Success!!!! I have extracted the very source of the energy from one of the Furice. Only it has been tainted to a red. It’s to be as expected I suppose, I tried many methods all of which failed. For a time I almost lost hope, however I was surprised by a sudden thought, blood. In the blood, maybe I can find what I seek, and I was right. There is a similar signature to Djinn in the blood, maybe it is integrated over a life time but it is there, in minute amounts. I need more. Memoirs of General Tyga: Chapter 2 versus 2
A mere 20km stretch of desert between us and Lint City, a grand circle city structure, 100 kilometres in radius. On the contrary to expectations it is more of a hole in the ground, split into 4 layers, each layer further towards the centre and lower into the hole. The sheer differences of the outskirts to the centre zones are worlds apart, a magnitude almost indescribable.
Zone 4 is home to the slaves, beggars, and all the lower class that do not even have a place called home. The streets are their bed, the bare wells situated around the city are their only source of water, food is rotten and bad where ever you look, but still these people and aliens alike share their livelihood together to live.
Zone 3 is home to the middle tier working class, 20 meters below ground the shanty town house are filled with miners, engineers, everything related to construction and well-being of managing the city.
Zone 2 is 60 meters below that, holding the city guard barracks, doctor’s quarters and surgeon clinics. No matter the zone, all are permitted to go to the surgeon clinics and doctors quarters if a working permit is present. If people get sick, they die. Therefore the loan shark method is free service for a minimum of 10 fold labour free work, of which serves to chain the poor to the city for free labour.
And finally, zone 1, largest of all the zones at 50 kilometres in radius and placed at an incredible 200 meters below the surface. The rich and wealthy business tycoons, mob bosses, and the ruling faction of Lint the Sand Wraiths. All living in tall skyscraper like buildings ranging from 100’s of meters all the way to a massive 500 meter tower located in the dead centre of Lint. Sand Tower, built so high it can be seen and looked on with envy.
“Wooow, look at that tower. It’s amazing.” Kiria leans into the front, twinkling lights in her eyes. “That is sand tower, home to the ruling faction of Lint.” I talk directly to Kiria for the very first time. “Hm,” she turns her head turning her hose up at me. “I didn’t ask you!” she barks at me, clearly remembering I was the ‘broom boy’. “This little,” a deep frown crosses my brow. “Kiria! That’s no way to speak to our sexy young driver,” jumping into the conversation Cait defends me. “Bu-but he’s just a broom boy, who cares.”
*slap*
A bright red mark spreads across the smooth white skin of the girl. A look of bombshell appears instantly, “I expected better from you, you should be ashamed.” The Fox had changed to her ginger self, instead of her regular smiling cheeky grin a cold and disgusted look pierces the blonde girl. She could not even respond, for some reason a feeling of deep shame overwhelmed her. She felt like crying. Not because she was slapped, but because this women she seemed to have really gotten along with was staring at her in such a way she felt rotten inside. Looking down, “I’m sorry.” Tears form, “There is more to people than appearance and status…” Cait speaks in monotone.
The girl looks to this figure she was beginning to admire over the last 2 weeks. The words rebound constantly in her working brain, but she still could not accept such reasoning, she who had been born into royalty her entire life. She who was told her father did not have time to play house, a mother who gave her free reign of the city, money and extravagance is all she had known. The lower class were like a plague in her eyes. But these two women she had met, Cait and Kites defied logic, whose might completely broke the boundaries that she knew. These powerful people stuck up for these lower class people, “why…?”
The trucks grind to a halt, the main checkpoint of Lint was a shitty little guard post. “Permits,” a cold rough voice shoots into the driver’s seat. “Here,” the convoy driver hands him a black card, “oh, sorry for the rude behaviour sir. Carry on, I will phone ahead and let you directly into zone 2. Enjoy your stay.” The soldiers all did a 180 and stood away from the trucks when they saw the obsidian card, the letters SAND written in gold, impossible to counterfeit.
The out zone did not actually count to the size of Lint, they were looked down upon as vagrants but it was more trouble to move them than to force them out. 40 kilometres of rubbish filled dirt streets, people sitting in the streets. Despair engraved into their very skin. I look from the passenger seat. A stirring of anger fills my heart. “One day…”. Kiria looks at these people and for a second she begins to feel in her heart she is wrong.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Stop the truck,” gritting my teeth I clasp the door handle, veins popping. The truck comes to a halt again, the other trucks follow suit, hopping from the truck I stride towards the body of an infant. It was bruised and battered. A fury already raging to get out was threatening to get out. A sickly woman, on the edge of dying sat, staring at the body. I could tell she was the mother, I pick up the kid and take it to her, her legs were broken and cripple. The strength in her arms was gone, the tears had dried. She was broken. She nods her head in appreciation, a sad happiness cries from her.
