Just Visiting [Solo]
Posted: Tue Nov 23, 2021 9:14 pm
58 Ash 121
Zaichaer Outskirts.
Charlie's hair was ruined, and that was only the first on a very long list of reasons why jumping out of a perfectly good airship had been a foolish idea. The second thing on that list was where Charlie had landed, a dense forested area far from the main roads and more than a day's walk outside of Zaichaer proper. That problem at least had a rather elegant solution, and Charlie used his borrowed coat of flying to hover just a few inches off of the ground. No sense letting his boots get wet after having so recently paid for them to be polished!
Once he neared one of the more well traveled paths, Charlie removed the coat and tucked it back into his travel pack. Getting into the city would be difficult, but not overwhelmingly so. This was a dance Charlie performed often, and he knew his steps just as well as Zaichaer knew hers.
The first order of business was to find a method of transport that suited him better than simply walking. This was not especially difficult, as there were staging stations dotting the main road where carriages replaced their exhausted horses and gave their passengers a chance to stretch their legs. While these were generally little more than rest stops, there were always a few enterprising drivers waiting here to be hired by weary men and women from the road.
Though Charlie paid a high price for convenience, he was able to hire a driver to bring him from the staging station to the city. Charlie himself looked like a Zaichaeri citizen, and as such it had been far easier to convince someone to take him within the city's walls. Anyone entering or leaving the city was meant to register themselves if they were not a citizen, but that process was fraught with danger. He might have been discovered as a witch, and a pyre burned in his honor.
Instead, Charlie took the more roundabout ways into the city. Ones that relied on being subtle and blending in. Thankfully, the very things that made Charlie stand out in Kalzasi helped him blend in here. The confident way he carried himself was simply how every Zaichaeri walked. They all looked like they were the most important person in the city. They scurried from their homes to their jobs to the bars while managing all the while to look like they had a stick up their asses. The young mage had them all matched in a measure of confidence, at least.
As the carriage rattled on down the road, Charlie returned to his reading. Each new volume of The Queen's Edict was as gripping as the last, and made Charlie almost regretful that he hadn't actually paid a copper for any of the issues he was carrying with him. Only almost though. He turned the pages slowly, and admired the illustrations that were printed on the last few pages of each volume, giving a taste of what the next one had in store.
The ride was long to the city, and soon Charlie found himself dozing off. It was odd for him to feel more safe here than he had in the bowels of the airship, but this was a path Charlie had taken many times before. He had slipped his way through the gate over half a dozen times by now, and gotten out just as easily. Oh yes, the city was on 'high alert' because of some 'international incident', but when was Zaichaer ever truly on low alert?
On top of looking self-important, every citizen of that damned city managed to look like they were scared of their own shadow. That was a part of Zaichaeri lifestyle that Charlie simply could not emulate. He danced into danger with a grin, and only ever put consideration on how to escape when he felt the walls begin to close around him.
Those thoughts begun to occur to him when he heard the thumping of the carriage driver's fist atop the coach. “We've arrived, sir.” the older man said.
Blinking his eyes open, Charlie pulled back the curtain on the coach to peer out the window, only to find the moon hanging high in thesky and Charlie very plainly sitting outside the city walls. That had never happened before. Oh there were often guards to be dodged once Charlie had gotten inside the city, but being stopped at the gate seemed so very barbaric.
Stepping out of the coach, Charlie was at least relieved to find that he was not the only one that was waiting for the guards to permit them entry. There were multiple families, each of them looking like men and women from Zaichaer's outer holdings. Many of them looked sick or injured. By contrast, Charlie looked well put together, now that he had gotten a chance to comb his hair back precisely the way he liked it.
The guards were a motley group, and were well overworked by the hollow looks in their eyes. They liked this new restriction little more than the people seeking refuge in the city walls did, it seemed. That suited Charlie well, as it meant getting past them would be just a touch simpler. Making something easier for an overworked soldier often meant you went overlooked at worst and appreciated at best. It was a risk Charlie was willing to take.
He waited for the crowds to think, some of the families turned aside while others were allowed in. Charlie noted, with no small amount of disdain, that of those turned away many were nonhuman. That was one of the many, many parts of Zaichaer he despised. The almost casual way they placed humanity on a pedestal. It felt so innately wrong to the young mage, and not least of all because he had Hytori, Fae and Rathari friends of his own.
But he hid his distaste well enough, holding a flat expression until one of the guards called him forward. He was a tall man, and Charlie noticed that he was missing his pinky and ring finger down to the second knuckle. The flesh was badly scarred too, and Charlie wondered what sort of beast must have gone bump in the night to have given such a wound to him.
“Name?” the tall soldier asked, tiredness dragging off of him even without Charlie needing to use his rune. His green eyes were ringed by heavy bags, and he leaned heavily on the spear at his side.
“Charles Brandt.” Charlie said smoothly. It was a common enough last name to not arise suspicion, and the man neither reacted to it positively or negatively. It seemed those emotions had been sapped from him somewhere between hour seventeen and eighteen of his shift at the gates.
“Why do you need entry?” The soldier then asked, taking out a ledger and putting pencil to paper. He looked to Charlie expectantly, after having jotted down his name.
