too.
Another evening approached, and Litora only covered, by foot, just about more than six hundred leagues in a single day's light.
This was four times lesser than the perimeter of the Earthen wall. But each league was colossally longer than her own height, somewhere between two hundred to three hundred depending upon which kingdom you were from.
She was ironically not from any of those old kingdoms. She was now a resident of the Kingdom of Riga, meaning the league will soon be demolished and a new measurement will be implemented.
A decree about it's future demolishment was already declared. This was a back-of-the-mind thought for Litora. And an unreached notice for the wanderer currently sleeping in 'To-be Adventurers' Hostel'.
Slin was just glad his four guard days of the nine day week were over now. He was now free to be a 'forest adventurer'.
Litora was livid. She didn't find a forest nor a seashore.
Slin wasn't, he offered his canteen for comfort. But Litora was ranting to him, so she just used it for drinking, and continued her rant. Both in the room, made for the guards on the Earthen wall.
Time marched on and night followed it's cadence. And another travesty marches its arrival, the wanderer was once again awoke before the light broke through the morning's horizon.
The wanderer on this day completed his registration as an adventurer. He received a metal tag. Mina was explaining to him, "you have to get this tag be named with your go-to adventurer name. Yes, not everybody uses their own name as their adventurer name. Also you can get new tags from every 'hall', 'guild', 'frontier', or 'haven'."
She took a sharp deep breath, "These new tags can be issued even if you have the older tags. Nobody ever knows whether if a single tag is enough or not. Also these can work as another way of proof to show you are real."
The wanderer nodded affirmatively in between the rants.
Ulrina answered, "tags also carry a numeric name to make sure the tag could be checked against the registry of the said city it was issued from. Remember, do not trust a 'hall', if the place it is in, doesn't have a dividing wall to distinguish the outlands and the place."
The wanderer over with the large knowledge rants. He locked on few certain notices, keywords they carried had some meaning to his recent choices.
But mostly he was interested in the venturing recruitment request that had the keyword "old myths". His curiosity marches in trampling his indecisiveness.