Chương 28: Matrasa, City of Poison

They crossed a circle of runes an hour later, and then the city came into view. At first, Malachi couldn't make sense of what he was looking at. There were these trees and a bunch of ridiculous looking mushrooms. It took him a moment for him to realize just how tall the trees were, and just how big the mushrooms were. Seven colossal trees loomed over the city. Attached to them were equally large shelf-mushrooms, only they were big enough to have houses in them.

There were at least a hundred mushrooms scattered between the trees, varying from single-story huts with broad stems to four-story spires with multiple pointed caps. They'd all been hollowed out to make shops and houses. There were several varieties of mushroom, some bright colors, others more subdued browns and tans. Malachi could see gorgons moving about the city, through the streets and across spindle-bridges of hyphae and vines.

"Damn, you guys know the ewoks and House Telvanni?" Malachi asked. As soon as he said it, he could feel SERA getting annoyed at him about having to translate that.

"What?" Arisone asked.

"Ah, don't worry about it. You have mushroom towers and tree houses. That's fucking cool." Arisone cleared her throat.

"You should be aware that it is considered very rude in gorgon culture to swear in polite conversation." Malachi nodded.

"Right. Got it." Then he looked at all the bright colors again.

"Say… are these mushrooms poisonous?" Arisone looked at him.

"Yes, I suppose they would be to you. Try not to eat the structures."

"What about setting my food on, say, the surface of the mushroom. Would that contaminate it?" The gorgon shrugged.

"Possibly. I would avoid doing that."

"Inhaling the spores?"

"We're downwind of the city, so if they were toxic to you, you'd already know." Malachi glared at Arisone, but she was already moving toward the city.

"So how do you get trees and mushrooms so big? These big-ass trees make—sorry—these big trees make redwoods look like saplings. And there's no mushrooms nearly this big on earth. Well, the caps at least. I guess the underground networks can get pretty big."

"Druidic conduits. There are subconduits for plants, animals and fungi. There are many spells used to grow and strengthen targets. Matrasa has a long tradition of elevating Arboreal and Fungal Druids. The Dark Mire is conducive to finding essences to enhance such conduits."

"Makes sense. Uh, do I need to do anything special to let the guards know I'm not a threat?"

"Hmm? Oh, the patrols have been watching us since just before we crossed the alarm circle. That I am conversing with you politely is a signal enough that you are not to be harmed." Malachi looked around, but couldn't see where the camouflaged gorgons were.

"Can your mages repel someone as powerful as that ice wizard? Or the griffin rider and his levitating buddy?"

"Of course. This city is not defenseless." What those defenses were, she didn't say. There was a low wall around the city made of tangled briars, vines with nasty looking thorns, and thin black and green mushrooms. I wonder what they do against fire spells, he wondered. The entrance was made of two stone columns joined by an arch, all wrapped in more vines. The 'gate' was a lattice of overlapping branches that glowed with a faint green energy. There were two gorgons guarding the gate, both camouflaged.

As they approached, one of them shimmered as her scales changed.

"Hail, Arisone of Thessalinth," she said. Huh. Is she famous, or does she just come here that regularly?

"Hail, Daughter of Theveta. This is my sentinel, Malachi. We come with both gifts and information for this glorious nest."

"A human sentinel?" The guard's hair-snakes looked curiously at him.

"She is not Hadaun, but of a newly discovered… sphere-world." The guard gave a slight bow.

"Then be welcome, Daughters." Malachi opened his mouth to correct the gorgons, then realized he didn't care. It was a cultural error, not intentional like the bullies his sister had endured in middle school.

"Thanks," he said. The lattice of branches parted, creaking as they bent out of the way. Before them lay the city. Gorgons turned and stared at Malachi. Even those gorgons who weren't looking at him had their hair looking at them. Malachi did his best to grin and bear it, but having literally hundreds of snakes all hissing as they peered at him was unnerving as hell. The thought of them slithering all over him made his skin crawl. He did his best to keep himself steady.

"So how do I turn these aetherite crystals into a weapon?" he asked.

"After I see the clan hunter-elders. They will want to hear from you too." They made their way through the narrow winding streets, and Malachi quickly became lost in the tangle. The nest-temple was easy enough to find though: it was a stone ziggurat in the center of the city, the reliefs along its walls similar in design to the dungeon they'd just left.

