Chapter 541: Blake in the holy city

Blake was a kid in a candy store. Well, a Psion in a city full of minds. He kept Navi carefully hidden in his pocket, using the construct to inspect everything he could. He did his best not to attract attention and get himself captured or killed.

But the important thing was that he was having fun.

The ‘holy city’s portal had let him walk straight in, without even a single guard. As usual, his intuition had been correct. By moving quickly he’d arrived before the eastern players had figured out what was happening and how to react to the newly appeared teleporters.

Oh there’d been curious people, of course, and plenty of chaos. But Blake was a creature of chaos. He’d tinkered with the emotions of the few people who saw him come out directly—just a gentle little judge to make them doubt what they’d seen. Nothing fancy. Which turned out to be wise.

Civilians with ‘patrons’ apparently weren’t easily targeted. He should have realized that, but he’d been so used to dealing with non-humans. And when he

did

deal with humans they’d been his own people, or civilians without patrons all captured by the long dead ex-chief of Nassau.

But it turned out if you really jammed in a mind power on civilians, it threatened to warn (and possibly

summon

) their patron, right then and there. Presumably with the offender in question blinking with some kind of red, guilty light.

This would be…bad. So Blake had been careful.

He’d moved out into the cluster of screaming people—civilian enforcers apparently yelling at everyone to keep away from the portal. Most of said people ignored both him

and

the guards. Blake pretended just to be another Looky Lou, out to watch the drama.

He wasn’t entirely sure what his Adaptive Veil power was doing, but he knew it made him look like something appropriate. In this case he hoped for ‘non-descript civilian’. No one paid him much attention, save for a guard that yelled in his general direction to go home.

Then it was out into the city, feeling like he was somewhere between a bazaar in India and a Bladerunner movie. The eastern capital was amazing. Dirty. And a bit cramped. But amazing.

First of all, there were people

everywhere

. Most of them women. All of them civilian. For awhile Blake couldn’t do anything but stare, feeling like he were on some alien planet or some different version of the game. There were more people on a couple random streets in the eastern city then he’d seen since the game began (not counting the Neutral Zone).

Largely it seemed like commerce, but some socializing. Civilians just hung around and talked to each other. There were entertainers, courts with people playing sports, even couples on dates. There were all kinds of public screens, apparently with advertising, of all things. Some Asian guy popped up a foot from Blake’s face hawking augments, the video quality like a low budget YouTuber.

There were signs of seedier things, too.

He saw skinny people who looked desperate and dirty and possibly homeless. There were flashing images of half naked men and women, with big arrows to follow showing pictures of some special kind of coins. Blake inspected long enough to get the coin image firmly in his mind.

It was loud and colorful, constant and from all directions. Blake felt like a country tourist in a big city. The easterners lived completely different lives than the ‘small town’ west. The holy city was condensed humanity in all its misery and glory.

Blake absolutely loved it.

He

skimmed

as many minds as he could—digging in when he found his first player. Was it dangerous? Probably. But, in his experience, it was rare for players to have mental resistances. He found the young man leaving what looked like a seedy motel with two women, and followed them, probing with Mental Influence.

One of the young women said the man’s name. This helped a lot, and pretty soon Blake was inside. Martial Affinity. A list of powers. He learned the young man was a member of ‘The House of Jeong’, with some kind of low-ranking title. After some more probing his target stopped and put a hand to his head, looking around the street.

Blake made himself scarce, and walked away. There would be a time for riskier behaviour, but he saw no reason for that now. He kept walking, and watching, and probing. He learned the city indeed had a kind of physical currency, and also used the system trade tools like the civilians in Nassau.

Why would they need a separate currency? It was intriguing. He needed to figure it out before he made a mistake, because with his creation powers he knew he could make some.

He kept wandering, but he was getting thirsty and tired, with no plan of where to go. It was hotter here than Nassau—the air kind of dusty and dry. As the afternoon sun started to dip, the city seemed in a sudden panic to get indoors.

Blake began to believe there was a curfew, which posed a sudden and immediate problem. Unless he wanted to hide in an alley and hope for the best, he needed somewhere to stay.

The obvious choice was a woman. The gender ratio wasn’t as bad here as in Nassau, but it was still a thing. Even as his Adaptive Veiled ‘random generic guy’, he’d seen more than a few glances from women trying to figure him out.

He picked a middle-aged woman packing up her wares from a street cart, mostly because she had a sign that said ‘Carla’s General’. Names always made things easier.

‘Carla’, or so Blake hoped, was maybe forty, probably once attractive but on the decline, skin tanned from a lot of sun. He kept up his veil, but tried to ‘direct it’ into looking more like himself, just dirty and down on his luck.

“Excuse me, miss?”

She gave him a glance, then went right back to packing.

“Custom’s over for the day. Unless you’ve got civvy coin.”

“I’ve a few,” he said, “but I’d rather not spend them.”

She gave him another look, this one more like ‘then why the fuck are you bothering me?’

“I…need a place to stay the night,” he said, watching the world light up with Mental Influence. He gave the smallest dose of trust, but didn’t risk anything more. “Anything is fine. I’d be gone in the morning.”

