Societal Solipsism - Chapter 2: Pyramidal Scheming
Lyssa Low Road
60 Zephyr, 1330 AE
An elderly man stood behind a stall in Divinity's Reach, tucked in against the wall at the base of the Lyssa Low Road. It was early in the morning, leaving few idle citizens to stop and peruse his stock. Nearly everyone had the energy characteristic of someone on their way to work in the morning: mechanical, tired, and uninterested in an academic diversion.
The man peered through the crowd, looking for the exceptions. The mornings tended not to be the most lucrative parts of his day, but they were the ones he relished the most. Despite the early hour, and his advanced age, the man was definitely glad to be awake. His fingers tapped at the wooden knots on the stall, drumming a little beat to himself as he took stock of his own goods.
Alerted by some invisible alarm the man stood taller, straightened the magazines laid out before him, and pulled his walking stick closer. Sure enough, a young Elonian woman wearing a large, circular, pair of glasses approached from the northern ramp leading up to the high road. He greeted her with a nod, and she returned it in kind before closing the distance. Deferentially, she waited for him to speak first.
"Miss Anand, your order as requested." Michael Williams spoke in a low, cracked, voice that itself spoke to the breadth of his experiences. He took a small package wrapped in brown paper from a lower shelf behind the stall and placed it upon the counter.
The woman was clearly excited but tried to show some measure of restraint. "Did you get, I mean, did you..." Arunima stopped herself, took a deep breath, and slowed her breathing. "Mister Williams, did your employer receive a response from Genzhou Talonrend? I understand if they didn't, tengu can be quite reserved when it comes to communicating." Michael could tell that she had practiced the question earlier, as her diction was incredibly measured and precise. He waited a moment to build suspense, before nodding and looking down at the package.
The pretence dropped immediately, and Arunima tore into the paper. Inside was a magazine with considerably more care put into its printing than most of the others at home, or even the rest upon the stall. While it still bore the Talk of Tyria label, the rest was far more subdued, with its points laid out in a more orderly, less attention-grabbing fashion. The woman flipped through about halfway, to where the correspondence with the tengu had been transcribed. Beneath her glasses, her eyes flicked back and forth with raw excitement, in a fervent attempt to extract every minute detail from the text. The full letters about Genzhou's book, Riding the Wind: The Tengu Exodus, had been answered in kind, but she managed to close the magazine after taking in a single page. She brought out her coinpurse, slid a few silver onto the stall, and beamed a wide grin at Michael.
"Thank you, Mister Williams. Now I just have to figure out how to append this to my copy. I'm sure your boss had tons of people send questions in, I'm just glad so many of mine were picked."
Michael nodded, trying not to let his smile falter. The truth was, Arunima was one of the few people who had questions to ask Genzhou. Most everyone else interested were scholars who had sent their own letters and received their own answers. At the very least, the man was glad he could make this avid reader happy, even if this part of his day was far from lucrative.
"Those pages are detachable. I thought you might care to make something of that."
Arunima looked fit to burst. She hurried out a rushed thank you and ran for the ramp up towards the high road at top speed. Michael smiled a somewhat bittersweet smile to himself, as he got ready for the rest of his day.
~~~
The Busted Flagon
60 Zephyr, 1330 AE
"—that's right, twelve of them! The monster itself, and its crystalline children, rushing towards me in a swarm! I was surrounded, and you know what I thought?"
A human looked up at her from a nearby table. "You thought you weren't going to make it out?"
"I thought of what would most impress the skalds! I rushed for the mother, while her crystalline barrage rained down around me! I swerved, and took cover behind a Branded tree. Moments later, Brand met Brand, and exploded in a stored lightning storm, arcing across my arms. I jumped away, regained my footing on the slick crystal, and ran right back in, aiming for one of the small devourers" —there was a moment wherein the assembled humans wondered at how anyone could describe a devourer as small— "at a full sprint. Her attacks began to lead me, as my prey learned. What fun is a creature that you can understand?"
