Societal Solipsism - Chapter 5: A Chance Encounter

The Busted Flagon

70 Zephyr, 1330 AE

"How does anything get done in Kryta, when your mail is this slow? All I want to do is contact one asura, that shouldn't be so hard." Liberius drank from the mug before him as if the liquor within it was water: it might as well have been, for all it affected him.

"We're still cleaning up a civil war. Mail home from Seraph takes priority, and the captains in and outside of the city come first," Hisoka explained. "Isn't it the same for charr?"

Liberius snorted. "Back in the Blood Legion Homelands, I could have mail sent to and from the Black Citadel within a week, tops. We were dealing with icebrood from the mountains, Branded from where Kralk woke up, Flame Legion, and ancient ghosts. Ascalon had different ghosts, more Branded, still Flame Legion, Separatists on top of Renegades, and..." He tapped his claw on the wooden counter, not wanting to leave any of the charr's ancestral woes off the list. The bartender shot him a brief glare at the possibility of his counter being scratched. "Oh, and they had Mordrem for a bit. Still figuring out what to do with the vines. Iron suggested burning 'em, but that'd expose the subterranean passages they made when they burrowed, and that'd let destroyers flood to the surface. Don't need them on top of everything else. I like 'em below, where they belong."

Hisoka nodded along as the litany was recited despite the fact that the primary reason for the charr not being at odds with most of the rest of Tyria was their extensive list of enemies. "Your mail system is also run by the High Legions. Ours is a lot more independent than that."

"If ours is more efficient, then you should nationalize yours. You should get another leader, too." Liberius lowered his tone a little for this: he was hardly cowardly, but saying this in a Krytan pub was liable to see him gutted by the end of the evening.

"Jennah isn't so bad, and she has Doric's blood in her. She's practically a one-woman army, judging by the dome she put up."

Liberius conceded. "Her Kralkatorrik illusion wasn't half bad either, certainly fooled the Branded." He took another drink of Eldvin Abbey Ale and resumed tapping the counter. "If Divinity's Reach had anything to do, I could take my mind off it."

"There's the target shoot-out."

"Cubs could hit those. Blindfolded."

"Right, your people developed firearms...and I guess the Crown Pavilion's closed..." Hisoka trailed off and looked around the bar. Liberius could work himself into funks like this when he was left to his own devices, but the human had learned ways to pull him from them. "If only we had Black Citadel brandy, then just sitting here would be fun enough."

"You just said 'we'. Do you remember the last time you had charr liquor?"

Liberius had the beginnings of a smile on his face. Encouraged, Hisoka pressed further. "If I remember correctly, that was right around the first time you kissed me."

The charr's smile widened, properly forming across his muzzle. "Yeah, and the first time you spit charr fur out of your mouth."

"I still can't believe the barkeep didn't kick us out."

"Oh, he did. You were just too drunk to remember."

Hisoka blushed and laughed gently. Despite being reminded of how poorly humans handled charr alcohol, he was glad Liberius was in a good mood. More than that, he was glad he was able to instill that positive change within him. "Still, lacking that, at least we have..." He looked down the counter and found a stack of magazines. A handful of people in the twilit bar had copies at their tables, and the stack seemed to have multiple editions, so Hisoka slid the whole pile over.

"Talk of Tyria, huh..." Liberius muttered as he slid issue after issue to the side. "This norn really has a lot to say about herself."

"Looks like there are other stories in there, but..."

"But?"

"...but she's a norn, I mean. What did you expect?" Hisoka tapped one of the magazine's covers. It was dark, with only an oval of light in the middle, being torn by the norn herself. Between the green goo and the dripping letters spelling 'MORDREMOTH' at the top of the page, the idea seemed to be that she had torn through a Mordrem pod. "Though, really, with her bare hands?"

"Her bear hands, maybe." Liberius grinned. He spoke dryly, his tone not evincing the joke whatsoever. Hisoka still laughed, and then he choked.

"Is that...Captain Thackeray?"

"Looks to be. Tribune Brimstone, too."

