Chapter 41
From the City of Sjuma to Choska City was certainly not far; an average person walking could reach it in a day’s time. Eating some simple rations along the way, by Xan’s standards, not mine, by afternoon we made it to the city. Even though Choska city was not counted as a large city because it was in a backwater area, Xan again, the city walls were still built thick.
And we were still a bit far off the city itself.
“I’ve been meaning to ask…” I waited for Xan to acknowledge that I was talking to him, and that he was interested in a conversation.
Very often, people became disinterested in conversations as journeys, especially long ones, drew to a close. With the destination in sight, they opted to focus all their energy into getting there as soon as possible.
“About what?”
I smiled slightly as I turned to fully stare at him as I brought up the recent enigma to my being, his tone in that response had being encouraging to say the least, I couldn’t wait for what he had to say.
“You know I’ve spend all my time in Mesily in Yange. I’ve heard all about the other species but I’ve never actually met any of them. What are they? What are they like, and where can they be found?”
If he had been just humoring me to pass the time before we made it to the city, with his reaction, I could tell he was fully invested.
“Really!? You have never met any other species?”
I was taken aback by his question, maybe I should have pretended to have met a few, if only in passing. But that was spilled milk already, I decided I would play the amnesia card if he asked too many questions.
“But there was that elven delegation that went through Sjuma a few months back, you didn’t see them?”
“Bad timing, I guess,” I said in as much indifference as I could master.
I didn’t know how many months was a few months, but that put the delegation at around the time I arrived in the Realm of Mesily. Either it had been just before, or right after and the newcomer syndrome had prevented me from seeing them. Plus, I did spend most, if not all, of my time at Silas’ farm helping out, that left little time to notice a few wayward elves if you asked me. Was that why the tavern girl had associated me with elves on my first morning in Yange, they must have been in town at around that time.
“Well, I’ll give you an abridged version seeing as we about to arrive at the city gates,” Xan began. “Obviously, there is the elves—”
“The overlords.”
“You really like throwing in those comments, don’t you?” he asked, and I could have sworn I saw a crinkle form on his face. I stayed quiet then, not wanting to do anymore damage.
“Yes. Elves, the overlords. There is not much difference between them and us humans, aside, of course, from the pointed ears and skin tones. Human skin tone ranges from light to a brown so dark it appears black. Elves on the other hand don’t have the brown skin tones, but they do have just about all the other colors. And their black is a true black.
Otherwise, everything is the same as us humans, even their societal norms are. There are few that have superiority issues, but those are few and far in between; besides, the same could be said about humans too. They are also the most widely dispersed species; they can be found just about anywhere. The only other species that can compare to that is humans. And that’s just barely. Of course, there are places where humans are more present than elves, and vice versa. Like here in Choska County. But those areas are dwindling fast. In terms of numbers, elves are more numerous than humans, but not by much.”
“That’s a lot of differences,” I said as he took a break from his description. When he had begun with there not being that much of a difference, a story was not what I had been expecting.
“Then there is the animus. I don’t really know how to describe those to you if you have never seen them.”
That seemed like an easy one to me, so I decided to help him out. “They are like human, animal and elf hybrids, right?”
“Hmm… yeah, I thought you said you hadn’t met any of the other species?” he asked me, throwing a dubious look my way.
“I’ve heard stories. Anyway, continue, continue.”
“They, the animus, are the next populous after the elves and the humans. Though some consider them different species, and others just a very diverse species. Then there are the fairies. Those are divided into two main groups, or races if you will, the pixies and the sprites. Frankly, if you ask me, there is not much of a difference between the two. Oh! They have wings though, both of them.”
“Like birds?” I asked. I had an idea of what kind of wings the fairies had, but I thought asking that would remove any doubts I might have created with my previous comment.
“No! If that were the case, then they would belong in the animus category. Wait, I’ve actually never met an animus with wings like a bird, or any wings for that matter.”
“Maybe they don’t exist?” I tried to offer my opinion, but it was quickly shut down.
“No, they do. I’ve seen depictions of them in a museum in Thylom. Anyway, next up are goblins. They are green-skinned, and they breed fast and die fast. They actually have the shortest lifespan of all known intelligent species. Oh, and they fuck a lot, like a lot.”
“Must be why they breed so fast then,” I said, holding back my comment on how he had actually not described the kind of wings the fairies had, not that I didn’t already have a good guess.
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“No, quite the contrary. Only the goblin mothers and a few select males can actually breed, the rest are all sterile. Otherwise, they would be a menace. Then there are the dwarves and gnomes. Short of stature but full of strength. Some people call them halflings, but that is considered derogatory. The dwarves are the third most developed species that could claim to have true kingdoms of their own. As much as the animus are more populous, they like sticking together in close knit groups that do not leave room for kingdom building. The goblins on the other hand are otherwise too distracted to bother with kingdom building.”
He leaned closer to me with a mischievous smile on his face, as if to pass on a juicy secret and said, “I’ve heard that where male elves don’t have beards, for the dwarves, it’s quite the opposite. Both males and females have healthy bushy beards.”
He sat back upright then, before continuing with the explanation. “Though, the few female dwarves I’ve come across didn’t have beards, nor the males for that matter.
“Then there is the lizardfolk, divided into the true-lizards and the kobolds, though the kobolds refer to themselves as the dragon-descendants. They are too full of themselves, and stupid. Not all of them, mind you, but it’s too many of their species that one can’t help but view the whole species as such.
