Cipher
The sun was setting over broken stone blocks lightly dusted with snow. He followed whichever paths seemed the most interesting and the least likely to contain people who would talk to him. He was there only to observe.
At first, he kept to the shadows, as usual. He did not need to interact with the people to study them. Wearing a dark grey cloak that looked a little more natural among the stone walls, he flitted from one safe, dark vantage to the next. But what he saw gave him only more questions.
This was a level of poverty he had never seen before. The Twelveswood had many groups, most engaging in banditry, that were comprised of ‘outsiders’ such as Keeper of the Moon clans or Duskwights who faced too much discrimination within Gridania itself, or others who were too poor to make it there, by choice or by systemic oppression. But those people had ways to provide for themselves, like hunting and foraging. These Brume dwellers seemingly did not.
He had the ability to move soundlessly with the speed and distance that an adventurer might gain in a single leap, and this enhanced his stealth greatly. But it was less helpful in gaining a closer look at the scene. He tugged his hood down over his eyes and hopped down from the parapet to wander the streets proper.
Some things became evident quickly. Few houses had equipment suitable for hunting and fishing. He recalled that Coerthas had once been a temperate land. Perhaps the years since the Calamity had drawn attention away from such activities, especially given the dangers inherent in ice-fishing.
As he walked, he also noted how the city’s walls towered in many places and how the labyrinthine layout discouraged travel. One would have to leave the city in order to hunt or fish, or to grow anything. But if one had no transportation, warm gear, weapons to defend oneself, or even just strength to walk a fair distance, then one was precluded from getting oneself some of the Land’s free food. The cycle of systematic poverty was devastating.
There were tall bins lit with fires that broke the darkness deeper in the Brume and offered the denizens a measure of warmth. Many people gathered around them while warming their hands. Despite the bleak circumstances, the mood wasn't wholly desperate. In fact, some passersby even embodied a sense of lightness. Their lives might be hard, but they were going about them all the same.
Quiet yet firm words flowed from somewhere nearby:
Seeing backwards and forwards, my name's not important
But circumspection is perfection when cruelty is the moment
Your tomephone is glowin', but is you listenin' for it?
The past is whisperin', the future is hidden, but ain't the mission.
He did not move to track down the source of the words. He'd heard similar, if less poetic, ramblings from madmen. But moments after the voice faded, another one picked up the same rhythm, albeit with some stylistic differences.
My future's imminent. The fire's warm but I'm chillin'
But is you feelin' it? I'm bringin' the heat so you ain't illin'
It's clean like penicillin. These rhymes I'm slingin', they'll bring you healing!
Tell me I'm right, we here tonight, I ain't no knight but out here killin'.
The last line earned muted laughter from a few more voices. That meant the group was bigger than he had anticipated. The rhyming was picked up by a third voice, again with slight changes.
What's war without feelin'? Insanity right? And just depravity
Leavin' a hole in my heart, call that a cavity
All this dyin' young for nothin'. If I could change it, we'd all be livin' lavishly.
Or at least livin'. May our souls meet again, sister Chastity.
That was met with some quiet murmurs and heads bowed in respect. No one seemed eager to follow up. Eventually the last rhymer gestured to the only apparent woman of the group, whose voice marked her as the previous Penicillin Poet.
Oh you said chastity? Our sista knew ain't nothin' chaste about a system of caste,
Twenty gil on some bread and you hope it lasts,
Broken legs so you cope with casts,
Last in class, sittin' in back of the class,
Leanin' on walls like you think you passed.
She ended her rhyme with her gaze settled somewhere specific. The others all looked in the same direction.
Indeed leaning against a wall in the rear of the short alleyway, he hadn't realized anyone had noticed his arrival. The shadows thrown opposite the light of the fire should have made him more difficult to see. "'Sup," one of the other guys muttered in apparent greeting. The others waited. He just inclined his hooded head. Surely they did not expect him to offer up rhymes of his own?
A new guy spoke up just moments before the silence grew awkward. He affected a snooty upper-class Ishgardian accent, and the slight drawl slowed his rhythm a bit.
Aah, class, yes. Why, I tell you, of class I have so much!
Would you believe that gold is everything I touch!
