A Pretender's District
The service train got halted by a slayer hunting down a monster. The hunter was chasing the monster from the rooftops. He exchanged blows with the monster and was able to get a hit and tried to pin it down, but the monster escaped through a desperate move and the Hunter had to slam the monster down on the track where it was unable to move.
The service train rammed the monster and dragged its body on the rail track. Because the train got the final blow. Most of the earnings are going to the train operator. Service trains are built with rammers on the front since it’s actually common for some hunters to use the service train as a hammer blow.
It was funny at first, but the hour wait made the passengers pissed off enough to curse at the hunter. The hunter was fine. He suffered injuries and had a torn bicep and burnt hair. But mostly intact.
After the train track got repaired. The train traveled through two districts. It was around the eighth district that we finally got off and got into Alonzo.
Alonzo has a wide space with brick buildings. If it wasn’t for the tall skyscrapers from the other districts and the giant pillars of the Changye platform. It would have been nice to see some mountains in the background to match the brick and cobble road aesthetic this district has.
They do somewhat remind me of Amish settlements who retain this ‘purity’ of simplicity they tend to preach. They often boast about it too when the world turns into this. Their communities remain somewhat a haven and have become a place where you need to do favors to even get it in.
People in those communities tend to have strong faith. And their priests can conjure a warding around their homes which allows them to be safe from harm just by the devotion they have. Holy sites are somewhat impenetrable because of the faith and devotion of the believers. But faith without belief in it is fragile and only true faith can conjure a barrier that can defend from the supernatural.
This place has none of that however. The old school building imitating European architecture, upon closer inspection, only looks like a brick, but seems to be just colored like one to give an appearance. The road is cobble though, but you can tell the gaps on the road seem to have been filled with asphalt to reinforce the road.
Kei pulled on her coat. She had the look of a tourist despite being a citizen of this city for a long time. Which isn’t exactly not odd. People tend to underestimate the size of Changye. It’s called a City because of how connected all the sectors and districts are. However, Changye is as large as a state. This city occupies most of the center of the land bridge and if you include the node-cities, is even bigger than you can imagine. It’ll take you months or years to visit every street and community in Changye. And don’t even get me started on the interior places like the abyssal abodes and the biomes underneath Changye housing unregistered citizens who somewhat managed to find themselves underground.
Alonzo has quite this quiet yet busy mood. We felt out of place as we walked on the sidewalk armed to the teeth. Even the ones just sitting around on the sidewalk benches are looking away. We were dressed like Bureau Agents and it doesn’t take a genius to know where we’re going.
Kei lit a cigarette. She takes a long drag and eyes one of the shops selling bread. We can smell the bread from here despite the acrid air. Districts like this still have humanity in it, the base humanity where people don’t have that much tech in their bodies.
“Feels like we traveled to the pre-augs world.”
“Maybe.”
Kei rubs the sole of her boot on the cobble.
“Places like this creeps me out. Makes me think there’s something wrong about it. Could be because I got used to the tall buildings and concrete and steel jungle.”
“You’re creeped out by this?”
Kei exhales the smoke through her nose and rubs her hands.
“Because it's not good. Doesn’t feel right. Like they have something to hide.”
She said that, but I could guess she’s somewhat irritated by how the district looks. It reminds me of Vultan. Some pain is clearly still around and having your head stirred by it wasn’t pleasant.
“Well, they do have something to hide.”
No one seems bothered. Like the people here seem unconcerned about the stuff going on. Granted, the OB and the TCU can shut their mouths up. But there should be something here. Something clearly missing.
You can tell most of the people we’re meeting on the road are flesh pit miners. There are desk jockeys and salarymen. It was a crossing when we saw a wagon carrying water wetting the dusty cobble road.
We took it slow. Had to feel the place to understand it. Kei’s been here, but judging by how she’s acting. A lot has changed here as well.
The fog’s still around too. Not as bad when it first appeared, but still annoying enough. It’s like it just got done raining, but there’s no wet smell and only the heat and the irritation you get from all the lights the folk are using on the road.
When we were done seeing what the district can offer. We headed straight to the address and got a good look at the OB-affiliated agents and the TCU wearing crusader ware.
Crusader ware is one of the toughest-looking ware you can find. A great helmet, kevlar-lined bodysuit over an exoskeleton power armor with enough tech to brawl it out with demons. Having these hardware on Vultan would have made a difference when facing those Vamps, but it seems like they decided to send it here instead.
We got past the guards on the front. Kei hooked an arm around my neck and whispered in my ears.
“Looks like a bad sign, Akun. Should we skip town?”
“I’m game.”
