Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Sorry for the late chapter. Was a little sick, then spaced my writing because I was playing a game.

“Geh… We’re finally out of the forest…” I moaned as I approached a break in the trees, revealing a large river.

My ghostly companion Mula looked over the dropoff to the wide river just in front of us, “This one thinks our flight was easier than Tamana was thinking.”

To be honest, I hadn’t even been sure when we’d left Ignatio’s territory, but after the wetlands it had been an endless sea of rainforest for the last five days. There had been a point just after I’d turned west, just before the jungles, where I had seen some Neery, so maybe that had been the border?

It made sense I hadn’t seen any patrols. I imagined wetlands and dense jungles weren’t places that large armies could march through. The only place I had really worried about running into anyone was when I had to cross a road, but even that hadn’t been a problem.

I pushed my thoughts to the side and looked up and down the large river I’d just arrived at, which was probably the Ellunot river. We’d crossed two others on the way here, but neither compared to the size of this one and from what I’d remembered, the Ellunot was easily the widest river in the region.

It was also the busiest as I saw that its slow moving muddy looking waters were filled with barges and ships, both of the paddleboat variety and the sailing kind. The sail boats and barges weren’t that interesting, but the paddle boats looked to be magic powered and easily moved twice as fast as the other boats.

As I looked closer I even saw some Unagon, a Magicraft race that had adapted themselves for life in water. I hadn’t seen any at The Soul Well up close because they left as soon as the summoning ritual ended. Probably to get training in the ocean or whatever.

Next, I looked to the left and right wondering which way we should go, “Any idea which way to Ellunot?”

Mula shook her head, “This one does not know this place.”

I shrugged, “Just thought I’d ask.” I turned right, “The ocean is this way. I… think Ellunot is close to the ocean and if we go the other way we’ll just go deeper into Anniket’s territory.”

Mula smiled and nodded her agreement, “This one agrees with Tamana.”

I reentered the tree line. It would be harder going, but if we stayed on the bank anyone that happened to look our way would see us. Well… just me. I wasn’t sure if anyone else could see Mula. At least I’d hoped not. I didn’t want to find out what would happen if everyone found out I was towing a ghost around. Of course, anyone with Magic Sight could probably see her, but I was going to stay out of sight as much as I could even if she wasn’t with me to be on the safe side.

***翌日

The city came into sight a little before afternoon the next day and was greeted by something unexpected.

I stopped immediately upon getting a good look, my jaw dropping upon seeing a giant sign hanging under a massive fortress floating above the city. “Welcome to Calvinville,” it said in both English and the Ninaise language.

The sign was covered in flashing lights, with each letter turning off and on in sequence and the outside of the sign with a multitude of different colored lights flashing in an exciting pattern. Even the underside of the fortress had signs covering it advertising the names of various shops, goods, and prices. 

It looked like Calvin had turned Ellonot into a giant mall.

As I got a better look at the city below the floating fortress I saw much of it was just as flashy as the crap above. Even the bridges on either side of the island city were covered in stalls selling stuff. This didn’t end there and bled onto the shores where wagons and carts from traveling merchants had made a sort of tent city leading all the way up to a gated guardhouse blocking entry to the bridge that looked like it was becoming permanent with crude wooden houses already built or currently under construction. 

The only part that didn’t appear too flashy was the residential district. It was packed tightly with buildings of various size and quality, the most luxurious being those nearest the cables that also served as… yeah, those were elevators to the floating fortress above. 

The elevators were a sort of donut shaped open gondola that climbed up and down with the thick cables going through the donut hole. They didn’t look like they held a lot of people and moved slowly upwards where they docked at a dock just below where the cables attached to the upper part of the bowl shaped base of the floating fortress. From there I could see stairs that led into an entrance inside.

There were two other features that stood out to me as I looked over Ellunot… er… Calvinville. The docks and tunnels on either shore. The docks were pretty typical and were very busy with plenty of ships docked and loading and unloading goods, with plenty more waiting their turn. The tunnels looked to me to be Grounder tunnels as the majority of people going in and out were Grounders.

I turned to Mula to say something to her, when I saw the awe on her face as she took it all in. When she noticed my attention on her she bounced excitedly, “This one is reminded of this Las Vegas you told in your tales.”

I had thought the same thing, although it was missing a mini Statue of Liberty and pyramid with a bright light on top, “Yeah. I’m surprised you remember.”

She closed her eyes, “This one desires to see this Las Vegas. It seems like heaven after being stuck in the wet place for so long.”

I chuckled to myself remembering the time I went there with my family as a child, “More like it’ll send you to hell, but yeah, Vegas is pretty… memorable.”

Mula gave me a harsh look when she heard my chuckle, “Tamana forgets her training.”