Several men turned to look at a ruddy-faced human, branded a hunter by the furs he was wearing. The man scoffed, crossed his arms, and turned back towards the norn regailing them with her story. Saga Svendottir had become somewhat of a staple in the tavern the past few weeks, showing up shortly after the bar rush had begun to share her tales. So long as the crowds stuck around, the management didn't seem to mind. Plus, she was bigger than their most muscled norn bouncer.
"The mother shattered her child right then and there. Once more, crystal destroyed crystal, and I knew my plan was working. So what did I do next?" she asked the crowd, looking as many of the men and women in their faces as she could.
"You had 'er kill all of 'em!"
Saga laughed, and shook her head. Her long, platinum blonde braids danced about her shoulders as she put on a show. "Not quite! All but one, I had her destroy. And then, I charged again. Each time before, I had run, but this time, I beseeched Snow Leopard to lend me her strength. The Brand blurred around me, as I ran with all the speed of her will behind me. At the last moment, before I crashed into the creature, I kneeled."
A gasp spread through the crowd. Most had never even seen a Branded creature up close, let alone dreamt of kneeling before one.
"I spun wildly on the smooth crystalline ground, swept its legs out and grabbed the prone creature. It dug its shard-encrusted legs into my arms, but I got to my feet and ran once more. Fur sprung from my arms" —Saga lifted her arm aloft and selectively shifted it, maintaining the rest of her form but bearing the rosetted limb of Snow Leopard— "and once more the speed came, clearer now. Snow Leopard teaches us stealth, but she also guides us towards strategy. I sped towards the mother, lifted the young devourer aloft, and threw it towards its parent. They cracked together in a blinding storm of lightning, and when all cleared..."
A breath, and then another.
"Nothing but twitching pieces of crystal remained."
Saga clapped her hands together up and down, as if dusting them off. A few patrons clapped, and a few lifted their mugs to her. A few more whistled, and those she shrugged off. So long as she brought in receptive crowds, she didn't care. Now came for the rest.
"But I couldn't possibly regale you with all of my tales tonight, nor even in a thousand more." She picked up one of the magazines sitting atop the table whose chair she had jumped onto after getting a little carried away earlier in the story. "But there are many more in here. Talk of Tyria: Stories and Sagas, with a new edition weekly. While I share many adventures with all of you, my most devoted listeners, many more are written here." She tapped the cover and set it down. "Feel free to pay at the bar, on discount with your drinks."
Saga got down from the chair, and tried not to look as if she were watching how many people were making moves to buy copies. The numbers were fairly respectable, definitely more than in the morning, but she wondered how she could enhance sales. Saga leaned back against the bar as a small group of men and women came up to her, eager to chat. She stayed: she could spare a few hours.
~~~
The Dead End
61 Zephyr, 1330 AE
The kodan blinked slowly, calmly, soothingly. The woman across from him drew her cloak's hood tighter around her face and cast a glance around the dimly-lit bar. Shadows played across the walls like a crowd of secret onlookers, piquing her paranoia. But when she looked into the kodan's face; that strong, male, comforting, face, that all seemed to fall away. Her eyes met his, and she felt her heart flutter.
"Lady Madeline, if I may." Passion Within spoke, his voice tinged with the hard ice of the frozen north. Deep within though, Madeline could hear the flickering warmth of a flame desperate to reach out and comfort her.
She sighed, "Please, speak." Trying not to sound too desperate...but maybe a touch of desperation wouldn't hurt, if it would draw that hidden flame out.
"I look around this city, and I see society. A rich, cultured, society, built up generation after generation." He leaned in, and Madeline followed suit, her heart racing. "You may have been made in this society, but it was not where you were born." She gulped, and took a deep breath. The kodan's masculine scent filled her, and she shivered.
