Blood Shaper

Sitting on the extra horse the Oaken Five had brought for him to ride, surrounded by the five adventurers as they headed down the road, Kay was very glad for the random horse riding trips Noah had insisted they go on over the years. He knew he’d be sore tomorrow, but at least he wouldn’t be as bad off as a complete amateur.

“Alright,” Arlen pointed at a rectangular post made of rock, about three feet tall, driven into the ground next to the road. “Only a few more miles. I think we’re good now.”

Dorian and Arlen had insisted that they start heading back to the city before Kay started asking questions. Without many options, Kay went along with it. Apparently Coultron getting reinforcements and coming back to fight over him was a real concern for some reason. And he’d been kind of a dick, while the Oaken Five had been pretty polite. Also, Kay was pretty sure that anyone who would call someone else “’scum and race-traitors’” was not the kind of person he wanted to spend time around. So he kept his questions to himself and tried to enjoy the nice scenery.

“So, is it alright if I ask questions now?”

Delilah turned towards him. “Sure, go ahead.”

“Although,” Dorian interrupted, “Keep in mind that the BOA knows a lot more about Outworlder things than we do, so they’ll probably have a lot more answers for you.”

“Well, some of my questions are about them too. Are there really enough Outworlders coming here that your government has it’s own division to deal with it.”

“Well, no.” Dorian replied, “I mean, yes, there are some, but no.”

“What?”

“The BOA is an independent organization, they aren’t part of the city government. They have branches in every nation I know of.” Delilah clarified. “There are enough Outworlders showing up to make them needed, but they don’t answer to any government.”

Kay frowned. “How does an independent organization that can operate in multiple countries come about?”

Dorian shrugged. “The same way the Adventurer’s Guild did. It happened so long ago that most people don’t remember and no one who knows is talking.”

“And that doesn’t seem… ominous?”

“Nah, the BOA only really deals with Outworlder stuff, and the only Outworlders talking bad about it I’ve heard of were crazy, criminals, or both.”

“And the Adventurer’s Guild?”

Dorian snorted. “No, they aren’t ominous. They work really hard at fostering trust with everyone. Plus, what they do as an organization is just too damn important for anyone to hate them.”

“Except for those idiots in the Hierarchy.” Delilah muttered.

“Well… yeah.” Dorian sighed.

To Kay that sounded a lot like politics, and he had enough on his plate already. He would leave learning about the politics of this world till later. “So where are we headed? A city?”

“Right.” Delilah pointed in the direction they were headed. “The city of Tumbling Rapids. The largest independent trading city in the region. Most people just call it The Rapids. We’ll be able to see it, just over that hill up ahead.”

At the top of said hill they paused as Kay took in the view. To the left a large canyon suddenly ended in a flat faced cliff that opened up into a massive valley, which in turn gave way to more plains stretching out past the horizon. The fast moving waterfall tumbling out of the canyon filled up a large lake with docks and slipways stretching into the water from multiple directions. The lake became two different rivers that traversed the plains in the distance, cutting off in two different directions. Kay could see many ships moving in both directions on both rivers, and even more leaving or docking on the lake.

Surrounding the lake was a city. A pretty large one, even for Kay’s standards of modern day living. Some areas had spread out buildings in neat rows, others had cramped, rickety looking dwellings that were probably slums. The cliff face was about four stories tall, and had stairs carved out of it, plus a few large channels that looked like elevator shafts. As he watched, a platform started moving up one shaft, covered in people and cargo. Huh, a magical elevator, I guess.

At the top of the cliff was a wall with multiple gates in it. Just behind the wall Kay could barely make out the tops of a few large buildings.

“That’s amazing.” Kay muttered.

“Pretty great isn’t it?” Arlen bragged, finally taking his view off of the surroundings long enough to reply. “C’mon. It’s less than an hour down the side of the valley and into the city proper.”

The road gradually sloped downward and it was a fairly easy ride towards the city. As they got closer, Kay could make out the wall surrounding the lower portion of the city, much smaller than the one above.

Standing in line behind a few other groups of travelers, and some carts loaded with goods, they waited to be let through the gates. It didn’t seem to be a slow line, each group had a short conversation with the guards and the cargos of each cart or wagon were given a cursory inspection, then they moved on through the gate. Still, there was enough people waiting that it would be a few minutes before they made it inside.

“Look, Kay.” Dema, the bear-beastkin woman, sidled her horse closer to Kay, “The others are going to dance around saying this because they don’t know how to bring it up, so I’ll just say it straight.”

Kay jumped a little as she addressed him. He’d been busy staring at the people ahead of them in line that were obviously not human. There was another elf a few groups in front of them, but Kay was staring at the woman next to him, who seemed to have a pale green tone to her skin. An orc perhaps? “Sorry! What?”

“From what you said earlier, do you only have humans on your world?” She continued.

“Uh, yeah. At least, I’d only ever met humans. There are lots of stories of different kinds of non-human people from around the world, but no one I’ve known has ever met one. A lot of people just think they’re myths.”

“Well this world has lots of different kinds of people besides humans. Is that going to be a problem for you?” Dema leaned in close, giving him an intense look.

“Honesty?” Kay leaned back a little before replying. “Probably? I got taken out of the only world I knew and thrown into a new one. Whatever you guys did to keep me calm probably won’t last forever, and the reminder that I’m here and not home from every non-human person I see will hurt for awhile.”

“That’s… fair.” Dema nodded slowly. “What about interacting with them? Talking to them, spending time with them?”

Kay gave her a confused look. “What about it?”

“There are people that hate people that aren’t like them, and-”

“Oh, racists.” Kay nodded. “Like Coultron?”

“Him, and people like him. Recently there’s been a lot of human supremacists coming into the city and trying things. There’s some political stuff tied into it too, but I don’t know if you care about that right now. Mostly, I just wanted to know what kind of person you are, and how you’d react.”

“I don’t have any reason to hate people just because they might be different that me, and I’m not really interested in spending time with people like that.” He told her, echoing his earlier thoughts. An introspective thought made him pause. “If… well if there are people that look like something that’s scary to me, or something completely unexpected, my first, instinctive reaction might not be great.”

“That’s fair.” Dorian answered from his other side. Giving him a good look, Kay realized he and Dema were probably related. “There are species out there that look kind of scary, and some people react badly. It’s not exactly polite, but most people understand. And since you’re an Outworlder, you’ll probably get a bit of extra slack.”

“There are also groups and individuals out of every kind of person out there that think what they are is better than what others are, too.” Added Arlen from a position slightly behind Dorian. “There are elven supremacists, dwarven ones, you name it. Don’t think it’s only humans.”

“And, since it’s tangential and important, there are races of people out there that are dangerous.” Delilah said with a low, serious voice. “Some because of their culture, some because that’s just how they are, whether that’s because of how they act or what their bodies are like. There are species that literally cannot co-exists with others.”

“Is that something I need to worry about?” Kay asked.

“No, but it’s better to know ahead of time than to find out something like that on the fly. Beings like that aren’t allowed in places that belong to other races, like The Rapids, so you won’t run into any here. And depending on what you end up doing in this world, you might never run into any.”

Just then they reached the front of the queue and Torren, who’d been mostly quiet during the ride glanced back at Kay. “The BOA should go over anything really important you need to know, so don’t worry if you still have questions. It’s only a few minutes past this gate, so we’ll be there soon.”

As one of the guards stepped towards them, Torren handed him a small sheet of paper out of a bag on his saddle. The guard read it over, glancing over each person, his gaze lingering on Kay. With eyebrows raised, he handed back the paper and waved them through, into the city of Tumbling Rapids.

Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m