Warsinger

by James Osiris Baldwin

  “The fuck are those things?” I hissed to Suri.

  “Valusa,” Suri muttered back. “Roughly translates to 'Sandstrider'. Those lamps destroy weak magical items. Wear a spellglove under one of those, and it’ll explode on your arm.”

  “I thought they hated magic in Dakhdir?”

  “Yeah, they do. No one ever said the Sultir wasn't a huge fuckin' hypocrite.”

  Fireblooded weren't allowed in the port, but we'd made a simple-ish plan to get into the city. We were going to conceal our noble status in case things turned pear-shaped. I was now Jurchen Lurou, the Tuun foreman of a mine in Myszno. I’d come to broker a deal with the Iron Merchants Guild in Dalim, a powerful and respected guild with deep criminal connections. Vash and Karalti were my bodyguards, and Suri - with a hood on under her impassive full-plate armor - was our pet Artifact. We'd made a few cosmetic tweaks to her armor to make sure she didn't show any skin. Ebisa had forged us some permit papers showing that Suri had been built in Litvy, and had told us that the customs people would want to see the Maker's Mark and probably charge a tariff based on how much mana she needed to 'power' her. Rin's mark - a diamond made up of four smaller diamonds - was stamped on the inside of one of her pauldrons. It was stupid as hell, but Suri had assured me that, even if the guards saw her own markers of nobility, that they wouldn't let her into the city. The casteless stigma took priority over any title Ignas could give her. Either we snuck her in as cargo, or we weren't getting in.

  “There's so many flies!” Karalti grumbled as she tagged along behind me, forming one point of a triangle. We'd traveled first class, so we were near the front of the line, waiting for the gangplank to connect the hovering ship to the platform.

  “I know!” Vash was on my left, regarding the scene ahead of us with childlike delight. “These little southron ones are adorable. Look at their fuzzy green butts!”

  “Do I really have to like flies to be a Baru?” Karalti scowled, irritably - but gently - brushing one off her nose.

  “Absolutely. Flies are the holiest of all creatures. They eat our garbage and prevent disease, they clean our wounds, they nourish the soil that grows our food.” Vash nodded. “Flies, beetles, and bats are all Burna's creatures.”

  “I like bats. They smell stinky, but they taste good. And they have a funny texture! Kind of like eating lasagna noodles off a carpet.”

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I don't know what's weirder: the image you just inserted into my brain, or the fact that you know what lasagna is.”

  “Hector, you ate so much lasagna that I can recall the taste, texture, AND temperature. You liked the kind you were supposed to put in the oven, but you were impatient, so you put it in the magic heat box instead.”

  I winced. I had, indeed, eaten a lot of microwaved oven-bake lasagna in my lifetime. “Hey now, don’t be judging.”

  “I'm pretty sure it's delicious no matter what,” Karalti said dreamily. “Now I want lasagna.”

  Suri, looming behind us, snerked tinnily inside of her helmet. “Still feeling hormonal, are we?”

  “Still made of meat, are you?” Karalti replied sweetly.

  I watched as two burly porters heaved the gangplank into place. “Guys, cut it out. We're up.”

  Karalti nodded, and put on her best bouncer face. Vash made a sound of delight as a fat bottlefly landed in his cupped hands and began to cootchie-cootchie-coo at it.

  The porters idled by while a snotty-looking bureaucrat stepped forward. Like all the Dakhari in the port, he wore loose, brightly colored clothing, and - in the case of the men - a head scarf that swaddled his head, scooped under his chin, and could be pulled up over his mouth if needed. He spent a while messing with a clipboard and a magic-detecting wand, and when he was ready, a yellow objective beacon appeared around his feet. The porters moved forward, opened the fence along the gangplank, and we dutifully shuffled forward.

  “Name?” The [Customs Official] asked, not looking up from his list.

  “Jurchen Lurou of Myszno.” I held my papers forward. “And entourage.”

  The man didn't look at them, searching his list for our names. When he found them, he grunted and crossed them off. “Welcome to Dalim, the Flower of the Desert and the seat of his Eminence Yazid Khememmu the Fifth, glory be his name. What’s your reason for visiting Dakhdir today?”

