acaswell
patreon
Chapter 163: Outside - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2023-10-19 05:42:26 +0000 UTCOutside of our tiny little three-room shack, I could see that the streets of the city we lived in were rather run-down. I scanned the surrounding area, and quickly realized that we lived in a row of tiny, cramped shacks. Furthermore, my mother and I could be considered somewhat lucky, since we lived near the ground. Most of the shacks on the street had another shack or two stacked on top of them in rickety, unstable-looking towers of houses. The only way up or down the little unstable towers of houses were rusty ladders dotting the sides of each tower.
Our living conditions weren’t unique. In fact, it was something of a small miracle that our house only had mold and signs of deterioration on the inside. The metal sheets that separated each house in a tower were usually bolted together with some kind of purple metal that I couldn’t identify, but it was used very sparingly. I repressed the urge to wince at how unsteady looking the constructions here were.
However, ruins and poor housing weren’t the only things present in this world. As I peeked around the edge of the row of houses, in the distance, I could see a giant clocktower, standing so high it could overlook the rest of the city. Unlike the two and three-story shack towers I lived in, the giant clocktower looked like a monument to industry, heralding the arrival of a new era. I could see various other buildings as well, some made of steel, and others made of copper or brass. There were stacks of steam and smoke drifting over some other parts of the city, giving the area I lived in a heavy, polluted smell that nearly made me cough. I realized that I had been smelling factory smoke and pollution for most of my life already - however, the scent was much stronger outside.
In the distance, I could also see tall, uniform buildings, with proud glass windows and brass walls reaching towards the heavens. I could even see some sort of massive flying ship in the distance, although it was far enough away that it was hard to see, even with my exceptional eyesight. It looked kind of like a blimp, but it was a bit more streamlined and sleek.
I could also see that some of the wealthier parts of the cities had street lamps set up on their sidewalks. Some of the street lamps were still under construction, but this city was very clearly constructing more of them at a rapid pace.
Of course, my immediate surroundings were a lot less mechanized than the pillars of brass and steel in the distance. They looked more like a middle-ages slum, with only occasional bits of brass and sheet metal tossed into the constructions.
I was surprised that the well-off part of the city was so heavily industrialized, since Felix had mentioned that the Steam engine had only been discovered a few decades ago. Perhaps this city was especially industrialized? Or perhaps this country had simply adopted industrialization very quickly?
I shook my head, and took a look around. I could think about this country and the rest of the world later. I needed to worry about food and safety first. Instead, I focused on the people near me.
I also wasn’t alone on the street.
There were twenty or thirty other people on the street with me. Most of them were older than me - although there weren’t many adults nearby. Two thirds of the people on the street were between the ages of twelve and seventeen, and many of them looked as lean and malnourished as my mother and I did. They moved together in small, huddled groups, with their shoulders hunched and hollow, indifferent expressions on their faces. There were a few adults on the street - but all of them still looked rather young. Many of the passerby also had insignias attached to their clothing. The insignias looked like a stylized brass gear attached to a fist. The people with those insignias still had indifferent expressions, but they stood a little bit taller than the other passerby. They hunched their shoulders less, and they looked less nervous.
Most interestingly, however, the people with brass gear insignias often had brass arms.
I couldn’t tell whether the machines were prosthetic limbs, or whether they were just machines that were attached to their arms. However, that was definitely something I hadn’t expected to see here. The idea that people had advanced machinery, capable of strengthening or replacing human limbs, startled me. I had been thinking of this world as something directly akin to a more industrial-era society, but seeing people stroll around with mechanical limbs in the middle of a slum was a strong reminder that even if this world didn’t have dragons and spellcasters wandering around the world, it was still a magical world and not a purely mechanical one, and it also reminded me that the laws of physics could vary greatly from one dimension to the next. This planet might have a much easier time developing some technology than other dimensions, and it might also struggle to develop some other kinds of technology.
Clearly, mechanical limbs weren’t that hard to come by here, if even random slum dwellers had them.
I looked at one of the insignia-bearing people with a brass arm, and activated my soul sight. I wanted to get an assessment for what my combat power looked like right now. People with mechanical limbs most likely had stronger punches than other people. However, did a brass limb change the way extinguish worked?
After examining the insignia-bearing man with a brass limb, I tried not to cackle.
The life force of the people here on the street was incredibly weak compared to the creatures from the world of the black sun. They were probably an entire order of magnitude weaker than the Orukthyri that I had seen in the previous world. They were just… ordinary people. Their Fortitude stat was usually somewhere between grade 5 and grade 6, depending on how much they worked out. The people with mechanical attachments to their limbs didn’t seem to have any additional Fortitude compared to random passerby. In other words, they were just as vulnerable to an extinguish as every other person on the street.
And furthermore, the people here weren’t innately magic resistant, the way the Orukthyri had been.
I felt a strange sense of unreality close over me as I assessed the difference between these people’s life force and the Orukthyri. If I had an expert grade attunement, I would probably be able to drop… somewhere between twenty and forty people by myself? It was hard to get an exact estimate right now, but I would definitely be able to fight more than a dozen people on my own, even with only having Grade 6 Alteration essence and an expert grade attunement. In our previous world, with Grade 6 Alteration essence, I probably would have struggled to kill more than one or two Orukthyri with the exact same Essence Grade and attunement grade.
Of course, right now, I could only manage a half dozen people or so. But my combat power wasn’t weak in the slightest in this world. I actually didn’t need to be afraid of getting hurt by a random kidnapper or passerby at all, as long as they didn’t ambush me or have a gun.
