137, 2/2

Ezekiel, Julia, Tiffany, and Paul, passed the farms of Grey Cloud and Red Lotus, only to walk by even more farms with much less security to them.

And then Ezekiel had a surreal moment as he looked across a field of wheat in the process of being harvested, and saw the redscale Valok and his young pinkscale daughter. They were harvesting the grain right alongside everyone else on the farm.

This was obviously a false impression.

The two strangers were not Valok and Delia, two of the very first people Ezekiel and Julia met as they walked in from the desert. And yet, the resemblance was uncanny. A redscale father. A pinkscale daughter. In this case, a world further, a year later, and with completely different people, it was like Valok and Delia were gathering wheat, instead of planting rice.

Julia noticed, too, her eyes going a little wide. She sent, ‘How are those two doing, anyway? Has Delia tried to kill or steal from you again?’

‘She never tried to kill me, Julia.’ Ezekiel tore his eyes away from the lookalikes and focused on the road, sending, ‘Valok is doing great, last I heard. Still not talking to his daughter because he doesn’t want to scare her, and Delia doesn’t want to talk to him yet; not until she can defend herself in a land of shadelings. I might have been too stringent when I told Delia to be that self-policing, but… She’s doing well in her classes at Oceanside, as of a week ago. Getting good with Decay magics. She’s going Scion of Balance and aiming for the Calamity Dagger Class, and also working on becoming one of the Headmaster’s Elites.’

‘Good for her,’ Julia sent.

They walked on.

– – – –

“So,” Tiffany said. “We have no money now.”

Tension broke.

Ezekiel laughed. He said, “Sorry about that.”

They walked along a nice, wide road, twenty meters across, that stretched far past the horizon, toward Eralis in the unseen distance. Smaller group housing, private farms, and even little village squares had started to pop up to the sides of the main road and down myriads of side roads with some regularity. Many of the houses held multiple floors, but more than a few were simple one-story buildings, built wide and out of wood (possibly to invalidate [Stoneshape] shenanigans), with peaked, blue roofs. Odin flew high, high above, and Ezekiel saw the actual city of Eralis far ahead, but it appeared they would have to go through suburbia and then the floodplain of a delta to get there.

“I’m not disparaging, boss.” Tiffany said, “I’m sure we can find something that pays, but it woulda been nice to not have to worry about paying for a night’s sleep.”

“The Tribulation Mountains always have monsters in them.” Julia said, “Worst that could happen is that we find the [Teleport] zone into the city, get some papers or whatever the entry system requires, then go out and hunt a few beasts. Getting back to Eralis is going to be a lot easier the second time around. That was always the plan, anyway.”

Ezekiel stepped off of the center of the road, toward the right, as other people began to start using the roads, too. Julia, Tiffany, and Paul followed his lead. Just ahead, on a side road that seemed to be another major-ish road, carts pulled by cows moseyed north and south, carrying goods bound for markets, or people bound for destinations. Runners, or some other type of job, raced left and right, remaining on their own sides of a solid white line in the center of the road. Some of them had packs on their backs. Some just had their own self, and their blue-edged official-ish clothes that were barely more than shorts, tunics, and shoes.

They ran fast. They used some variation of [Swift Movement], for sure. Ezekiel saw one zoom by and activate a quick pulse of healing magic on themselves, likely so that they could run faster, because then they did just that. A cloud of dust ripped up from the solid stone road as the runner vanished toward the north.

Some people complained about the dust, setting off a chain reaction of others complaining about the lack of rain.

The four members of Clan Phoenix rapidly navigated the cross traffic and continued on down the main road, where they naturally joined the midday throng of people walking to and fro. This was not a journey of people walking all the way toward Eralis, though. This was just a journey of people going about their normal lives in suburbia; buying food at the grocers over there, getting new shoes at the cobbler on the other side, taking a small jaunt toward the apothecaries and the shopping center down that way.

… Going to that brothel over there, which did not look like a place of health and respite, but more like the exact opposite of that.

… Kicking that drunk while he was down on the ground already, and huddled against the outside wall of that bar.

… Getting manhandled by the guards walking down the street.

… And there’s a homeless man getting picked up by guards, and getting thrown in a wagon with other homeless people. ‘Bound for War’ was written on the side of the wagon, while the homeless inside were given bread and informed of their new fate.

Ezekiel frowned.

“Not as bad as I expected,” Julia said.