The architecture and carvings reminded him vaguely of Mayan designs, though other buildings had stone columns with bright painted colors reminded him of ancient Greek architecture. The city was beautiful. He admired the way artists had put so much attention into the stonework and colors, and the way the druids had woven plants around them, choosing colorful flowers that complemented the designs and paintings.

"Did the dungeon come first, or was it modeled after your own ziggurats?"

"When Unala birthed the realms, Mareakal burrowed into them to create the dungeons. As he did, he shed great scales of stone that the first gorgons lived under." That hadn't actually answered Malachi's question, but he let it drop.

"Uh, how do I address the hunter-elders?"

"Respectfully," Arisone said.

"Right, yeah. But I mean, is there a title, or should I bow, or—""You are not a gorgon so you are not expected to act like a gorgon, nor to know the intricacies of being a gorgon." One of her hair-snakes peeked back at him.

"Do try to keep the swearing to a minimum, though."

"Cool. Got it." The hunter-elders—Malachi assumed there was a single word in the gorgon's language that covered the concept—met in a hall at the top of the ziggurat. They were greeted by what looked to Malachi like some sort of honor-guard wearing ornate breastplates and wielding ceremonial spears. Nice design. Functional, but very nice looking, he thought as they approached.

"Arisone of Thessalinth," one of them hissed.

"What brings you to our great nest?"

"The care of eggs and the shedding of scales," she replied.

"Do you vouch for those you bring who slither on this sacred ground?" Arisone looked at Malachi, and all her hair-snakes turned to look at him too. From the look in her eyes, he could tell this was a big moment for her. Whatever ritual greeting was going on right now had some weight to it.

"Yes," she said.

"I vouch for Malachi Ward, sentinel and ally of the nest."

"Then proceed, Daughter of Unala, Spear of Sheothalia, Egg-Protector, Hunter-Elder—Sacred of the Nest. Remember your oaths, and remember your clan." Inside there was—no one. An empty chamber. A rune-covered hearth sat in the middle of the chamber. Silk tapestries hung from the walls, showing scenes of gorgons hunting giant swamp creatures. Malachi recognized the bog demon, but none of the other monsters. One of them looked a bit like a hydra, while another, some sort of tar-creature full of bones.

"Uh, so what do we do?"

"We wait. It will take a moment for the hunter-elders here to be summoned. We only just arrived in the city." With SERA back to radio-silence, that left Malachi with time to reflect and think. Which was absolutely something he didn't want. His thoughts kept drifting back to the mission that had gone wrong. To the portal and that terrible realm. He had gotten used to a certain amount of death. Portal Response was dangerous. He'd known that. Sometimes, shit went wrong, and a new kind of sorcerer fucked up a squad.

He'd known how dangerous rhinomaws and elves could be. Known an incursion could get out of control, like what had happened in France. Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. But he'd never thought… He remembered Corporal Booth, that lost look he had before he died. Remembered realizing an incinerated corpse was Trey. Remembered a fire beam hitting Juan right in front of him. Remembered Tran getting his face bitten off. Nicole getting impaled.

Chavez bleeding out. And William. Fucking William. Why'd he have to die? He'd watched, one by one, as the hope had left their eyes. That had been the worst part. Watching their resignation. Watching them understand they were about to die. Gonna have that block party for you, he promised William. And Malia. I'll find you, he promised his sister. Whatever they've done to you, they'll pay for.

"Are… you well?" Arisone said quietly. Malachi faked a smile and ran the back of his hand across his eyes. It came away wet.

"Yeah." He exhaled.

"Just… things have been a bit rough. I need… gonna take a look at the city. Yeah." He needed to take his mind off what had happened. He didn't need to burden Arisone with it. Besides, she probably wouldn't understand. The walls were solid, so he went to stand by the door, looking out at Matrasa to take his mind off everything else. It was so strange. An entire city, completely alien from anything on Earth, full of a sapient species they'd never seen before. An entire culture and history. There was so much to learn.

Given enough time, the social sciences could be completely rewritten now that they had dozens more sapient species to compare. Physicists were still grasping at trying to figure out magic. How many realms are there? he wondered. When he'd played his games, he'd always liked the exploration part. Loved finding hidden dungeons and locations. Loved admiring the artwork the designers had put into the different places. Liked just experiencing another world. It was all a pity he couldn't do that here. Not really.

