op2024
Suicharte
Jumbus
Fallenreaper
pantothenic
Lildear18
BlackRoseSiren
Carlyle
Ti
Silly
T H E M E E T U P || ♫
Present: Ayla Arslan @Ti, Evander Fino Synesti @RezonanceV, Tku Pictor @dragonpiece, Fiske Flachstrauch @jasbraq, and Zarina Al-Nader @YummyYummy, Desmond Catulus @Th3King0fChaos
“But they’re always hungry,” Classa was assuring Tku, trotting along near the head of the group. She was glancing back so often, at the gaggle of humans and their little pachyderm shadow, that she wasn’t strictly looking where she was going and Riesco was forced to gently nudge her back on course more than once. Each time she started and leapt to the side, glancing around guiltily. “If you can keep a tusker fed, it’ll love you, but not many people can.” She rolled her eyes. “He is kind of a cute lil’ guy though,” she giggled, cantering back towards the small elephant, who hastily took off and glided away from her. Within moments, the girl was back, and once more pestering Tku. Before, it had been Ayla, and she’d even tried convincing the petite human to ride her briefly. Desmond, she’d shown a healthy fear and respect for, glancing a couple of times at his weapon, and Fiske and her had made faces at each other a bit. Marceline, the centaur had barely noticed.
Tku was her shiny new toy, clearly. “You find anything else out there?” Classa prodded, eyes going to his bag. It wasn’t long before he was spinning slightly embellished tales about the sandbat and the hidden melon and… when he had a moment, he extracted the wand and showed it to her.
The child froze in place, eyes snapping to it. Immediately, she bowed her head. “I will serve.” she said, voice solemn. She swallowed nervously.
Tku was startled by the girl's reaction. "This is no game is it?" He looked at the wand, worried for what it signified. Might not be the best thing to brandish this right away. He smiled at her reassuringly. "How about I grow you a nice juicy melon. he offered in exchange for her silence, ”and we can keep this secret between us for now?" He tucked the wand deeply in his bag, binding cloth around it to obfuscate it further from view.
Classa seemed… unsure. She blinked a couple of times and nodded. “That’s a control wand,” she replied quietly, watching him put it away. “Masters use it to punish bad demons.” She shook her head. “Though not Mr. Jascuan. He treats me and the others well. You’ll see. We’re going to meet him.” For a moment, she regarded Tku evaluatively, eventually seeming to satisfy herself that he was not, actually, one of the masters and was no threat to her.
“I got something!” Marci suddenly called. She’d been quiet - focused - searching for Evander and Benny. She turned, reaching up to hold her hat to her head in the blustery desert wind. “That way!” She pointed with her free hand. “In the old ruins, I think, but like…” She trailed off and scrunched up her face in thought. “under them, somehow.”
This brought the group of seven to a halt, and the discussion that followed split them into two groups. While one, consisting of Zarina, Ayla, Tku, and Classa, continued onward to the farmstead, the other, with Marci, Desmond, and Fiske, detoured to the ruins, with the tethered promising to keep in touch via pinch language. There was, Marci assured them, a city to the northwest of the farmstead where they could perhaps find some supplies and get their bearings later. Classa introduced it as ‘An Zenui’, city of the ‘cazenax’, whatever that meant…
A N Z E N U I
It was inching toward midday in An Zenui and all of the shit was drifting in from the desert. Some were peddlers, but there was little need for their wares. Some were hunters, but why would one need to hunt but for sport? Some were water sellers and, for them, there was still some use, though less, these days. Others, still, were beggars, and they were the worst of all. Could they not just learn the new arts and beg no longer?
Following the slow, muddy flow of the Zuna Hagui, they arrived at the Bristling Gate. There, they waited, under makeshift shelters of wood and canvas or their own cloaks, stretched over their heads. Mostly they were still, exchanging the occasional banter, their animals stinking and baying by the gate. Pathetically enough, it wasn’t long before some started trying to peddle to each other, in addition to other, more reputable, travelers.
“Any new faces?” asked Zugan-Alguo boredly. He was, perhaps, not so efficient today as his name might imply. There had been a dust storm in the morning and he’d lost hours and all motivation after sweeping. Stupid Zix-Shama had grabbed the Stuzé Paca first for her side of the gate and he’d had to do his without assistance.