You might even say that my wealth is a crutch!
But I've no trouble breaking spines to KEEP THOSE LOUSY BRUME RABBLE-ROUSERS OFF OF MY PROPERTY. UGH.
The entire group was doubled over in laughter by the time the parody was done.
"Lancelin, bruv, you gotta pull that one out more often," the first rapper wheezed.
"Why would I do that? It'd lose its effectiveness, and it's not like I'm as quick or clever as the rest of y'all," Lancelin returned.
"You would be if you actually practiced," the second guy opined.
The young men bickered for a bit before the woman cleared her throat. "Y'all lost the thread? Alright, but we can't quit 'til our shadowy new friend over there gives us some bars."
Everyone looked over at those shadows again, and they were answered with naught more than another head tilt.
"Then you pick it up, Liyah," the first guy answered.
"Sure." She lifted her voice, and it carried itself in gentle strength over the fire and the circle of friends, seeming to bear that same warmth to light the shadows:
It's nice here, I promise, it's ice here but it ain't
Always been cold, though these days the ice is like
All these kids know. But just like these walls wasn't
Always covered in snow, so these hearts have called
To ones who know, with warmth like the fire
Below our palms, these flames rising high
As our lifted spirits, called not by one
Or by five, but by ten, and by full intent.
Ten for the moons between birth and born,
Nine for the Warden who blazes the path,
Eight for the fashion when Eris is in town,
Seven steps upward where the Fury went,
Six in the chambers when you've been forewarned,
Five when you're adding the sweet supreme Math.
Four if I'm wrong and those shadows don't talk,
Three my poor soul from the embarrassment!
Her friends chuckled and scoffed at the wordplay (and number play), and she grinned, though the way that grin pinched at her cheeks did suggest there was a blush dampened by her dark skin.
As it turned out, she needn't have worried.
Two's company when it comes before one,
But three makes a crowd when it's said and done.
Four here in a group to share warmth around,
Five since you count random lurkers you've found,
Six for the elements that make up your heavens,
Consider it a gift that I brought y'all to seven.
There was a thin layer of rasp to his voice, as if it rarely saw use, but this seemed to matter very little to those gathered around the fire. Liyah raised her eyebrows while the men made generally approving sounds.
"Not bad, honestly…." The first one gave the cloaked figure a fresh up-and-down. "Where in hells did you come from? Thought I'd found everyone with an onze of talent or instinct in this hell of ice."
"Everyone with talent, and also Lancelin," the second young man whined. Lancelin shoved him.
Their interloper merely leaned against a wall that was slightly closer to the fire this time. This was why his voice was rough from disuse.
"You gonna give us your name, at least?" Liyah asked. She did not have any better luck at getting a response than her peers.
"Guess we get to name him, them," the second guy said.
At least they met with no opposition on that.
"He gave his own name," Lancelin said. "Seven. Breaker of Cyphers."
"He's gotta show up again and break another one to be called a breaker of cyphers, plural." Liyah answered Lancelin while looking at Seven.
"True that." The first rapper threw an arm each over the other man's and Lancelin's shoulders. "In the interest of fair trade — call me Spire. This one's Braxton, and that's Lancelin. Our sista goes by Liyah."
Lancelin stepped out of the casual embrace and dusted himself off. "I'll introduce myself next time. If I want to."
"Same." Braxton remained where he was, though. "You should know better than that."
"And you should know by now that the cypher only calls those who need it. Or whom it needs. That's how it works. Has it been wrong yet?"
"Not wrong," Braxton muttered. "But your beloved cyphers and maths can bring Chas back any day now."
Spire sighed but chose not to belabor the point. "Anyway—" He turned back to Seven, but the shadow-cloaked figure was gone from sight.
"You sure know how to pick 'em," Braxton drawled.
"I'm more worried about Liyah," Lancelin noted. "You've got the hots for that stranger and his dulcet tones already, don't you?"
Liyah narrowed her eyes. "Jealous?"
"Gods no. If anything, I'll thank him for distracting you off of me if he ever shows up again."
"Fuck you."
"Yeah, you'd like that, wouldn't you."
The group's idle banter faded as they left the warmth of their fire to wander farther into the Brume.
