LTHC, Ch. 2, Pt. 1: The Market Place
The waters only lightly licked the boat as it drifted towards Medusa Terrace. Rozu circled around the boat looking at all interesting bits showing up at the horizon. The shrinking silhouette of Dry Salts, the idea of Tempest’s Rest to their left and something very tall ahead of them, possibly a mountain, if a very steep one.
“Oh, right!” Bow broke the silence and startled a few. “Kiven, when we got to Dry Salts, you were telling us about that, you know, that kid in Tempest’s Rest who said her mother had gone missing? You knew what happened to her, right?”
Kiven took a moment to remember. “Oh. Yes… No, I don’t know what happened, I was going to tell you to just drop it, don’t go looking for that person. Just forget about it.”
“Why?”
“Ugh, it’s hard telling you to not press the issue without intriguing you, huh? I’m saying, don’t try to find her, don’t learn anything about her, if someone tries to tell you about her, punch them in the head until they stop trying.”
“Okay, but what would happen if we did?”
Kiven chose her answer with care. “So, seven years ago, some things happened and the woman got erased. By that I don’t mean she ceased to exist, she still does like you and I. But when someone becomes erased, it messes with everyone’s memories of them. Memories go missing or get altered or fake ones emerge.”
“Well, that sounds bad.”
“It’s much worse if you only know very little about them or have never met them. Because you’ll start remembering that you did. And memories fabricated from scratch with no established relationship between you and them can get… bizarre. Her daughter only misremembered when exactly she went missing and how and maybe other small bits but it all has to make sense with the rest of her memories...”
“Well, you scared me off.” Bow admitted.
“Good.”
Trixie let the ensuing silence simmer for a bit. “How- Can we know how one becomes ‘erased’?”
“There’s nothing you can do to prevent it, if that’s what you’re asking. But it’s as likely as getting struck by lightning, so you shouldn’t worry about it.”
“Would we know if it happened to us?”
“I hope so.”
The next silence lasted.
The large structure in the distance grew more defined and eventually the small boat reached the harbor of Medusa Terrace. The city floor was covered in elaborate patterned stone tiles up to the pier. According to a map the place curved around the tall structure at the other end in a crescent moon shape.
“So, will you go sight-seeing then? Seeing the waterfalls and the colossus would probably blow your minds.”
Trixie checked the points of interest on the map. “I don’t know. Will you go reunite your dads then?”
“Yeah. I know you saved him and all but I feel this should stay a family matter, so don’t be mad if I don’t invite you.”
“Nah, it’s cool.”
“Well… good luck, kids.” Kiven waved goodbye and went on with her dad who told them farewell as well. The first word he spoke to them. A shy man.
Trixie looked back at the map “So, do you wanna go anywhere?”
Rozu shoved themself in front. “I could point out some cool places, if you like?”
“Oh, please do!”
“Alright, hm.” Rozu scanned the list on the map’s right side.
Rozu pointed to a shop in the top left of the map. “Mindy’s Magazine of Miths and Myths. I got a subscription, they write interesting stuff and they must have sources far in the upper seas. That could be interesting to you.”
Next one was a large building near the center. “The Stellar Institute is the royally-approved equivalent to the Celestial Academy. I’d rather not go there though. My loyalties lie with the academy.”
Finally they pointed out the center of the map. “The Market Place. Lots of wares from the upper seas here. You can get almost anything here, if you’re looking for something. We should get lunch there too.”
“Is everything on the market for free too?” Bow asked.
“Depends. Rarities aren’t given out to whoever asks for them. If you want, say, a bottle of Oathwater, you’d be expected to do something in return.”
Trixie wondered: “Miyuki could still gain another superpower right? Or does having a super tongue already fill that slot?”
“You can be an Akaname and have an Oath Power. All three of you could.”
“What do you say Miyuki? Your tongue is cool but it’s not really unique in this world.”
“Why would I ever say no to having more superpowers?”
“Haha, yes! I wonder what you’d get!”
“As I said, Oathwater would be a rarity though. I dunno if we could get one.”
“We’ll get some eventually!”
Miyuki noticed: “Wait, Rozu, do you have any superpowers?”
“Not really.”
“Then you should get one before I do.”
“No, it’s okay.”
“Really?” Trixie was perplexed.
“Yeah, don’t worry. I’m not into becoming a superhero. I’m happy just being a curious little person.”
“Alright then… Uh, how about we check the market first, then go the institute, then back to the market, have lunch and then check Mindy’s place?”
“I’d suggest the same.” Bow said.
It was decided. Together they made their way into the city.