  “Trade.”

  “And how long will you be staying?”

  “Three nights.”

  He grunted again, roughly sweeping a fly away from his face. I felt Vash tense. “If you are staying only three nights before returning to Vlachia aboard the Tellak, then you must leave your Artifact on the ship. Artifacts must be registered for thirty days.”

  “Uhh... what?” I nearly dropped the act for a moment. “Dude, no. I can't leave it behind.”

  “And why not, exactly?” The man glanced at us. “It is a machine, yes? Park it in cargo and take a claim ticket from the captain.”

  I gestured sharply back to Suri. “She's the mining tool we came to show the Iron Merchants. Seven feet tall! Made of the finest Mercurion steel! This bad boy can dual wield pickaxes and dig through a meter of rock in ten minutes! We can't leave it aboard, or do you expect us to bring the Guildmaster of the Iron Merchants here?”

  Suri loomed.

  [Bluff successful!]

  The Customs Official blinked owlishly. He flicked a fly buzzing close to his face, and Vash's eye twitched. “Fine, fine... let me check it over. You will pay me a tariff after the reading, you understand?”

  The way he said it - and the fact that we were paying it here, rather than at the exit booth into the city - implied he was about to ask for a bribe. I grimaced and jogged from foot to foot, as if impatient. “Fine. Get it over with.”

  The official thumbed his glowstick on, and it hummed to life. I watched nervously as he waved it over Suri. It flared bright green.

  “Humph. This is a very fine machine to be running off cheap greencrystal.” He sounded disappointed.

  “Do I look like I'm made of money?” I replied. “What's the tariff?”

  He thought about it. As he did, he absently reached up and slapped a fly that had landed on his shoulder. Before anyone could react, least of all the porters, Vash punched him so hard that he spun over the gangplank rail and nearly fell over the side.

  “There! See how you like it, you bureaucratic schlochdav!” he shouted. “ How do you like being slapped to death? Ey?!”

  “Hahaha, well, have a great day, gentlemen.” I hooked my arm through Vash's elbow and pulled him past the two burly men as they desperately pulled the semi-conscious man back onto the gangplank, where he slumped and retched. “Come on, kids, time to go!”

  “You eat more shit than that fly ever did!” Vash shook his fist, lunging against my arm toward them.

  “Wait! Where you think you going!?” one of the porters shouted after us.

  Suri stopped, turned, and leaned over him. “Wherever we fuckin' want, you silly cunt.”

  Everyone behind us was so grateful to move forward in line without having to go through Bribey McBribeface that not a single person snitched on us as we vanished into the crowd and did our best to blend in. Getting through the gate was much easier than clearing the gangplank. The official behind the counter was efficient, pleasant, and not obviously corrupt. All he wanted to do was see our papers and send us on our way.

  “Vash, sweetie, I'm really going to need you not to try and murder everyone you see who squishes a bug around here,” I said though gritted teeth once we were on the road. It was crowded and lively: vendors hawked fried snacks and plates of fried durian, curry, bread and doughnuts, incense and flowers and fruit. A number of idling NPCs had yellow rings with question marks around them, indicating they had quests to give. Children ran through the narrow alleys in ragged gangs, shrieking with laughter. Somewhere not too far away, we could hear bells and singing.

  “Well, now that you asked me so nicely...” Vash was examining
his surrounds with obvious interest, watching as lean, slow-eyed nomad traders guided their lumbering saurian herd animals - creatures something like a cross between an elephant, a stegosaurus, and a camel - down the main street. “My apologies. Some people just have a face like a magnet, eh?”

  “Your new arm doesn’t have any iron in it,” I said sourly.

  Suri cleared her throat. “Look, if you blokes are done yakking, can we get moving and out of the sun? In case you forgot, I'm wearing about fifty pounds of fuckin' black steel plate, and I'm about to fry my tits off.”

  “Food! Nice smells! Flowers!” Karalti zipped over to the nearest food stand, pointed at the round stuffed breads at the front, and held up five fingers. Vash joined her, so Suri and I retreated to the shade.

  “We need to orientate. You know how to get to the undercity from here?” I asked her.

