The customs building was, itself, a massive work of art. Towering stone lettering hung above the entrance announcing it as ‘The Journey’s End.’ The walls were completely covered with intricately carved scenes of heroic looking creatures performing epic deeds across breathtaking landscapes. Or so Jordan was guessing, because there was so much damn detail, plastered across every square inch of real estate, it might as well have been a photographic mosaic depicting nothing more than static! Like painting a garbage dump out of pictures of the Mona Lisa.
But like the Court House back in the city, this place had a Grecian style and feel to it. It had a hundred pillars of marbled white stone, fifty flanking either side of a gargantuan doorway, stretching a dozen stories into the air to support the tiered roof above. The entire structure was set on a massively elevated foundation, with sheer walls of alabaster stone ringing it, also carved to the nines with images, with a set of stairs, a hundred in number, leading up towards the entrance.
Lines of the dead streamed around the building, flooding the area like a convention overbooked to a thousand percent capacity. Jordan could see that there were… a hundred lines.
He knew it was a hundred lines, steps, and pillars as they had numbers painted on them. Giant, dumb looking black lettering each different in appearence as though painted by a hundred different people as well!
Everywhere Jordan looked, on top of the beauty of the carved scenes, the pure perfection of shapes and angles molded by craftsmen of unimaginable skill, was a half-ass paint job thrown on. Gemstones and precious metals were roughly glued or tacked on here and there, and the lines of the dead shuffled irritably in place, trapped in their sectioned lines with giant plasterboards sporting more lazy iconography for each. The faces in the crowd looked as though they had died a second time of boredom from the wait.
And they probably had.
In the time it took Jordan and Rahm to approach the building, ascend the stairway, and enter, a single line moved. Once.
Jordan knew, with no uncertainty, that this was not heaven. This was not purgatory. This here? This was hell.
Inside the building, the floor was a similar stone to the outside, though splashed with various colors adding to it. It also had a sheen on it as though polished with wax. Lines coming in from the outside, stretched along the sides before spiraling back in on themselves, weaving across the floor following marked pathways outlined with solid gold posts strung together with living vines covered in blooming flowers of pure gemstone.
The stench of desperation and unwashed masses mingled with the faint foulness still present in the air, strengthening Jordan’s view of this being the worst organized convention ever conceived. It was so extremely packed in here; Jordan didn’t even know how they were going to approach the obnoxiously numbered service booths sitting on the far end!
He got his answer quickly enough, however.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?”
“Ow, watch it!”
“So sorry, just… er,” Rahm said, squeezing them between several lines, “Just gotta get…”
“Get in line pal!”
“What the hell is he doing?”
“Hey! He’s cutting! What’re the queue guardians even doing!?”
“Do you know how long I’ve been here asshole!?”
“FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!”
“Where’s my sister? Has anyone seen her!? WHERE IS SHE!?”
“Someone shut that guy up! Again!”
“Heaven’s light, this place is awful…”
“Why does he get to cut, mommy?”
“Fucking asshole! Just die already!”
“I wish I were dead.”
Voices rang out, screaming protests and hurling insults. Very, very much caring about Rahm’s attempt to cut past the queues. Jordan glared at the back of Rahm, who dragged him mercilessly behind him, and had to shout out to be heard.
“I thought you said the dead wouldn’t mind, Rahm! They very much min—ow! Hey!” An understandably furious ghost grabbed onto Jordan’s hair, but Rahm turned, smiled at the man and then clobbered him square in the face. The poor ghost went sprawling, knocked to the ground in an instant. Jordan looked up at the Brat’s grandfather, startled by the sudden violence. Is he allowed to just punch his way through queues? What the fuck!?
“You son of a whore!” The punched man cried out, before launching himself back at Rahm, wailing with tormented fury. Incensed by his actions, an entire horde of angry ghosts began to throw themselves at Rahm, punching, clawing, kicking, cursing in every tongue imaginable. Jordan curled into a ball screaming incessantly, trying to escape the sudden onslaught, but Rahm just reached down, picked Jordan up, and hoisted him onto his top pair of shoulders.
