“So beautiful.” It was no wonder the Atlantis was such a tourist magnet, despite the problems and costs with travelling far. The city was build on the hillside on a beautiful see with crystal clear water, reflecting the blue sky glamourously.
For once, there wasn’t any tarp on the carts, which allowed us to look around freely, completely amazed by the landscape.
The town was still a bit further away, but one could see it very clearly as each and every house stuck out from the row in front of it, thanks to the rising ground. Also, most of them were painted in brighter colours from a sandy yellow to a fiery red.
It all looked so stunning, so unlike every other city I saw before that I couldn’t help but to hold my breath.
“So cool.” Ellie said, her tail in her hand as it wouldn’t stop moving.
“Whatever.” Schwarz said and closed his eyes.
“What? Are you not impressed? Don’t you know that the previous king was raised here? Or that the hotel we will be staying in was founded even before the saint ascended? Do you even know the historical value of each and every house in this wonderful town?” He was not impressed. But I didn’t get along well with him anyways, so I didn’t mind if he continued to sulk unhappily.
“Lucy, over there! That’s the most famous bell tower in the west! Did you know it’s bell was made by dwarfs two hundred years ago and enchanted by druids around fifty five years ago?” I asked quite fast. But I wanted to tell my friends so much stuff about this town that I couldn’t sit still.
“Luna … breathe.” Lucy said and placed her hand on my shoulder to calm me down somewhat.
“I’m breathing! I’m just too exited!” I knew I was overly energetic at that moment, but seeing all of these buildings and monuments, seeing all of the history etched into them myself … that’s what I always wanted.
“Okay … I heard we are having a city tour later so you will see every inch close on yourself. But for now…” Lucy started a bit concerned, but couldn’t finish as she was interrupted by Hannah who was steering the cart.
“Students … get off and let the guards check your luggage.” Hannah said and stopped the cart. Shortly afterwards she was strolling towards the other teachers while we disembarked the cart.
One by one, each cart was checked for suspicious, unregistered items like drugs and and other substances. The guards even checked our status screens which some students - especially the nobles - didn’t take that kindly.
Well, we obviously didn’t carry and illegal substances with us as a few of Lucy’s friends made sure she would get animal blood without smuggling them inside the city. She didn’t want to introduce me to them though which bummed me out somewhat.
Anyways, after half an hour of being checked at the gates, we were let inside the town on foot while the carts were bought to our hotel.
“So … everyone here? Are we missing someone of the class? No? Great.” Hannah asked. I didn’t think this was the best way to check if everyone of the class was present, but she was the teacher. “Now, what have you planned again? Oh, right … a city tour … can’t imagine anything more engaging.” She whispered the last part really quietly but as I stood in the front row, I was still very capable of hearing everything. “Where are we supposed to meet our guide?”
“I am right here, meow!” Hannah froze … literally. Looking past her, I noticed a cat girl in a short skirt, happily waving at us who just spoke with a weird accent.
“Really? Meow?” The one who was least pleased with her way of speaking was probably Ellie who directly spoke up.
“Oh … you are a beastman as well! I didn’t know you had any in your class.” The guide said without any of her previous accent.
“Excuse me? Meow?” Ellie still wasn’t over the guides previous words.
“You know how it is …” The guide said and came closer to look at everyone of us intensely.
“No I don’t?” Ellie said angrily. She surely didn’t take well that one of her kind behaved a bit too … catly?
“Ehm … anyways, who is ready to explore the beautiful city of Atlantis?” The guide asked with enthusiasm, completely ignoring Ellie once and for all. Sadly, there wasn’t much enthusiasm coming from our class nor Hannah as she looked at the guide with a mixture of pity and disgust.
“Do you always serve the prejudices of your costumers, or were you just doing so because the normal tourist gives you more money if you act cute?” Hannah asked in a very condescending tone.
“Oh … and an elf as a teacher. You are a diverse group, aren’t you?” She asked, to which I could only nod slightly. If she knew we had a vampire in our group though …
“… whatever. Let’s get this over with.” Hannah said and indicated the guide to start the tour.
“Alrighty! Welcome to the beautiful town of Atlantis, founded 465 years before the saint ascended …” I lifted my arm up in confusion. “And we have a question already?”