… Aside from a few things…

Yeah. It wasn’t that bad, actually. Over there, some young human women were out on their own, walking between shops and laughing in the open. Across the way, a young incani boy, barely a man, held the hand of a very old incani woman, practically dragging the smiling elder forward, talking about how mother was waiting for them. 99 percent of people were just walking along, minding their business, or rapidly crossing or narrowly avoiding the center white line in the road, where runners and fast-moving cows dominated.

Ezekiel only saw the less-savory parts of the city because Odin still flew in the sky, allowing him temporary oversight of the whole land. His own Perception, down on the ground, allowed him to see the world around him in better detail, and through all of his senses. He wouldn’t have even seen the homeless wagon or the brothel if not for his eyes in the sky. What he would have focused on, were the scents in the air, because they were walking past a large market square full of two and three-story restaurants. The air smelled great. The city was clean. The people dressed nicely, mostly. And no one was fighting anywhere.

But there were a fuck-ton more people than Ezekiel had expected.

And this was just the suburbs!

“There are so… so many people.” Ezekiel said, “Everything is so clean.”

“I’d say to watch your pockets,” Tiffany said, “But I think enough people are watching our pockets for us.”

“We certainly are drawing some eyes…” Ezekiel’s voice trailed off as he focused more on the world directly around him.

The people on the road gave the four of them a wide berth, but no one did anything besides glance their way before quickly turning their attentions in other directions. Some walked a bit faster to get away. Some walked slower, or moved to the other side of the street, braving the fast paced traffic in the center.

It was easy to see why they were drawing attention. Ezekiel, Julia, and Paul, were all in their [Conjured Armor], looking like magenta, dark blue, and sapphire blue jewels in a sea of browns, whites, and tans. And then there was Tiffany, standing twice as tall and half-again as wide as everyone else in the predominantly human, incani, demi, harpy, and everything else crowd. She was the only orcol in sight. She still had her grey armor on, too.

A quad of guards spied them from a guard tower, a good fifty meters ahead. Each of them wore steel breastplates with feathers and lightning motifs. They blipped down from the tower, in unison, landing on the road in front, directly in the way. The people nearest the guard moved away from the potential battlefield, while the guards —two incani, one human, one dragonkin— waited for the pink idiot to approach.

Ezekiel did not disappoint them.

And then one of the incani guards stepped forward, and bowed, before Ezekiel could even stop, saying, “Apologies, master Scion, but might this one inquire why you are out and about in full defensive regalia?” He raised his head, and gestured forward, down the road that Ezekiel had been walking. “If it would please you, we could walk and talk, or perhaps I can find you a carriage to make your walk that much more enjoyable?”

Ezekiel broke stride for a moment, smiled briefly, then kept on walking. The guard walked alongside him, and Ezekiel allowed it.

Ezekiel explained, “We’re not from around here and we cannot afford a carriage, for various temporary reasons. I have come to inquire about alliances and information and such, but I wished to see what the Highlands were like outside of the cities, first. It’s a lot more prosperous than I was led to believe, and that makes me very happy.”

The guard said, “The Songli people have a long history of accepting clans into the Highlands, so I wish you luck. But, if you would pardon this one’s impudence, we do not allow such grandiose displays of power, and your mana signature is very… vibrant.”

“Ah.” Ezekiel said, “Well. You see: We walked in from the east, hoping to see all of this land from the edge to the center. To that end, we started in the prairie past a farm held by a clan we soon discovered to be named Grey Cloud, near where they bordered another clan which we found out was named Red Lotus. We were attacked by seven Hunters before we got to those Clans, however. Perhaps they thought they had a numerical advantage; I know not. The problem of those Hunters is resolved, now, but I suspect that whatever was going on there will only escalate… or maybe not. You will understand that I am hesitant to drop the defensive measures I and my people have employed. I expected some sort of trouble on this trip, but not quite the intrigue that had the misfortune to find us.”

The incani guard barely betrayed his sudden flash of inner fear as Ezekiel spoke, and he was not the only one. Several nearby people increased their walking speeds, getting further away, just a bit.

The guard resigned himself to pressing forward, and said, “Please accept a carriage on behalf of the Highlands, Scion; no charge. We are a block away from a carriage house.”

“Very well. I will accept.”

The incani guard visibly relaxed. He stepped forward, happily saying, “Allow me to lead you, Scion.”

Ezekiel allowed it.