The old man walked calmly forward, looking bored, wading through the pile of ghosts roiling around him. He strode uncaring through the cordoned-off lines, destroying the queued paths utterly in his way forward as he stopped trying to be polite. Many ghosts, those not prone to violence, instead grabbed onto the vines, gold poles, or each other desperately trying not to lose their place in the now ‘moving’ lines. They were dragged behind Rahm, like a perverse wedding gown made of a thousand screaming souls.
The dead in front of them, who tried to make a stand, formed an impenetrable pallid wall. They were instantly parted like the Red Sea as Rahm ambled through. They were forced to bounce away or curl around him like poorly modeled physics props. The tide of the dead was so numerous, they began to obscure Jordan’s vision, like cherry blossoms, and clawed hands dug into his pink covered form. Jordan continued screaming, babbling in panic, but Rahm just shuddered like he was cold.
It was like a grenade went off, as the area was violently cleared of the nearby dead. Rahm spoke a word, making Jordan’s ears pop, and a translucent bubble formed around Jordan before shrinking down to become skin-tight. Rahm stopped to examine his work, nodded, and then proceeded to saunter arrogantly through what few crowds were still brave enough to stand before them. All while whistling a jaunty tune.
Incensed, the dead nearby descended into a chaos that completely dwarfed the previous battle. They bashed against Rahm, screaming in pain, furry, and sorrow, the horde breaking against his lazy progress. Jordan covered his ears, squeezed his eyes shut, and howled alongside the dead.
The old man strood forth, unstoppable until the clarion call rang out.
The horn blasting into the halls sounded like Judgement Day being called, and the dead fled in droves as Rahm finally stopped. Jordan looked up, tears swimming in his eyes, and saw animal men marching towards them.
No, not animal men. Gods.
They stood, flanking Rahm, shoving their way through the few obstinate dead that refused to relinquish their place in lines. They shone with brilliance, silken sheets of cloth covering their forms, a menagerie of power. The Guardians of the Queue surrounded Rahm, and took a battle stance. Jordan didn’t miss the look of fear in many of their eyes.
“No… it’s him. It’s… It's Rahmiel!”
“Not again… not again… not again…”
“Hold your ground! He can’t be allowed to bypass the queue!”
“Sir, we can’t—”
“I SAID HOLD THE QUEUES! Are you Mortals? Or are you GODS!? If we must die this day, then die we shall! Stand and fight! Stand for honor! Stand for Good of All! Stand. And. FIGHT!”
The Guardians breathed in his words, filling their hearts with courage, as those trembling with fear suddenly stood tall, steel fused to their spines. They broke into three ranks, the front who carried pens and scrolls twirled their implements as ink stained the air, forming the outline of blades that settled on their wooden instruments. Their scrolls tore, and swirled like cyclones, settling as they formed large sheets of parchment shaped like shields but covered in imagery of Glory, filling the room with the smell of new books and pages. Runes and letterings on their robes glowed, painting them in heavy metal that hesitated in inky darkness, before shining through with gold. The Warriors of the Pen, mightier than any Sword.
Behind them, Gods wielding staves twirled them around, singing prayers into the air that covered their weapons. Blazing silver energy flowed onto wood, reforging sticks into halberds of solid light that made Jordan nauseous to look upon as the foul taint in the air intensified. Thin strips of paper formed in the air around them, circling them like Koi-Devils on the verge of ballistic assault, before descending on the Gods, crashing into their robes and fusing to them. Characters on the sheets glowed with an ephemeral light, giving each a slightly opaque aura, like a force field. The highlighting effect drew out the individual features of the multitude of animals arrayed around Rahm with a halo of colors.
