image [https://imgur.com/Q4mjQwC.jpg]
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After leaving the café of mildly hostile opinions, we all walked along the pier by the ocean. Marek gave me a piggy back so I could see really far out!
This pier had a big Ferris wheel and a little building where you could play games and stuff, kinda like a little festival. They’d just opened for the day, so the Ferris wheel line wasn’t long.
“Ooh ooh!” I cheered and pointed at the big round attraction. “I want to ride the Ferris wheel!”
Uncle didn’t see why not. Each cabin had enough room to support two people comfortably, so we all paired up at random and enjoyed the ride.
Facing me in the cabin was none other than Miss Lauri herself. She was all smiles, the kind that made me feel comforted by her presence. Adding to that layer of comfort was the fact that she’d worked alongside dad personally.
It felt like I’d met her long ago, and I wasn’t even taking into account the fact that her virtual nametag was filled out, or my baby picture in her purse. Her aura was warm, soothing, a feeling that filled my younger years. But for her to have done that, she would have had to have been in The Hive.
“Miss Lauri, did you ever see my home on Paradina?” I asked.
“Hmm…” she poked her chin and tilted her gaze up to the skylight window. “Can’t say I have seen it. But I’m sure it’s a lovely place. Your father told me all about it, especially those pretty flowers you both planted together.”
I’m glad daddy was bragging to other people about things we did together. That meant it was meaningful to him.
“One day, will you take me there?” she requested. “It would do wonders for proving the non-believers wrong.”
I was more than happy to take her there and show her as much of Elysium as she wanted. But why on earth did anyone not want to believe that her research on the Nalnara network was real in the first place?
Posing my question this time seemed to drum up more quiet sorrow than abrupt anger.
Our cabin was reaching the very top of its climb on the Ferris wheel, then it stopped. Miss Lauri took a sigh as she gazed over the ocean.
“Mana power is the most efficient form of energy there is. Learning to harness it would mean that any competing ideas would be unnecessary and irrelevant.”
There really weren’t any alternative power sources here on the surface world that I saw. Almost everything was powered by mana and it wasn’t even close. Mana was just so abundant. Coming from someone who lived on the moon in the center of the planet that infinitely produced it, they had nothing to worry about.
“Then why would anyone not like it?” I asked.
“Some powerful people don’t like the idea of having something like mana fuel our civilization. They can’t control it, and it’s free to everyone, so they try to make their own thing to challenge it.”
That was like trying to replace the air with an alternative gas, then make people pay for it.
“What are they trying to replace it with?” I asked.
“So far the prevailing source is called azolite. It’s a synthetic liquid that looks a bit like gold and burns like gasoline. It’s an old fuel that Nazalians used.”
I’d never even heard of that stuff. Whatever it was, it was sure not to be as efficient as mana.
“Why do they want to use it?” I asked.
“It’s very powerful and produces a lot more energy than mana, but the waste it makes is enormous. It’s not sustainable.”
These humans seemed to get less understandable by the day. They had a really good fuel in mana, but wanted to use something else. Then again, demons were messing with their societies, so it was likely that this was a corrupted idea that they couldn’t control.
I don’t really get that at all,” I shrugged.
“Neither do I,” she mirrored my shrug. “But that’s why we women of science need to keep fighting those idiots from ruining public perceptions of our work.”
Yeah! Everyone needed to know that mana was free and for everyone to use.
~☆☆☆~
After a few rotations with all the cabins loaded, the ferris wheel finally let us all off and we all reconvened. There was still a little time before we wanted to head to Yamin’s cousin's home, so we explored around the pier for any more fun little games to occupy our boredom.
One guy had a little stand set up with a huge pile of clams. In each of them was a chance to get a pearl. If you found the one with the blue pearl inside, you’d get a wish!
“How much per try?” Marek asked, preparing his wallet.
The vendor surprised us by claiming it was, “A single Pier token.”
“No way!” Indena reached into her pocket and pulled one out. “Finally, I can get rid of this stupid thing.”
When did she get that? I didn’t see her pick one up recently.
“Yeah, I’ve had one in my purse since Urnan.” Yamin pulled out one too.
Marek and Uncle had some too.
Pier tokens were coins scattered all across the world. They have the superscription of a goddess with a bob cut on them. People say they don’t do much, but hey, I wasn’t going to complain if they had some use here. They’re usually gold, but I had a silver one I got in a dream.
Everyone pulled out one coin and handed it to the man. Even Uncle had one. I had fifty seven left after that.
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With eager hearts hoping to get that wish, the others started cracking open the clams and checking inside.
“Mine’s empty.” Yamin frowned.
“Mine’s empty too.” Marek shrugged.
“Nothing,” Uncle said.
“Jack all.” Indena tossed the clam into the ocean.
“This is why I don't play gacha games…” Miss Lauri lamented. “I have the most rotten luck.”
Indena whipped out another coin. So did everyone else but Uncle. I didn’t open one just yet.
Like before, all the clams were empty.
“Crap!” Indena said, flipping the man another coin. “I wanna see a blue pearl. And screw these stupid coins!”