She ursed her lips and scowled for a moment, scanning, and he looked up from his rifle-cleaning. “Neh. Just the usual donkey-riders and some of the countryfolk. Probably coming into town to buy stuff for repairs.”
Zugan-Alguo heaved himself out of his seat, trying not to strain anything. He was past middle age now and feeling it. Indifferently, he peered down at the group gathered below. There was Muto-Nogen, the drunk, with his scraggly beard and bad breath, getting right up in the faces of some of the others. Zugan shouted down at him to back off, as he sometimes did, halfheartedly gesturing with his rifle. Jupai-Malma was wearing her usual revealing attire, turning on her charms. She had some tourists from - it looked like they were from one of the northern cities - in her sights. Urzax-Cilo was shambling around, begging while trying not to look like it, hiding his disgusting mouth. That was when Zix noticed a mop of shaggy, shoulder-length black hair bobbing about well below everyone else’s head level. She pointed it out. "Potés-Palix?”
Sure enough, it was. The boy with no legs had dismounted from the tired old donkey he always rode and was making his way toward the gate, scooting about on his hands and his ass. “Sweetwater!” he called in his squeaky, pre-pubescent voice. “Fresh from the dewsail! Get your sweetwater!” With a grunt, he hustled forward, a satchel full of bottles slung across his chest. “Sweetwater! Cheaper than in town!” He glanced hopefully up at the gatehouse and waved. Zugan could’ve sworn he hadn’t grown a smidge in the two years he’d been coming here: one of those kids destined to be a runt until a sudden late growth spurt, the gate guard supposed, not that it’d much matter in his case. “Mr. Zugan-Alguo!” he chirped. “Mrs. Zix-Shama!”
Zix twisted to regard her partner. “Kinda feel bad for the kid,” she opined. “We let him in today?”
“Market vendors won’t like it.” Zugan grumbled. Potés-Palix had disappeared into the crowd, but he was never far from the donkey that carried him everywhere and pulled his little cart of sweetwater jugs. Sure enough, he reappeared moments later, clambering onto its back in his baggy, ill-fitting clothes. He got the animal moving and, moments later, he was knocking vigorously on the gate and smiling up at them.
“Yeah, but it’s the real stuff, unlike that vo zin swill,” Zix prodded. “Honestly, I could go for some. How ‘bout we make that the price of entry?”
Zugan made a sour face. “You shouldn’t speak of the vozas like that.” All of the youngsters did it now, or at least most of them. He hadn’t raised his own son and daughter that way. “Yeah, okay, gramps, and I guess we should all go back to living underground too.”
Zugan sighed.
“Okay, okay. Sorry,” Zix relented. “The vozas is great. Honestly, it’s our source of almost everything and our ticket to the bigtime. How can we not appreciate it? It’s just… sometimes, real stuff is better. So,” she remembered, “What say we get a sweetwater and relax a bit? I’ll treat you.”
The senior guard tried to look like he was unconvinced, but he’d already given in, to be honest. “How much for a two-copel?” he shouted down at Potés-Palix.
“Ten pix!” the scrawny youth replied, counting on his fingers for a moment. He paused and grinned. “But uhh… five if you buy it from the other side of the gate?”
T H E F A R M S T E A D
“We’re almost there!” chirped Classa, still casting about for the tusker. Sure enough, it had stopped towards the perimeter of the farm, not daring to come any closer to an inhabited area. She noticed Tku glance back in its direction as well. “Trust me. It’s a good thing. If it came too close, Zox would have to cwush it.” She shook her head. “He doesn’t like cwushing things, but it’s his job..”
The house was low, squat, and sprawling, made of sandstone and streamlined in the direction of the prevailing winds so that they might be channeled around it. A large patio wrapped around the other three sides and, on it, they could see a stone golem, easily eight feet tall, rumbling about with an oversized broom, sweeping sand away. An imp of some sort hung from the spandrels, huffing out massive breaths that sent the sand swirling off and away into the desert wind. Finally, in a rocking chair on the patio, was an old man with a wide-brimmed hat. At the sound of approaching hooves, he perked up. Grabbing the armrests, he heaved himself to his feet and felt about for the cane he’d left leaning against a small table nearby. “Classa? Né lix?” (Classa, is that you?) he called, grasping hold of it. He paused, making his way slowly there, cane held out in front. “...ni sen,” (and more,) he decided.