The last line, smaller than the first two by a large margin, had Gods with no weapons or tools. They ripped off clothes, flexed their bestial forms, and began to circle around, walking behind the safety of the front lines as though prowling. Waiting for the moment to strike. Jordan saw several lift up their various paws, hooves, wings, or fins, taking poses and stances as they crouched and stalked. Martial Artists waiting to tear them apart, fighters who needed no Boon from Heaven to unleash destruction. Elemental energy of every conceivable variety danced around their limbs as their eyes became solid glowing orbs of energy, corresponding to the power dancing on their fingertips.
With one final blast of the horn, made of a solid chunk of carved Garnet wrapped in glittering platinum with Angelic imagery on it, the Guardians of the Queue charged, roaring like soldiers in battle but with a far grander resonance. A wave of animalistic fury that dwarfed anything a man-made army could match.
“ ’Scuse me gentlemen, would you mind—”
“FOR DEATH!”
“FOR GLORY!”
“FOR THE JADE EMPRESS!”
The Heroes of The Journey’s End charged. What few straggling dead remained nearby were obliterated on the spot, torn into sparkling motes of grey, dying energy that faded into obscurity. Light lifted the Gods up, flying them above the ground towards Rahm, who only sighed sadly, shaking his head. As the first lances of light reached him, like the edge of a nuclear explosion thundering across the ground, the shields of paper and script warped to envelop the Guardians of the Queue protectively, as One Hundred Gods struck One Hundred Times.
And in their moment of glory, as the air was ripped apart with Essence Jordan couldn’t even begin to name, Jordan saw a sense of resignation reflected a hundred times. Not a single one of the Guardians expected to survive. It showed with every desperate claw, tooth, sword, and spear that was furiously slashed, stabbed, or rent across their unstoppable foe.
The sounds of their screams and valor echoed in the Halls of the Journey’s End as a hundred soldiers were torn apart like so much chaff to be harvested and tossed out. Heroes discarded with contempt by a man who was only trying to cut in line a little.
----------------------------------------
“Milear, buddy, come on! It’s just a visitor's pass, no big deal, right? Surely you can cook me up another one real quick.”
Rahm was leaning against the altar’s counter as Jordan stood next to him, still trembling uncontrollably from the battle. The old man had several pens plunged through his flesh, sticking out like grave markers to memorialize the men who’d died in vain to stop him. Ink stained him like blood, giving his once white lab coat a black and red appearance, and a few tattered prayer scrolls continued to cling valiantly onto Rahm, their light slowly vanishing as the power burning through them hung in the air like fading embers.
Behind them was… carnage.
What Guardians remained lay on the ground whimpering, some holding limbs, or sobbing over the broken bodies of their friends. Craters scattered across the floor, and Jordan stared through a giant hole in the ornate stone wall where Rahm had tossed an entire squad of Gods through it, destroying several pillars outside in the process. Even the dead, so reluctant to leave their queues, had abandoned an area a football field in length around them after seeing the fight. After seeing him.
Rahm. The Destroyer of Queues.
“Rahm…” The God at the counter was, with no insult intended, an elephant.
Huge, and white, like some Hindu deity, he was covered in golden jewels, even capping his tusks with the shining metal. Jordan was sure he was even wearing makeup, coming across as some overweight Bollywood super star, especially with his Indian accent.
His service booth was a jade shrine decorated with golden statues of himself, with a rug filled by scenes of his gloriousness laid out before where he sat. It was clear that was where the dead were expected to kowtow and praise him before he’d deign to hear them. Numbered bowls and vases sat around the area, indicating where his hundred offerings must go.
Rahm had ignored all that. Obviously.
Milear shook his head, tusks smacking against the Rahm-cracked jade of the booth they were at. The poor Elephant-God was so damn huge he barely even fit in his shrine! And it was the size of an RV!
“You were just here. I can not issue another pass when it has only been…” The elephant reached down beneath his altar and grabbed onto a few pieces of parchments. How they stuck to his hands—which were completely authentic for an elephant despite his humanoid build—Jordan had no idea.