“Right … I don’t want to be mean or anything, but wasn’t the city founded by King Rudolf? He wasn’t even born 465 b.S.” And I read the town was founded 345 b.S. but didn’t want to question her words outright.
“Ehm … no it was not.” Without any evidence to back her claim up, she strolled over to the first landmark, the gate we just went through. “Going on, this is one of the gems of this town. The wall was constructed with the help of golems …” The usage of golems in construction wasn’t even widespread at this time, and definitely not around the time the walls were build. Additionally, I read that almost 2000 slaves lost their lives during the construction which was a tragedy in itself. Glossing over these simple facts was a dangerous act and painted a vastly different picture. In my opinion, it was necessary to point out the cruelties in this town as well, otherwise we would be destined to repeat them.
“… and it is magically reinforced to withstand the attacks of nearly everything. Additionally, special magic had been embedded into the gateways to stop every demon and every other dangerous creature from entering.” Dangerous creature? Well, that didn’t work out, did it? Looking towards Lucy, I noticed how she was barely holding back her laughter and looking even further back to the end of the group, I could see how Hannah didn’t even listen to the guide anymore, but poked at a little hole in the wall. So much for being sturdy enough to withstand any attack.
The others of our class though didn’t seem to recognise all the lies as such and were actually listening intensely to the guide.
“Going on. This is … you guessed it, a completely normal building. But as you can see, it is constructed of a very rare sandstone, only found around this lake. We use this material …” Sadly, I didn’t know much about stones, so I couldn’t really say for sure if she was just uttering nonsense, or actually spoke the truth.
We went through the town for a few more minutes like this until we arrived at the church of the town.
“And this is probably our most prized gem. It’s a church constructed right after the saint ascended. As a gift, the king of that time gifted us with a marvellous statue of the saint herself.” True to her words, the statue out of completely white stone looked really amazing and lifelike. I couldn’t tell for sure though. The best person to rate this piece of art would probably be …
“Isn’t she a bit chubby? And why is her waist so wide?” Lucy asked from the back row of the group, stunning everyone and probably making a few students very angry. That she, the real saint, pointed to these mistakes though confused me somewhat. The bust size of the statue was larger than Lucy’s real one after all.
“Are you insulting the saint?” Our guide asked angrily.
“I would never insult my namesake. I’m just comparing this statue to the others I saw and this one is definitely portraying the saint as chubby.” Lucy complained unhappily and thus calmed the anger of a few fellow classmates.
“Every artist has their own interpretation.” The guide said unhappily.
“Oh … I see. If I were the saint, I would like it to be very close to the truth to. She wouldn’t want the memory of her to be warped in any way, would she?” Lucy asked unhappily.
“… do you know everything better?” Finally, the guide snapped somewhat. We were probably the hardest group to guide around, but she made a lot of mistakes which didn’t make it easy for us either.
“No?” Lucy said and chuckled happily.
“… as I said, this church was constructed right after the saint ascended and is in use since then. When we go inside, please be as quiet as possible.” As we walked inside the building, the lights shone beautifully through the coloured windows. Many students looked around in awe at the murals and such for several minutes while our teacher stood at the entrance and looked straight upwards. Lucy stood right by her side, eying the same mural intensely with a smile on her face. As soon as I got closer to them and looked at another painting right beside them, I heard them whispering to each other. They didn’t seem to mind it though.
“That’s some … weird interpretation of the past.” Hannah mumbled. The mural depicted the saint with a glowing sword in her hand, a multitude of followers behind her and most importantly, an elf by her side. All of them were facing off against a horde of shadowy creatures, which apparently represented the first demons to ever exist.
“You got a really nice waistline though.” Lucy whispered quietly.
“Wait … you?” I whispered and looked at Hannah. She surely didn’t look like any famous elf, but Lucy introduced her as an old friend … I couldn’t believe how dumb I was to not notice earlier. “You are the elf. The one whose name has been scratched from the annals of history because she didn’t like to be in the limelight?”
“Dunno.” Hannah commented plainly and just as I wanted to reply, the guide spoke up in a hushed tone.