  “Yeah.” She pointed down the alleys. “All the streets on this layer of the city eventually connect to a pylon bridge. There's stairwells next to every pylon, with a maintenance gate for when workers have to go down to the undercity to fix shit.”

  I brought up my Map screen. Maps in Archemi automatically updated when you reached a new location, giving a rough GPS overview of the area and filling in details as you explored and identified locations. Because of the way Dalim was constructed, the map currently showed us the Dappled City level. I could flick between tabs to see the Cloud City map and the Undercity map, but the Undercity was currently just a greyish field of undefined dwellings.

  “Look sharp, dog!” Vash threw something at me as he and Karalti bounced back over with arms full of pani-puri, fried bread filled with spiced potatoes, cheese, and spinach. I snatched it out of the air without looking over my shoulder, and he cackled.

  “We got some for you too, Suri.” Karalti had already almost finished her first one. “It's good! Spicy!”

  “Cheers.” Suri folded the food into her Inventory and patted Karalti on the head as the dragon stuffed her second pani-puri into her face. “Ready?”

  Vash bowed and gave a little flourish toward the shaded entry of the street across from us, and Suri led the way.

  A hush fell over us as we wove into the city proper. Unlike Taltos and Karhad, Dalim was very flat and completely paved. The streets were very narrow, and people lived almost exclusively in beautiful courthouse compounds ringed by small apartments. Ornate metalwork and carvings were everywhere. The adobe buildings were only washed white on the roofs: many of them were painted a brilliant ultramarine blue, while others were covered in glittering glass mosaics. It was like some blend of pre-War India and Final Fantasy’s Midgar, with less technology and more magic, but the same amount of totalitarian bullshit.

  It got quieter, darker, and danker the closer we got to the pylon. The buildings in this area weren't as colorful, and the courtyards were shabby, with dry fountains and spiked iron fences. Teenagers sitting on stoops regarded us suspiciously as we drew up on the enormous monolith, a steel-reinforced Roman concrete pillar set on an angle into a gloomy dark pit. Sure enough, there was a gated stairwell leading down.

  “It'll be locked, but that never stopped anyone before,” Suri said. “Expect trouble at the bottom.”

  “Trouble?” I pulled the Spear from my Inventory, spun it around like a marching baton, and then slung the carry cord over my shoulder and hung onto it.

  “The Undercity is run by gangs and syndicates, including my old faction, the Rose Knives.” Suri went over to the gate and tested the handle. “Just because Fireblooded aren't allowed up here doesn't mean we don't come. There's money to be made doing jobs around the city, so the gangs let people go up for free, but charge them a commission on the way down for using 'their' stairs.”

  Vash cracked his knuckles. “That's no good now, is it? For them, I mean.”

  Suri looked back at him through the blackened visor of her helmet. “Don't start anything with the gangs if you don't have to, Vash. As soon as we're in Rose Knives territory, we're golden, but there's an ecosystem of sorts down here... if you kill or embarrass some little fish trying to shake you down for a couple of Dinar, the sharks'll be sniffing along right behind them. None of us are bad enough bastards to deal with the Slum Queens - not yet, at least.”

  Chapter 36

  The stairs to the Undercity were the worst part of the trip. Suri was right - there were a couple of Fireblooded toughs waiting at the bottom for us. They asked for three silver Dinars, and Suri was able to use her street cred here to get it down to two. Then we were on our way, slogging along a muddy dirt path through a cramped, dark town that reminded me of a giant subway tunnel, complete with rats, piles of trash, and the ammonia reek of old piss. Houses were built out of anything and everything: some of them were solid stone and looked like they had been here for a very long time, while others had been built from mud and straw or just trash. People slept in pipes, on the ground, and in doorways. The sun didn't reach down here, but it was hotter than the surface.

  “Can't say I missed this shithole.” Suri had her helmet off now, but had kept the armor on. It seemed like every other person down here had the same tall, powerful build, red hair and golden eyes that she did. “We're in Dhul Fiquar territory now. When we reach the Tiger's Den, let me handle things, alright? If you feel like decking someone, don't just start swinging. Challenge them to a fight in the ring and make some money out of it, at least.”

  Vash, who had set up his pipe and was smoking as he walked, grunted in agreement.

