Gloddaheim, 1220

The breeze slowly caressed the leaves on the ground, moving them around slightly. A cloaked figure crouched down and picked up a leaf with their bright red hand. They smelled it, and then left it on the ground. They continued on the trail until they finally reached the gates of the city of Gloddaheim. The gates were made of steel, placed in the large cement wall that covered the city. The wall was big, but not enough to cover the sight of the buildings of Gloddaheim. It was known for its intricate architecture, and tall buildings piercing the sky.
The figure started walking towards the gate, and one of the two guards that was posted outside the gate walked up to them.
"Greetings, may you remove your hood? For safety purposes." requested the guard in the typical politeness of public workers.
The figure lowered their hood, revealing a young man with short hair that was styled upwards and a stubble. The most striking feature of him was his bright red skin, and his scar in his right eye, which gave him a completely white eye, contrasting to his left jade green eye.
"Name sir?" the guard asked. 
"Bellium." He replied.
Bellium looked around the walls, and saw banners of a gold background, with three purple crescent moons pointing upwards.
"That isn't the symbol of Hakur." he said while pointing at the banners.
"Yes sir, ever since the death of Chelik the Great, the Empire has essentially been dissolved. Many are creating city-states, or even greater. It was naught long ago the city of Gloddaheim became such city-state." replied the guard.
"So no more free travel between cities?" Bellium inquires.
"Afraid not, sir. On that note, I will need you to make a traveler's certificate. It will be free, I'll just need your race, age and any weapons you might have need to be confiscated until the proper testing is done." the guard nodded to the other guard, and the latter came up to Bellium with a piece of parchment and paper.
Bellium pondered over it for a few moments, but decided not to agitate law enforcement pointlessly. He removed his cloak, revealing four leather straps that form an X centered on Bellium's solar plexus, connected to a circular plate with a symbol on it, two simplistic swords that look like three Xs connected together. He wore this leather strap over his topless torso. He had a simple pair of leather pants and boots to match, with a scabbard holding a sword on his left hip.
"Write me up as a Fire Elemental, 21 years old." he removed the scabbard with the sword and gave it to the guard.
"Very well sir, you may get a permit for your weapon in the Ministry of War. Whether you have one or not, your weapon will be returned to you once you leave Gloddaheim." the guard nodded and gave Bellium the traveler's certificate. He opened the gate and bid him farewell.
Bellium entered the city, being met with dozens of sellers near the gate that are trying to sell him things. He knew that most likely all of them are overpriced. He walked straight, ignoring them. He was zoning out a bit as he walked, thinking about stuff. That ended abruptly when his shoulder got tapped. He turned around and was met with an Elf, old aged, like a Human in their 60s, but probably much more due to the fact he was an Elf. He had gray hair that he tied around in a ponytail, deep blue eyes, and was wearing expensive clothes, consisting of a green jacket and a leather vest underneath. His eyes widened at the sight of Bellium, with a hint of excitement.
"Sir...you are...may we speak in private please? I-I can arrange a private table on a tavern." he asked while looking at Bellium with intense interest. 
"Hmm, alright." Bellium replied, a bit of suspicion in his tone.
Bellium followed the Elf to a tavern called The Griffin's Beak. It was situated on an alleyway, far from the general public. It looked rough-and-tumble, with a few broken windows covered with wooden planks. It was three stories tall, but only the ground one had any light to it.
As Bellium entered, the patrons looked at him and began murmuring a bit.
"The f**k kinda armor is that?" was a murmur that Bellium picked, and he could have probably heard some others, but he decided to ignore them and went to sit down with this Elf, on a private table in the corner.
"Thank you for joining me, my name is Moichel." the Elf said.
"Nice to meet you, name's Bellium." he said while putting his right arm over the top of the chair and ordered a round of ale.
"O-Oh, it's on me by the way...The payment..." the Elf commented.
"Yeah, I assumed." Bellium replied snarkily. "Say, Moichel, what's this all about? I'll admit, you surprised me, but I didn't think you'd be any harm, so I followed along."
"A-Ah yes, I apologize for the sudden offer, but you took me by surprise as well."
"How so?" Bellium asked.
"W-Well, Mr. Bellium, what did you tell the guards your ra-race was?"
"Fire Elemental."
Moichel started chuckling but it quickly turned into a nervous and awkward chuckle as Bellium glared him down and set his palms on the table and leaned over to him a bit.
"Care to explain the humor?" he said menacingly.
"Oh no, no-no-no-no-no, I didn't mean any offense sir. It's just that...that I know you're not a Fire Elemental. They have, either brown or grey skin and their hair is usually made out of fire, eyes as well! You might be one to the uninformed, but I know you're a Sangwynn."
Bellium leaned back on his chair and tapped the table with his fingers. He scratched his chin.
"How the f**k do you know what a Sangwynn is?" he asked.
"Well, I've lived enough to have heard of the tales of the Sangwynn. I-I thought you were exterminated by the Rezat Monastery in the first half of the 12th century."
"I lived." he said bluntly.
"Your family? Was it great-grandparents or something of the sort? It must have been multiple survivors, since you seem like a pure-blooded Sangwynn." 