The war came first. The war they were losing. Malachi watched life in the city. It was alien, but it also wasn't so different. Gorgons exchanged goods, moved stuff around, talked. Everyone seemed busy. Near the edges of town, he could see pens full of an animal that looked a lot like a boar, and others full of those giant swamp rats with the poison bite. I hope the pig-thing tastes better than the rat, Malachi thought. From what he could smell, gorgon cooking was just not going to be his thing.

Hopefully Arisone could help him find some portal-imported food that didn't make his stomach churn. Arisone slithered over to stand by him.

"The ziggurat is a sacred place. Here, the hunter-elders can start a council, and the polis then debates. I am an honorary hunter-elder of this polis, which allows me to call this meeting. Below are the hatcheries and the nests of the male gorgons, as well as the sacred gifts of Mareakal. North of us in the smaller fortified ziggurat is the portal circle. Druids maintain the buildings around us.

The city is a place where gifts can safely be exchanged, young gorgons can be raised and trained, and hunters can gather for their expeditions. Does it remind you of your own cities?"

"Sort of." He told Arisone about the cities of Earth, how the modern ones stretched for miles and miles.

"The wall surrounding such a city must be massive," she said.

"Well, uh, no. No walls. There's not really any creatures on Earth that attack people, at least not near a city. Remember, we don't have magical beasts. Well, didn't used to have them."

"How strange," Arisone said.

"But you said your 'countries' go to war sometimes. Surely walls must be useful?"

"No, not with the kind of armies we use now. Drones and missiles fly right over them, and artillery and tanks would make any wall rubble in minutes. Trenches, yeah, those are useful, but people only dig them when hostilities actually break out. But then, the portal war is different. They can appear anywhere."

"Interesting. They're not limited to a circle within the Portal Stones?"

"No. Can those be built?"

"Like a dungeon, they are gifts of the gods. So, no. But surely Earth has its own pantheon, does it not?" That required some more explanation. They continued chatting. Malachi appreciated the distraction. After about an hour of waiting, two gorgons slithered up the ziggurat's ramp to the high chamber. One was dressed in a ceremonial robe of some sort, holding a staff that was draped with ribbons and tassels.

The other had two thin swords strapped to her back and was wearing black leather armor with fancy embroidery. Even from a distance, he could see her eyes glowed a faint purple. Malachi sat next to Arisone in one of those weird baskets. It was comfortable for a gorgon to curl up in, but was not at all meant for bipeds to sit in. Still, it had a cushion, so was better than the rocks and fallen logs he'd gotten used to. He heard the two gorgons going through the ceremonial greetings.

The one with the robes and staff was Stherope and the one with the leather armor and swords was Anetades.

"What is the meaning of this, Arisone?" Anetades said as soon as she had passed into the chamber.

"You dare bring Hadaun algae-scum to this council?" She put one of her hands on the hilt of her blade. Malachi couldn't bring himself to be offended by that. The translated insult was too weird. He did get ready to fight, though.

"Unhand your weapon on this sacred ground! I do not bring our enemies to council. This is not a Hadaun, but a potential ally from a newly discovered sphere-world. One that might be able to put an end to the Maatugivi Empire. Her name is Malachi." That made all the hair-snakes in the room look at Malachi with interest. He suppressed a shiver.

"Is this, uh, the whole council?" Malachi asked.

"The beginning of it. Most hunter-elders are with their bands out hunting, as one might expect."

"So how does this work? Do I just tell you about Earth? Do you have dedicated clan diplomats? Treaties? Alliances? I can guess at what my government is going to want, but I'm also not an official representative." There was no immediate response. Arisone cocked her head slightly. SERA? For fuck's sake does any of that translate? Full translation of concepts not probable. Right, it's still limited by the rules the other cores are supposed to follow. Ugh.

Malachi stood, since he didn't like everyone looking down at him and his back was cramping.

"Right. The place I come from seems to have a very different government. You have the polis and the clan, and you have these councils. We have our own councils, except council members are appointed by majority vote and then they do… well they're supposed to do what the people who elected them say but then there's… uh… corporate donors and… the representatives aren't always… uh…." He trailed off, then cleared his throat.