“Sol Jascuan!” she exclaimed, breaking into a light gallop. “Cé lix! Cé’x paté. Ax zobar.” (It’s me. I’m safe. Don’t worry.) After that, they spoke rapidly and none of the three biros could understand any of it as they approached. The huge golem placed its broom delicately aside and began to head their way somewhat threateningly until Mr. Jascuan raised his cane and called out some instructions in a tremulous old voice. With that, the construct bowed and back up a couple of steps. “Oh, ah… ahem. My apologies. I’m Zox and I umm… certainly didn’t mean to make you… uncomfortable,” it apologized, “Or anything of… of the sort.” It tapped its head with a large stony finger. “It’s my programming, you know, haha. I um… I’m built to crush things, though… sometimes I wonder if there’s more to life than -”
“Aaaaaahahahaaa!” came a laugh, high-pitched and mocking from the imp. “You’re a golem, rockhead! Your whole job is to scare people. Sheeeeeesh. Wouldya look at this palooka? Not even twenty seconds after meeting people - and high types to boot - and he’s already waxing philosophical.” The imp snorted and leapt down from the roof. “Naxos,” he said, his black, beady little eyes darting between the group’s members.
Last was Mr. Jascuan. He was clearly not human, and not of a race any of them had seen before. His skin was tanned and reddish along the back, though not in a sunburnt way. His ears were large - larger than those of a yasoi - and his nose great and pointed. He was… somewhere in the height range of a hegelan, though not nearly as stout. His eyes, quite clearly, were blind, whether by age or some other ravage, they could not quite be sure. After shaking their hands, he spoke in a voice gravelly and aged, and Naxos translated… somewhat reliably. “The boss says thank you for bringin’ Classa back to him. She’s always gettin’ lost and he worries about her.” The imp hopped from foot to foot, as if pathologically unable to keep still. “He offers yuh his hospitality, though don’t you go freeloading or I’m gonna have something to say about that.”
“He didn’t say that!” Classa protested, and Naxos waved her off. Meanwhile, Zox returned to sweeping, his big stony head turning curiously in the direction of the new arrivals every so often.
“Yeah yeah, I know. It’s called paraphrasing, yuh stupid ‘orse!” He seemed to soften after a moment, especially when Classa started to pout. He sighed. “You ain’t stupid, Classa. Just… you don’t know everything. Let the grownups talk, alright?” He turned to face the three visitors. “Listen, that was my addition. I’m gonna be honest with youse guys. We don’t refuse anyone here, but we’re a small operation. Just old man Jas, his kid Maxi - who’s in town right now - and the three of us demons.” He scratched at the back of his neck. “Not much uh… overhead, y’know?”
The old blind cazenax sniffed the wind. He smiled in the three humans’ direction and spoke some more, gesturing them into the sprawling house. It certainly looked rather large, though those perceptive enough would see signs of disrepair, neglect, and hasty, low-quality patch jobs all about the place. For all of his blindness, though, Mr. Jascuan navigated the space effortlessly, explaining things as he went. This time, Classa translated, seeming quite proud of herself. “This farm has been in the family for almost five hundred years - since even before the Vozas was found - and is one of the cwosest big sweetwater fawms to An Zenui. That makes it cheap and easy to sell there, and lots of people have offewed to buy it, but Mr. Jascuan isn’t selling. When he walks into the darkness, it’s gonna go to his owdest son, Wazuo.”
He kept speaking and she kept translating. All about the ceiling were four-leafed fans, creaking and squeaking as they turned. An elaborate series of ropes seemed to connect them all and connect them to some sort of power source. Classa saw them looking. “Oh, the fans are all connected to a great big windmill outside. Mr. Jascuan’s great-great grandfather built it, but it didn’t work for a long time until Maxi fixed it. Anyways,” she continued, “There are four types of sweetwater we fawm here, and each uses a diffewent type of cactus and a diffewent size of dewsail. Some’s for sauces, some’s for drinking, some’s for cleaning, and some’s for healing. People even have baths in it!” She turned on the spot, smiling nervously, her hooves very loud on the floor. “You’re welcome to twy it!” She paused. “All except the sauce. We save that for the evening cook, when Samaxi’s back.” She couldn’t resist stamping with happy hooves “It’s sooooo good! I pwomise!”