"Does Rytlock...usually go topless?"

Liberius' grin widened just barely enough for Hisoka to notice. "I should be so lucky." The charr flipped the issue open, causing Hisoka to blush. He had become acclimatized to the charr openness towards sex, but reading a blatantly romantic magazine together in a public bar fell a touch outside of his comfort zone. He shifted awkwardly and tried to relax as Liberius quietly laughed to himself. After a few minutes though, Liberius' back stiffened.

"Wait, wait. Hisoka, listen to this. 'The charr pulled his human lover through the sparking asura gate, and turned his steely grey eyes towards the human. The cloth of Logan's armour smouldered almost as much as the charr looking at him. Rytlock cupped the human's jaw, and pressed the width of his muzzle against the human's lips. Logan sighed a breathy moan-'."

Hisoka placed a hand on Liberius' shoulder. "Okay, okay, I get the picture." He paused for a moment. You don't think..."

Liberius pointed to a passage of text. "Dawnside Quay. This was Rata Sum, this was us."

The human felt his pulse quicken. "That's...certainly a touch unnerving. What should we do?"

"We find whoever wrote this." Hisoka nodded. "And we ask them what else they saw." The nodding stopped.

"We got to Lion's Arch before we-"

"No, not us. What they saw on the quay."

"Your plan is to track down a smut writer for information on Inquest activity?"

Liberius shrugged, not seeing Hisoka's problem with this course of action. "Why not? Clearly they have eyes."

"Where would we start?" Hisoka asked. He was reluctant to track down some stranger for information about something they probably had no clue about, in a city where excessive snooping would likely make its way back to his mother and Ambrosine. Given what they had gotten up to as kids though, she at least might have appreciated it.

Instead, the charr flipped to the back of the magazine and pointed at a name. "Passion Within. Kodan name, shouldn't be hard to find a kodan in a human city."

Hisoka relented. Liberius was right, a 9-foot tall bipedal bear would be fairly easy to find in a city full of 6-foot humans. "So we have a name, what now?"

Liberius called the barkeep over. "Another Abbey Ale, and one for the human here." Better that the barkeep not suspect one of them was trying to stay sober. "Where'd you get the magazines from, by the way?" he asked just before the man could turn away, trying to slip it in as naturally as possible. "Says here they're sold only in the city."

The bartender spoke over his shoulder as he refilled one mug and freshly filled another. "The norn on the cover there, she brings them in whenever she's here. Keeps the patrons coming back, a lotta men like norn women. Should be back in tonight." The man's curiosity started to grab hold, so he began to ask, "Do charr...nevermind."