"Anyways, the elected councils appoint people who can make something called a 'treaty,' and that's an agreement to do certain things as written. My people don't have magic, so we would be very interested in getting Magical Cores and the ability to make or control portals. In exchange, we could give you guns, tanks, artillery, anti-air missiles, drones, or just raw materials like steel. I can't make a binding deal because I'm just a Portal Response soldier, but the stuff we can give you would be really helpful.

For example, long range near-instant communication devices that can fit in your pocket. Claymore mines you can plant so that Hadaun going to steal a dungeon get vaporized." Stherope was still giving Malachi a puzzled look.

"No magic? Your society must be quite primitive."

"Yeah, well, we'd say the same thing about you. We both have things the other doesn't have. We can trade."

"Mutual gifts," Arisone interjected.

"They are like the Hadaun in some ways. From what Malachi has told me, they worship coin much the same way." Malachi rolled his eyes.

"Not worship but—""Did you not say you had special houses dedicated to it and a priestly caste that oversees it?"

"Banks and the stock market, which economists try to predict, yeah, but they don't—right, whatever. There's going to be a lot of cultural differences between us. But that's the gist. That's what I'm proposing. We give you people and tools to fight the Hadaun and any other invaders, and you help us get the magic we need to defend ourselves from portals. You'll have to actually negotiate with representatives from the various Earth governments, but I guarantee every one of them is interested in the magic you have.

What I'm proposing is basically establishing diplomatic and trade relations, with the details getting hammered out when my people's representatives can talk to yours."

"Tell them how many hunters you have," Arisone said. Malachi scratched his head.

"Uh, US total armed forces are currently at like, four million, with an additional four million currently in Portal Response. Would be more but they keep, uh, dying. That's my country. Russia has, like, six million troops mobilized. China, ten million, though that doesn't count some of the other security forces. I think India also has that many soldiers mobilized. Those are the biggest four militaries. Earth has nearly 200 countries of varying size." The other gorgons' eyes went wide.

Arisone looked pleased with herself. Anetades was the first to collect herself. Her purple eyes glinted in the light as she spoke.

"An alliance with such clans would be dangerous. Every gorgon juvenile learns in the creche what happens to a weak polis encountering a strong one. Sheothalia's cycles cannot be ignored. We should do as we have, and stay isolated. They will fight each other regardless." Stherope hissed, planting her staff dramatically before speaking.

"The first gift given is returned sevenfold. The polis that gives no gifts has no friends to shield it from a storm. Such a powerful group of hunters cannot be ignored." Arisone gave a sinister looking grin, baring her short fangs.

"So begins the fights of words. I can tell you already, though, what Thessalinth will say to such an offer, so Theveta would be wise to consider how her response aligns with their nest-brethren." The next few hours were exhausting. More gorgons showed up, both 'hunters' and 'hunter-elders.' They all tended to fall into two basic camps: no, way too dangerous to ally with Earth, and yes, too much benefit to be ignored.

Malachi for his part did more talking then than he'd done over the course of his entire guild's raid history, most of it trying to get them to understand basic stuff like how Earth governments tended to work or what the technologies he was talking about did. Then he had the equally arduous task of trying to understand what the hell they were all talking about with their own weird 'government,' if it could even be called that.

In the back of his mind, he could feel SERA-Phasia being a smug piece of shit about the difficulties of interpreting language. The nice part was, food got brought to him, and thanks to Arisone's special instructions, there weren't even any poison mushrooms to pick out. The boar-adjacent creature was stringy and tough, but a hell of a lot better than rat. They also had some vegetables that weren't so bad: something that tasted a lot like a turnip, and another that reminded him of cassava.

He also got a fruit that had apparently come from one of the other realms the city traded through the portal with. It was like a tougher, more bitter kumquat. Malachi ate it with relish; it was by far the best thing he'd tasted since he left Earth. After a few hours, Arisone thankfully told them she and her sentinel needed to rest, and they departed. That didn't at all put a halt to the discussions.

Apparently, hunter-elders had to call a council, but once it was going, it didn't stop until enough gorgons in the polis were satisfied. Over the next few days, as hunters returned from expeditions, they'd catch up and join in on the discussion.

"Where to next?" Malachi asked.

"You will enjoy this next destination significantly more. We are going to the enchanter to get you a proper weapon." Malachi was exhausted, but that brought a grin to his face. I wonder what they can make me with seven aetherite crystals?