The few minutes between Tian and Union Central felt longer than they were. He’d left Jasmine behind. There had never been any real promises between them. Just her offer to talk about their future when the tournant ended. He finally understood why he felt so drawn to her, too late for it to matter.
She’d been a fighter. Not just as a participant in a tournant. Not even because she actually knew how to fight. She was a force of nature who aggressively chased whatever she wanted in life. That willingness to enter the struggle drew his attention. It wasn’t just willingness to fight, either. She sought it out. She reveled in it.
No more. Hector couldn’t imagine what his abrupt departure would do to the format of the tournant. Jasmine had just redistributed the body mass of one of the contestants over a very large area. Two other contestants were gone from Tian entirely. If Hector had to bet, he would say that the Lord Platinum ended the tournant right then. But even if they let it play out… Jasmine was dead. All the fighters were.
All but him and Darius.
His transit sphere entered the world of Union Central and unfurled from the primordial into three-dinsional reality at a spot near his old capsule hotel. He couldn’t say how he knew it was coming out there, but he did.
The weld released, grew larger, and his externality retracted entirely to drop them onto the sidewalk. Hector automatically reached out to steady Darius. Everyone around stared. They’d probably never seen a transit sphere in person. They’d know what it was, though. The war movies liked to throw in all sorts of war footage with the end credits and everybody knew that transit spheres were cool as hell.
Welco back to Union Central.
“Ah! I see words!”
“That’s just the System. It’s weird at first but you’ll learn to appreciate it.”
Around them, people began to go about their days. Union Central was a bustling city. No one could wait around forever. Hector took so ti to walk Darius through the process of entering his information for the System, both the general information, the financial module, the resident module, and the work permit. Darius grew increasingly uncomfortable with the experience.
“Is this Jinn magic in my mind?”
“It’s Jinn technology combined with Arahant ritual. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t ss with your mind. It just projects light onto your retina and tracks everything you do. Oh yeah, don’t do any cris while you’re here. The System is always watching.”
“What are we doing on such a world?”
“One point in Union Central’s favor is no one will try to turn you into an elixir.”
“That is a low bar to clear, Hector. A very low bar. Now what am I supposed to do?” Darius turned in a slow circle to look at their surroundings. He was particularly fascinated by the height of the skyscrapers. “Do those buildings ever fall?”
“I don’t think that’s ever happened in Promise City.”
“And my other question? What do I do here?”
Hector put his hand on Darius’s back. “I will set you up here. Employnt opportunities for Xian aren’t great, but our kind are built to run the dungeon. It’s easy to build wealth doing that. Unfortunately, if you decide to buy resources from Tian, it’s going to be expensive.”
He made a couple of familiar gestures.
Survey Results
Type: Xian
Level: 5
Body: 5
Mind: 4.4
Aura: 3.2
Domain: 2.9
Energy Reserves: 34%
There was the five body statistic he’d anticipated so much. It ant surprisingly little to actually see it. He’d already known he was at peak five. His mind had also improved a bit. Maybe due to practicing the strengthening technique or maybe from the pill given to him by Lord Andrew before the start of the hand-to-hand matches.
Darius folded his arms. “I do not hold Harridan’s mories against you. It was not your choice to receive them. Therefore there is nothing between us. Bringing away from the situation on Tian is already more charity than I care to accept.”
Hector looked down at the ground, sorting his thoughts. He didn’t think it was fair that he had to switch gears so fast. He’d just left Jasmine to her death. He deserved ti to co to terms with that. Yet Darius was here wanting to cut ties to prove sothing to himself. No. Not happening. But Hector had to spin that in a way that made Darius want to stay.
“You’re not a charity case. I need a partner in the dungeons, Darius. My old team from before the tournant had two Arahants. One died and the other one quit. The dungeon is risky if you don’t have soone to watch your back.”
Darius studied him with suspicion in his eyes. “Are you certain this is not charity?”
“Wait until you see how much money we make together. Now let’s find a computer lab so that I can get us into a capsule hotel.”
So many questions followed and though Hector initially resented them, he realized the distraction was healthier than the alternative of entertaining his crushing guilt. That didn’t an he didn’t find the questions frustrating. Darius had been raised on a world with a level of technology equivalent to the enlightennt era on Earth.
Computers utterly baffled him. Darius refused to trust them unless he could understand them and he simply did not have a background that would ever allow him to grasp what was happening. Anything more sophisticated than a steam engine was Jinn magic to him, functionally no different than an Arahant ritual. Learning that living in Promise City absolutely required interacting with computers on a daily basis caused Darius to double down on his insistence that he didn’t trust them.
“If you give the computer money to rent a hotel room, how do you know it’s not going to keep the money?”
“The alternative is living on the street.”
“I will just talk to a person at the hotel desk.”
“There is no front desk. They don’t pay people to do those types of jobs here.”
