CROWN
I really didn’t want to spend more than a few weeks here, this time. I could do a more thorough exploration of the culture later. Twenty years in a Totem tribe gave me plenty of time to learn the gestures, language, and habits of the region, if not the nation I was currently in.
Fortunately, the city was more organized than I expected. I’d seen from my Sanctuary that they’d managed to build some impressive buildings, but seeing it from the level of the mortals was entirely different. Experiencing it was also nice, because I hadn’t gotten any rapid transport since the thrilling but brief dragon ride as Tastka.
This wasn’t nearly as fast as a dragon ride, but Kelstad was close to a small river… and every river in the nation lead to the capital of Chall. Even without money, helping do some routine maintenance on one of these ferries gave me an easy ride downriver that lasted about three days, instead of a ten or more day hike along the roads.
I didn’t want to ‘push’ the story any more than I had to, so I only found two more opportunities to tell the tale of the ‘world wound’ that I’d made up. Once while stopping for the night, and once on the ferry, when a [Lorestoker] – basically, a professional storyteller – asked me for any interesting stories. She was level 33, which was pretty high for this area that had no working Quest system. Maybe that meant she would do most of the spreading for me.
Of course I still had a lot of work to do spreading the story, but starting at the nation with the highest population made sense, didn’t it?
Each village we stopped at showed a little more urbanization. None of them were a true city or even close, but each had slightly better stone foundations, and more of each building had those odd pink-colored clay bricks. Almost all used that dome-like roof, and our ferry had one, as well – something I was grateful for, during the brief rainstorm we had to pass through.
There were some downsides to being in a flesh and blood body, I had to admit.
Duck kept me apprised of my progress, but despite her complaints about being bored, she was pretty attentive and helpful. Her quirky demeanor and speech aside, she worked hard when I actually asked her to do something.
This let me get a better look at the advances of the civilization here. The vaskan had domesticated several animals already, and I saw short, squat ox-like creatures hauling things very often. Sometimes I saw the females, which were smaller but chunkier, and bred for their meat. They were vaguely like oxen and cattle both, but apparently their milk was disgusting to most vaskan.
I didn’t see any of the tennur, which were the milk-producing animal they used, but I knew they existed. Cheese also existed, although it was quite different from what I knew and I’d only had it once in my brief life in Downside. I’d wondered at the parallel at first, but concluded that multiple human civilizations had developed cheese, too. It was just a common thing when the conditions were right, and I had jumpstarted the world with Earth mammals, even if they’d evolved away by now.
I had plenty of time to think about all this. The Proxy Avatar was flesh and blood, but super-optimized. I didn’t really need to sleep often enough to even take a nap, which left me alone with my thoughts quite often. If it hadn’t been so expensive to pop back to Sanctuary, I’d have done it during that downtime.
This world of mine, despite many similarities, was notably not Earth in other ways. Magic and the System changed that, and even if the vaskan looked human from a distance, their bodies tended to be more slender and eyes much larger by default. Those who leaned into the abilities from their bonded core could have wild variations, far more than the natural variations of humans.
I shook my cloak out as I looked over the city. We’d docked at a place full of inns – actual inns, not just common rooms – which told me that foreign and merchant traffic was a lot more common here. That made a lot of sense, as this was the trade capital of the region.
A quick look at my interface gave me the population. I’d checked before, so it wasn’t a surprise despite the large number for this tech level. I was still playing with the features of the Proxy Avatar, and that was one of them. I could also look at anyone’s stats, which was interesting since the System wasn’t an integral part of my interface. I guessed that it could do that because my interface created the System.
For the designer of the world, I sure had a lot of gaps in my knowledge.
The city of Chall itself – the nation was named for the capital city – was quite impressive for the age. Despite me labeling it ‘Bronze Age’ tech, the actual technology varied pretty widely. I did see guards with bronze weapons and shields, but their armor was usually leather of some type. Guards tended to have cores much like the larger guard I’d run into on the frontier, heavyset and powerful.
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The architecture is what really drew my interest. The entire city had a stone slab foundation, giving it a false plateau above the fertile farmlands of the river delta. This probably helped protect it in flood season, but I wasn’t going to stick around long enough to find out.
The city streets were equally interesting. Many of them were paved with higher-quality versions of those clay bricks I’d seen, but other ‘streets’ were canals cutting through the city, carrying small barges and passenger boats beneath high, arched bridges. A series of locks kept the water levels controlled and allowed access from the river.
