by Sean Heslin
In the last mile or so, this path had become heavily populated with houses of varying architectural design, several with affable locals suggesting extra lines of profanity to add to the song, including a rather inventive phrase that worked in the drangl word for 'evaluation'.
Soon, they heard the delights of the main part semi-city of Poitia, or more precisely it landed in front of the group in the form of a slightly singed iccle who had ostensibly volunteered for a ballistics experiment. He sat up, brushed himself down, nodded affably at the group, winked at Pib and scuttled back along the path.
They had barely entered the outer suburbs and already a barrage of remarkable sights impressed upon the adventurers. A pig farmer shared a lawn with a quantum-twist nuclear specialist. An advanced level necromancer haggled with the local butcher over the price of giblets. A weaponsmith kicked a small army of imps about as they tried to build the greatest war machine the world had ever seen, not knowing or caring that spaced evenly along the road was at least nine other workshops doing the same thing. Glass etchers hawked their wares alongside sweetie shops thronging with children from a multitude of races. Tanneries backed onto the dog pound, farriers borrowed tools from signpost makers and a fire mage argued with a representative of the local women’s guild over a mooin.
As they moved closer to the main semi-city, seemingly hundreds of towers, steeples, chimneys, pylons, columns, smokestacks, skyscrapers, telegraph poles, oil towers, oil burners, housing blocks, a monolith, occasional trees, pseudopodia, a frost giant holding up a bridge and other tall items sought to eat the sky, and would have blotted out the sun completely were it not for the carefully positioned mirrors some enterprising soul had installed decades ago. These mirrors were alternately shat upon or well cleaned by the millions of flying creatures inhabiting the aforementioned heights.
Now the lows, they were also something special. There was not one form of housing, factory, workshop, shop shop, military building, entertainment house or storage facility not represented somewhere in the endless capacity for creative exploits that was Poitia.
And it was all entirely self-contained.
Millions of beings migrated to Poitia every year, and millions left, but practically nothing in terms of trade ever entered the ordered chaos, only left on dozens upon dozens of export routes.
They also had quite a good public transport system.
“I heard there is no crime in Poitia,” said Terand, conversationally.
“You would know,” said Rancha, “Is there something in the water?”
“Heh, prob'ly. But yeah practically none. Oh, f'sure there's the usual food napping and industrial espionage and what have ya, but no actual, harmful crime.”
“Mm, positive utopia?” said Goe, eyeing up a cake shop hopefully.
“Naw, just really good police. They say they have modelled themselves on the palace guard in the castle of Froob, from what? Three thousand years ago?”
“Thirty you mean,” said Perci with such an expression on his face that he might as well have said 'you idiot' out loud.
“Whatever. Fun place though.”
“I don't like it,” said Perci, pursing his lips in distaste. “Too many...things.”
“Ooo! Pinwheels!” said Pib, pointing eagerly.
The group continued to meander, drinking in the chaotic variation and beautiful artisanship on every side.
Stunned by all the wonder, the group failed to notice something vital to their endeavour until a good half an hour after entering the semi-city centre.
They were totally, completely and comprehensively lost.
Pib was the first to notice but she was too busy enjoying gawking at a procession of boat makers carting boat pieces to the river, which would be assembled on arrival, to bother to tell anybody.
Then, Terand who was hunting in his pouches for a demonised imager, pulled out the relevant piece of paper given to him by Ihjundas, by boring accident.
Staring at it blankly for a second, the significance of the address finally registered. Sighing, he pulled out a knife and unerringly made it split a wooden pole right by Rancha's ear.
It was as good if not better than shouting ‘Oi!'
Rancha, after tossing the knife back with a dirty look, gathered the group around and politely asked each of them if they knew how to get around in Central Poitia. None of them did.
They asked a passing ferrbat tamer. He told them to try the Tower and then chased after one of his more wily charges.
They asked a leatherworker. He ummed and ahhed and then asked them if they needed any belts. Perci took two.