Eventually they both tired of arguing about computers and let the subject lapse. That only brought up the next item of contention, that of where they would stay. Darius had very strong opinions on the matter.
“I will not sleep in a coffin.”
“A capsule,” Hector corrected.
Darius held his hands apart. “This wide and this high? That’s a coffin, not a room.”
“It’s a bed. There are communal areas that you spend most of your ti.”
“I refuse the coffin hotel.”
That refusal was firm, Hector discovered. He then had to research alternatives to capsule hotels. Individual rooms with private bathrooms cost about five hundred credits a day, compared to just one hundred credits for a typical capsule without any discount. Far too expensive. Finally, he found hostels renting beds for about a hundred and twenty per night.
“How about this? Bunk beds instead of coffins. Communal sanitary facilities, kitchen, computer lab, and lounge.”
Darius squinted at the screen suspiciously. “The bunks are just out in the open like in a barracks? What stops soone from claiming my bed when I’m not there? You’ve said violence is punished severely here.”
Hector read over the hostel details. “Well, maybe not that particular one. Let find sothing else. Sa deal here. Hmm…. Here we are! This one has the bunks set up in small chambers along the outer wall with locking doors. You trust not to steal your bed, right?”
The eunuch stabbed his finger at the screen, making Hector wince. “The bunks are three high. Who would the third person be? So stranger I cannot trust. Maybe one of the crafty Jinn. I don’t want to sleep in another man’s dirt.”
Hector sighed. “Can we at least try this for a week? If we earn enough through dungeon runs, we can afford sothing better.”
Darius folded his arms. “Buy all three beds in the bunk.”
“Fine.” He tapped away at the reservation screen and ran into a problem. He needed to assign each bed of the bunk to a unique individual. A warning appeared when he tried to re-use his identifier. It seed there were governnt regulations to limit empty beds in Promise City. Hector assigned the third bed to one of his contacts.
“Who is that?”
“On paper, our new roommate.”
“The System will open the door to our bunk chamber for her?”
“She won’t even know about the hostel, Darius.”
“Still.”
“I trust her.”
“What is she?”
Hector hesitated. “As in her job?”
“Her kind.”
“Oh. She’s a Xian. Only level two.”
“Fine.”
Hector paid for the hostel before Darius could think up another reason to object. It required a minimum stay of a week, so that cost him two thousand, five hundred and twenty credits for three beds. On their walk to the hostel, they stopped at a buffet.
Darius, so critical of everything about a world dominated by Jinn and Arahant influence, had nothing to say as they filled trays with a variety of casseroles, pastas, stews, and wraps. From spending as much ti in Promise City as he had, Hector could identify the cuisine as a fusion of Jinn and Alfar influences that had beco quite trendy with the more budget minded.
“Aren’t you going to complain about the food?”
“The food is adequate.”
“Adequate. That explains why you’re on your third plate.”
“You told we pay for entry and eat as much as we want. This is cost effective.”
“Please just admit that you like the food.”
“It’s… better than adequate.”
Their hostel occupied the entirety of a thin skyscraper that looked like a spear piercing the heavens. The first floor had computers stationed around the periter of the lobby and elevators at the center. Their assigned space was the thirty-first floor, which was ringed most of the way around with chambers for individual bunk rooms. Clustered around the elevators were the sanitation rooms almost identical to what the capsule hotel had. The kitchen area occupied a quarter of the periter with tables arranged next to the window.
Darius looked down at the street below. “Are you certain these tall buildings are safe?”
Hector ignored the question and went to their private chamber. It was a lot smaller than the photos online made it look. The tal bunk held three stacked mattresses that seed thinner than practical. Across from them were three wall lockers. Hector’s opened at his touch to reveal linens for the bed.
“Barely adequate,” Darius proclaid.
“We have a little window, though.” Hector pointed to the window alongside the small patch of wall opposite the door. It revealed the failing light levels. They’d arrived after noon – several hours past – and the skyscrapers caused evening to descend quicker than it otherwise would.
“Tomorrow we can check out the dungeon if you’re ready.”
Darius shrugged. “Why wait? I need credits of my own.”
“I can give you credits.”
“I will not be your charity, Hector.”
“Call it a loan, then.” He didn’t bring up the fact that he’d paid for their food and lodging.
“Let see this dungeon. I can’t decide my path until I understand how I earn resources on this world. You say it is simple for our kind.”
It wasn’t a simple walk to get in a train from the new address, so they had to take a taxi. Darius grew increasingly stressed with navigating through the dungeon complex. He watched everyone with suspicion who ca close to him in the crowded area, which was a lot of people. They eventually arrived at the start of the ravine run.
“Excuse . Are you the Stalwart Xian?”
“Yes, you can run with us,” Hector said to the group that had gathered around him. They gave a small cheer at that, causing Darius to look oddly at him.
“Are you famous on this world?”
“A little bit.”
“A little bit,” Darius mocked. “No wonder you have a hero complex.”
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