The god muttered a few times, sorting through several leaves, taking his time scanning both sides, before finally finding the record he wanted. “Five years! That is unacceptable! You know the process for admittance is supposed to go through the Sky-Piercing Assembly of Serene Meditations for discussion.”
“Milear, buddy—”
“Don’t buddy me, Rahm! Do you know how much trouble I received from letting in…” The elephant paused to check his notes again. Rahm surprised Jordan by standing there calmly, with all the patience in the world. Jordan’s eyebrow twitched as he gaped in open mouthed astonishment at the two of them. They were mad! Mad! The dead and dying filled the halls all around them and they were chatting like it was just another boring Tuesday morning at the VA’s office!
Page. Page. Parchment. Parchment. “No, not this one…” Page. Page. Parchment. “Ah! Oh, wait, no…”
Several minutes passed while the God searched his records. Jordan had the overwhelming urge to scream at the elephant for his memory. Weren’t elephants never supposed to forget!?
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Ah! Kioko, of the Empire of… Hovalon. Oh, poor thing. Anyway, they forced me to take on more hours as punishment Rahm! I am working nearly five hours a day because of you! Four days a week no less!” The Elephant-God looked extremely upset.
Jordan looked at Rahm and mouthed the words ‘five hours? Seriously?’
Rahm nodded knowingly and patted Jordan on his shoulder. Suddenly, Jordan felt a lot less sorry for the destruction Rahm had unleashed. It was helped by the fact that he saw several of the guards… well, respawning. Golden clouds of light would shimmer in the air, and then with a pop they’d be back. They looked around, irritated, before huffing and stomping off like angry children. They were all… fine. Even the few dead spirits that had ‘died’ again reformed, only to complain loudly to the guards when they discovered their place in the lines was gone. Their wails only encouraged the guards to leave quicker.
“I’m sorry about that Milear, but I told you I’d take care of it.” Rahm leaned forward to smile warmly. “And didn’t I?”
“No, you most certainly did not.” The god didn’t bother with paperwork for that one.
“Er… I didn’t?”
“No!” The elephant man trumpeted.
“Oh… well, this time I will! Don’t worry about it okay?”
Jordan watched, with no small amount of amusement, as the Elephant-God stared at Rahm with full blown disbelief, one eye twitching in rage as he gaped. It was nice to see that expression on someone else’s face for once.
“No! Not in a thousand, thousand years Rahmiel! Do you hear me? Never again! Now go away!” The god pointed towards the entrance to the building with one giant elephant… hoof? What are elephant feet called? Jordan thought distractedly. Er, hands. Elephant hands?
“I didn’t want to have to do this Milear.” Rahm looked down, sorrow suddenly bending his ancient bones. Jordan froze in an instance, terror stealing his breath away. Oh god, not again.
“You would not dare.” Milear’s eyes narrowed as he glared daggers at Rahm, and… literal jade daggers of golden energy, with hilts made of tiny gold idols of Milear, formed in the air and plunged towards the old man.
They pinged off Rahm and he didn’t seem to notice. Jordan bent down and scooped one up. It… you didn’t leave precious things lying about, okay!?
“I can’t convince you to change your mind, old friend?” Rahm sighed out.
“We are not friends. We have spoken three times! At most! And all you do is bully me. Guards! Guards help! HELP!” But no guards answered the man’s frantic pleas. They’d all made themselves scarce, and the lines were moving extraordinarily quickly as all the other clerks at their booths worked incredibly diligently to look busy. What courage the Elephant-God may have had, disappeared in an instant. Revealing the strong act he’d been putting on.
His terror began to slip through.
“Anyone? Please, I… help me…” The elephant man asked quietly, one… last… time.
His plump lips quivered as tears welled in his eyes as he slowly began to tremble, his trunk curling up defensively as he held himself. Acceptance for his grim fate written across his golden visage.
Jordan’s eyes weld up with sympathetic tears. “Rahm, please stop…” he tugged at the old man’s coat. “…please. Y-you don’t have to do this.”
