DISTRICT 87

That was what the signs along the road read. They had small glowing mushrooms growing from their sides so that they would be visible during the night cycle of the plants. Districts were what the population centers within the city were called.

This district specifically was the one I’d chosen to register at. There were a lot of districts on deep-side, but most of them were… strange to say the least. They were colony bases, which meant that they were single-species districts. Now I liked goblins and trolls, but they didn’t really speak the common tongue and were known to be prone to violence when disrespected.

I had originally thought it was nothing but a mean stereotype, but having lived in deep-side for the past ten years, my personal experiences had proved me wrong. Trolls and goblins faced heavy discrimination for their association with the Dark Lord, but like the elves had lost their blessings from the Lord of Light, so had the dark races lost their bindings to the Dark Lord.

They weren’t evil, just scary and tribal with their customs. For trolls, too much eye contact was a challenge to fight and goblins were known for their strict hierarchy and protocol. Just the introductions to meet a goblin was a five-minute process of bows and greetings.

And molemen didn’t even have open spaces, just narrow tunnles that sometimes collapsed in on them. It was no problem for them, but it was a problem for me. I wanted some place open and navigable and had people that spoke the common tounge. Down-side still had colonies of course, all the levels did, even high-side. But major districts like this one had an open and generally inviting environment to facilitate trade and interspecies communication.

I kept on walking and the tunnel changed as I did, meeting up with other tunnels coming from other caverns. It was like multiple streams coming together to form a river, a river of life and people. Within ten minutes I saw a few carts speeding past me.

Dwarven shouts echoed in the distance and groans and roars of mythical beasts of burden assaulted my ears. An orc stumbled past me hauling the head of a lizard-like being, a ground wyvern maybe. A dark elf man rode a black horse, quietly clopping towards the district ahead of us.

But none of that compared to the roots. Giant pillars of plant life burst through the cavern ceiling, each of them the size of a pond. They weren’t perfectly straight, but instead twisted and turned in midair before cementing themselves into the cavern floor and dugdeeper through the ground below.

Glowing mushrooms attached themselves to the roots and the cavern ceiling above, creating an unground glowing with dim light and flicking with shadows. The district itself was large, far larger than my tribe back home, containing many small industries within.

Zombies and vampires walked the dimly lit streets and monstrosities of all sizes stumbled around the area.

I’d been here before, back when I had first come to Asrin, but I’d barely gotten a chance to explore the city back then before the Celestial Order had taken me in. Now that I was free of that, I wanted to marvel, to stare at the streets and all the different species I couldn’t recognize that walked it.

But that could come later, for now, I had to make my way to this district’s city hall.

I didn’t have a map of the region so I’d have to ask around for directions.

Shit.

I looked around for the most approachable person there was, but unfortunately, no one seemed to want to get bothered. It suddenly hit me that I’d had less than a hundred conversations within the past ten years, and most of them had been with a crazy dwarf.

In other words, the social gears had gotten rusty.

“You there? Are you unhappy with your nether regions?”

That was a strange sentence to hear, even in this place.

“Hello? Mister confused and distressed?”

I looked around still not finding anyone.

“Down here,” a voice yelled out to me.

I lowered my head to see a small halfling looking up at me.

“Your parts sir? Are they up for the job?” He asked me.

I turned around and walked the other way.

“Wait! Wait! Hold on! Please!”

I sped up my pace.

“Sir, please sir, I’m sorry! Just hear me out-”

I walked even faster.

The halfling was now jogging to keep up with me.

“Look, I’m sorry for the intro! I’m just advertising for a local biomancer who lives in town. It doesn’t have to be your dick, it could be a wound, a lost limb, or even muscle gain, she does it all! I swear!”

I came to a stop and looked over at the halfling. The small fella stopped jocking and held out a card with a smile.

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“I work as an advertising agent for Delilah’s Limbs and Cosmetics. Whatever your needs, looks or vitalities, she does it all!”

I looked at the card, still unsure of what to say.

“Again, I’m sorry about my words. I know they seemed inappropriate but that’s normally what people like you are here for, isn’t it?”

“People like me?” I asked.

“Dark elves? Your kind tends to stay in the upper layer of down-side so we don’t see many elves and humans here unless they're coming for cosmetic surgery. I figured you were lost and needed a reference.”

“I didn’t come from down-side.”

The halfling’s eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Top-side?” He asked.

I shook my head.

“Deep-side?” He whispered.

I nodded.

“Woah. I didn’t know there were dark elves that lived down there. Is there a colony or something?”

I shook my head.

“Oh. Did you live with the trolls then?”

I shook my head again.

“Then why-” he asked.

“Do you know where city hall is?” I interupted.

“Uh, yeah. Down the street till that food cart over there, take a left till you hit the market plaza, and then go down main street. It’s hard to miss, it's right next to that Asrin root right there,” he said pointing to one of the large Asrin roots in the distance.

I nodded, turning away.

“Wait- hold on. If you’re not here for the biomancy then what are you here for?”

“To register,” I answered, walking towards the directions he had given me.

“Register? Register what?”

“Citizenship.”

“Why?”

Now that was a question that got me to stop in place.