~~~
The marketplace on the map was just a big open space but in reality, it was almost completely covered in a maze of stalls and stands. Carpets, ribbons and wires with lanterns hung over the pathways snaking between. It was not overly crowded, just some people and kids standing at stalls or walking by. They were still a sight to see. Some had wings, some were purple. Trixie wished she could just stop and chat with them all. Figure out what their kind is called, what they are known for and what they value. It took her a moment to remember:
“Rozu, you’re not human, right?”
“You’re opening a can of worms there but strictly speaking, no.”
“Sorry, was that insensitive?”
“No. It’s just a controversial topic. I’m a Tamali but I also look like a regular human with some added features, don’t I?”
“Tamali is what you’re called?”
“Yes. Whenever you see an otherwise human person with features of an animal, you’re most likely looking at a Tamali.”
“I can’t turn into a Tamali like Miyuki could turn into a…”
“Akaname. No, you can’t.”
“Shame.”
They came across a fork in the maze. A thin tent over the general area tinted to light yellow. In between the two splitting paths stood a table with several decorated bottles containing odd-colored fluids.
“What are you selling?” Trixie inquired.
The stand owner, a woman with searing reptile eyes and long dreaded hair stood tall on the snake tail she had for legs. Her scales looked gorgeous, a cool teal, almost erect like spines.
“Selling? No, no, these are gifts. And I only give gifts to friends. Will you be my friend?” she leaned in close so that her forked tongue almost touched Trixie’s nose as it flicked out.
“Sure.”
“The-” she was interrupted by a robotic voice. Two Apologies pushed their way to the stand, weapon in hand.
“Phesmux Falblicht, we have proof that you are associating with Rainbow.”
“Good for you, now if you would step aside for the paying customers.”
“Actually, we should go!” Trixie explained with a careful glance to Miyuki.
Phesmux slithered her tail in their way. “No, no, these poor boys have just forgotten that Medusa Terrace still stands under royal law. Which deems none of my activities illegal.”
One of the Apologies examined the kids trying to steal themselves away. “Hold it.”
He focused on Miyuki. Trixie jumped in his line of sight but he had already pointed his gun at her.
“Miyuki Nageki, you are accused of illegally smuggling Akaname blood to Tempest’s Rest. Due to repeated resistance I am authorized to use deadly force.”
Trixie could not easily fling this guy away with all the shops unless she did so straight up. Before she could do so though, Miyuki tackled her out of the way of a gunshot that hit the ground instead. All of the silent onlookers began to panic.
Phesmux used the moment to try and wrestle the shooter down but his partner grabbed hold of her as her body shot over the table. Trying to pull herself out of his grip, her snake belly slammed down on the table and split it in two, vials and flasks scattered over the floor, many broke.
Trixie focused on the attacker just in time to see the back of his gun being smacked into her forehead. The should could’ve put her out if she still had a skull made of bone but instead it just messed with her visuals as the fine mechanics of her eyes were shaken around. Miyuki attempted to ensnare him with her tongue but he grabbed it out of the air and pulled her closer to ram his knee into her head repeatedly. Her body fell limp as all fighting spirit left her and he pulled her up to twine her tongue around her neck to then pull it up and cut off her breathing. Her weak fingers tried to push some room between her tongue and throat but she could barely lift her arms. Trixie couldn’t throw him like that. Fortunately three copies of Bow jumped the Apology and he let go of their friend. As Bow pinned him down Trixie crawled over to lay her palm on his helmet and then focusing all her power to pushing down. His helmet flattened like tin foil and he stopped struggling.
“You-!” the other Apology growled, still emotionless.
Trixie looked up and saw Phesmux coil her long tail around the armor and attempt to crush it, even if it pushed the glass in her belly even deeper.
Before the armor could bend it started to buzz and Phesmux started to shiver and her muscles relaxed. The Apology grabbed his gun from the ground and started firing in a wild rage. These futuristic guns didn’t fire bullets but solid fire. Stalls collapsed as the fireballs cracked into them. Trixie tried to crush the soldier with her will but found she used up all her psychic energy when embedding the other guys skull in the ground. Bow’s clones just ducked under the fire. Miyuki coughed and tried to attack him with her tongue but she was too slow and he stomped down on it, stopping her dead in her tracks. About then it also occurred to him to aim down at them. Trixie had the faint hope that he just ran out of bullets but again, this thing did not fire bullets. He aimed at Trixie’s face. Then it blew up. His gun did. Most of his arms with it. Trixie had no idea why. The Apology looked just as confused until he was pistol-whipped on his knees and his helmet blown off.
The gun was flicked back into its holster and a radio was informed: “Threat subdued. Looks like one of them had already been taken out by civilians. One, two, three, six injured.”
“Sending in paramedics.” a voice cracked back.
“Got it.” the radio was stuffed back into the chest pocket.
“Hello, I’m Detective Kilmary, everybody here still conscious?”