Even if people decided to hurt me, and came after me in numbers, I could still probably drop several of them without much danger to myself just by relying on extinguish. And if I used {Breath of the Storm} to turn my absorption essence into another offensive spell, I could probably drop a dozen enemies by myself already.
I felt my shoulders ease a bit. I had felt very tense when I first walked out of the house. I knew that my mother and I lived in a bad neighborhood, and I had been a little worried that someone might try to kidnap me or hurt me. After all, I looked like a four year old kid right now - I might as well be wearing a sign that said ‘easy pickings here.’ However, once I realized that I was surprisingly strong compared to the other inhabitants of this world, I felt a lot more at ease.
I shook myself out of my relaxed state a moment later, and mentally chided myself.
I needed to be careful in this world. Even if I was surprisingly powerful compared to a regular person here, I could still get shot and killed easily. I was only at grade 5 in Fortitude - there was no way I could shrug off a bullet to the head.
Just to make sure nobody was giving me a weird or dangerous look, I closed my eyes for a moment and used my spatial eyes rune ability. Nobody seemed to be paying much attention to me, so I opened my eyes again and scurried onto the street. I kept a careful watch on the people around me, but at the same time, I started formulating a plan.
What was I supposed to do to get better food? Right now, hunger was what dominated my thoughts the most. I needed something to eat. It was too hard to concentrate on improving my strength when my stomach felt like an empty pit that wanted to devour me from inside out. I needed a more stable source of food. Barring a stable source of food, I at least needed something to tide me over for a few days. The pain in my stomach was nearly unbearable.
Was it already time to masquerade as an alchemist?
I looked at myself dubiously, and snorted.
As if anyone would believe a four year old was a competent alchemist. Even if I could defend myself, I doubted I would be able to get anyone to buy my ‘potions.’ If one person drank a ‘potion’ of mine in public and I used renewal on them, I could probably drum up some business, especially if I managed to heal a very visible and dangerous wound - but I doubted I would even get a chance to prove the value of my healing as it currently stood.
I wasn’t willing to rob anyone, even if doing so with extinguish probably wouldn’t be very hard. I had a bottom line, and hurting and robbing random passerby was unacceptable to me. Unless they wanted to hurt me first, I wasn’t going to hurt someone else.
I thought for a few more moments, before my thoughts drifted back to Sallia.
<Sallia… was that offer to use your soup bowl still open?> I asked, sending my thoughts to her. <I’m really hungry, and I want to get some food in my belly before I make bigger plans. I’m definitely not thinking clearly right now, and long-term planning seems like a bad idea.>
<Come over immediately! I’ll share some food with you! Ever since you mentioned your situation, I’ve been stockpiling some extra food every day. My family might not be wealthy, but we at least have a bit more basic food security than you. I have some goodies you can take with you. Where are you?>
<I just left my house, and I’m currently wandering the streets. I don’t know much else about my surroundings. I’m at, uhh…>
I frowned, and turned towards the nearest passerby on the sidewalk.
“Excuse me, what street is this?” I asked a pair of teenagers who were walking by me.
The boy who was closest to me just snorted and kept walking. He didn’t even respond to my question. The other boy didn’t even respond to me at all - he simply brushed past me, as if I weren’t there.
I didn’t let myself get discouraged, and tried again with another group of passerby on the sidewalk. However, I got a pretty similar response. The only person who responded to my question at all simply gave me a disdainful snort, and ignored me.
The third group I tried didn’t even dignify my presence with a response - they just kept walking. I did see them hunch their shoulders a bit more as they moved past me, but that was the only sign that they had heard me at all.
<Sallia, how do I figure out what street I’m on? Or where you are?> I sent.
<I’m… uhh… do you see clocktower in the distance?>
I looked at the horizon, and nodded. The clocktower was so tall compared to the other buildings near us that it stood out like a sore thumb.
<All right, what direction is it for you?>
<A bit East of me, I think. Assuming the sun sets in the east in this world, which, admittedly, may not be true.>
<I have no idea what direction the sun sets in either. But it’s towards the sunset for you? Hmm… we might be in the same part of the slums. What kind of gang signs are the people near you wearing? And what kind of mechanical additions do they have to their limbs?>
I blinked, and looked at the people wearing insignias of brass gears and mechanical limbs again.
Now that Sallia pointed it out, it did seem rather likely that those were gang symbols. I just… hadn’t thought about it before.
<The… gangsters near me are wearing a stylized brass gear symbol,> I sent.
<Hmm… I think I know of that gang. You’re a bit further away than I thought, but you should still be within easy walking distance. So, the area I’m in is inhabited by a gang that is obsessed with pocket watches, so all of them have clock symbols for their gang sign, and have a clock or pocket watch lookalike attached to their person somewhere. They usually don’t work, since actual pocket watches are expensive - but the gang still uses it as their symbol. I should be several streets west of you. Let me know if you need more directions if you start to feel like you’ve ended up somewhere weird. And don’t ask the passerby for directions - if you do, some gang members might try to kill you, if they think you’re spying for another gang.>
I nodded, thanked Sallia, and started heading west.
It was time to meet up with the first of my friends.
Author’s Note:
Join my Discord!
Comments
Rain
Airships woooo!! Felix is gonna have to make them one!!
Twi
Some of my concerns that this would have Weird Political Implications are definitely eased by having the story so deftly lean into both the steampunk aesthethic and the actual inequality and deprivation that a lot of that Industry and Victorian England involved. So, cautiously optimistic that it won't be Weird and Bad, even if it doesn't go all [base boosted Soviet anthem], which is fine by me
Arkeus
While she has base 5 fortitude, her keywords for alteration are now on 'life', so 6
Stephen Pearson
Thanks for the chapter:-)