Religious men in power armor is a bad thing. Like I said, these men, with enough faith, can conjure miracles to protect themselves. So when you start having these men show up in power armor, it means they themselves think they'll need goddamn power armor and their faith to do this job.
Going down the stairs, we found the room of our contact. Kei threw her cigarette on the bin and strides in. I followed her in and found a man in the regalia of his god and another in black and tie livery.
“Miss Kei and your assistant, I presume? I am Haye. This is Vicar Liebert.”
The man from the OB introduced him and the Vicar. The clergyman nodded curtly. Kei places a hand on her chest and introduces herself properly.
“It’s an honor to be called. But allow me to ask this. Why do you need someone like us here?”
The Bureau man curtly took out a data stick and plugs it on the projector, screening us with an old map of the service tunnels of Alonzo.
“Service tunnels.”
The man in the suit eyes me.
“Then you are familiar with them?”
“I am.”
“Good. This will be easy.”
He switches on the visuals and shows us the color-coded places where the flesh pit grows and extends. All the things marked in green are where the flesh grows and the neutral ones, places the workers follow are marked in neutral gray. Added to the visuals are places marked in red and then the purple annotations which I assume to be where the rot is.
“Seems like you have already started.”
Kei crossed her arms and studied the annotated map. I could see the wreath she’s wearing making a flash. Guessed she took a shot of the visuals.
Vicar Liebert nodded and then commented. His voice was haggard and he had the tone of a man who hadn’t slept for days. His half opened eyes and pale complexion says it all.
“We assaulted all points in the last five days. We manage to discover three flesh biomes and an impure sanctuary of flesh.”
Visuals of this sanctuary were shown to us. There were REDACTED runes and sigils carved into the very flesh of the room. Judging by the skeletons merged into the flesh. The ones doing this were creating flesh golems by using the skeletons as the base of their creations. Honestly, the screen’s unreadable because of how much they were trying to hide. The Bureau Agent reads the room and then reconsiders something.
“I think they are already in the know.”
“Are they?”
The Agent shows something. The Vicar nods his head and changes the visual annotations to a much more clearer appearance. Without the censorship and the black bars ruining the visuals. Granted, we’d still go to the location and investigate it ourselves. If the locations are still there and unharmed.
They told us about how they’ve been rampaging in the service tunnels in their power armor. We saw the anomaly, the rotten gangrenous one, appearing. They were able to massacre it. Gun it down like a dog and yet it kept getting back up. Exorcizing it, containing it, and even vaporizing it with a plasma-based weaponry didn’t work. Arcana-based methods didn’t work either and they have been scratching their heads at it.
I can somewhat tell they also purchased some information from us, but after consideration it was better to have us directly in here than make amateur guesswork. Kei knows what this is. The look she had on her face was my clue.
“Warped-type Anomaly.”
Kei commented. She brings out her data and cross references it to the anomaly we’re seeing now. The anoms aren’t 1 to 1 to each other, but the Agent and the Vicar could learn something from this unreleased footage.
Sure, we do sell info, but never the actual footage she recorded throughout her cases. Kei wanted to earn money, sure, but she also wanted to keep the stuff useful to our office to us only. She’s only showing parts that might help in this, but no more than that. One of the footage was the time we fought a fragment of the Okinawan devil. Vicar Liebert recognized the fragment, and made a sign of the cross.
“I see that you have participated in the death of the Okinawan fragment.”
“Had to. This one had the capability to warp an entire district. We spent days inside its belly and fought flesh crafted golems to no ends.”
The projected screen shows the agents attacking the ‘heart’ of the devil. Agent Hayes and Vicar Liebert surely tried to attack the ‘heart’ but didn’t find it or couldn’t reach it.
“We have to access the ‘space’ where this heart is?”
“That is the first option,” Kei pointed out. “But not necessarily the viable one either. Every anomaly is different. They are called an anomaly because they deviate from the normal. We don’t know what the method is yet.”
“Then what should we do, Miss Kei?”
She smiles knowingly.
“Think of this whole service tunnel as the body of this anomaly. And now imagine where we might find the chamber where its heart might be placed. Also, we’re going to need a cultist or someone who can recreate the ritual so we can reach it.”
“Are you proposing we recreate the ritual or accident that gave birth to this anomaly?”
“Yes. But obviously we are going to avoid having to deal with two anomalies. We simply want a reference.”
Vicar Liebert’s face says it’s going to be a problem. It honestly doesn’t surprise me if the clergymen gunned down all the cultists in the service tunnels. But thankfully, Agent Hayes was able to secure one cultist and had been interrogating the cultist for any relevant information he could find from the bastard.