Nobody answered. Someone else strolled onto the scene and handed Kilmary a glass of lemonade.
“Thanks, Kip. Looks like I won’t need it though. Help me check on the injured.”
She put the glass on one of the still intact tables and went to help everyone up and sit them against a wall until help arrived.
~~~
The paramedics arrived and tended to their wounds. The seven involved in the shooting were brought to Kilmary’s detective agency for questioning. Rozu had filmed the whole scene with their eyes and was brought interviewed while the rest were provided with bandages and painkillers in an improvised panic room within the agency. Once a more thorough check-up was done, it was decided that they had no serious physical injuries and would just need some time to heal.
“Are you okay, Bow?” Trixie asked.
She shrugged. “Considering the circumstances?”
“Okay…”
Trixie wished she could float right now, her muscles were all sore. She found Miyuki in a corner, crying.
“Do you want to be alone?”
Miyuki opened her arms for her and Trixie let her wrap them around her.
“This really sucks… but I’m glad I’m not alone… That’s the first time someone tried to kill me… It felt awful… I’m glad I didn’t die like that.”
“It’s the first time someone looked me in the eyes when they tried to kill me. I’m not sure if that’s worse.”
“I just want to go home now.”
Rozu entered the room with Kilmary. Kilmary seemed eternally calm. Like the personification of fog.
“I hope everyone’s over the shock by now. You did a good job, took those shits out without any casualties. Thanks for not making Kipper’s first case a bloody mess. Kid needs to ease into this…”
Kilmary looked into a lot of concerned faces and sat down.
“Look… I’m sorry. This was the worst attack we had yet. And I think it’ll keep getting worse. I think they’re starting to figure out they can get away with this. We pushed them into a corner and now we can’t push any further and they’re free to lash out. I downloaded your friend’s recording and will send another report to Rex Eden but I doubt they’ll do anything.”
Kilmary looked at Phesmux, coiled up by the door. “And Rainbow is just as helpless.”
“Are the royal families really just going to take this?” Rozu asked.
“What do you suggest they do? It’s not like we could attack them. Just defend ourselves.”
Rozu did not know.
“Alright… Do you live here or are you travelers?”
“Travelers.” Bow said.
“If you don’t have a place to stay, if you follow the road to your left, you’ll find a set of apartments. We keep one unoccupied for cases like this. I’d ring them up so you could go there and take it easy for a while. If this is your first fight, that can be hard on the psyche.”
“Thank you.”
“I guess I’ll go see what’s left of my shop.” Phesmux said. “But first: Sorry for getting you all roped up in this. If it weren’t for you, they might have killed me. So thank you.”
She went out the door and it took a while before the rest of her tail left the room as well.
“Will they keep attacking us?” Bow asked before they left as well.
“If you stay away from them, they won’t hunt you down… Maybe you should join a self-defense course.”
Bow rolled past Kilmary. “Thanks, detective.”
Miyuki had calmed down enough and licked the tears out of her eyes. Her, Trixie and Rozu followed Bow outside and they made their way to the hotel room.
By the time they arrived Kilmary had already called them and the receptionist showed them their apartment. It was small. If you opened the window you could hear the ocean. There was a bath and a little kitchen, a bedroom with four beds. They dumped their bags and took off their shoes and just laid down on them for a while. Trixie noticed a television and found the remote to turn it on with. In this openly magical world, it seemed odd for there to be a TV. What kind shows would they have here?
There were only three channels. News, series and movies and a kids’ channel, it seemed. Trixie was more interested in news at the moment. There was a studio with a big couch for celebrity guests, two moderators who were currently alone and a screen behind them providing pictures related to the current topic.
Bow rolled next to Trixie’s bed. “I don’t know if I read too many fantasy novels but a TV feels out of place in a world with elves in it.”
“There are no elves… I think.” Rozu said from their bed. “Besides, it’s not the most technologically advanced thing you’ve seen yet.”
“I suppose.”
“This morning the marketplace in Medusa Terrace has been attacked again by Apology terrorists. The fight could be resolved with only 8 people receiving minor injuries. The two attackers have been destroyed in the fight. No official statements have been made by the Royal Family or the local detective agency investigating the attack.”
After getting the facts out there the two moderators chatted about the topic. About the public dissatisfaction with the government’s inaction, about installing an Anti-Apology force, about this political group called Rainbow, chastising people for supporting them because they were the same kind of terrorists.
“Rozu, do you know about Rainbow? What kind of people are they?”
“People that are dissatisfied with the world and take action to change it.”
“Are they really evil?”
“They are against the government, so if course all royalty-controlled media is going to condemn them. They only want the best for everyone. Except for those that desire to hurt others. Seems reasonable to me.”
“Historically, siding with the government was rarely the right move.” Bow mentioned.
