Chương 489: 488

By the time Mark got close enough to the actual ancient city of Crash, nestled in the center canopy of the same-named tree, he had seen a lot of inequality everywhere. He also saw no injuries, no lack of living spaces, or anything like people stuck in stockades and getting pelted with old tomatoes. He did not expect to see anything close to public humiliation or punishment, but he wasn't sure what to expect in this land of the Forgetting and Mark had absolutely seen some shit before today.

Kabberjaw was yet another isolated community of humans, and that place had some real sickos in the hidden pirate ports here and there. People got up to awful shit when they weren't policed. So Mark was glad to see that the only problem here was a lack of aspirations. There was no lack of food, or housing, or health. There was absolutely a lack of purpose, of growth, in the people smoking drugs and watching shows, or in the groups sitting around fires in the open and talking about this or that.

People had bellies, and they had muscle, and they had jewels and beads in their hair, and the tree-woven houses looked pretty nice, though sparsely decorated. One would expect a lot of lights on at night in all public spaces, because you needed to be able to see monsters in the dark corners, but there were few lights here and fewer issues. There were no monsters. Just the 'monster' of boredom. Boredom was a pretty common thing to see in a lot of the Two Worlds, perhaps more so on Earth than on Daihoon, though.

On Earth, they had Universal Basic Income. Some small number of people were perfectly fine with never rising above that level. Most were like Mark's parents; working jobs and making extra and buying more than they technically 'needed'. … This place didn't have a real big economy, Mark guessed. Based on what he was feeling with Union out there, it didn't have much of anything. But at least there was no lack. Mark stared up at the curved land of the real city of Crash.

The contrast between that ancient, silver city, and this tree-crafted village surrounding the place was a large one. The grandparents of the people here had been living a lot differently 80 years ago, pre-Reveal. The actual city truly was a marvel of ancient engineering, all sleek and silver with balconies and all sorts of public amenities, some of which looked like they still worked. Most of the place was several square kilometers of tall, main-city-type of buildings.

Mostly silver, mostly tilting at least a little. Lights glowed on poles on the silver streets, and inside the towers. Water burbled on fountains, and then the fountains spilled out of their tilted reservoirs and made streams on the streets. But someone had put bamboo aqueducts into those flows of water, directing them where they needed to go, and the whole place was covered in grown platforms and adjustments and a bunch of stuff to make the place habitable, even if it was all at an angle.

The buildings looked like they had been there for decades, based on all the stuff around them. One building had fallen over completely and remained on the ground to the side, looking like a mistake of engineering that people had made the best of, growing floors between the sideways ceilings and original floors, and then hanging lights wherever they could. One person hung a light from a sink over a very thin hallway-type room.

Mark looked at that particular open hallway-room for a moment longer than he looked at the rest, as he continued on to giant staircases made of roots, leading up to the edge of the main city. It was night and the crowds were thin and mostly nonexistent, but people had started to really notice Mark by then. He made no attempt not to be noticed, in his stark black suit with bright white vis-lines. Everyone else was wearing very little.

Some children ran around nude in the hot night, and their parents weren't much more clothed. Mark's guides, Wakka Khava, and Wavespeaker/Elder Amokai, let Mark take it all in without saying a word. They just guided him up the staircase to 'ground level', and then Mark stood looking up at the tilted city overhead. Bugs gathered at the golden street lights, thick and buzzing. Mark's first question was, "Got a bug problem around here?""

Oh they are terrible," Wakka said, like it was an old complaint, "But we have sprays for them. Are they bothering you?"" Open your eyes, Wakka," Amokai said, voice serious.

"The man has no care for the needles of insects. He is not asking for himself, for he has no connection to any land. He is asking for us. He seeks to overturn everything in pursuit of his vision of a better world, to make everyone like him, no matter the insects he crushes in his path." Mark had heard complaints about that long before now, so he just grinned and told the Elder, "Yup! I'm here to help you make the insects ignorable." Wakka seemed to love that. Amokai's inner worry doubled.

"Life is not something to be minimized. It is something to live."" Do you let the insects bite you?" Mark asked, looking at Amokai and knowing none of the insects were bothering him. He pointed to a kid itching himself as he stood with his older brother, right beside a corner of a building, trying to hide but watching Mark anyway.

"Or do you just let your youngest get bitten, and that's 'living with the land'."" Disrespectful," Amokai said, voice quiet, shaking his head. Wakka told Mark, "We have bugspray for all. It's not that bad." He happily added, "And sleeping nets! Those are the most important—"" Halt!" stated a warrior, standing in the middle of the wooden walkway ahead. He was flanked by 4 other warriors, each of them wearing loincloths and with swords floating beside their hips. The guy demanded, "Identify yourself, outsider."

Mark had seen them gathering since he started walking underneath the tilted towers of Crash. Two of the guys were still waking themselves up, but the one who had spoken first had rallied them all fast, and now they were falling in line. Slow response time, though. Mark got the distinct impression, again, that nothing ever threatened this land… until now, until the goblins.

People were gathering from every corner of the open, slanted courtyard, watching from beyond corners and standing in the open, wondering what was going to happen next. Wakka tried to speak up for Mark. Mark stepped forward, saying, "I'm Mark Careed, and you all know I was coming. I'm here to see some elders and give out some powers so you can save yourselves from the goblin threat on your shores." If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The lead warrior had been expecting that. He glared, raised his hand and the floating sword slapped into his grip, letting him point at Mark with the sword as he said, "We know who you are. You are the one who foisted that green menace onto our lands. You are not welcome here, outsider. Leave, and never return." Mark was disappointed, but not surprised— Wakka stepped forward, angrily spitting, "Get back in your hider, Kebaro! Leave this danger to walk past you, like you do all the others, washout."