They were really getting into this. Finally Yamin ended up getting something, but it was just a normal white pearl.
“Yeah!” she cheered. “I got something!”
“Oi, I want one now.” Indena reached into her pocket, but was out of tokens. She had three of those to begin with? I still have no idea where she got them. “Freaking great…” she stomped over to Marek. “Blue Boy, got any tokens left?”
“If I did, I would have used them,” he shook his head.
“Damn!” Indena swore again. What a potty mouth! “The one time you need them, and they’re not around.” She started looking all over, checking under vending machines and tables to find a coin. People were staring uncomfortably.
“Er… Sir?” Yamin looked at the vendor. “Why do you take Pier tokens and not real money?”
“Good question. I take those because, believe it or not, on an international scale they hold some value. But that’s all I’ll say for now, or else my secret might get out,” he snickered.
I guess that makes sense, but I couldn’t deny that they were pretty useless out here. They were pretty much worth the same thing as a glorified pizza parlor token.
“Ah ha!” Indena held up a coin she found. “Outta’ my way!” She pushed everyone aside and handed the token to the man. “Alright, just gotta…” she opened it up, but paused. “What the heck is this?”
The one she opened up had a crystal heart in it, just like the one in my chest.
Everyone was staring at it, but only Uncle and I could tell what it was.
“I’ll be…” the vendor rubbed his brow. “I’ve never seen anything like that in one of these.”
“Oi, Shrimp, this look like it’s worth money?”
Why did she all of a sudden care so much about getting money?
“It’s just cheap sea glass,” Uncle answered for me, lying about its value.
Indena took the hint and handed it to Uncle. He put it in his pocket for safe keeping. When we had some downtime, I’d have to download any information that was on that thing.
“Little lady, now it’s your turn.” The vendor gestured to the clams.
My turn indeed!
Everyone up to now had just been randomly selecting different clams and popping them open. No rhyme or reason outside of pure luck. But I had a sneaky way of checking out what was inside.
Each of these clams were considered a separate inventory that I could access, like they were tiny item chests or something. All I needed to do was just check each of them until I found one that had the pearl we were looking for.
“Pick one already!” Indena barked, impatiently.
The guy running the gamble let out a chuckle. “Nah, let the little lady choose carefully. I have a good feeling about this one.”
Hopefully he didn’t know I was cheating. But really, was I? I was just using my resources. These sorts of games are rigged anyways, so I didn’t see a problem here.
After checking a few dozen or so, I found one with a normal pearl, but not blue, so I kept it closed.
Uncle was giving me the stink eye, so I think he was onto me. Even so, I had to keep looking until I found it!
“Hmm?!”
There was a particular clam that was showing something blue in its inventory. It was pretty well hidden in the pile, but I’d managed to dig it out from deep within.
I cracked open that clam to confirm…the blue pearl was within!
Strangely, my inventory was identifying it as a key item, meaning it was important.
“In all my years…” the guy clapped his hands. “Good job, kid! Everyone! We have a winner!”
People started flooding around to oogle over my prize. The sudden influx of people really made me a little nervous.
-WARNING! Darkness levels rising-
Wait… Why was I getting that warning message?
I checked the darkness readings out, seeing that there had actually been a pretty steady incline of dark energy since we entered this part of the city. It seemed to have just shot up a few moments ago.
These levels weren’t as high as the other places we’d encountered demons, but it was enough to definitely show that something was wrong.
Some of the people who were surrounding us seemed a bit odd. They had these bulging eyes and sweaty palms. I think this darkness was starting to affect them.
“Mel…” Miss Lauri poked Uncle, pointing at some guys in the corner giving us really mean looks. They were those big bouncer types, suspiciously similar to those mafia guys from earlier.
“Oh crap…” Indena mumbled. “You never hear what happens to the guy who wins the lottery for a reason. We need to go.”
We probably should’ve kept quiet about finding that blue pearl. Now I think we were a target. Too late to change anything now. And if those were mafia guys, they might be after revenge.
Trying to get out of this area was impossible with the swelling crowd of people blocking our path.
“Can I see that for a second?” One person asked me with their hands stretched out. “That pearl is so pretty.”
“Me too. I wanna hold it,” another said.
People were really getting in my personal space, clearly trying to steal the pearl. Uncle and Indena both stepped up to shield me like celebrity bodyguards.
Marek put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a blue pen, also requesting Yamin’s pearl.
“I have an idea to get them off our backs…”
“What are you up to, Blue Boy?” Indena barked.
“Just give me a second,” he said while breaking open the pen and pouring ink all over the pearl.
Hey, that’s smart! He was going to make a decoy.
He held the fake blue pearl up into the air, then cleared his throat to shout.
“We’ve decided to give this pearl to one lucky person here!” he announced. “Who will it be? You decide!”
He threw the fake pearl up into the air away from us. Everyone in the room freaked out and clambered over each other to try and get it.
“Let’s go!” Marek shouted, prompting us all to head out.
“Quick thinking,” Yamin congratulated.
“Sometimes you have to trick people to get what you want,” Marek said in a very disappointed tone.
“That sounds personal,” Indena commented.
“Trust me, it is.”
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