A pushcart vendor also suggested the ambiguous Tower, and then sold Terand something squidgy in a bun.
Milspeth suggested they take a taxi, pointing to a direhorse drawn conveyance with its distinctive lime-green ‘for hire’ sign. They piled aboard and asked the driver if she knew how to get to the address they had been given. Said driver apologised and said that this district of town changed street names so often, it was necessary to take a refresher course every few days.
They then asked about the Tower, and she said that was probably a good idea as the group could probably get up to date directions from there, though it would take a while. Rancha flashed a ruby from the bounty bag and she instantly smiled, whipping the direhorse into action, cutting the journey time in half.
They spent much of the traverse staring out the windows except for Goe who went to sleep as old men do in rocking conveyances. Yrinmet and Terand both professionally noted the direction they were taking and that they were following the river downstream to where the buildings seemed the densest. As they neared the approximate centre of the semi-city they saw many, many structures that could easily bear the term Tower with a capitalised T.
Then, to general surprise, they pulled up to a nondescript structure barely two floors high, dwarfed by the giant buildings surrounding it both in terms of height and width. The taxi driver then smiled winsomely and charged them a further ninety Stands which was somewhat extortionate after the ruby, but nobody felt like arguing, which spoke volumes of the morale of the team at this point.
They stood on the pavement and stared at the Tower. Constructed of roughly polished sandstone, every single stone that made up the whole had the faint etching of cabalistic symbols, obviously worn down over a great many years worth of weather. There was only one entrance and no noticeable windows. A little plaque above the door confirmed they were in the right place, bearing the legend: “Tower: Entrance”.
They shuffled through the small door and were confronted by an anticlimactic scene. The Tower was completely hollow on the inside, making sounds echo somewhat. Stood in the centre of the Tower on smoothly polished floorboards was quite an elderly gentleman in a finely woven cassock. He smiled a toothless smile as they approached.
“Vishitors!” he wheezed, “Ish been agesh since we get thoshe. Every bugger hash a Navi-Imp or a GP-esh theseh days. How we…h…help you?”
Staring carefully at the apparition, Rancha politely approached and handed over the address to the abode of the unknown engineer.
“Can you get us here, please? And quickly if that is okay. This journey is painful enough already.”
“Ee, it is direcshions you need eh? Eh? Wassat? Oh, I know where that ish. One shecond, pleash.”
His arthritic hands extended on wrinkly arms and waved at the ceiling with a faint expression of pain on his face. There was a sudden drop in air pressure and a flash somewhere up above. Then floating gently as a feather, a solitary piece of parchment lazily zig-zagged down to land at his feet. He bent to pick it up causing himself to go cross-eyed as his back audibly cracked. Straightening and hobbling across to the group and tucking the paper into Perci’s hand he cheerfully uttered the following:
“Thish will get you where you are going, right enough. And get thoshe gitsh outside to send in some swampchuck shandwiches, I’m hungry.”
They nodded and smiled and shuffled outside.
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Pib had the honour of informing the nearby guards of the epicurean request while the others crowded around the new piece of paper, which bore uncannily explicit directions.
“Face towards the sun, walk forwards, left at the glassworks, right at the food stall specialising in exotic greenhouse-grown fruits, turn ninety degrees left towards the alleyway, forward, right at the end, forward to the blacksmith called Grit, turn toward the sun, forward….”
“It doesn't get any better this trip, does it?” muttered Rancha.
“It's an adventure! Cheer up!” said Pib.
Rancha may have pulled a facial expression that might have been mistaken for a smile in a dimly lit area. The directions were abysmally complex and phenomenally accurate, with lots of reference to purveyors of processes none present had heard of. The bit about miniature figurines made Goe laugh raucously for no reason anyone else could fathom.