“What do you mean why?”

“Why bother?”

“I gain permanent residence here and voting rights, along with job permits and-”

The halfling started to laugh.

“What’s funny?” I asked.

“I dunno, just that you sound like a newbie around here. Say, were you raised in deep-side?”

I shook my head.

“Are you originally from Asrin?” The nosey little man asked.

“No.”

“That makes sense. I don’t know what you were doing in deep-side, but almost no one bothers registering for citizenship unless they need a permit or associate with the government.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he nodded. “Tell you what. I get paid per card willingly taken, so if you take this card, I’ll give you a generic spiel of the old 87 and walk you down to city hall myself. Deal?”

I looked down at the shiny glowing business card. It was one of those enchanted pictures, showing animations of beautiful people flexing their muscles and abbs. With ‘It’s not a crime to want to look good,’ written underneath them.

Then it flipped over to a male orc holding hands with a female halfling.

‘We make love happen,’ was written underneath them. The two creatures got together and hugged. Next, it showed a human male next to a female centaur, with the same logo still present underneath.

I took the card, resolving to throw it away when this was all over.

“Thanks for that,” the halfling said with a smile. “I’m heading out for lunch anyway and I know a nice place by city hall, we’ll talk as we walk.”

Glamour magic flickered over his being and the halfling suddenly seemed more reasonable and kind.

I snorted. It wasn’t going to impact me but I suppose the salesman had started his routine.

“My name’s Darvin by the way. I’m an 87 native, been here my whole life and counting.”

“I’m a mage,” I grunted.

“I can see that,” Darvin replied, looking at my staff.

“I can see through your glamour.”

“Shit. Well you can’t blame a salesman for trying can you?”

I casted a small dissipation on the halfling, removing the false bravado and kind face.

“Alright, alright. I get a commission on every successful client I bring in to the clinic. Are you sure you don’t want a transformation of some sort?” The halfling asked.

I shook my head firmly.

Darvin grunted and started walking, pulling a pipe out of his coat and lighting it with a metal lighter.

“What’s your name?”

“Elurn,” I replied.

“Well Elurn, how long you been in deep-side?”

“A while,” I answered.

“Must’ve been a damn long time for you to act this foreign.”

“I’m a transplant.”

“To deep-side? Who the hell just chooses to transplant to deep-side?”

I shrugged.

The halfling took a moment to tamper and huff his pipe as we walked.

“You smoke?”

“No,” I answered.

“Thought all you mages smoked? All those stimulants to help cast your spell and stuff.”

“Some of us.”

The halfling nodded.

“Good smoking shouldn’t be wasted on work is what my gramps always said. Said it was a disgrace to smoke and work at the same time, said it was like eating while you shit.”

I frowned.

“You’re not a conversational man, are you?” The halfling asked.

“No.”

“Alright then, on with the spiel. District 87 is one of the lowest-leveled districts within the down. We have a robust and bustling economy and are known for our amazing biomancy and undead population.”

I frowned.

“No, seriously. I’m not trying to sell you anything this time. Flesh biomancy gets a bad rap up top, lots of churches think it’s an affront to the gods and their creations, but what the world gives, we use is what we say. So you get a lot of people from top-side and even high-side come down here to get something changed, fixed, or altered.

That’s why I asked you that question back then. Most lone single men with dark cloaks on tend to visit for one reason and one reason only if you get my drift. I’ve found that the direct approach reels them in, quick and easy. Got follow the market and whatnot.”

We walked by a group of female orcs, all of them carrying ceremonial axes and giggling at each other. One of them had designer jeans and high heels on, the other wore a sundress and an enchanted necklace. The rest of the group were also decked out in fashionable clothing, clearly not fighters.

“Yeah, we get a lot of noble types down here too. They come via root trains and get all types of work done. A lot of rich pretentious assholes,” Darvin said with a huff of his pipe. “Wish there was more of them.”

“Anyway, we also do a lot of sex-based biomancy, like if you’re a halfling getting it on with a centaur and the both of you have decided to settle on one another for the rest of your lives, well you simply come down here, get your equipment evened out and get to love making. Now if you’re trying to have kids-”

“The undead?” I interrupted before I got an uncalled-for course on the sexual anatomy of the sentient races.

“Oh yeah, we got a lot of those too. Lots of humans get necroplasey when they're near the end and you know how the undead are with the sun.”

“What?”

“The undead burn in the-”

“No, the other thing,” I replied.

“Oh, necroplasey? Yeah, it’s gotten popular in the past few hundred years. Basically, people willingly turn themselves into undead. You gotta pay a good necromancer to do it, but if it's done right, you can die a human and rise a zombie by the end of the night.”

“Why?” I mumbled.

“Well, it’s a strange thing to be sure, but if I were to analyze the market forces at play, I’d say the diverse environment of Asrin, including its super long-lived races pushed humans to seek out a path to a longer lifespan by any means necessary. With the churches losing their power in recent times and Asrin moving towards a more secular lifestyle, the common humans who couldn’t afford life-lengthening treatments now have the option of living on as undead. And what’s a more attractive product than immortality?”

I blinked and stared at the halfling.

“What? You asked the questions,” he muttered.