I withheld a groan. Once I had told Mula I had once been a man, she had taken it upon herself to train me to be more feminine, including laughing, “Ah… I told you that’s fine.”

She put her hands on her hips, and I could tell she was going to repeat her famous line again, “Tamana is a woman now. Tamana should act like a woman as being a woman is your greatest asset.”

I knew she had a point. I’d seen how many attractive women used their womanhood to get what they wanted from men. However, the keyword here was attractive. I was nothing but. Almost nothing about this body was femine. My body was built for athleticism, not looks. The only thing I thought men would find attractive about me were my long legs and butt. Both were nicely toned with good shape, or at least that’s what I thought. I’d known plenty of guys that loved nice legs and feet. The feet guys were mostly degenerates though, so I didn’t want much to do with them.

I shook my head, “Doesn’t matter how feminine I act when I look like this.”

She looked me over, “This one thinks Tamana needs new clothes first.” Her eyes moved up to my mask, then turned to the city, “Then Tamana and this one looks for a body shaper.”

I turned my attention to my tattered clothes that were even worse off than they were after the trip through the jungle. Yeah, new clothes would be a priority. The only trouble was buying them as I’d have to let someone see my pretty much exposed body. I guess I could look for something more temporary.  

As for the money… I turned back to Mula, “What about money? It’s not like we have anything to sell.” 

There was no way I was selling any of my weapons.

Mula looked right at my bags of Soul Dust, causing me to instinctively cover them with my hand, then turned to the road closest to us, “Tamana will not use her talents to steal from the innocent, but perhaps there are some with sin that Tamana can bring justice upon? This one thinks this will be helping the innocents and bring Tamana some wealth?”

I loved the idea! Bandit slaying seemed like a great way to test out my skills while also taking out some scum and getting loot at the same time.

I started walking again, this time towards the road, “Great idea! Might take a while to find some, but it’s not like we’re in a hurry.”

Mula smiled as she followed me, “This one hopes it will not take too much time. This one wants to see Calvinville.”

I didn’t feel comfortable going into such a crowded place. For one, I had never been good with crowds, but I was more concerned about my face. If I went in without a mask, people would stare. If I went in with my mask, people would stare. There still was the issue of clothes, but there were probably people at the outskirts that wouldn’t mind selling me some used ones on the cheap.

I shrugged, “I guess we should go down a busier road.” 

I looked at the road leading the direction we’d come from, and it didn’t seem like many people were going that way. I mean, Ignatio’s territory was that way and he’d cleared out most of the  few towns, so it made sense.

I found a road that followed the bank on the opposite side of the river. It was probably the one that led to Aniket’s territory and looked pretty busy. I doubted bandits would attack often on a road that busy and probably highly patrolled, so my best bet was probably the road heading west. I couldn’t see it very well from here, but the shanty town in that direction didn’t look nearly as crowded or busy as the one leading to Aniket’s capitol, New Mumbai.

The problem was getting across the river. It was too wide for me to cross using Water Walk. I immediately ruled out using the bridge. This left a boat or using the Grounder tunnel. The Grounder tunnel wasn’t super busy, but since Grounders worked underground mostly, they didn’t follow the usual day/night cycle which meant going through at night wouldn’t make a difference there, though the bridge was a different story.

I turned to Mula, “Let’s wait until night, then cross the bridge. Shouldn’t be too hard getting around the gate.”

Mula considered this, “Perhaps Tamana should hunt some beasts while we wait? This one thinks their flesh and pelts could sell for some coin.”

I liked the idea. I had mostly ignored the animals on our way, but there had been a lot. Even now I could hear some monkeys howling nearby, and a quick use of my Magic Vision showed a group of Magicraft beasts not too far off. I doubted anything dangerous would be this close to the city, so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything, not that I had any meat on my Golem body for them to eat.

It turned out my assassin training was great for hunting as I easily snuck up on most animals I came across. Still, it took me a while to come across anything that looked worth killing as I mostly saw small animals like rodents and snakes.

Finally I came upon a small deer-like animal about the size of a medium sized dog. It had a black face with brown fur covering its body with two small horns pointing backwards off the top of its head. It wasn’t as big as I was hoping to find, but it looked like it had a decent amount of meat on it.

As I approached, I saw three more of these tiny deer grazing not far from the first. If I played this right, I’d have four deer to barter with. I doubted I could get more than two if I attacked them directly with my throwing knives as I could throw one from each hand in quick succession, but the foliage was thick, giving the deer lots of options to get away once I attacked the first two.

I got an idea. If I could just get the deer to run towards me, I could boost my speed and try to slash them as they ran past. Or… I could boost my speed and just throw knives faster…

I decided to get them to run at me. It sounded a lot more fun and would test my reaction time. I hadn’t had any practice since leaving The Soul Well and this seemed like a good time. I didn’t need to kill all of them, so it was fine if I didn’t. 