Even if they respawn, it must hurt. To die, over and over and… Jordan shivered at the memories of butchery that had just taken place.
“I’m sorry you have to see this Aury. L-look away if you need to.” The man took a deep breath to steady himself…
And then gave the Elephant-God a pouty face. “Pwease Milear?”
Jordan… didn’t, he… what? Didn’t… why, elephant didn’t… pouty. Face? Pouty Face!?
“What the fuck old man!?” Jordan screamed, but was ignored.
“No! Not that… Noooooo! I will not!” Milear recoiled in horror and Jordan stared at him.
“Pweaaaaaaaase Milear? Pwetty pweaaaase?”
“Ah.. Ahhh… Ahhhhh!” The elephant man tried to fall back, to push away at Rahm. His giant hooves—hands?—pushed against the old man’s face and glasses. They punched at him, giving solid sounding thuds, and yet no effect was seen on Rahm’s features. He just quivered his lips and…
Milear cried, ruined makeup flowing down just like the ink on Rahm. “He is torturing me! Someone, please! Anyone! HELP ME, EMPRESS! HELP ME!” His voice grew hoarse with his shout.
Milear, the Elephant-God overseeing The Journey’s End Processing Queue #31 screamed with all the pain and the sorrow of a tormented soul as the dead wailed in the halls, echoing his suffering.
As Rahm begged and pouted at him incessantly like a kid at a candy store.
With a sigh, Jordan turned… and walked away. He decided to wait outside until the ‘negotiation’ was done.
----------------------------------------
Twenty minutes of Rahm begging Milear later, the ordeal was finished. Jordan was sitting on the white stone steps outside the Customs building playing with his new dagger. For a time, he’d fixated with some amusement as half the lines of the dead reformed, traveling over the broken pillars that blocked their path, but they had kept eyeing him so he eventually stopped. No one had spoken outside the customs building, but that had probably been helped by the continuous screaming issuing from inside, and the surprising speed the lines were suddenly making.
Turning up to see the old man as he stepped out of the entrance, Jordan saw he had several bruises and a fat lip from where the Elephant-God had been continuously pummeling him. Rahm smiled, missing a few teeth, and handed Jordan a small passport. Inside it was a picture of the Brat looking about as pleased to be here as Jordan was. The golden script pulsing from it made him feel ill, so he turned it away.
“That was… disturbing on many levels, old man.” Jordan finally said. A grinding sound drew his attention upwards, and Jordan recoiled when he saw Rahm itching at his mouth as he regrew his teeth.
“Tell-me-‘bout-it” He sounds like he has cotton balls in his mouth, Jordan noted. After another minute, Rahm spit out golden liquid that had come from God-knows-where and smiled, fit as a fiddle.
“Nice dagger. Want me to stow it so you don’t have to carry it?”
Jordan nodded, and handed the dagger over, and after a moment the passport as well. Rahm put them both away into one of his many pockets, fitting it easily where it had no business fitting, and then patted Jordan softly on the back. Jordan was starting to get serious pocket-envy.
“Well, shall we? Still got about an hour of travel or so.”
“Ah hour!?” Jordan wailed like the dead. “I thought we were going to take the transit system!?”
“Oh we are,” Rahm replied, “But it’ll still take an hour.”
Jordan paled. “How freakin’ big is this city?”
Rahm scratched at a grizzled cheek, dried ink flaking off as he shrugged twice over. “Let’s just say big, shall we? It would take weeks of travel to get to my place if we didn’t have it.”
Following Rahm down the steps, to the joyous cries of the dead in line and last lingering curses of the guards, Jordan turned to him and said, “I noticed everyone in there… came back after they were hurt? Is that just something that happens here?”
Rahm nodded. “God or Ghost, a Spirit is a Spirit. Hurt them enough and they’ll discorporate, but in time they’ll just re-manifest.”
“Dis-a-what now?”
“Discorporate? It’s just a word to describe dematerialization.”
Jordan looked at him blankly.
“Spirits get broken, go bye bye. Come back later.”