A N Z E N U I || ♫
Two bored and sweaty guards sipped on sweetwater from their perch above the Bristling Gate. The doors opened briefly, groaning on their metal hinges, and just enough to let a single donkey with its half-sized rider and a wagon full of sweetwater jugs through.
Inside, the city of An Zenui was a hive of activity in the wake of the morning’s sandstorm. The sounds of hammers and saws at work cut through the sea of voices and bustle of other activity, and the smells - the sheer miasma of them was overwhelming, especially as one reached the spice market. Ever were the outriders galloping off into the wide world these days, and returning with things to be reproduced from the bounty of the Vozas. Ever were the vozcrafters at work.
“Sweetwater!” came the squeaky voice of Potés-Palix, cutting through the swirl of sounds and colours. “Locally produced: the real deal!” A large wagon paused in the middle of a street as a litter made its way through, mounted on the backs of four centaurs. From inside peered an old woman with a hard, wrinkly face thick with makeup and eyeliner, and enough jewelry to start her own shop. She was not, of course, a mere peddler, and so she released the curtain and sat back on her cushions.
Potés-Palix did a brisk business in the Bantarsca District, whose expensive high cliff residences had been hard hit by the storm and were already filled with thirsty labourers - mostly stuzé-upéts. The snakelike people paid what little they were given as stipends and lazed around for the next few minutes, chattering in their hissing tongue and sunning themselves as they drank. They were always a sure source of revenue, and the boy usually cut them a deal and used magic to cool their drinks. There was a mutual sympathy that helped: them as slaves and he with no legs. Taking a few moments to count his coins, he flashed them a smile and climbed up onto Nuro, riding away to the next set of houses before another independent seller made it there. Today was going to be a good day. He could feel it.
“You’ve got until she’s out of sight,” said Sazan-Betai, finishing the last of his bottle and setting it on a workbench. The no-legs kid would return for it later and they’d get back some of their money if they gave her the bottles. He consulted his task list and sighed. Talo-Tecazan-Mostix-Cazui insisted on building large trellises for his wife’s garden since it was the ambition of her married idleness to become a grillmaster. Shame that she wasn’t much good at cooking. Bigger shame that nearly every passing storm wreaked havoc with her plants. In what had become the fashion among some who could afford it, she had wanted ‘authentic’ ingredients and set out to grow them herself. Come to think of it, she wasn’t much good at gardening either.
The workers set their bottles down in various places and Sazan continued his rounds, ensuring quality and compliance, as he always did. A couple gave him stink-eyes when he told them to make modifications, but there was no backtalk, at least. Only that one they called Egosto-Alguo really unnerved him. He could feel the man’s seething. In his youth, he had shared it. Now, he could not be bothered. He had a small house of his own on the master’s property, a wife, and a brood. He smiled just thinking of them: Matzic, Juja, Cili, Walan, Loci, Zanca, and Lelix. All adorable in their childhood precociousness and innocence. All the creation of he and his beloved Stela. Next year, they would be given their first duties. He scowled. Poto-Mits had let a beam fall again and was now protesting her innocence. Why she was given hard labour when she was clearly a house-stuzé was beyond him. He began scribbling notes on his scroll. There would have to be a report. He would have to account for this. He consulted his task list and sighed.
T H E T U N N E L S
What he lacked in range, Desmond made up for in tracking. Evander swept for energies as he started to enter the tunnel behind the door marked number five and he noticed the approach of three individuals. After a tense but momentary standoff, they recognized each other and had a decision to make. Both Fiske and Evander seemed keen to continue exploring, and Marci decided to follow the tunnel as far as she could with her tethered mana sense. For a good minute or so, she went almost eerily still and silent, while the three men watched, quietly discussing their next course of action and what they had seen and found.