I readied my daggers and focused on a large bush opposite me in the small clearing. I then focused my magic and made a rustling sound from the bush. This alerted the deer and all of them turned their attention that way.

Now, I was tempted to run out and attack them from behind, but I knew enough about animals to know that they’d probably see me coming. So, I moved to the next phase of my plan and channeled more magic power. This time, an illusionary puma jumped from the bush.

This obviously caused the deer to run away in panic, and to my relief, towards me.

The first deer didn’t even have time to react as I slashed its throat, nor did the second. The third tried making a sharp turn away from me, but was too slow. The fourth ran into the third and stumbled, making it actually harder to kill, but not enough that I didn’t get a good strike in.

I stopped focusing on my magic as I looked over my kills. Other than the fourth they had all been perfect.

Mula clapped silently as she too approached my kills, “Tamana is amazing!”

I grinned at her, “A year and a half being trained by a demon teacher for a madman’s army will do that.”

She nodded to herself, “Mmm. Yes.”

I’d already told her about my time on Ninais and it didn’t look like she cared much about my comment. So, I turned my attention back to our kills, “Um… So now what? I never went hunting on Earth.”

She considered the animals for a moment longer before turning to me, “This one doesn’t know either. This one’s father forbade me from such unclean tasks.”

I looked at the dead deer and the blood pooling in the dirt, “Yeah, I can see why a priest wouldn’t want his daughter handling stuff like this.” I got an idea, a random Youtube video I’d watched forever ago appearing in my mind, “Oh! We should drain the blood! Don’t know how to skin them, but we should at least drain the blood.”

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Mula looked at the blood in mild disgust, “This one thinks that sounds right?”

I looked around for something to hand the deer up in the trees so the blood could drain and found plenty of vines, “Alright! Let’s get this blood drained, then find someone to sell them to before they start rotting.”

It… was harder than I thought. First I had to get the vines over the branches. This took me a few tries before I tried tying a rock to one end. Next, I had to tie deer to the vines, which was a pain. The vines didn’t exactly want to tighten so my knots kept undoing themselves.

When I finally got the first deer hanging and the remaining blood draining out, I looked at it for a moment as I felt like I had missed something. Maybe I should remove the guts too? I think I’d heard something about them spoiling pretty fast or something like that. The question was…

Something slammed into my back, knocking me to the ground. I didn’t feel any pain, but I felt my skin being torn and slashed while something bit at the back of my neck.

I put magic into my arms, increasing their strength. This allowed me to push myself over while also getting myself out from under whatever had attacked me.

It was a leopard. 

The leopard didn’t waste any time and lunged at me again.

I punched it away from me with my enhanced strength, then grabbed my daggers from my sleeves.

The leopard lunged again, but I slashed its throat with one dagger and went for the heart with the other while ducking out of the way.

The leopard yowled from pain and… disappeared. It was a magicraft beast that could use invisibility! No wonder it had so easily snuck up on me.

I turned on my magic vision, but couldn’t find it. 

Mula pointed to a trail of blood, “There!”

I immediately chased after the leopard. It was bleeding quite a bit so it was possible to follow it, though I lost the trail a few times. Eventually, I found it laying under a tree, panting from exhaustion and weak from blood loss. It looked like I had mortally wounded it and it wouldn’t be long before it died.

The leopard watched me as I approached it and tried to stand up, which it did. It then took a single swipe at me, which caused it to stumble.

I held out my dagger and stabbed it one last time.

With that unexpected attack and chase over, I dragged the leopard carcass back to where I’d left the deer, then got back to work on cleaning my kills. I knew I’d done a terrible job, especially on the first deer, but I got it done. Or at least I thought I had.

Now came the hard part. Taking my kills back to sell. As I was at a level 2 Soul Gem, my strength was probably half that of a normal person and I’d barely been able to carry the leopard back here. There’s no way I’d be able to carry it and the four small deer. This meant I’d have to drag them. I wouldn’t have to worry about getting tired so I could still carry the cat at least.

It ended up being a major pain. The deer kept snagging on every little thing which irritated me to no end. Mula even went off on her own to take a break from my increasing mutters of annoyance. Still, I eventually made it.

I stopped at the edge of the jungle and looked over the large clearing filled with tents and semi-permanent structures. It was well into the night by now, but many people were still up, chatting around small fires or magic tools for light with the occasional family eating.

First, before approaching anyone, I looked for a place where I might find some temporary clothing. The fight with the leopard had given my clothes even more ventilation holes than I’d had before, and they had already been mostly ventilation holes than clothes.

I didn’t find anything other than some pits people used as toilets, and there was no way I was digging through that. So, I turned to a tree that had leaves a couple times bigger than my head and shoved them into the scraps I called clothes. The leaves stayed nicely, but I doubted it looked very good.