Everything pointed to a tech level beyond Bronze Age… except the metal itself. They were still working with copper and bronze, but they had advanced flood handling and city planning, and now that I was in the city I saw a lot of the buildings here were a combination of stone and pink brick. Three or four story buildings were common, and toward the city center they climbed up to eight or nine, easily.
Fortunately the vaskan shared a human desire for beauty. I hadn’t needed to create money – risky and a waste of RP – because they’d been happy to take my samples of rare metals and gemstones. I was now reasonably wealthy for a visitor to the city, and able to afford a private room at one of the nicer inns here. It was a little pricey, because the Chall vaskans didn’t seem to place a great amount of priority on privacy.
“Remember them, for there may come a day when what was once rare becomes common, and what was once a small danger becomes a struggle for the lives of not just oneself and one’s family, but an entire tribe or people.”
I said the words with more confidence this time. I’d rehearsed the story even before taking my Proxy, but being basically the god of this world hadn’t made it easier for me to play the part of a friendly storyteller. Neither Tastka nor Kenta, my previous lives, did this sort of thing. It still gave me the jitters, but the enthusiasm of those listening made it easier.
Laughter and cheer, along with a few more contemplative looks, surrounded me as I wrapped up the story. Most of these here in the common room were merchants, and almost all of them had the faint nubs of horns and the short and squat stature of using tentu cores. A wilder, undomesticated variant of the tennur, it sort of resembled a cross between a goat and a mastiff.
I tried not to think about how this was where the milk they drank here came from.
This place was far more cosmopolitan than the elf clan that I’d spent my time with as Tastka, so I’d thought they’d be less interested in stories from far away. That did not seem to be the case. Made my task easier, so I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.
One of the women in the establishment lightly touched my arm. “A wonderful story. Tell me, did you see this yourself?” She fluttered eyes at me, her lips curled into a smile. She worked here, and had a lithe build, scarlet hair to her waist, and bewitching green eyes that I couldn’t help but stare at now and again.
She’d also been sidling closer and closer throughout my story. Perhaps she was truly interested, but she was trying way too hard, and that made me cautious. Maybe she was going to rob me, but more likely she wanted something else from me. Information, or some task maybe.
Which was very tempting. Getting an obvious hook to an adventure was pretty cool.
Too bad that wasn’t what I was here for.
“Ah, not directly.” My reply was careful but friendly, letting her see my smile. “The story is not too old, but I haven’t seen the tribe myself.” I was about to go into more detail when I was interrupted.
| DUCK: Sorry to break up your flirting, boss, but do you have a minute?
| CROWN: It’s fine, I was trying to think of a way to politely back out. I’ll just be more blunt.
“I apologize,” I said aloud to the woman. Then louder, to the others, “Everyone! My thanks for the stories and company, but it has been a long road. Tonight, I think I shall sleep early. Spirits willing, we will talk again soon!”
I saw a flicker of emotion on the woman’s face before she resumed her smile. It wasn’t annoyance nor shame, which made me more perplexed. It had looked more like… worry?
Better to not get involved in mortal affairs, whatever her reasons.
I bid goodnight and trudged to my room, then put a quick reinforcement spell on the door to keep it shut. Mana here was high enough that it should last a few days until dispelled. This would be my base while I was in Chall, I wanted to keep out curious noses.
| CROWN: What’s up, Duck? Hehehe…
| DUCK: If that’s a reference, I don’t know that one.
| DUCK: Something weird, boss. You can probably check your interface to see for yourself, but the elves have discovered a dwarven tunnel.
| DUCK: We may have first contact very soon.
I mentally cursed at the rotten luck. Seven millennia of being ignorant of one another, and somehow they chose now to poke that far? The odds were astronomical, but that didn’t matter. I’d wanted to witness that and at least try to observe it in a Proxy, but I already had this underway.
| CROWN: That sucks, I wanted to see that. Can you keep an eye on it? I’m interested but there’s no reason they’d need my personal attention, I’m sure.
| DUCK: It’s the Sisterhood who found the tunnel.
| CROWN: Fuckdammit. Uh…
| CROWN: I’ll be right there.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. Popping back to Sanctuary would be expensive. Then I’d have to make another Avatar, pop down to Upside to handle this, and then get back to Downside later.
That could end up costing hundreds of Reality Points, and interfering would murder a lot of the RP I’d get from this significant event in history. Sure, I had thousands, but that was a big chunk for something so minor.
I sighed. I knew I couldn’t afford not to be there. It would probably be fine, even with the Sisterhood… but if I was wrong it would throw a lot of my plans wildly off course.
With a pained grumble, I pulled up my interface and sent myself home.
When It Rains