‘Carla’s’ eyes narrowed.

“You should be in the public housing, then.” She shook her head and cursed, glancing at the sun. “Stupid kids. You’re too far to make it now. Why are you even…” she kept stuffing things in a bag, then looked at him again.

“You’ll carry the stuff that won’t fit in my storage. You’ll be on a mattress on the floor. And I’m not feeding you. And you can’t use my shower.”

Blake smiled his most charming smile. There were advantages to everyone being ‘protected’ from each other, he decided. It lowered the risk enough you could trust a stranger not to be an axe murdering rapist.

But not enough to not be a secretly powerful Psion.

“Happy to.” He stepped over and lifted the bigger bag when Carla was ready, getting another muttering curse about ‘idiot young men’ and something about ‘drunks’. He decided his Veil may have worked too well.

But he followed his new benefactor in silence, much stronger than he once was just with the few bonuses to all his stats. Still he watched, and paid attention. He saw the city empty of all its people and life, replaced by a few patrolling men and women in uniforms.

Then he saw a walking corpse-giant.

It was limping down the street plain as day, looking like Frankenstein’s monster. It was at least twice the size of a man in girth, maybe nine feet tall, dressed like a medieval guard with an iron breastplate.

Blake stopped and watched it, trying to understand what the hell he was looking at, and why the few people out weren’t losing their minds.

“Don’t stare at it for fuck’s sake,” Carla muttered. “Keep moving, we’ve only a few minutes.”

He supposed everyone would already know about the giant walking zombies, and it would be strange to ask. So he just kept following.

The merchant led him to some kind of apartment complex. The high-tech looking security door scanned her before it opened, and Blake decided he’d made a wise decision making a friend.

“Come on, then,” she said, and he froze for a moment at the door. Would it scan him, too? And what would happen when it did? Carla rolled her eyes like he was an idiot. “It only holds it open for my guest for a few seconds, hurry up.”

Blake grinned and walked through, holding his breath until he was inside with no sign of arcane or technological identification. He tromped up some stairs behind Carla, then through another hotel-like door, into a small apartment.

“Yer lucky I live alone,” Carla said, unloading her smaller bag and walking into a bathroom. “Most folk are two or three to a unit in a place like this.”

Blake didn’t bother acknowledging his usual good fortune. It looked quite clean and pleasant, with a few pieces of furniture and a large screen placed like a television. He stood there inspecting until Carla came out with a wet face and a towel.

She looked him up and down and frowned.

“Yer strong for a skinny kid. Just set the bag down anywhere for Chrissakes. And I guess you can shower, if you want. You look a mess.”

Blake smiled and set the bag down. He was being inspected now with a lot more attention, realizing his host’s eyes had glazed with some kind of actual power.

Shit. He hadn’t considered that.

“You a player?” she finally asked. Or maybe stated.

Blake would have preferred a civilian cover. He expected there’d be…additional complexity to being a player here, but he also didn’t think he could trick this woman without resorting to mind powers. It seemed likely she had a proper identification power that gave him away.

He eventually nodded. Carla’s demeanor changed quick. But at least she didn’t look at him like a bug on her shoe anymore. There was something else in her eyes, too—something Blake recognized from seeing it in the mirror most days.

Ambition. With just a subtle hint of greed.

“You fresh off the boat, then?”

He quickly understood what she meant. In a place like this, they probably had new civilians and players ‘aging out’ like Annie, popping up from wherever the system kept them until it decided they were ready.

He nodded again, and Carla snorted.

“Welcome to the shit show, I guess.” She hesitated, as if trying to decide. “Look, kid, there’s different groups you can join. I’ll get some money if I take you to one. Like a finder fee, you know? Let me do that and you can eat what you like, make yourself at home. You can even stay longer, if you want. The fee’s pretty good.”

A semi-honest merchant. Blake decided this woman might be a treasure trove of information. He wasn’t sure how much time he had, so it was important he moved quickly. He needed to find the ‘Arcane Order’. But first he needed to learn everything he could, including weaknesses, dirty secrets. Factions.

He wanted to follow the important players and start learning their worlds. He wanted to figure out why they had walking corpses and where they grew their food and how many players they had and…he smiled. He wanted to learn

everything

.

“So we got a deal?” Carla said, looking a little wary at his expression.

Blake probed her again with Mental Influence, realizing civilian relationships were as complex here as the players. Apparently this woman wasn’t part of ‘The House of Jeong’. She was in some kind of

civilian

house, with overlapping patronage that put her in some bucket without

direct

player protection.

How wonderfully useful.

“We do.”

Blake dropped his Adaptive Veil, letting Navi float out from his pocket. Carla’s wide eyes bounced between him and the floating light, and he grinned, flooding the woman now with trust and greed.

“I’ll stay several days. And I’m going to want to know

all

about these ‘player groups’, and everything about how this city works. About the walking corpses. I’ll even have some errands for you, if you want to make more coin, and a useful friend later. Meeting me might have been the luckiest day of your life, Carla.”

He smiled and took off his clothes, pleased at the still surprised but hungry look in the woman’s eyes. Then he whistled a tune, and stepped into the small shower, leaving the door completely open.