Mula came back from where she’d gone ahead to help me look for clothes, “This one couldn’t…” She wrinkled her nose in disgust, “This one will come back later.”

I’d gotten the impression she was a fashionista of sorts, so wasn’t surprised by her reaction, “Um… Meet you back here in half an hour. Hopefully it won't take me long to find someone to buy this off of me.”

Mula nodded, and took off again, “This one wishes for your good fortune in this.”

I pursed my lips as I turned back to look over the mass of people, “I’ll need it.”

I readied my kills and finally entered the clearing. The closest group, one with an older human man in dirty clothes with three that looked like teenage boys ranging from their early to late teens, weren’t far from the edge of the jungle and turned to watch me, their postures shifting into defensive positions.

I raised a hand in greeting, “Um… hi. Want some meat?”

The older man, probably their father, waved for the youngest boy to move back, and stepped forward, “Miss Avree, what in Lord Dorel’s name are you doing in the jungle at such a late hour?”

I wiggled my ears at the reminder of my catness. That never got old. I was also glad at being mistaken as an Avree as I didn’t want to find out what all these people would do if a race known for assassination was running around.

I tugged on the deer, pulling them into better view, “These little guys kept getting caught on stuff so it took me a while to get back.”

The youngest boy pointed at me and snickered, “What’s up with your clothes and that creepy mask?”

I forced myself to laugh, albeit very awkwardly, “Um… well… It's a rough life in the jungle.” I looked towards the city, “Thinking of buying some clothes after I sell these. As for the mask… I hope you have a good imagination?”

The father gave his youngest son a chastising look before turning back to me, “I’m sorry, but we don’t have the coin to spare, nor anything valuable enough to barter with for the whole animal, but…” he took a look at my clothes, “Perhaps you would be willing to trade a small portion for a spare tunic?” 

He motioned at his eldest son, who began digging through a large satchel.

I pulled out a dagger from where I’d hidden it in my sleeve, “Sure.”

The two younger boys looked excited, “Meat!” The elder of the two said. “It’s been too long! I’m tired of bread!” the younger added.

I hacked off a hind leg and handed it to the father, “Here ya go.”

The father took the meat, and almost managed to hide his excitement at it, “As promised.”

He motioned for his son to hand me the tunic.

I took the tunic and wondered if I had given them too much or too little. I had no idea how much anything sold for, so I could have just gotten ripped off, or they were starving enough and they had ripped themselves off. Of course they could have ripped me off too…

I looked at the tunic. It looked like it was made from the hair of an animal. Maybe wool? Did sheep even live in jungles? I guess it could be something else?

I shook my head, then turned my attention back to the father, “Um… thanks! Know where I could go sell the rest?”

He turned and pointed towards a large tent near the bridge, “The followers of Geva will. They will also help if you have any ailments or are in need of a meal.”

I tried to get a better look at the tents. I remembered the followers of Geva from my master’s teaching and immediately knew that was a place I needed to avoid since most of the ones you’d find out and about all used pretty strong magic and I doubted it would take long for them to find out I was a golem.

I glanced back to the forest, “Umm… thanks. I’m going to go change, then I’ll see about them Geva.”

The father nodded and moved back to join his sons, “Have a safe evening.”

I heard one of the boys, probably the middle one whisper, “Avree women are crazy.”

The younger boy snickered, “You sure that was a woman? No way a woman could kill a leopard by herself.”

The eldest boy said something but I was now too far away to hear, not that I cared… yeah, I did, but it would be suspicious if I stopped, so I kept going.

As soon as I reentered the trees I took a deep sigh of relief. If I had a heart I imagined it would be beating hard right now. And if I could sweat I’d be doing that too.

I shivered my thoughts away, then changed my clothes. They were a little big around the shoulders, but otherwise fit okay. I’d still need some pants, but with the extra fabric from up top, I was able to make my lower regions less drafty and I no longer needed to use leaves.

Mula came back a few minutes after I finished changing and immediately took in my new clothes, “Better, but it’s not something a woman should get used to wearing.”

I looked myself over, “Might be easier if everyone thinks I’m a man.”

Mula didn’t look happy, but nodded, “This one thinks so too, even if she doesn’t like it.”

I recalled how easily the father I’d traded with recognized me as a woman, “Just need to do something about my voice. It is kinda girly.”

Mula smiled, “This one thinks you have a pretty voice. Perhaps this one could teach you some songs?”

I shook my head, “I already told you I don’t sing.”

Mula smiled, but instead of continuing turned back to the city, “Tamana will try again?”

I looked at my kills, and sighed, “Yeah, gotta do it before it rots.”

So, I set out again, focusing on the larger tents and the houses. They had to have money, right?

Next chapter will better introduce Mula as the duo explore the city. 

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