  “Any idea why your quest marker would be pointing there?” I rolled my shoulders, keeping an eye on everything I could. People were openly watching us as we passed by, and my bouncer senses were tingling.

  “There's an appraiser that works out of the back of the tavern,” Suri replied. “Guy by name of Aksil. My bet is that he knows something about that fancy necklace of yours.”

  The Tiger's Den was in the 'nice' part of the Undercity: nice relative to the outlying quarters. Like the portside avenue, the streets around this area were loud and busy, but it was less like the cheerful bustle of a street market and more like the knife-edge balance of fun and tension you found outside a seedy nightclub. People played games of shells and dominos, danced for tips, begged, and sold luke-warm fried skewers of mysterious meat out of ramshackle carts. There were a lot of anxious-looking prostitutes, mostly Fireblooded women, and girls who weren't hookers but whose job was to reel men into bars and ‘help’ them to drink themselves stupid. Toughs patrolled the streets, making no attempt at subtlety. They were in groups of three or four, as heavily armed and armored as anyone in the slums could be.

  “Safety in numbers,” I muttered. “Something’s going on here.”

  “Yeah.” Suri frowned. “Those are Dhul Fiquar soldiers. This is triple the normal patrol for this neighbourhood.”

  “Hmm. That reminds me. In case we need to communicate with anyone here, is there a way you can teach me Dakhari? Like, can I burn skill points to download it off you?”

  “You know… I have no bloody idea.” Suri frowned, concentrated, then grunted. “Seems like it. Hang on.”

  “Hmm? What are we waiting for?” Vash pulled up alongside us. “Other than the inevitable explosion of violence that will take place here any time now.”

  His words made me take a cautious glance around our area. Karalti had squatted down and was watching a group of rats fighting over a fallen meat skewer, eyes wide and shiny as she indulged her prey drive.

  [Suri Ba’Hadir is inviting you to learn a Common Skill: Dakhari. Do you wish to accept? This skill will cost 4 Skill points.]

  “Awesome.” I affirmed the selection, and waited.

  Suri grimaced, eyelids flickering. Then it was my turn. The knowledge of her native language poured in like a stream of molten metal in the right side of my head. It was just warm and weird at first, but quickly grew more and more intense. I winced, clutching my face as the warmth swelled into an incredible pressure. This wasn’t right.
>
  It didn’t hurt, but it felt like I was a million miles from my body. My vision blacked out. I was aware of falling to my knees, and then…

  “Hector? Hey!” Suri’s voice sounded scrambled and distant.

  I came to on the filthy ground. Vash crouched to one side of me. Suri and Karalti guarded me on the other.

  “Urgh. Okay. Not doing that again.” I pushed myself up, checking over my stats. HP full, Adrenaline full… there were a lot of error messages in my History.

  [We detected an error in your Archemi Online experience. Sorry about that! An automatic report has been logged with our Admin Team, and someone will get back to you shortly. Ticket: 003577]

  “What?” Vash said. “I didn’t understand a word you said.”

  I blinked, frowned, rubbed my eyes. I consciously thought about Vlachian, or tried to. “Now? Can you understand me now?”

  “Yes. You were speaking Dakhari at me.” He offered a hand – the real one. “Come on. You’ll get dysentery if you get any more of that mud in your mouth.”

  Karalti looked worried as she reached for my hand. I took it hesitantly and braced for pain, but there was none. Just an odd sense of dissociation.

  “That one was rough, wasn’t it?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it like what happens when you die?”

  “Yeah. No memory loss, but… yeah. Don’t worry, we know not to do that again.”

  “Hey, Hector. Can you understand me?” Suri asked in her native tongue.

  “Yeah.” I replied in the same language. It was fun to speak: closer to Hindi than it was to Arabic, with a mellow, melodic sound neither of those Earth languages really had.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Well, it worked. That’s all that counts, right?” I tried to shrug it off. My head was still hurting. “Just the same old brainfart I have when I die. I must have some kind of upload-download error.”

  “Hmm. Alright, come on. We’ve got a bit of a hike to the Tiger’s Den.” With one last worried glance, Suri jerked her head toward the street and started walking.