“Students, please gather here.” Shrugging her shoulders, Lucy went directly towards the guide, kind of forcing me to come with her. I really wanted to talk to Hannah at this point and ask about how the life was back then, but I wasn’t given any chance in the church.
“As you can see, these windows are specifically crafted for this church by a famous elf who lived around the year 23 … is there anything you want to ask?” The guide said and looked towards me. Surprisingly, I had raised my arm without thinking much about it, but that development was very welcome. I just wanted to talk to Hannah. The faster I could end this sham of a guide, the more time I had to ask Hannah so many questions.
“Coloured windows weren’t installed before the year 45 a.S.” I said quite exited.
“You must be mistaken. Anyways, as you can see, this window shows us how the saint - yes?” The guide asked and looked at me once again.
“The saint never wore pointed hats. This must be priestess Anna.” I concluded swiftly.
“Do you want to guide your fellow classmates through the town?” Did I? Well, I would certainly talk less nonsense then this lady … but I wasn’t so arrogant to claim I could hold a tour on my own.
“Certainly not. I am not qualified enough to talk about much of the historical sites here, but I am at least aware that what you tell us is mostly false.” I pointed out and squinted my eyes a little.
“It is not.”
“It is.”
“Miss Dove, could you please tell this lost child that this is no place to utter her nonsense?” The guide asked and put her hands on her hip.
“Actually, she is kind of nerdy and knows a lot about history. It’s rare for her to be wrong at any history related quiz.” The nerdy part hurt a little … but she was kind of right.
“This is … I am not putting up with this any longer.” The guide said angrily.
“Fine … Just show us around town and don’t tell us anything about this uninteresting nonsense then.” Hannah said and turned around to leave through the door right away. We were all quite stunned in all honesty, including me. I never thought she would actually defend me in this argument.
Shortly afterwards, we left he church in a hurry as some priests were looking at us a bit indignant. The guide actually followed through with Hannah’s order and didn’t utter any more words about the history of this place which was sad and relieving at the same time.
She thus guided us through the town, showed us around a little and gave us tips how we should navigate around. At last, she dropped us off at our hotel, got paid and quickly excused herself. Well, that was to be expected after everything she did.
“So beautiful.” It was no wonder the Atlantis was such a tourist magnet, despite the problems and costs with travelling far. The city was build on the hillside on a beautiful see with crystal clear water, reflecting the blue sky glamourously.
For once, there wasn’t any tarp on the carts, which allowed us to look around freely, completely amazed by the landscape.
The town was still a bit further away, but one could see it very clearly as each and every house stuck out from the row in front of it, thanks to the rising ground. Also, most of them were painted in brighter colours from a sandy yellow to a fiery red.
It all looked so stunning, so unlike every other city I saw before that I couldn’t help but to hold my breath.
“So cool.” Ellie said, her tail in her hand as it wouldn’t stop moving.
“Whatever.” Schwarz said and closed his eyes.
“What? Are you not impressed? Don’t you know that the previous king was raised here? Or that the hotel we will be staying in was founded even before the saint ascended? Do you even know the historical value of each and every house in this wonderful town?” He was not impressed. But I didn’t get along well with him anyways, so I didn’t mind if he continued to sulk unhappily.
“Lucy, over there! That’s the most famous bell tower in the west! Did you know it’s bell was made by dwarfs two hundred years ago and enchanted by druids around fifty five years ago?” I asked quite fast. But I wanted to tell my friends so much stuff about this town that I couldn’t sit still.
“Luna … breathe.” Lucy said and placed her hand on my shoulder to calm me down somewhat.
“I’m breathing! I’m just too exited!” I knew I was overly energetic at that moment, but seeing all of these buildings and monuments, seeing all of the history etched into them myself … that’s what I always wanted.
“Okay … I heard we are having a city tour later so you will see every inch close on yourself. But for now…” Lucy started a bit concerned, but couldn’t finish as she was interrupted by Hannah who was steering the cart.
“Students … get off and let the guards check your luggage.” Hannah said and stopped the cart. Shortly afterwards she was strolling towards the other teachers while we disembarked the cart.
One by one, each cart was checked for suspicious, unregistered items like drugs and and other substances. The guards even checked our status screens which some students - especially the nobles - didn’t take that kindly.