Trying to figure out the position of the sun in relation to the useful mirrors on high, they set forth and saw innumerable sights of art and artifice. It was such a long trip that they required lunch. Consensus was to briefly stop at a fish fry (with buns!) owned by a lady called Haneth who was immediately introduced by several wry, bearded men hanging around the area to be somewhat of a lady of ill repute. A downright brazen hussy even. She wiggled her bustle in Perci's direction, causing him to blush furiously, while all the while extolling the religious value of cooked enbunned fish. After eating their fill and dragging Perci away from the hussy’s lewd winking their journey gradually, painfully gradually, continued.
At least two and a half hours later they arrived. Or at least so the directions stated. The group seriously had doubts at the vista they saw.
“Really?” said Perci.
“Yup,” said Terand.
“It's a dump.”
“It's worse than that,” said Yrinmet. “I know precisely what this particular workshop produces on a daily basis. This is extremely unlikely to be the correct location.”
“And yet here we are,” said Rancha, looking around carefully and slowly, his sense of danger prickling a little.
The place was a tip. Most of the front of the building was coated in a suitably vicious style of graffiti, and at least one corner of the roof had fallen off into an unmoved pile of rubble. The very neighbourhood in which they found themselves gave even the experienced Terand an itchy sword palm. Sights half-seen in the shadows caused other hands to also reach for weapons. The eyes of grimy street people, who were slumped in shaded doorways, glinted. They gave fresh meaning to stripping people with their eyes, as they calmly calculated the exact sales value of everything the crew had on them via poorly concealed enchantment. The locals wanted the group to know they were being watched and watched they were very much being.
The sun mirrors in this part of the semi-city were not as well kept as the main drag, thus the light that filtered down had a rather green and icky hue, practically being a substance in itself. After a hurried paper, scissor, stone session, Pib was volunteered to knock on the door to the workshop ostensibly on the basis she was small enough to escape notice if things turned ugly and she was an order of magnitude stronger than the varied strengths of the current group.
Cautiously, the cheerfully mobile iccle approached the splintered door, which had been viciously attacked by woodworm over a great deal of time. A small cloud of sawdust drifted off as she tapped gently at one corner.
At her touch, it swung open into a standard forbidding gloom that predicted doom for all those who dared to enter. Unconsciously, the group drew closer together, fearing what would transpire next.
“Anybody home?” enquired Goe, peeking around the doorframe.
“Yoo-hoo!” yodelled Milspeth on the other side.
Rancha shook his head, sighed and decided he was past caring. He strode into the abode, disappearing from the others’ sight in the gloom. Literally, much to the distress of Perci's bladder.
“Wow!” came his voice from thin air; “This is pretty good.”
“Rancha? Where are you precisely?” said Yrinmet.
“Huh? I’m stood here in front of you. Hello.”
The remainder collectively peered into the grimy haze.
“What, have I gone invisible again or something?” There was a sound that hinted that he was waving frantically. “Oh, dammit I’d better not be, I nearly got killed by a truck the last time.”
Yrinmet walked over to a point just past the doorframe and stuck his hand out. He observed that it disappeared up to the wrist. He looked thoughtful, and then panicked as he found he could not pull the limb back out of wherever it had gone into.
“Uh, a little help here,” he implored. Then, he had a small heart attack as the unseen Rancha grabbed his outstretched arm and pulled, causing Yrinmet to disappear also.
“Huh, wow indeed. It is merely a reality interface, come inside and look at this!”
There was a collective 'ohh!' and an exchange of knowing glances. Then, under the watchful eyes of the locals, the group filed into the workshop.
“That was a bit long-winded,” noted Goe, looking around the interior.
“But necessary,” said Terand. “Will you look at this stuff?”
“Anybody home?” shouted Pib.
“Shop!” yelled Milspeth.
“I’ve never understood that one,” said Terand. “The vultures always turn up anyway. And besides, what does it mean: ‘shop’? It’s odd.”
“Must you pick on every little thing?” said Perci archly.
“Shush you lot I think I can hear someone in the back,” Rancha said.