The ‘carriage house’ was only a few hundred meters forward, located on the corner of a north-south road half the size of the main one. Ezekiel had a sudden memory of another time, in another world, where people flew in on large metal birds, to land in town and to then take a carriage to their next destination, for the carriage house was directly next to the teleporting platform for the area.

Half of the area was flat, open land, tiled with solid white stone and filled with people blipping in and out, but almost no one came in or left on their own; it appeared that the people who actually cast those [Teleport] spells were in blue and white garb, in some sort of Nelboor-corollary to the Wayfarer’s Guild. Or maybe it was just a Highlands thing.

Those blue and white people moved off toward a side house after they blipped their people, while inside that side house, there were more people waiting to get blipped into other locations. It appeared the passengers and their blipper would walk out of the side house, and onto the white tile square, before they blipped away.

The other half of the space looked more like a guardhouse than a carriage house. The people coming off of the [Teleport] field walked toward that guardhouse, under the scrutiny of bored guards up in their guard towers. Inside that official and open-air building, the people spoke to guards, getting papers or flashing badges, and generally being ushered through as fast as possible. When the people were done talking to the guard, a great majority of them just walked away, into the town, but the richer looking ones took carriages that were lined up all the way down the side road, waiting to accept passengers.

It was to the front of this line of carriages that the incani guard took Ezekiel and his team. He bypassed the first carriages in line, for none of them were large enough for Tiffany. The fifth carriage was big enough, though. It was a large, window-filled wagon with lots of space, views, and with two hulking bull cows to pull it. The guard rapidly spoke to the driver about ‘charge the guard, no tips, straight to Eralis’ as he slipped the man a metal token that was certainly not currency. The human driver briefly complained, but only with his eyes, before instantly putting on a smile and turning to Ezekiel.

Ezekiel’s guess was that they had more than enough strange, high-powered people walking around that they had protocols for this sort of thing, and that he and his people had fallen into one of those protocols.

Interesting.

The guard turned to Ezekiel, saying, “Thank you for accepting our hospitality, Scion. This carriage should get you all the way to the city, and a fair bit faster than walking.”

“Aye!” The driver said, “I’ll take you right to Teleport Square inside the city, if that be what the Scion wants.”

Ezekiel said, “We would like exactly that. Thank you for your assistance. Both of you.”

It was the work of moments to get everyone in the carriage, and to start down the road. As the cows wheeled the carriage out of the line and started on the journey to the city, the incani guard and his four people bowed to the departing carriage.

Tiffany said, “I can get behind this nice treatment.”

“How many people do you think were plotting to kill us out there?” Julia asked.

Paul said, “Mostly fear, from what I saw. Lots of worry. No plots to murder. More than a few people wondered why a Scion was in their midst. We came into the city in an odd way. I didn’t think it would be this odd.”

Ezekiel said, “That’s about what I saw, too.” He exclaimed, “And there’s just so many people!”

Tiffany laughed. “Yeah!”

Julia said, “Low level, though.”

“There are few monsters around here so almost everyone is under level 20.” Paul said, “But that doesn’t seem to be a problem. It’s… It’s a better looking life than I had expected. Better than I had been warned.”

Ezekiel gazed out the window, watching the prosperous world go by, and said, “It’s a lot better than I thought it would be, too.”

Tiffany chuckled, saying, “You say that, and yet we were attacked by seven high-level Hunters—”

A knock came from the barrier separating the driver from the cabin.

Julia opened it, saying, “Yes?”

“Pardon Scion, but we will be speeding up now and there’s a bump when that happens. Just wanted to let you know.”

“Thanks, good driver!” Ezekiel said.

The vehicle lurched, as the cows began to speed up. Within moments, and likely because the cows somehow had [Swift Movement], and the driver had [Rejuvenation] to keep them high Health, and also the skill, or perhaps the Spell to make the cows use their Skills, the carriage joined the speedy line of traffic headed toward Eralis, in the unseen distance.

The driver shut the partition again, but Ezekiel had Julia open it. The driver startled, briefly.

“Good driver?” Ezekiel asked, “How did you get the cows so well trained? Some [Husbandry] spell?”

“Oh? Uh.” The driver was clearly nervous, but he managed to get out, “Oh, no! Just good old training, Scion. Uh? You’re not from around here, I take it?”

“Not even a little bit.”

The driver went silent. Julia almost went to close the partition, but Ezekiel shook his head, and it stayed open. The window provided a nice breeze in the cabin, as the carriage rolled west, to Eralis.