Jordan narrowed his eyes, and grumbled under his breath. “You don’t have to be a dick about it.” Rahm just chuckled good naturedly as they continued on.
The duo walked past a fortified check point, but despite the glares the guards gave both of them, they got through unscathed. Jordan was thankful that his visitor's pass worked to get him in, but quickly found himself hugging Rahm as they moved on.
Streets of starlight-infused stone had hordes of loudly attired Gods bustling unceasingly to and fro, and even more flew about overhead at booming speeds. They travelled past buildings of ancient looking crystal, covered in poorly mixed paints and wildly growing plants. Jordan couldn’t help but gawk as they went—the jam-packed roads seemed to be center stage for a cold war of fashion among the Gods. All seemingly over who could wear the most gaudy attire.
Golds, silvers, azures, and scarlets, with radiant gems and materials, were so unbelievably present on the Spirits, the streets, the buildings, the everything, that Jordan and Rahm were the ones drawing notable looks for their outlandish attire. Spirits wouldn’t stop staring at Jordan!
He assumed it was because his pink dress stood out for the pure simplicity of it, especially after he caught the eye of a Flamingo-God in a jeweled, polka-dotted tuxedo. The damn bird gawked at him with less than pure intent in his eyes, but a female white bird next to him that looked an awful lot like a flamingo herself (Jordan wasn’t sure what kind of bird it was though) slapped her beau in rage.
Jordan rotated around Rahm’s rear-end—a potentially lethal maneuver under certain circumstances, he was sure—in order to break line of sight. He didn’t know who could and who couldn’t manifest hate daggers with their eyes, after all.
Thankfully, the dense crowd shielded them quickly enough, and Jordan escaped the God’s ire. Their retreat was halted quickly, however, by a beggar calling out from the side of the softly glowing roadway.
“Essence? Please sir, do you have any to spare?” A downtrodden Duck-God dressed in patchwork garments with only a few dozen impossibly caved gems (a complete travesty compared to those around him) thrust a glowing bowl towards them.
Jordan recoiled, huddling closer to Rahm, but the old man rested one of his four hands on Jordan’s back reassuringly. Another dug into his pockets and pulled out a few dozen golden coins that could not have possibly fit in either pocket or hand, and dropped them into the dish.
“Thank you sir! Bless you! Bless you!” The Duck-God bowed deeply, over and over again as Rahm walked away quietly, trailing Jordan behind him like a duckling. It was only at this point, through the crowds they had to squeeze past, that Jordan could see the unending throng of destitute animal Spirits lining the streets, with shabby, depressing looking silken tents glowing with sorrowful looking radiance. It made him feel… really sad? It also reminded him of home in the worst of ways.
“Rahm, why are there homeless people up here?” While Jordan could accept that any city of notable size would have a homeless population, it seemed completely ludicrous for some magical knock-off heavenly city to have the same problem.
Rahm turned back to look at Jordan, but met his eyes with a note of seriousness. He wasn’t smiling.
Instead, he ushered Jordan over to the side of the street, out of the shoulder to shoulder crowd, near a break in the buildings set by a wonderful opaque crystal palace, covered in stupid looking beads with incense bowls set all around it. It looked like some sort of business, and the owner, a penguin in a dress, was busy yelling at a downtrodden looking camel man holding a top hat made of woven strands of indigo silk.
The duo walked around the building, and into an alleyway Jordan hadn’t even noticed before given its shockingly diminutive proportions. Rahm would’ve had a difficult time squeezing down it, making it the smallest space Jordan had seen since arriving. Rahm saddled up, back facing it, and turned to address Jordan.
“The Celestial City,” he began, “is full of Spirits, Aury, and Spiritual Entities are different from you and I. Do you recall the nature of Spiritual Entities?”
“Um… yeah. Dad literally talked about this yesterday, old man. Were… you not listening?”