Kiria stares in awe at this ‘cabin broom boy’, a sting in her chest makes her feel the slap before again. The sad smile of the broken woman and the smile of sadness brought to her by the pony tail man bring tears to her eyes. It was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen, her thoughts turn to confusion. “I am a royal woman I can’t be here…” but, “my home feels so dirty…”
*******
All the while Kiria was on this path of self-discovery, and the captain providing a kind of closure for the baby infant and mother. “I see now, this was the beginning. I’m sorry…” A man in a grey cloak stares out onto the far street, eyes white as snow. “The red lamp, you must take the red lamp.” A muted sound hangs on the wind drawing close to the Captain.
*******
I feel a soothing vibration, turning my head. “Take the red lamp,” inaudible streams of words enter my ears, only the last few words seem to make sense. The grey cloak and ghostly eyes stare at me intently and then vanish from sight, “what the hell..?” I look around and notice no one else seems to have notice and I wonder if he was there to begin with.
“Hey come on, we gotta make the meet time.” The driver to the truck yells to me. Snapping me out of my trance, I give the woman a tap on the head. She nods appreciatively. The next hour we drive past similar scenes but we do not have the time to spare, we pass another 2 checkpoints and reach the second zone. The SAND hotel is the most luxurious hotel in the second zone and is the place where all auction guests and auctioneers must report to.
After all the trucks are parked the hosts of the auction come down to value all the ‘goods’ and take the guests to their rooms until the time and place of the auction is released.
“Arms cache of the late General Tyga, research notes from the industrial revolution Era on steam power, harpoon of old…” The list goes on to state many trinket items and special materials Odin had plundered over the years.
“Well – you sure have been busy, Jinn.” The curator in charge of valuating the items turns to the pony tailed man. “Eyes like a hawk, curator Sven. I had hoped to remain anonymous...” I gaze steadily at the old man, grey hair and clean shaved face, walking cane by his side, curator Sven dog of the Sand Wraiths. “Ah, my apologies Captain.” A polite bow replies but the sharp threatening look in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed.
“That old fuck stain,” Kites curses. Baines and Cait nod in agreement and Kiria, she just stares at the pony tailed man in front of her. “You’re the Captain!!?” disbelief hanging in her outburst. “What do we do now boss?” Baines turns to their captain. Kiria’s question forgotten in the past, “Hey, I’m talking to you… Are you really the captain!?” she stomps her feet while yelling.
“Yes, I am the captain.” I turn towards the blonde girl, “and don’t think I have forgotten about your words toward me these last two weeks.” The girl immediately flinching, she casts her eyes downward. A waterfall of questions and thought whirl her mind, but nothing comes out. In addition a small buzz worms into her conscious.
“We can’t leave, not without fighting our way out. The enticement of our cargo is too great, without the threat of retaliation from my city they might decide to go for my head.” Thoughts drift out of my brain and into the elevator.
“How did he figure it out anyway,” a soft sputter drifts from the Fox. “It’s not like he has ever met the Captain…”
“I’m guessing he was tipped off,” Baines breathes irregularly. “I mean, could someone really have betrayed you Captain.” He finishes.
“Whether there is a Judas or not the trap has already been sprung. It is now just a matter of its design. There are in my view two possible plans with some amounts of success.” Lighting a cigarette stimulates my thinking. Electrical currents zap through my frontal lobe, spiking the response to complex thinking.
“Plan 1 we make a break for it, with our combined power at least 2 of us will die. The chance of capture is higher which in some cases can be worse.” Pausing for a moment I continue, “Plan 2 we attend the auction in two teams. Team 1 Baines and Kites take the low profile, stay hidden amongst the guests. Team 2 will take high profile and take the spotlight and attend the auction.” The arcs gain in intensity as I simulate the plan virtually in my mind.
“Chance of plan 2 succeeding with no casualties is high. But…” A tingle sits like a fly landing on my skin. “Something is out of place.”
“But what?” Everyone on the elevator except Kiria asks in unison.
“Never mind it’s nothing.” A scary uncertainty takes a misty shape.
Desert Lint city, a place of scum and sand, built by warlords and slavers. After staining the sand with blood for over a century one lone man came and decided to rule it. He forever became known as the emperor of Sand. Legend has it he alone killed every living person, slave and slaver alike and with his power opened a hole to the underworld. He traded 1000 gallons of blood for an ivory gold tower to rule over the harsh desert. Codex Entry 4~23: New Earth’s Continents