A Pretender's District
The service train got halted by a slayer hunting down a monster. The hunter was chasing the monster from the rooftops. He exchanged blows with the monster and was able to get a hit and tried to pin it down, but the monster escaped through a desperate move and the Hunter had to slam the monster down on the track where it was unable to move.
The service train rammed the monster and dragged its body on the rail track. Because the train got the final blow. Most of the earnings are going to the train operator. Service trains are built with rammers on the front since it’s actually common for some hunters to use the service train as a hammer blow.
It was funny at first, but the hour wait made the passengers pissed off enough to curse at the hunter. The hunter was fine. He suffered injuries and had a torn bicep and burnt hair. But mostly intact.
After the train track got repaired. The train traveled through two districts. It was around the eighth district that we finally got off and got into Alonzo.
Alonzo has a wide space with brick buildings. If it wasn’t for the tall skyscrapers from the other districts and the giant pillars of the Changye platform. It would have been nice to see some mountains in the background to match the brick and cobble road aesthetic this district has.
They do somewhat remind me of Amish settlements who retain this ‘purity’ of simplicity they tend to preach. They often boast about it too when the world turns into this. Their communities remain somewhat a haven and have become a place where you need to do favors to even get it in.
People in those communities tend to have strong faith. And their priests can conjure a warding around their homes which allows them to be safe from harm just by the devotion they have. Holy sites are somewhat impenetrable because of the faith and devotion of the believers. But faith without belief in it is fragile and only true faith can conjure a barrier that can defend from the supernatural.
This place has none of that however. The old school building imitating European architecture, upon closer inspection, only looks like a brick, but seems to be just colored like one to give an appearance. The road is cobble though, but you can tell the gaps on the road seem to have been filled with asphalt to reinforce the road.
Kei pulled on her coat. She had the look of a tourist despite being a citizen of this city for a long time. Which isn’t exactly not odd. People tend to underestimate the size of Changye. It’s called a City because of how connected all the sectors and districts are. However, Changye is as large as a state. This city occupies most of the center of the land bridge and if you include the node-cities, is even bigger than you can imagine. It’ll take you months or years to visit every street and community in Changye. And don’t even get me started on the interior places like the abyssal abodes and the biomes underneath Changye housing unregistered citizens who somewhat managed to find themselves underground.
Alonzo has quite this quiet yet busy mood. We felt out of place as we walked on the sidewalk armed to the teeth. Even the ones just sitting around on the sidewalk benches are looking away. We were dressed like Bureau Agents and it doesn’t take a genius to know where we’re going.
Kei lit a cigarette. She takes a long drag and eyes one of the shops selling bread. We can smell the bread from here despite the acrid air. Districts like this still have humanity in it, the base humanity where people don’t have that much tech in their bodies.
“Feels like we traveled to the pre-augs world.”
“Maybe.”
Kei rubs the sole of her boot on the cobble.
“Places like this creeps me out. Makes me think there’s something wrong about it. Could be because I got used to the tall buildings and concrete and steel jungle.”
“You’re creeped out by this?”
Kei exhales the smoke through her nose and rubs her hands.
“Because it's not good. Doesn’t feel right. Like they have something to hide.”
She said that, but I could guess she’s somewhat irritated by how the district looks. It reminds me of Vultan. Some pain is clearly still around and having your head stirred by it wasn’t pleasant.
“Well, they do have something to hide.”
No one seems bothered. Like the people here seem unconcerned about the stuff going on. Granted, the OB and the TCU can shut their mouths up. But there should be something here. Something clearly missing.
You can tell most of the people we’re meeting on the road are flesh pit miners. There are desk jockeys and salarymen. It was a crossing when we saw a wagon carrying water wetting the dusty cobble road.
We took it slow. Had to feel the place to understand it. Kei’s been here, but judging by how she’s acting. A lot has changed here as well.
The fog’s still around too. Not as bad when it first appeared, but still annoying enough. It’s like it just got done raining, but there’s no wet smell and only the heat and the irritation you get from all the lights the folk are using on the road.
When we were done seeing what the district can offer. We headed straight to the address and got a good look at the OB-affiliated agents and the TCU wearing crusader ware.
Crusader ware is one of the toughest-looking ware you can find. A great helmet, kevlar-lined bodysuit over an exoskeleton power armor with enough tech to brawl it out with demons. Having these hardware on Vultan would have made a difference when facing those Vamps, but it seems like they decided to send it here instead.
We got past the guards on the front. Kei hooked an arm around my neck and whispered in my ears.
“Looks like a bad sign, Akun. Should we skip town?”
“I’m game.”