They faced the door as they heard it open. Phesmux slithered in with a bag emitting clanking sounds.
“Hey. Sorry, my shop got destroyed and I kinda used to live there…” Phesmux placed her bag on a table and the end of her tail pushed the door closed.
“We don’t have enough beds though.” Trixie said.
“Don’t worry, I don’t sleep in beds. I just curl up.”
“I bet that looks cute.”
“Uh… thanks… Sorry for getting you involved in the fight or something.” she put her hand on the bag, “These are all the potion that didn’t break. You can have them.”
“What will you do now?”
“Hm… seems a good time to do something new. Maybe go see the Upper Seas…”
“You could come with us!” Trixie offered.
“‘Preciate it, but I feel we don’t go the same direction.” Phesmux scanned the room for the bathroom door. “Anyway, I’ll go take a shower. You were looking for Oathwater, weren’t you? There should be at least one among the survivors.”
They waited until they heard the water flowing.
“I wonder how she fits in the shower cabin with that long tail.” Miyuki whispered.
Trixie approached Phesmux’ bag and pulled out the unlabeled bottles.
“Oathwater would look like regular water, right?”
She took the one bottle with transparent fluid. At a closer look, there was a faint rainbow swimming in it. She held it before Miyuki and Rozu.
“So which of you will take it.”
“Miyuki.” Rozu declared.
“Okay, but I’ll only have it if you explain why you don’t want it.”
“Do you need to know?”
“In order to feel well with this, yes.”
Rozu examined the three girls.
“It’s… very personal. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to, but it’d be a waste. I can’t develop a superpower.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t have a soul.”
“You- Uh…”
“How do you mean that?” Bow asked.
“Literally. I don’t have a soul like you do. I am thoroughly unmagical.”
“I… I mean, I don’t know a lot about magic, so I can’t dispute that but… magic did not exist where we are from either, so…”
“You may not be able to use magic, but that doesn’t mean there’s no magic in you. Your souls are magic, you need magic to be born, it’s how you-” Rozu stopped themself. “I’m just not born that way.”
Miyuki sat on the floor to meet their downward gaze. “Okay. As I said though, I’m good with just my tongue. I wouldn’t see it as a waste if you took it. Maybe it does work? Have you confirmed that it doesn’t yet?”
“Well… no. I… fine, okay. I’ll drink it. But you keep the other potions for yourselves then.”
“Deal.”
Rozu took the bottle, popped out the cork and drank its contents. The bottle vanished as soon as it was emptied.
“What? Was that you? Did you make it disappear?” Trixie wondered.
“I don’t think I did?” Rozu said with much confusion.
“No, sorry, that’s my power.” No one had noticed Phesmux behind them.
“Your power is making things disappear?” Trixie asked.
“No, my power is bottling things. As soon as the bottle is emptied or broken. It disappears. Here, look.”
She put a hand on her chest. All the water still on her skin and scales started to run towards her palm and collected into a floating ball of water before a glass bottle manifested around it, along with a cork plugging its top.
“It’s a fast way to get dry.” she switched the towel for a shirt, now that it won’t get soaked and went to empty the bottle in the sink.
“Okay, so that wasn’t Rozu… Hmm, try aiming your hand at something.”
Rozu aimed at the nightstand lamp.
“Now try, uh… shoot a laser at it.”
Nothing happened.
“...Well. It would have been convenient if that worked. Your power may be more complex than that.”
“Or I don’t have one.”
“At least now the next Oathwater we find can definitely go to Miyuki.” Bow said.
“I guess.” Miyuki said. “I had hoped Rozu would be able to use their power right away.”
“Hey, don’t worry.” Rozu smiled. “I’m glad you talked me into it. Either my power will show sometime in the future. Or I don’t have one. There’s nothing more for me to do regarding this than wait. Do you get what I mean?”
“The whole issue is out of your hands now, yeah.”
Phesmux entered their circle again. “How are you all feeling by the way? That was the first real fight you had been in, right?”
“...It’s the first fight where odds seemed to be stacked against me.” Trixie said.
“If you plan to explore the upper seas, you might run into fights like these. Not just Apologies.”
No one responded.
“See, you are registered criminals now to them. If they see you again, they will start another fight with you if enough witnesses are around.”
“Why witnesses?”
“There’d be no point in fighting you with no one to see. They want people to know the reason they attack you is because you broke their laws. So that people know that they’ll be unharmed as long as they follow their rules. That’s how you control people with fear.” Phesmux flicked her tongue out. Rozu did too out of compulsion. Miyuki’s tongue also slipped out to her collarbone and remained there. Trixie could tell it was uncomfortable for her to keep it inside in its entirety.
“Well… anyone still hungry? We were about to get something to eat, right?” Trixie remembered.