Rahm looked taken aback. “Wha—bah, of course! Of course I was listening! I’m just… checking to see if you were, is all. I, ah—”
“You moth—you were asleep, weren’t you? That’s why you were quiet for like, that whole conversation!”
“Well… that’s absolutely true, and good on you for noticing Aury, full marks!” Four more thumbs up were given. “But, ah, that’s neither here nor there.” He waved it off twice over.
Jordan… had to work hard to stomp down the twitching eyebrow and the look of anguish on his face. He had to think positive, Catella thoughts, to keep from kicking the old geezer on his very kickable looking shin.
He also felt like he understood why Mercia had been glaring at him so much. Did the old man take anything seriously?
Jordan looked back up at Rahm after regaining his composure. He wasn’t smiling. He… he did think this was serious didn’t he?
“To understand why the Celestial City is like this,” Rahm said. “You have to first understand the difference of power between them and us.”
The old man dug into his lab coat, and pulled out one of golden coins he’d offered the Spirits earlier. He handed it over to Jordan, who took it while shooting him an inquisitive look.
“Tell me Aury, what do you see there?”
“Ahhhhh…. It’s a coin.”
“And…?” he replied.
“Well, I guess it’s kind of… oh. Oh whoa.”
Jordan had initially dismissed the golden coin. It wasn’t that he was suddenly losing his concern over precious shinies being discarded apathetically, but it was difficult to feel the weight of gold when he literally stood on a pathway made of it. While the starlight roads going down the main path were made of god-knows-what, all the crystalline buildings in this section of the city were literally set into foundations of pure gold. He’d just… glazed over the glossy scene.
But now, as he looked down at the coin, he realized how off the mark he really was.
The coin in his hand, round and large, had a picture of a crown set into it, and an emblem on the other side he knew from the game represented the country. Some sort of sword and wings motif looking thing. It was heavy, way heavier than Jordan would have considered normal, but once again he’d dismissed it. He was in the body of a child, after all, he’d just assumed she was so damn weak she couldn’t hold a freakin’ coin of all things. Besides, wasn’t gold supposed to be really heavy?
But as he looked between the coin and the ground, he realized calling this coin gold was like calling the band Nickelback well loved. Now Jordan was no music snob, but even when he was in college people still complained about that old band! So while he could probably listen to them and enjoy them, just like he could look at the gold under his feet and think ‘this is valuable,’ the truth was there was more to the coin. It was hardly a comparison, because it was indisputable.
It shown with Majesty, like a light spilled out of it all on its own, reminding Jordan of the pearly gates he’d seen entering the city. It was more than just a material—and it reminded him of the Fire he’d seen in his adopted Father, prompting a small trickle of tears. The Flame had burned with such intensity, like there was an entire concept fused into it, something more than mere material or energy.
An Idea made real.
And he felt that with this coin. It wasn’t gold, it was gold infused with the very idea of authority. The concept of Absolute. He just didn’t know to what end. Was it the king-guy’s authority? The authority of heaven? Of Nickelback?
All he knew was that this was truly valuable. It sang in his hands, thrumming with a power he’d completely missed before because of the sheer scale of it. Just like how this city made all others pale in spatial comparison, the power in the coin before dwarfed Jordan’s pathetic Ki reserves a hundred fold. A firepit to a Volcano.
Looking up through swimming tears, Jordan asked “W-what… is this?”
Rahm nodded solemnly. “This is Orchalcum. Sometimes simply referred to as True Gold.”
Jordan stared back at the priceless coin. He thought he remembered some games having orchalcum be green. A super copper? He wasn’t sure, but the words True Gold resonated in his hand. It shined brilliantly at him, and there was no denying the veracity of the old man’s words.
“That coin, called a Crown, is filled with a single dram of Mana. It’s the highest form of currency in the UKK, short of Gold Bars which are a thousand Crowns forged together… but, er, those aren’t used outside of large scale economic situations, so don’t mind that.” He waved it away as he dug in his pocket, pulling out what looked like a piece of silver and copper? No—bronze, Jordan corrected.