"Something of the sort." Bellium decided not to answer truthfully. He didn't want to reveal to the Elf he was an Immortal, blessed by a Primordial to never age or die. Immortals created much chaos in the Scarred Age, before the Hakur Empire. Chelik kept them in order, but now with his death, the people are more fearful of Immortals now than ever.
"I-I see...I don't want to salt an old wound...let's talk about Sangwynns. As a race, you are pretty similar to Humans, same life expectancy, same physiology and other factors."
Bellium leaned back further. The waitress, a young Elven woman with long loose blonde hair, set down the drinks and turned to Bellium and winked. Bellium heard in his head a female voice: "Come meet me after you're done." 
Bellium knew it was telepathy, a branch of psychic magic which itself is a branch of Enchantment. He did not change his facial expression, to not arouse suspicion in Moichel. After the waitress left, Bellium took a gulp of his drink and set it down with a loud bang.
"Any race could be described as similar to Humans with that general description, Moichel. We all evolved from the same ancient race."
"The First Humans. Although Chelik used to call them Proto-Humanoids, to please the other races I suppose."
"Nah, he was right. 'The First Humans' is Human propaganda. It implies that Humans today are the exact same as the fuckers in the Creator's Age. No, an Elf is as similar to them as Humans are. That's why they should be called Proto-Humanoids."
"You-You're absolutely correct...I've never thought about it like that." Never thought I would have this conversation with you..."
"You thought I was dumb?" Bellium took another gulp of his drink.
"Oh no-no-no-no--"
"It's alright. It's how this world works. Show up barely wearing anything on the top and be well built, everyone will think you're a barbarian. And we both know that barbarians are known for being absolute planks...When the Steel Age started, 20 years ago, with the creation of the Empire and Chelik as Emperor, I thought those old stereotypes were removed. You could be whatever, the profession system was abolished. No more barbarian or bard schools or f*****g artificer schools. You learned what you wanted to learn."
Moichel had a nervous look on his face and waved his hands.
"Y-Yes, I know I know, p-please forgive me. I didn't mean anything by it...it doesn't matter how someone looks, that's not an indicator of intelligence." he said in agreement with him.
"Oh no, for me it's correct. I'm an absolute dumbass. And with that, I must go. Duty calls."
He stood up and walked over to the waitress. Moichel didn't move and just looked at the waitress with an uncertain look.
"So, will we skip the introductions for tomorrow?" Bellium said in a flirtatious manner.
"Maybe a name today, the rest tomorrow." the waitress replied while smirking.
"Bellium." he put out his hand for a handshake.
"Larsa." she shook his hand.
"Off we go." he would start walking to a direction but then realized he didn't actually know where to go. "You should probably lead."
She looked at him with a smirk and one raised eyebrow and led him to the second story through the stairs. She opened the door to a room, it had a broken window with wooden planks covering it, but besides that and the smell of the carpet, it seemed a modest little room.
Bellium walked in the room and looked around.
"Hmm alright. Not enough to ruin my mood."
"Trust me, better than the other ones." Larsa replied.
"I heard that this city was originally inhabited by Elves."
"Yes, it's called Guel in Elvish."
"Like the monster?"
"Pronounced like ghoul, but spelled differently."
"Hmm alright..."
Larsa took out a knife and dashed to Bellium's back to stab him. He turned around and grabbed her hand that was holding the knife and twisted it so that her wrist would break. Larsa would release a bloodcurdling scream but Bellium would quickly silence her by grabbing her bottom teeth and ripping her mandible out of her temporomandibular joints. This only left her with a distorted gurgle to scream out. He took her knife and slit her throat with it, leaving her to fall back, hitting the wall and finally dying in a sitting position.
"Guess your mood did get ruined."
Bellium rushed down to the ground floor. Moichel stood up, with wide eyes.
"Hey Moichel, seems that girl tried to assassinate me. Crazy s**t."
Moichel gulped and spoke in a whimpering tone.
"What did you do to my daughter?"
Bellium's eyes turned into a glare, and he clenched his teeth.
"Did you w***e your daughter to kill me?"
Moichel clenched his fist and was seemingly about to attack him, but Bellium saw the guards coming closer to the tavern through the dirty windows. He ran out of the side door, with tremendous speed, only looking like a red blur. He thought deeply about the previous events while he was running with overwhelming speed back to the gate he came from.
He slowed down once near the gate, with no people around to see him be the source of this red blur. He walked up and was requested his traveler's certificate by a guard. He handed it over and the gate raised again, this time the metal whirring of the chains being more loud than when he entered. He walked out and looked at the guard that approached him first.
"What's your name?"
"Oh- Uh...Victor. Victor Erkon sir." he raised his eyebrow a bit at the question.
"Well, Victor Erkon, nice to meet you. And just know, that there are always two sides to a story."
Bellium started walking away from the gate, and the city itself. Victor was a bit perplexed but somewhat understanding.
"Thank you for coming to Gloddaheim, sir. Hopefully your visit was delightful. Come again."
Bellium exhaled a bit but did not change his pace, nor did he respond. He simply walked away.