Liberius' toothy smile reminded the man of a wild animal. Wanting to wrap up a social interaction he was wholly unprepared for, the bartender slid both drinks his way, gave the curtest, most formal, nod imaginable, and turned away to focus on some busywork that hadn't seemed so important just moments ago.

~~~

Saga made to leave the Busted Flagon. It had been a fairly successful evening, with audience interaction rising as the regulars became increasingly comfortable with her presence in the bar. Familiarity could go too far, but the bruises upon one man's reaching fingers could go a long way towards dissuading anyone else from trying anything. She had pulled out a new tale, one of a vanishing island off of the Maguuma's western coast. In general, the land out in that direction was unfamiliar and strange, with tales from before the days of Fort Koga providing much of the basis for contemporary folklore.

Saga had put her own spin on it using bits and pieces of asura conjecture to ground the story so that even the 'skeptics' in the audience could still think themselves good and moral: this was backed by asuran science after all, even if they themselves weren't able to explain it. Theories included ancient mursaat testing grounds, pockets of reality where the plane separating Tyria from the Mists was thin, mobile, or nonexistent, or even that the mass itself had been cast temporally-adrift by some cataclysm in the distant past or future. Suna herself believed that long nights, isolated expeditions, and the exacerbating influence of alcohol were rather more likely suspects. Still, they made for good stories, and she had easy answers ready for anyone wondering why she knew so much about asuran cryptogeography.

She began to pull those explanations up when the charr and human approached her. Seeing the charr, she puffed herself up a bit further. Humans would be impressed by stature alone, so she could allow herself to relax just a little. Around charr though, any ounce of respect would have to be earned.

"Not often we see charr around here," Saga greeted, speaking too loud for the indoor space. Her foot was just about to exit the door.

"I figure that if humans can wander the Black Citadel, I might as well explore here for a bit." Liberius' easygoing tone didn't suggest that there was anything unusual about this, as if a casual stroll through the capital city of a long-standing enemy nation wasn't even his idea of a fun time, but what he thought of as mundane.

Suna found that needlessly reckless. Saga, however, would not have. She laughed out. "Not afraid one of these humans is going to take you for your hide?"

Liberius shrugged. "No more than the kodan you work with."

Suna was grateful for her disguise as a norn. A comment like that would likely have made an asura suspicious, and most charr worth their weight on mental battlefields would have known that. A norn though, could be expected to miss the delivery. "If you're familiar with Passion's writing, perhaps we should take this outside."

The charr nodded smoothly and followed Saga through the door. She noted the way the human stayed a few steps back, the last to be cast in the tangerine twilight. Once all three of them were outside, Saga led the way to the side of the tavern: still in view of the street, but less likely to have the the details of their conversations overheard.

"So, you're looking for Passion Within? Which of you is interested?" Saga asked, as her eyes moved between the two men. Suna thought about it: trying to solve the questions you asked other people before they could answer, and comparing your results to the ones they gave, was a good way to keep your mind sharp. The human was quiet, but in the presence of a charr: unusual. The charr was doing most of the talking, but keeping the human around. Were this not a human region, she might suspect he had kidnapped the Canthan.

Oh, the human was looking for unorthodox writing, and was too embarrassed to speak for himself. He had hired the charr to do the speaking for him, seeing as the charr would likely be taken more seriously. Bit of an unorthodox species for a human to pick, but it was likely the first thing he thought of when something big, brutish, and beastly, came to mind.

"Both of us, finding charr-human romance is hard. We could write our own, but the little guy here," Liberius elbowed Hisoka, who turned redder than Suna thought possible, "always gets flustered. Saw Passion's little bit about Tribune Brimstone and Logan, and thought he might have some more." The charr spoke with no hesitancy or concern for propriety. On some level, Suna respected that.

On another, white-furred, level, she saw a business opportunity. "Given the history between your people, the demand for that sort of writing is...slim." She stated this tactfully. The Rytlock and Logan piece had made a bit of a splash, but it was largely shock value. If there wasn't a larger market for it, she would have to carefully space releases like that out, or risk eroding the sense of violation that caused people to become interested.

"But I think he has a bit of a selection." She didn't want to sound like her knowledge of Passion's wares was too intimate, or risk her secrets coming apart, but she knew exactly what he had: power fantasies for charr and humans alike, sultry boundary-breaking romances, and pieces that carefully walked the line between the two. In leading the pair to believe that their desires weren't going to be met, and then offering them something anyway, she was hoping to make them feel both generous and fortuitous.

"Sounds great, when can we meet him?"

"You wouldn't rather I bring some by tomorrow?"

"It'd be nice to talk with someone else fur-covered in this city. No offense, Hisoka."

Liberius and Saga stared at one another, each sizing the other up. The request would have been unusual coming from a human, where intimacy was something to be hidden away and ashamed of, but charr were more of a wild-card. Saga cursed herself for not looking deeper into the way charr viewed sensuality, but nodded.

"And I suppose becoming Snow Leopard would not suit you?" Saga asked with a laugh. She lifted the back of her arm and sprouted a patch of rosetted fur with ease.

Liberius shrugged. "Only if you were in that form all the time."

It took every ounce of concentration for the asura not to go on the defensive. She barely kept her breathing level. "Passion will be at the Dead End Bar a little after midnight. For now though, I must be going."

Saga walked quickly off into the Divinity's Reach evening, unshielded by the crowds that had recently slipped into buildings for refuge from the Zephyr chill. She had just made plans for midnight, after all.