Ezekiel stared out the window, watching as the city rolled by. Tiffany and Julia seemed equally engrossed in watching the massive, multi-million person ‘suburb’ around Eralis. Ezekiel had seen this land from the air, but those Odins were way too far to see what he was seeing now; he didn’t want the magenta [Familiar] to trigger any alarms over the city, after all. Those high-flying Odins took great care to avoid the [Alarm Ward]s strung across the sky that were only visible to [True Sight]. But… It was almost to the point that having Odin way up there wasn’t actually helpful, at all.

It was a nice ride. But…

Paul stared out the window, slack-faced, and possibly worried.

Ezekiel asked, “Are you okay, Paul?”

Paul blinked a few times, then said, “I had heard certain things about this place. I expected certain things about this place. I expected we’d need to fight off marauding bands of clans or soldiers, I did not expect a sprawling metropolis. I did not expect a carriage ride into the city.”

Ezekiel nodded. He turned to the open window, and asked, “Driver?”

“Yes, Scion?”

“Do you mind if I bother you for some information?”

“Never be a bother to me, Scion!” The man spoke happily, but falsely, saying, “Ask away!”

“What’s the population of Eralis? Are we actually in Eralis right now?” He asked, “Could you give us some basic information that you think we might want?”

A small chuckle came from the driver, as some of his worries seemed to evaporate. He relaxed a fraction, and said, “I’d be happy to do that, Scion. I haven’t given a proper tour in a long time, but I’ve lived here all my life. Let’s see… I’d start with this: If someone asked me where I lived, I would say Eralis, but that’d be a minor lie. We’re actually in the town of Redflood. There’s towns like this one scattered all along the Wanzhi river. Rich farming land, you see? We’re nary a stone’s throw from the Delta right now, and though that place still floods, this Water Season is drier than usual. The rains are just late, I suspect.

“Once we get past Redflood and the Wanzhi Delta, we can enter into Eralis directly. Right through the Void Gates! Very impressive sight.

“And though you’d have to take a different road out of the west side of Eralis, it’d look the same as this one, and you’d eventually find more towns like Redflood, but smaller, for sure. The Army and the Border Clans tend to keep us safe as newborns, but outside of the borders and such… Yeah. You’ll find the usual warmongers.” He paused. He asked, “If’n you don’t mind me asking sir. What’s yer goals here in the Highlands? I might be able to direct you somewhere specific.”

“I want to talk to the Songstresses. I heard they’re famous for how they make their magic, and I want to know more about that.”

“Ah!” The driver happily said, “Then you’ll be wanting to go to the Void Theater. Center of Eralis. You seem like someone who could see the sights from the air, and in such a case, you can’t miss the Void Theater. Only building that looks similar to the Void Gates. But. Er. Don’t be flashing— Er. I have been told that the guard don’t like people being flashy with magics like that, er… Scion. They reintroduce the ground to fliers rather painfully, if’n they can. Probably best not to go flying in the city limits… if you even could— Which I’m sure you can!”

“Then we will search on foot once we get there.” Ezekiel tried to make his tone as nice as possible, without being weak, as he asked, “Anything else we should know?”

“Oh! Sure! There’s lots! Let me tell you about…”

– – – –

‘Julia’ found herself grinning whenever she forgot to stop herself, ever since the encounter with the guards of Grey Cloud. But now, as she watched peaked-roof buildings and so many people roll past her window, and she heard her father speak like a real Scion for about the fiftieth time, she let herself smile. He was good at this, and this was fun. This was really fun.

She sent him, ‘You’re so much better at this than I expected.’

‘Ezekiel’ paused in his words to the driver, briefly, but then kept talking to the driver as he simultaneously sent her, ‘I paid attention to you kids and your role playing games, and all those movie nights you and I shared when you were a kid.’

Julia almost laughed. ‘There’s no way that those things prepared you for this. I read books about blending in. Joined a club in college. I didn’t think you had a subterfuge-bone in your body.’

‘A large part of blending in seems to be more about reading the room and filling in a story about yourself that other people expect you to follow, and I have seen a lot of different stories. But yes. You’re right. I’m only able to do this, here, because I’m listening and watching everyone around us, and working to adjust my actions to what I see and hear.’ He added, ‘This part is a lot easier than I thought it would be, but I fear we might have come in too strong. We might have to fail at something in order to be knocked down a peg by the people who we do not want to meet, but I’m getting the impression that all we’ve met are low-ranking people who would never gainsay anything we do.’

Julia blue-screened.