They shushed, ears straining as they continued to stare about in wonder. Cautiously, the group made their way across the cluttered space.
The room resembled a renaissance inventor’s workshop at its prime, containing full sets of devices, machines, doodads and sketches, assuming that an inventor in the renaissance era possessed electricity, nuclear fusion, enchantments, hexes, a genetic laboratory, an incinerator, a microwave oven, an arc welder and decent sanitary facilities. The stewpot of a room had been left to simmer for the best part of three decades, occasionally topped up with fresh materials and whatever technology had been invented along the way. It had been boiled off with periodic clear-outs until left with the pick of the prototypes, with a few fluorescent lights and a catchy violin solo playing on the speakers in the background.
“What's that?” said Perci.
“The obligatory huge wooden flying thing?”
“No, next to that.”
“Well,” said Rancha in full tour-guide persona. “We have three different types of personal jetpack and an ultra-lightweight powered glider.”
“Over there,” said Yrinmet chiming in, waving a hand casually. “There are plans for the space station currently in orbit thanks to the boys at the Chamber Of Significant Exits. Adjacent to that, superb anatomical diagrams of most major and minor species, including a few rough notes on possibly, as yet undiscovered creatures.”
“To the left of this,” said Rancha picking up the thread, “We have a pneumatic easel currently reproducing a picture of a tree, which in turn seems to be sat on a stand with various lenses focused on it, which in turn seems to be housed in a box somehow made of marble.”
“If you allow your gaze to wander further you can see a metal construction made of wires and balls that allow a tiny brass dolphin to endlessly jump through a hoop.”
“I know what that one is, I have one on my desk at home, you idiots. I meant, what are all they?” Perci was pointing at a tall rack of sealed test tubes.
“Judging by the labels,” said Rancha “Everything from invisible ink to industrial weedkiller. Rhinosaurus tranquilliser and levitation fluid are also included, allegedly.”
Yrinmet was enjoying himself immensely. “Continuing on the left, some form of long-range communication device, with a little scribbled note attached saying ‘Melts Brains’.”
“I can read!” said Per
ci. The guided tour devolved into a series of quiet snickers.
Progress was slow, as there were many things to gawp at. They passed a section devoted to sorcerous and arcane items, such as the components to summon practically every supernatural being in existence and a pair of seven-league boots with a note attached, written in a very shaky hand instructing the bearer to: ‘Never Ever Wear’. There was also a rack containing reams of probably illegal runes.
“Every two-bit conjurer from here to perdition would probably kill to get hold of the contents of those,” said Yrinmet. He smugly mouthed a few syllables and was rewarded by a small green flash, but got no further as Terand poked him along with the blunt bit of his weapon. Yrinmet held his hand up in exaggerated defeat.
“The guy is a genius,” proclaimed Yrinmet.
“Obviously,” said Rancha with a roll of his eyes.
“More than that, he has successfully combined sorcery and science over and over again consistently.”
Terand screwed up his eyes. “And? You ever been in a museum, boy?”
“Yes. I used to own one. Some of these things he has made people have been fighting over for centuries. Especially when the gods tell them to pack it in. Remember the Zemoose?”
Rancha and Terand made 'fair enough' noises and continued to gaze at the inventions. These included an early model Eventuality Drive attached near the ceiling, dimensional padlocks, krunglin junpans, and a whole host of other wonders that many people sadly took for granted in the modern age.
For all the junk, the décor was tasteful. Coated wood panelling covered the ceiling and walls, and the floor was an organic yellowy grey non-slip material. Mounted on the walls were numerous frames containing true works of art – nearly every format and style reproducible through the means of paint was included, but oddly, only paint.
A couple of statues sat in a corner, but judging by the equipment nearby, the creator is currently more interested in designing tools to do a better job – various hoses are connected to a compressor terminating in air chisels, as well as some objects of uncertain portent.
“There's something back here?” said Pib cocking her ear at the rear door. “A voice?”