Well, we obviously didn’t carry and illegal substances with us as a few of Lucy’s friends made sure she would get animal blood without smuggling them inside the city. She didn’t want to introduce me to them though which bummed me out somewhat.
Anyways, after half an hour of being checked at the gates, we were let inside the town on foot while the carts were bought to our hotel.
“So … everyone here? Are we missing someone of the class? No? Great.” Hannah asked. I didn’t think this was the best way to check if everyone of the class was present, but she was the teacher. “Now, what have you planned again? Oh, right … a city tour … can’t imagine anything more engaging.” She whispered the last part really quietly but as I stood in the front row, I was still very capable of hearing everything. “Where are we supposed to meet our guide?”
“I am right here, meow!” Hannah froze … literally. Looking past her, I noticed a cat girl in a short skirt, happily waving at us who just spoke with a weird accent.
“Really? Meow?” The one who was least pleased with her way of speaking was probably Ellie who directly spoke up.
“Oh … you are a beastman as well! I didn’t know you had any in your class.” The guide said without any of her previous accent.
“Excuse me? Meow?” Ellie still wasn’t over the guides previous words.
“You know how it is …” The guide said and came closer to look at everyone of us intensely.
“No I don’t?” Ellie said angrily. She surely didn’t take well that one of her kind behaved a bit too … catly?
“Ehm … anyways, who is ready to explore the beautiful city of Atlantis?” The guide asked with enthusiasm, completely ignoring Ellie once and for all. Sadly, there wasn’t much enthusiasm coming from our class nor Hannah as she looked at the guide with a mixture of pity and disgust.
“Do you always serve the prejudices of your costumers, or were you just doing so because the normal tourist gives you more money if you act cute?” Hannah asked in a very condescending tone.
“Oh … and an elf as a teacher. You are a diverse group, aren’t you?” She asked, to which I could only nod slightly. If she knew we had a vampire in our group though …
“… whatever. Let’s get this over with.” Hannah said and indicated the guide to start the tour.
“Alrighty! Welcome to the beautiful town of Atlantis, founded 465 years before the saint ascended …” I lifted my arm up in confusion. “And we have a question already?”
“Right … I don’t want to be mean or anything, but wasn’t the city founded by King Rudolf? He wasn’t even born 465 b.S.” And I read the town was founded 345 b.S. but didn’t want to question her words outright.
“Ehm … no it was not.” Without any evidence to back her claim up, she strolled over to the first landmark, the gate we just went through. “Going on, this is one of the gems of this town. The wall was constructed with the help of golems …” The usage of golems in construction wasn’t even widespread at this time, and definitely not around the time the walls were build. Additionally, I read that almost 2000 slaves lost their lives during the construction which was a tragedy in itself. Glossing over these simple facts was a dangerous act and painted a vastly different picture. In my opinion, it was necessary to point out the cruelties in this town as well, otherwise we would be destined to repeat them.
“… and it is magically reinforced to withstand the attacks of nearly everything. Additionally, special magic had been embedded into the gateways to stop every demon and every other dangerous creature from entering.” Dangerous creature? Well, that didn’t work out, did it? Looking towards Lucy, I noticed how she was barely holding back her laughter and looking even further back to the end of the group, I could see how Hannah didn’t even listen to the guide anymore, but poked at a little hole in the wall. So much for being sturdy enough to withstand any attack.
The others of our class though didn’t seem to recognise all the lies as such and were actually listening intensely to the guide.
“Going on. This is … you guessed it, a completely normal building. But as you can see, it is constructed of a very rare sandstone, only found around this lake. We use this material …” Sadly, I didn’t know much about stones, so I couldn’t really say for sure if she was just uttering nonsense, or actually spoke the truth.
We went through the town for a few more minutes like this until we arrived at the church of the town.
“And this is probably our most prized gem. It’s a church constructed right after the saint ascended. As a gift, the king of that time gifted us with a marvellous statue of the saint herself.” True to her words, the statue out of completely white stone looked really amazing and lifelike. I couldn’t tell for sure though. The best person to rate this piece of art would probably be …
“Isn’t she a bit chubby? And why is her waist so wide?” Lucy asked from the back row of the group, stunning everyone and probably making a few students very angry. That she, the real saint, pointed to these mistakes though confused me somewhat. The bust size of the statue was larger than Lucy’s real one after all.
