WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

[abraxasmods]

WELCOME TO THE FREE CITIES!

Welcome to The Free Cities! The portal exits outside the capital city of Cadens. The first impression of the city is its sheer size. It sprawls out across the landscape like a great hulking beast at rest. The wall that encircles it barely contains it, the buildings of Cadens practically bulging against its restraint.

The air here seems thicker somehow, tinged with a scent that’s acrid and smoky. Smog hangs high over the city, belched out by smokestacks that tower over the industrial district. The desert stretches out behind it, dotted with towers and dust clouds that disappear into the horizon. Multiple gates lead inside and each is staffed by soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms that wave a steady stream of people through without appearing to pay much attention. People are coming and going almost all of the time, to and from the outposts and areas of activity around the city proper. It’s difficult to tell just what’s out there beyond the impression of tall metal structures and a great deal of labor. Wagons carrying travelers to Libertas and Aquila roll out from the Travel Post outside the city wall.

Anyone who can sense magic will notice a much lower concentration here. No one will be stopped or questioned at the gate, even if the soldiers seem to take note of the fugitives from Thorne.

The activity and sheer number of citizens can be overwhelming. It’s crowded and loud and feels constantly in motion with everyone talking and yelling over each other. It’s easy to get swept up in the ever-moving throng or find oneself ducking into the mouth of a narrow alley just to breathe.

Anyone who’s willing to make their way to the northern part of the city and Portham Hall will find Prime Minister Marlo Reiner available to receive them.

Comments

No worries!

[productid4]

[Louis nods in acknowledgment. Yes, it is a source of some frustration. It is annoying how many varieties of 'not-human' there are that just look exactly like humans with maybe a subtle difference, and how offended they get when they're called human. To say nothing of the struggle of learning how to recognize everyone he meets when they're all the same species and the same basic height and shape.]

My world would be very difficult for a human to adjust to, I imagine. [He sips at his whiskey. He's not an open person, but he also doesn't see why he can't reveal a bit about his own world.] Omnivores don't have a place there. There are many social considerations between herbivores and carnivores that a human wouldn't understand from the outset, and they would run into trouble when people learned they were carnivores despite having no fangs or claws. They'd have no place among herbivores, and they'd have no defense against carnivores.

[Considering how much humans take meat-eating for granted, it's very likely they would let something slip in front of an herbivore. And meat-eating is one of the most illegal things people can do in his world.]

[wiedzminka]

Mm. I see...

[ She's beginning to, at least, she thinks. The way he separates herbivores and carnivores and social considerations. ]

Likely it's a good thing, then, there are no humans in your world.

[ She takes a thoughtful sip, swirling the amber liquid in her glass before and after, peering at the deer on her periphery. ]

Do your carnivores...? [ Ah. How to ask if they eat what are, essentially, people? ]

Do they live in separate communities?

[productid4]

[Louis hums and nods. Yes, it's a good thing humans aren't in his world. At least, good for the humans. They could pass as some breed of ape, and they should be able to comfortably live off of vegetables, but they have no muscles, no particular speed, no claws or horns or anything. Nothing to defend themselves, and a proclivity for eating meat. He thinks that if a human tried to eat a herbivore, most medium species of herbivore could handily kill them. Maybe even an alpaca could kill them.

It's a grim line of thought, but Louis has never been known for optimistic thinking.]

No, we live in integrated communities. We live in the same cities, attend the same schools, work in the same companies. [For the most part, but explaining the minutia of what jobs carnivores and herbivores tend to stray to is for a different kind of conversation.

But he hears the underlying question. He sips at his whiskey, his missing leg twinging against his prosthetic.] You're wondering if they eat us. The answer is that it's punishable with life in prison, but yes. All carnivores crave herbivore meat, and devourings happen. It's a part of life.

['Devouring' rolls off his tongue like a familiar noun. 'A Devouring', akin to 'a murder'. It's just a part of life, to the point where a devoured classmate is only enough cause for school-wide uneasiness and a shrine of flowers rather than the closure and investigation of the school.

What he doesn't say is that the criminal penalty is far lighter if the carnivore doesn't devour all of the herbivore, if the carnivore only eats a limb or rushes to get help after losing control. It would invite questions that he'd rather avoid, or at the very least let her find herself.]

[wiedzminka]

...ah.

[ Yes, she does notice that. Devourings. In her world, it's not so uncommon of a concept either -- except the context is completely different when it's monsters eating humans. The implications are awful, and yet, in an equally awful way, sort of fascinating. She would be very interested to travel to his world, despite his warnings.

This seems, however, a terrible thing to say. So Ciri drains the remainder of her glass instead, putting it back on the counter with a thump. ]

It is a very different world from this one. But it sounds like all worlds have certain penchants for violence in common.

Where I'm from, people with relatively little physical differences from each other and no instinctive urge to devour still round up their fellows to the slaughter.

But I did not mean to let the conversation get so dour. We are both away from those places now, regardless.

Let us speak of the now. What sort of work can a deer find in Cadens?

[productid4]

Really? How strange. [It's hard for him to really imagine a large group banding together and agreeing that someone who looks a little different from them must die. Maybe it's because there are too many people that look too far away from each other in his world. Maybe it's because no one species is ever a large and powerful enough faction that they reasonably could band together and pick on one other species in particular. Maybe it's because a deer and a sheep are only a deer and a sheep until a carnivore walks in, and then they're two herbivores.]

Politics. Speaking of dour conversation. [He lets out a slight huff at his own dry humor, sipping his drink.] I'm working as a clerk and unofficial ambassador for a small time politician from Libertas who likes to be known around the Free Cities. I convinced him that someone like me could quite effectively build his brand. [What the fool didn't really consider is that Louis is building his own brand, really, not his own. Louis can pick up and walk away to another politician any day, and he'd take his newfound growing recognition with him. But that's why Louis inserted himself with a rather low-ranking politician who has never quite developed the cunning required for the job.] And you?