Religious men in power armor is a bad thing. Like I said, these men, with enough faith, can conjure miracles to protect themselves. So when you start having these men show up in power armor, it means they themselves think they'll need goddamn power armor and their faith to do this job.
Going down the stairs, we found the room of our contact. Kei threw her cigarette on the bin and strides in. I followed her in and found a man in the regalia of his god and another in black and tie livery.
“Miss Kei and your assistant, I presume? I am Haye. This is Vicar Liebert.”
The man from the OB introduced him and the Vicar. The clergyman nodded curtly. Kei places a hand on her chest and introduces herself properly.
“It’s an honor to be called. But allow me to ask this. Why do you need someone like us here?”
The Bureau man curtly took out a data stick and plugs it on the projector, screening us with an old map of the service tunnels of Alonzo.
“Service tunnels.”
The man in the suit eyes me.
“Then you are familiar with them?”
“I am.”
“Good. This will be easy.”
He switches on the visuals and shows us the color-coded places where the flesh pit grows and extends. All the things marked in green are where the flesh grows and the neutral ones, places the workers follow are marked in neutral gray. Added to the visuals are places marked in red and then the purple annotations which I assume to be where the rot is.
“Seems like you have already started.”
Kei crossed her arms and studied the annotated map. I could see the wreath she’s wearing making a flash. Guessed she took a shot of the visuals.
Vicar Liebert nodded and then commented. His voice was haggard and he had the tone of a man who hadn’t slept for days. His half opened eyes and pale complexion says it all.
“We assaulted all points in the last five days. We manage to discover three flesh biomes and an impure sanctuary of flesh.”
Visuals of this sanctuary were shown to us. There were REDACTED runes and sigils carved into the very flesh of the room. Judging by the skeletons merged into the flesh. The ones doing this were creating flesh golems by using the skeletons as the base of their creations. Honestly, the screen’s unreadable because of how much they were trying to hide. The Bureau Agent reads the room and then reconsiders something.
“I think they are already in the know.”
“Are they?”
The Agent shows something. The Vicar nods his head and changes the visual annotations to a much more clearer appearance. Without the censorship and the black bars ruining the visuals. Granted, we’d still go to the location and investigate it ourselves. If the locations are still there and unharmed.
They told us about how they’ve been rampaging in the service tunnels in their power armor. We saw the anomaly, the rotten gangrenous one, appearing. They were able to massacre it. Gun it down like a dog and yet it kept getting back up. Exorcizing it, containing it, and even vaporizing it with a plasma-based weaponry didn’t work. Arcana-based methods didn’t work either and they have been scratching their heads at it.
I can somewhat tell they also purchased some information from us, but after consideration it was better to have us directly in here than make amateur guesswork. Kei knows what this is. The look she had on her face was my clue.
“Warped-type Anomaly.”
Kei commented. She brings out her data and cross references it to the anomaly we’re seeing now. The anoms aren’t 1 to 1 to each other, but the Agent and the Vicar could learn something from this unreleased footage.
Sure, we do sell info, but never the actual footage she recorded throughout her cases. Kei wanted to earn money, sure, but she also wanted to keep the stuff useful to our office to us only. She’s only showing parts that might help in this, but no more than that. One of the footage was the time we fought a fragment of the Okinawan devil. Vicar Liebert recognized the fragment, and made a sign of the cross.
“I see that you have participated in the death of the Okinawan fragment.”
“Had to. This one had the capability to warp an entire district. We spent days inside its belly and fought flesh crafted golems to no ends.”
The projected screen shows the agents attacking the ‘heart’ of the devil. Agent Hayes and Vicar Liebert surely tried to attack the ‘heart’ but didn’t find it or couldn’t reach it.
“We have to access the ‘space’ where this heart is?”
“That is the first option,” Kei pointed out. “But not necessarily the viable one either. Every anomaly is different. They are called an anomaly because they deviate from the normal. We don’t know what the method is yet.”
“Then what should we do, Miss Kei?”
She smiles knowingly.
“Think of this whole service tunnel as the body of this anomaly. And now imagine where we might find the chamber where its heart might be placed. Also, we’re going to need a cultist or someone who can recreate the ritual so we can reach it.”
“Are you proposing we recreate the ritual or accident that gave birth to this anomaly?”
“Yes. But obviously we are going to avoid having to deal with two anomalies. We simply want a reference.”
Vicar Liebert’s face says it’s going to be a problem. It honestly doesn’t surprise me if the clergymen gunned down all the cultists in the service tunnels. But thankfully, Agent Hayes was able to secure one cultist and had been interrogating the cultist for any relevant information he could find from the bastard.