“Delivery of a package.” Charlie said, gesturing with a thumb to his backpack. “Normally I'd wait until morning, but I'm already a few days delayed. Bandits on the road, I heard.” Charlie said, lying so convincingly that the soldier actually let himself groan at yet another thing he may need to contend with at the gates.
The soldier composed himself quickly, as best he could. “I trust you came to no harm yourself?” He asked, looking over Charlie for any signs of a scuffle. Bandit attacks were uncommon, but leading into Frost, people did get desperate enough to try things close enough to the city.
“Oh no, sir. We rode far and away from where they were last seen. Just took a bit of extra time.” He said, spinning his yarn with just enough detail to keep it believable. He couldn't have it coming off as seeming rehearsed, after all. “They were some distance down the high road, I heard. No doubt posing as someone in need of aid.” Charlie scrunched his face into a look of derision. “I hope your scouts will be able to find them. Rabid dogs deserve to be hunted down.”
The guard nodded. “That they do, now especially. “ His attention shifted to the man's pack. “All deliveries are meant to be searched by a representative from the Order of Reconciliation, and he's unfortunately gone away for the evening.”
The man did not look pleased by that, and Charlie picked up that baton. While it was far too risky for Charlie to use his powers here, that did not mean he was utterly defenseless.
“I understand,” Charlie began, looking back to see the carriage he'd rode here now rambling off into the distance with one of the families that had been turned away. “It's just – Well I wouldn't be here this late if it weren't important.” Charlie did his best to sound regretful, slumping his shoulders forward and turning his palms up to appear small and pleading.
The soldier, to his credit, did not immediately take the bait. “I know, lad. Everyone's got something that's important.” He said, saying the line so blandly it must have been his hundredth time reciting it tonight.
“I know, I know.” Charlie replied. “But this really can't wait. If I can't get into the city, then I'll need to take the high road on foot back to the nearest inn. I'm sure those bandits are waiting for exactly that.”
Charlie's statement weighed heavily on the soldier, who now looked a bit unsure. Torn between his duties as a gatekeeper and the duties of all members of the corps to defend law abiding Zaichaeri citizens, the soldier had to make a choice. He examined Charlie, looking over the man's pack curiously and trying to take his measure of the younger man.
The pack was well made, but small and only contained a few changes of clothes and the coat he was meant to deliver. It was intentionally ordinary, and the soldier thought it was harmless enough. It certainly helped that Charlie was a human, as that already earned him just a bit of extra respect from the gatekeeper.
Charlie carried no weapons, and was dressed like a dozen different merchant families living comfortably in the East End. By all metrics, he looked harmless, and the soldier had no desire to have the man harmed because their resident Reconciliator decided to retire at a reasonable hour while not giving the soldiers the same charity.
After convincing himself what he was doing was justified, the soldier scribbled something down in his ledger next to Charlie's name, and waved Charlie past. “C'mon through.” He said.
“Oh, thank you sir!” Charlie said, making to hug the man before thinking better of it. He passed by the soldiers, and slyly turned his head to see what the gatekeeper had written on his ledger. Underneath one of the columns, Charlie spotted it. 'Approved Visitation'.
Perfect.
Once he was past the gates and into the city proper, Charlie broke off from the main roads. He wound up through the city by traveling the side roads often left to languish by the ZADC. Charlie needed to remain out of sight of the military, and did so by placing himself wherever they weren't. It being evening, there would be an increased presence around bars and in nonhuman neighborhoods, so Charlie stuck closely to the more commercial districts while still keeping off the beaten path.
He did not rush, though. He pretended to window shop, and even ducked briefly into a few stores. The charade needed to be believable, otherwise people would begin to talk. Zaichaeri loved to talk and cast blame on their fellow man, it seemed a national pastime of theirs, and the last thing he needed was to become neighborhood gossip.
Once Charlie was sure he had spent enough time browsing to be seen as merely a cheapskate and not a troublemaker, he stepped back out into that cool Ash air.
The smell was one of the worst parts of the city, Charlie thought. The air reeked of industry, nothing at all like his home. It seeped into his clothes, and Charlie already felt like he needed a bath after only a few short minutes within this blighted land. In the distance the Grungeworks clanged on even now, ringing metal and belching bellows announcing the arrival of even more smog into the air.
The scent nearly made Charlie retch, and hew wanted nothing more than to cover his nose, but that would have made him stand out. There was little good that could have come from that, and so he managed to keep up a brave face as he wove through side streets and back alleys.
As the Grungeworks and then the Knob fell into the distant, Charlie did feel the air begin to soften a bit. Oh it still smelled little better than sulfur, but he was relatively sure it was no longer coating his lungs in tar.
His feet were sore by the time he found his way to the West End, and with only a few vague questions he was able to surmise his destination. The Michaelis Estate. He passed it by, ogling it only as much as was appropriate without drawing attention from the house guards, though none of them so much as looked his way.
A lovely place, Charlie decided. His estate would be larger, of course. He just needed to get over a few trivial issues before that reality came to pass.
But Charlie could not visit so late at night, as much as he would have liked to see the noble's face as they answered the door. And so Charlie waltzed off into the night to find some place to spend the night. Somewhere lavish, of course. Charlie did not make money so that he could save it, after all.