She felt like the world had shifted under her feet. Her father had just said that. Her father. The naive pacifist… Well. He wasn’t that anymore, was he? And he hadn’t been that for a long time. Probably still too much of a pacifist, though. He should have just Blessed those Hunters. A jail of the soul was better than death, especially if those bastards could actually make good on their threats to come back from the dead, but Julia suspected that that was just them posturing for their lives.

‘Well you’re doing a great job, dad.’

‘Thanks!’ He sent, ‘You are, too.’

Julia scoffed a small laugh, then stopped pestering Ezekiel. She could be doing a lot better, but she was fulfilling her ‘role’ right now, and that was what was needed. Julia let her father engage with the driver, while her mind turned toward a different direction. Back toward a thought that had been on her mind for a while, now; to the New Stats.

Perception would allow her to unlock her mana sense much easier, but Intelligence is what allowed her father to make sense of what he was seeing, wasn’t it? What boon would she want to take for herself? Which was actually better?

She asked her father for his thoughts on the question.

‘It’s the Intelligence allowing me to make sense of all this, but I wouldn’t notice all the social cues without Perception. So it’s a tossup. If I could only pick one, I’d do Perception for the mana sense. But Tiffany’s better at that than I am, and she doesn’t have Perception, so Perception is obviously unnecessary. Therefore Intelligence might be better in the long run.’

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author’s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

… Another point in Intelligence’s favor.

Julia went silent, and contemplated.

– – – –

‘Tiffany’ relaxed in the back of the carriage, sitting beside ‘Ezekiel’ as he spoke to the driver. She had a lot of legroom in this vehicle, though the carriage was still half the size it should have been in order to make this a comfortable ride. It would have been overcrowded if her original team was with her. They would have needed to take two carriages! Ah. What a fun thought.

Ah. And look at that. She could think of them without crying.

She smiled, faintly and to herself, as she looked out the windows. The city was full of small people, and the journey was perilous and full of unknown dangers, but that suited Tiffany just fine. In truth, it was better than ‘fine’. This was great. She would have liked to see some other orcols walking around or whatnot, but outside of the Forest, and outside of Glaquin, her kind were treated more like beautiful giants and less like people. Thank the gods she was able to wear her armor into town, otherwise she would have felt so uncomfortable. It was the undressing with the eyes that really got her. Wearing unflattering armor helped.

The Red Bitch’s curse was one of the many reasons that orcols didn’t venture very far from the Forest.

… Unless they were into that sort of thing. Tiffany had a hard time understanding that urge to fuck someone who found her pretty, but some people were into that. Besides that, though, fucking around with non-orcols was odd by the very logistical nature of such an event. It was the sausage-in-the-canyon problem. Or the barge-fording-a-stream problem. Or the fact that non-orcols were just… tiny and easy to break. A little blood in the act was fine and expected…

Sometimes a lot of blood made the whole thing a lot more fun.

But the smaller races were very concerned about blood. Logically, Tiffany understood the problems that small people had with blood being outside of their bodies. Their blood didn’t come right back. Their skin… and holes… didn’t heal like they were supposed to heal.

Across the carriage, ‘Paul’ flushed a deep blue. He closed his eyes, and breathed.

Whoops. Too sexual for you, ‘Paul’?

Hey, now. Why do you think the city is named Redflood? Because of blood? Because the city has flooded before and killed a lot of people? Or because there’s some ‘time of the year’ for the Wanzhi River, and all of a sudden it’s just a flood of blood, like, out the cooch?

Paul steadfastly looked away.

Tiffany grinned and looked out the window. She watched the world roll by.

City Redflood ended in another north-south road that was lined in white tiles, and then a short, wide white wall, that seemed more like a staging area than a divider.

The driver said, “This wall protects Redflood from the seasonal floods when the red flits swim upstream to spawn, and the entire river turns sparkling red.”

Tiffany eyed Paul.

Paul slowly turned and eyed the partition, and the driver beyond that opening.

The driver continued, “Beyond here is the delta for the Wanzhi River.”

And it was.

They passed the dividing wall and the road began to rise. Not too high, but high enough to give the river below all the space it could ever need. Behind them, two and three story blue-roof buildings, and their individualized courtyard-like properties, dotted the city of Redflood. Here, beyond the wall and below the bridge, the water flowed like a lazy wanderer around banks of grasses and mud, and people fished or bathed along the white wall of Redflood. It was all rather idyllic, as far as Teressa saw. Very peaceful.

Kinda nice.