Kebaro glared at Wakka, sword never deviating from Mark's direction, saying, "You shut your mouth—"" All of you children shut your mouths," Amokai said, pissed off but still worried. He stepped forward, making eye contact with many of the warriors, and also with the people watching from the edges.

"I have been an Elder for 50 years, and though that position has fallen a lot lower than our progenitors thought it could ever fall, it still means something. Don't make me Speak at you." The audience gasped a little, though some looked on with open wonder. Kebaro's sword faltered a little. But then he saw the people looking at him, and his own embarrassment made him confront Mark again, saying, "Leave, or I make you leave." Mark said, "Please try it. I would like to see how you accomplish this action."

And then Amokai waved his hand and the warriors and their swords vanished, taken by the mist. Mark felt them reappear about 150 meters away, out of sight and out of mind, though Mark only caught that because of the sudden spike of emotions in that direction, of the rage and disappointment and also relief —from one of the other warriors in that group— and not because he actually saw them.

The group's rage turned upon the one who felt relief, but then it went back toward Mark, in his direction— Amokai walked forward, saying, "I didn't send them far, so they'll come back if they think they have to." Wakka told Mark, "Let's hurry, please, to the Court." Mark went with it, walking and then walking faster as the other guys sped up a bit. Mark walked kinda quickly up some more stairs, asking, "So… not that it will actually deter me from helping you all, but what was that back there?"

Mark had an impression of what it had been, thanks to Derek's talk of the island while Mark was flying here, but Derek hadn't been able to give many exact details and the problem was an evolving one. The Picory fought the goblins, they were not winning, and everyone was scared. It was a complicated dance of issues.

Mark wasn't going to look into any of those issues too deeply, but he was surely going to get a diagram of the powers in play, and how they worked, and how he could help them the best without installing a whole new government. New Tokyo could handle 700 new True Powers. This place? Not so much.

From what Mark was seeing as he glanced around with his fragment of a divine mirror, the average Power Level of the adults here was probably in the 5 to 15 range, with maybe 90% of the souls out there having some sort of unstructured Knack. Amokai and Wakka had PLs in the 70s, probably along Arch and Mind, respectively. Amokai's PL was kinda hard to gauge, actually, but '70s' seemed kinda correct. Wakka said, "Achh! Don't worry about those washouts.""

You should worry about them," Amokai countered, "The Flow put them in front of us, but it also put me here to deal with them, and you don't want to deal with me, so you will deal with them again when I am not here." Mark nodded a little, recalling what he had been able to read in the language book of Waterpeople. He asked, "You all believe in the Flow, huh?"" The Flow is real," Amokai said, so very certain of that. Wakka was less certain, but he wasn't going to speak up against the elder on that particular topic.

As they stepped into an open courtyard built on several tilted levels, making it a 50 meter square land of balconies, Amokai said, "The Language is fate and flow and the future, wrapped in whirlpool and kept steady by the Speakers and the Crashers. To ignore the fates happening in the flow is to be led to your own death. Those boys were a coincidental rock in the stream, but there is no such thing as coincidence when the land itself begins to move, and you, Careed, bring us tidal flows unseen in a generation.

The land is already moving, even if none of the people here can feel it yet." Wakka had to ask, "Did you truly bring us Ocean Shaper?" Mark looked forward to the 'Court' ahead, which was a courthouse on a slant, with large pillars out front, a large staircase leading up past all of that, and giant open doors beyond. Why did it look like a stereotypical 'courthouse', and why did the ancient city of the Picory look almost like a modern day city? No idea. The people here might know.

Light spilled out from the courthouse itself, and from the lampposts around this courtyard, illuminating many people who were out and about, who had gathered here in anticipation of Mark's arrival. Three people stood out from the rest. They stood on the angled pillars of the courthouse itself, near the doors. One of them was Tulo Khava's Aunt Mabi, from the Winter Ball. She looked much the same as before, wearing prints and with bare arms.

The other two were unknown to Mark, but they had the same sort of air about them that Mabi had. One was a large woman. The other was a muscular man. All of them were grey-haired. All of them had strong Powers, with PLs in the 80s, with Mabi having something brain-angled, the large woman having something in her body like vines, and the older man clearly had Breaker, like Kraigen Steele had back in Memphi. This guy's body was solid, but the world around him was a mess of chipped existence.

Derek came out from the Court itself, waving. Mabi rapidly said something quiet to him, and Derek jumped to stand closer to her. The man up there had seen Derek and he was pissed, but he let it go to look at Mark with a thrill in his vector. Mark stepped forward, and said to everyone, "I bring the Picory 3 copies of Ocean Shaper to instill in their chosen warriors and a handful of other Powers to give to whoever else needs them.

My goal in this is to help you all help yourself against the goblin menace that I kicked out of our lands, and which ended up south of your lands. I will not go against the goblins myself, but I will be going out there to talk to them, to ask them about what they know of the deeper history of the crimes of Okuana. I would appreciate knowing what you all might know about the deeper history of the Two Worlds, for it is clear that the people here have an important history unknown to the rest of the Two Worlds."

Mabi stepped off of the courthouse pillar and landed on the woven wood and roots that made up the angled floor of the city, saying, "House Khava greets the traveler. We bid you welcome into our halls. Please join us inside for a discussion." In they went.