His paw slid across the table towards her. His nails were trimmed but thick, and his paws were large enough that they could have nearly covered her back if he held her. She moved her hand closer to his, imperceptibly, before he lifted his own up to reveal a magazine. On the cover, a human noble dressed in her nightgown stood before her window. Silver moonlight poured across the scene, illuminating the figure of a kodan in repose. Scarlet fabric kept him decent in only the barest of terms and played with the white of his fur in a stunning way even on the washed-out magazine cover.
"You can set yourself free Madeline, and embrace the wild that gave birth to you."
Passion Within didn't have to worry that he was laying it on too thick. The noble bit her lip, looked between him and the magazine, and passed him the gold coins the cover was asking for. She stood to leave, but held eye contact with him for a few seconds before coming around the table. She reached down, touched his paw, and struggled to look directly at him.
"Perhaps...in a week's time?" She left the question floating on the air, allowing him to make of the following week's activities what he would. Passion nodded, extending her the same ambiguous courtesy, and watched her shadow on the wall as she made for the door.
~~~
Michael Williams walked home, now fully lit as the sun came over the outer walls of Divinity's Reach. The Eastern Commons were quiet in the way that cities often are, with all the bustle washing out into a background noise that hardly seemed to penetrate the thick veil of thoughts. He had not made many sales, but that was fine: this part of the day was his favourite. He found the early morning goods had the most of 'him' put into them, and the conversations with his morning patrons were always the most enriching.
~~~
Saga Svendottir waved away a few eager listeners. "There will be more to share tomorrow! If you can't wait that long, you know where to find more." She pointed back towards the Busted Flagon, and a few of the bargoers looked as if they were considering it. A few others rolled their eyes and stared after her, clearly more interested in her than her legend. She shook her head and walked off, long gait making the trip back to the Eastern Commons easy. She had to meet with her boss before heading out for the night, when she would put her more ursine talents to good use. She didn't mind the afternoon shift, as it gave her a chance to please a crowd. There was a certain thrill that came from it, and she was wondering if the path of a skald might have suited her after all. She shrugged. "There's always time to try something new."
~~~
Passion Within struggled to keep his face calm. Lady Madeline was an excellent catch, and he knew she would be back. Most humans would not admit to attraction to other races — barring norn, of course — which made capitalizing on those desires far easier. If Madeline was willing to admit that she found the strong arms of a kodan holding her at night to be alluring, then she would be less likely to fall for the first kodan to show her any form of attention. On one hand, this left Passion glad that she would be a continued source of income, but unsure of how to deal with the situation in the long run. He would have to keep engaging her, or she might become bored. Further complicating matters was the matter of expansion: if she told her friends, which he was banking on, then he would have to give each vague enough signs that they each believed themselves to be the favourite, without having such compelling evidence that the others would feel that they had lost. He chuckled to himself, shook his head, and thought about how this, too, was a form of balance.
~~~
Michael opened the door to his house, set his bag down on a shelf by the front door, and set about preparing his review of the day for his boss. The letters to and from Genzhou had proven to be successful, but perhaps he should be looking at exclusive interviews with paid compensation. If he borrowed some gold from the rest of the day's sales, he might just be able to make something work.
~~~
Saga passed through the front door of her house, and made for the back room where the night's supplies were kept. She hummed to herself, as she thought of the afternoon's successes, and what she would try tomorrow.
~~~
Passion walked up his staircase, ready for bed. This latest venture certainly seemed to be promising, and might even let him finally focus on his true passion, if it proved to be lucrative enough.
~~~
Michael reached for his hand and pulled his ring off.
~~~
Saga reached for her hand and pulled her ring off.
~~~
Passion reached for his paw and pulled his ring off.
~~~
Suna slipped another ring on, and Saga Svendottir turned to the tall mirror by the front door, ready to practice tonight's recitation.
~~~
Suna slipped another ring on, and Passion Within readied his most stoically-alluring passive expression.
~~~
Suna yawned, stretched her arms high above her head, and climbed into bed.
It was good being your own boss.