“This is a Stirling,” he said holding the piece of True Silver, “and this is a Shilling.” True Bronze. “Ten Stirlings in a Crown, and ten Shillings in a Stirling. They’re made by dividing the Mana up, so in other words one hundred Shillings is a single Mana. Got it?”
“Er… yeah, but…” It was great to suddenly know currency and all that, but why was he telling him that?
The old man ruffled Jordan’s hair, which was only loosely braided and hadn’t really survived the pandemonium from earlier. He suspected he probably looked like a wild child on the run.
Or a kidnap victim. Best not to think about that though, he decided.
“It all comes down to Mana. Our entire economy is based on it. Dungeons and People create it, and magic items, Artifacts, or ongoing Sorcerous effects and Enchantments consume it. A person can take a Shilling and apply it to most magical items to keep them working, and society revolves around that basic rule.”
He put his coins away and then pointed with a few too many fingers at the crowd behind Jordan.
“Despite our many differences, the economy of the Gods is no different in the end. The Celestial City is the original source of all Essence for the world, at least before Dungeons came into being. Due to… ah, reasons we can go into later, the Gods have a limit to how much of that Essence they’re allowed to take in. While you and I can use Essence to accomplish great things with Magic, we have to distill it in ourselves into Experience to get permanent power from it. That isn’t true for Gods.”
“Distill experience? You… you’re making it sound like it’s a real tangible thing old man!” Experience wasn’t… like that! It… it was a concept, right? A concept like… flames, or coins. Things he’d held. In his hands.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“It is Aury. It exists in your Core. Experiences you have coalesce, and when your Core is full it crystallizes it. The process is actually quite similar to the formation of Mana, but they ultimately suffuse into your Pattern differently. Experience directly changes and alters the structure of your Pattern, creating new nodes of energy flow, allowing you access to Skills or Abilities you didn’t have before. Mana just kind of sits in your Pattern until you use it.”
“O-oh.”
“Yeah, oh is right, isn’t it Aury?” The old man chuckled, rubbing Jordan’s head again, destroying what was left of the braids. Jordan blew at some hair getting into his damn eyes. He was busy staring at the old man revealing the secrets of the universe and didn’t need dark strands poking his eyes, damnit!
“Spirits, though, can directly alter their Patterns freely. In theory, each and every spirit is more powerful than any Immortal could ever be. However, they have to infuse themselves with the Essence to power it, much like how our own Permanent Skills or Talents might work. It works a bit better for them, but the point is—if a God can directly connect with a source of power, they can instantly grow to fill the power that position allows them, no Leveling required. They have their own… problems as a result, but for the Gods out there on the street? They don’t have a position. Anywhere. The Crowns I gave them could allow them momentary spikes of power. It isn’t much, but… well, I’ll help the poor and destitute here where I can.”
“I… I don’t understand though.” Jordan replied. “They don’t have enough jobs here, or what?”
“Pretty much, yeah. There’s a lot of history up here Aury. I’d be happy to tell you sometime, but maybe we’ll worry about it later, okay? You’re looking a little… er, well you look like you might need a break soon.”
“Y-yeah, okay. I guess, but… fine. L-let’s get going.” Jordan had a lot of questions, and the revelations didn’t seem that grand. Mostly it was the shock of… holding it in his hands. Staring at the grandeur of a small coin and realizing how… worthless everything around him looked in comparison.
A beautiful city, filled with gods and gold, splendor and majesty.
But it lacked True Splendor. True Majesty. There was something… wrong with this city. Something missing.
As he walked along with his new Grandfather, past homeless Gods begging for essence, past gaudy Spirirs who just loved to stare at him, as they traveled along a starlit road surrounded by ‘businesses’ that ran the fundamental truths of the universe, he couldn’t help but feel like it was all wrong.
Like the fire had gone out of it. Like he was staring at a photograph of what should have been.
He also had a Nickelback song about photographs he hadn’t heard in literal decades stuck in his head now, which didn’t help his glowering attitude.
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