“Finally, there is the dryads. Some say that they are just a subspecies of the elves that stuck to the trees for too long. No one knows for certain though, but they sure do look like the rest of the elves. But after getting used to them, it’s obvious there’s something different about them, something that sets them apart from the elves.”
He breathed out a sigh as he settled back on his seat properly, all that talking must have tired him out. But something was nagging at me about the species he had talked about. Wait… goblins! Goblins had been an option for a species for me when I arrived at the Realm of Mesily, how would I have survived in such kind of society? Even the lizardfolk didn’t fit me at all. Then it hit me.
“You talked about nine species, if I count the general ones. I heard somewhere that there were ten.” I didn’t know what kind of information different Daimons gave to their users, and I didn’t want to say something that could potentially expose me for something other than what I was supposed to be.
“Really?” he asked as he began counting on his fingers while mumbling to himself. “Right, the ettin, how could I forget about them. They are otherwise known as the giants, and divided into three groups: ogres, orcs and trolls. They are all tall, well over two meters, and brutish. Generally.”
“You have talked about the species and some of their mannerisms, but I’ve heard nothing about where they can be found,” I pointed out what he had left out. That was the main reason for me asking about the species, I wanted to be prepared for when I would meet them eventually, the rest was not that important to me.
“They can be found generally anywhere in equal measure. Choska is a backwater area that’s why you haven’t met any of them yet. As to their—”
“Master Xan, we are at the gates,” the carriage driver interrupted what Xan had been about to say, and it was the information I really needed. But I let it go as Xan stepped out of the carriage, we were still in Choska, there was still time to get the information out of him before I met the other species.
I slowly stepped out of the carriage after Xan, the first time I was doing anything more than just wriggling for more than half a day. I stretched my arms and legs before I realized we weren’t just at the gates, we were at the gates, gates. And it was our turn to be checked into the Choska City.
I immediately began to panic. I couldn’t remember where I had packed my Citizen Card, and for that matter, whether or not I had carried it.
After what felt like eternity of fumbling through everything, I finally found it in my backpack, way deep inside my backpack. I raised it triumphly at Xan, with a genuine smile splitting my face, which was quickly washed away when I realized everyone in the line was staring at me. Half of them were clearly laughing, the biggest culprit being my travel companion, Xan.
If I wasn’t about to walk into an unfamiliar city, I would have walked away from him. But my prior experiences with strange new places meant that I had to seethe on the inside as I waited for him to direct us to our next destination.
In my previous life, I had tried to get over my aversion to new strange places with lots of people by immersing myself in such places over and over again, but the end result had been catastrophic. I had suffered a high blood pressure that gave me several minor heart attacks before I realized what had been happening. Ever since then, I had decided that unless it was necessary, I wouldn’t be doing something I wasn’t comfortable with.
We went through the usual card check-up before we were allowed into Choska proper. I had thought that because of the carriage, and the cases inside, it would take a considerable time to get through, but it proved not to be the case, with the carriage actually being the first to be cleared through. Two people had walked on either side from front to back and to front again before it was allowed through. Of course, the driver still had to present his card to the gate-guard.
“I had thought we would be stuck at the gate as they went through your cases,” I said as we made it inside the city. “What were they checking for anyway?”
“Who knows, different cities have different regulations. It could be anything really,” Xan said as he nodded to the carriage driver who began driving the carriage along the street. It appeared like they had gone through the routine so many times that there was no need for specific instructions on what to do to be given, or where to meet up. Or had they communicated that while I was fumbling for my card?
We followed slowly behind the carriage, but it became clear soon enough that we weren’t headed for the same destination. The carriage kept to the main street while we took a branch to what was clearly the rich side of the city.
“Shouldn’t I head to the Council Office first to present myself as a competitor before going to wherever it is we are going?” I asked as Xan led me through yet another street.
“Don’t worry about that. The Baronies ended yesterday, you still have time before the Counties begin. If you are so worried, I can take you there tomorrow,” he said as we entered what I would consider the most affluent building in the little I had seen of the city.
Our stay at the receptionist was a short one as Xan knew what he wanted and asked for it directly. It was only after we entered the room he had chosen did I realize that I had hardly paid any attention to my surrounding ever since I entered Choska.
The room was considerably spacious with a kitchenette to the side, and two doors on the adjacent wall to the kitchenette. I checked the first door and found it to be a bedroom with a bed at the middle of the room and another door to the side. That led to a shared washroom as evidenced by an opposite door; I closed it as I walked out of the bedroom.
“Why did you get a room with two bedrooms? Don’t you know I will be staying at the housing offered for the competitors?” I asked as I checked out the second bedroom of the room.
“You never know when I would be getting a visitor,” Xan said as he collapsed on the large sofa in the middle of what I would call the living room.
“Wouldn’t you be sharing the same bedroom then?”
“Oh… right. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“I guess I will be using one of the bedrooms for the night,” I said as I placed my bag on the bed of the second bedroom. I went to place my staffs to the side of the bed before I realized I didn’t have any of them with me, having left them all in the carriage.
“When will your cases be brought here?” I asked as I joined Xan in the living area, but he was already at the door, as if waiting for me.
“After Evy finds a place for the carriage. Come on, let’s go explore before the night sets in.”
He didn’t even wait for me to agree before he was out of the room, forcing me to hurry up to catch up with him, nearly forgetting to lock up the door.