“Are you insulting the saint?” Our guide asked angrily.
“I would never insult my namesake. I’m just comparing this statue to the others I saw and this one is definitely portraying the saint as chubby.” Lucy complained unhappily and thus calmed the anger of a few fellow classmates.
“Every artist has their own interpretation.” The guide said unhappily.
“Oh … I see. If I were the saint, I would like it to be very close to the truth to. She wouldn’t want the memory of her to be warped in any way, would she?” Lucy asked unhappily.
“… do you know everything better?” Finally, the guide snapped somewhat. We were probably the hardest group to guide around, but she made a lot of mistakes which didn’t make it easy for us either.
“No?” Lucy said and chuckled happily.
“… as I said, this church was constructed right after the saint ascended and is in use since then. When we go inside, please be as quiet as possible.” As we walked inside the building, the lights shone beautifully through the coloured windows. Many students looked around in awe at the murals and such for several minutes while our teacher stood at the entrance and looked straight upwards. Lucy stood right by her side, eying the same mural intensely with a smile on her face. As soon as I got closer to them and looked at another painting right beside them, I heard them whispering to each other. They didn’t seem to mind it though.
“That’s some … weird interpretation of the past.” Hannah mumbled. The mural depicted the saint with a glowing sword in her hand, a multitude of followers behind her and most importantly, an elf by her side. All of them were facing off against a horde of shadowy creatures, which apparently represented the first demons to ever exist.
“You got a really nice waistline though.” Lucy whispered quietly.
“Wait … you?” I whispered and looked at Hannah. She surely didn’t look like any famous elf, but Lucy introduced her as an old friend … I couldn’t believe how dumb I was to not notice earlier. “You are the elf. The one whose name has been scratched from the annals of history because she didn’t like to be in the limelight?”
“Dunno.” Hannah commented plainly and just as I wanted to reply, the guide spoke up in a hushed tone.
“Students, please gather here.” Shrugging her shoulders, Lucy went directly towards the guide, kind of forcing me to come with her. I really wanted to talk to Hannah at this point and ask about how the life was back then, but I wasn’t given any chance in the church.
“As you can see, these windows are specifically crafted for this church by a famous elf who lived around the year 23 … is there anything you want to ask?” The guide said and looked towards me. Surprisingly, I had raised my arm without thinking much about it, but that development was very welcome. I just wanted to talk to Hannah. The faster I could end this sham of a guide, the more time I had to ask Hannah so many questions.
“Coloured windows weren’t installed before the year 45 a.S.” I said quite exited.
“You must be mistaken. Anyways, as you can see, this window shows us how the saint - yes?” The guide asked and looked at me once again.
“The saint never wore pointed hats. This must be priestess Anna.” I concluded swiftly.
“Do you want to guide your fellow classmates through the town?” Did I? Well, I would certainly talk less nonsense then this lady … but I wasn’t so arrogant to claim I could hold a tour on my own.
“Certainly not. I am not qualified enough to talk about much of the historical sites here, but I am at least aware that what you tell us is mostly false.” I pointed out and squinted my eyes a little.
“It is not.”
“It is.”
“Miss Dove, could you please tell this lost child that this is no place to utter her nonsense?” The guide asked and put her hands on her hip.
“Actually, she is kind of nerdy and knows a lot about history. It’s rare for her to be wrong at any history related quiz.” The nerdy part hurt a little … but she was kind of right.
“This is … I am not putting up with this any longer.” The guide said angrily.
“Fine … Just show us around town and don’t tell us anything about this uninteresting nonsense then.” Hannah said and turned around to leave through the door right away. We were all quite stunned in all honesty, including me. I never thought she would actually defend me in this argument.
Shortly afterwards, we left he church in a hurry as some priests were looking at us a bit indignant. The guide actually followed through with Hannah’s order and didn’t utter any more words about the history of this place which was sad and relieving at the same time.
She thus guided us through the town, showed us around a little and gave us tips how we should navigate around. At last, she dropped us off at our hotel, got paid and quickly excused herself. Well, that was to be expected after everything she did.