Then, as she was wont to do, Marci returned to them all at once. “You know that city I sensed earlier?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah, what about it?” asked Desmond, already gaining some idea of what would come next. “It leads there.” She nodded, eyes taking in the others’. “I mean, it’s a bit of a maze, but I’m a human sensing device, and I can get us through. I can tell the others with pinch language so they don’t worry, and we can get to the city, unless anyone here’s claustrophobic.” She regarded them evaluatively. “It’s a good five miles, all underground. She shrugged. “At least we won’t be hot.”
To write about their adventures in the tunnels would be to spill the secrets of the tunnels, for what happens there, truly, stays there. However, the quartet made good time, even with Marceline flagging towards the end. She’d had nearly a year to rebuild the strength in her feet and calves, but long and strenuous walks such as this one still revealed a weakness that she might never entirely be rid of. Still, as they approached, she gave ever more regular updates: the movements, the smells, the sounds. She had learned how to interpret the traces she felt through energy, translate them into concrete things that others could understand and conceptualize.
The people, she could now be sure, were not human, and she described them as a cross between hegelans and yasoi, were such a thing possible. They moved about in their multitudes, but there were others, as well: more centaurs, like Classa, and sirrahi, to be certain, and still more that she could only describe in terms of features and not as known quantities. Yet, when Evander inquired about technologies far outstripping the students’ own, she could only shake her head. “They seem innovative,” she admitted, “Inventive and industrious, but I don’t feel veins of electricity.” Then, they were there and the other three were in range, pausing to sense the sheer activity of what lay above. The entire trip had taken some two hours and thirst scratched at more than one throat. Cautiously, Evander opened the door in front of them, and there was another large room, similar to the one they had entered from, only its banner was yellow. Above and outside, there was a large group of people. Faintly, they could hear the sounds of speech in an unfamiliar tongue. Some twenty feet above, they could sense a sirrahi! With that, Marci reached up to the trapdoor and pushed it open.
A N Z E N U I
Of course, Sazan wasn’t the only hard-working stuzé-upé in the city. Some ways distant, his sister, Cazelui, had finally finished clearing the sand from atop the walls by the Bristling Gate. Letting out a long breath, she slumped back against the battlements and just slouched there for a time, keeping one eye open for the guards. In truth, she’d worked slowly, letting her mind wander, for such work would numb it anyhow. Zix and Zugan weren’t bad, all things considered. She could count on one hand the number of times they’d ever used the control wand. They gave her jobs like this where she could just lose herself for hours on end, doing what her name suggested she was best at and daydreaming.
There were still the griddles to clean and, eventually, the stuzé uncoiled, heaved herself up, and stretched. There was sand caked all over them and, at this rate, they wouldn’t have enough heat for the evening cook. Coiling around the spars that held them out into the sun, she held the thick cloth in one hand and her water bucket in the other. Rinse and repeat. She sighed. Literally. The water steamed as soon as it hit the metal surface, and the heat began to emanate through the bunched cloth after some twenty seconds of scrubbing. Then, she was onto the next.
It was when she was on the final one, the least desirable one right by the bare section of canyon wall that was considered too unstable to build on, that she noticed it. His majesty! She stiffened. The king himself! He was walking among the people, no litter, as was his custom, regaling those coming through the gate with his plans in an ‘impromptu’ manner. Urzax-Cilo was trying to get close enough to flatter him, though the plain-clothes guards were not letting it happen, and Potés-Palix was trying to sell sweetwater within the crowd. She rolled her eyes. Stazen was a dreamer, young, and a man of the people, with big plans for the future that would benefit not just cazenax, but stuzé and centaur as well. Sometimes, she liked to listen to him speak. Sometimes, she wondered if a word of it was true. Yet, there was the money, coming from his own hand to feed the poor. There was the expansion of the Wola training mandate and the repeal of the outdated and onerous guiding laws around it. There were the Sirui Hé stuzé who could own themselves, their families, and even conduct business. Of course, their name had been stolen by the rebels, something nobody liked to acknowledge.
Entranced by the king’s speech, she leaned forward a bit further, slithering right to the end of the spar. It was at that very moment that a trapdoor opened below and a quartet of strange, non-cazenax faces peered up. Cazelui started and her tail may have flicked. It may have knocked free the bucket of hot water that she had been using, and it may have fallen straight towards those four curious heads that peeked out into a brave new world.
