The Third Step: Chapter Forty-Six (Patreon)

At this point in my life, I’d been to several ports in other countries: Crysite, Delitone, Dragontooth, Fitiavanna, and Obsidian Forest. Each one of them was unique and different, and caused me to wonder what other people saw as strange when they visited one of Mossford’s ports. The port to this region of Tianzhu was quite similar in its differences.

The first impression I got as I approached was of sand. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Heat and sticky ocean moisture was my first impression, but that had been true for what felt like ages to me. My first new impression was sand. 

Sand was a strange thing. It was telluric, almost in its entirety, but to reduce it to nothing but telluric energy was to ignore the subtleties. There were tiny granules of crystal that held refracted light. There were particulates soaked with water. Some of the sand had originally come from the bones of long-dead sea monsters. There were tiny bits from corals, the shells of mollusks, and the spines of sea urchins. There were things that lived in and around the sand.

Of course, lots of places had sand, sand, gravel, and rocks were to be expected when you were along the ocean. And despite all of its complexities and nuances, it was still ultimately sand. The mass majority of its power was telluric. It wasn’t the sand itself that made the port unique: it was what the people had done with that sand. 

Through the work of generations of telluric mages, they had dredged up sand from the ocean as waves washed it away, brought it on shore, and fused it together into sandstone. Massive structures of spinning sandstone towered over the beach, easily twenty stories tall. The architecture of the ancient and new buildings alike were different too – where in Mossford I might have expected gargoyles crouched on moss and ivy covered old stone buildings with ancient enchantments carved into the stone, here I saw geometric patterns built along radial balances with four T-shaped gates that served to guide flows of energy throughout the building. Where in Mossford I might have seen quickly build houses, made with prefabricated components designed for levitation spells and a handful of specialized workmages, I instead saw expansions on the old buildings. Places that had once been four separate buildings had been expanded until it was one massive superstructure, fused into a steppe pyramid. Domes had other domes formed atop them, to create a nesting shell of architecture. 

The thing that impressed me the most, though, was the flows of energy. It was somewhat similar to what the Delitone dragon sanctuary did to create their environments, only worked into every building, and on a far larger scale. In many spots, they were used where an enchantment would have been used in Mossford – they balanced flows of heat to keep the rooms at a pleasant temperature, used the currents of the sandstone’s telluric energy to light glowstones within the walls, and used carefully built aqueducts for both generation of power and for bringing fresh water in from the distant mountains. It was a feat of structural engineering that was utterly impossible for one person to understand. 

And, as I gently pulsed Area Psychometry, I realized just how right I was. This was the monument of history that had stood longer than Mossford had. Parts of the city had been torn apart and rebuilt, while other parts of it had stood the test of time. It was impossible for one person to understand, because it was the combination of generations of engineers who were far more skilled than I was, layering their work on one another. 

“Veil,” Meadow said, gently placing her hand on my arm. I jerked back and nearly fell off the boat, I was so startled. Once I got myself back under control, I began to blend my energy into the environment, matching the patterns to what I could find. It wasn’t perfect, and using the Hiding Spider veiling spell would be far more effective, but that spell cost mana to run. I wasn’t great at veils, but this was more about adhering to their laws than anything. 

After disembarking and making our way through customs, I turned to address my small group. It was only Kene, Siobhan, and Ivy, but that was likely for the best. Meadow had to stay back: the Storm King did not like her meddling, and would kill her simulacra if she entered what was nominally his territory. If she kept trying, then he’d begin killing his own citizens to drive her off. She was in a gray area, on the boat, as she did have his permission to attend the tournament, but diving into Tianzhu was not considered a part of that arrangement. 

The Storm King’s willingness to kill his own people just to get rid of someone he didn’t like sent a spike of cold anger through me, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it now, so I buried it and kept it for later.

Jinwei wasn’t there, either, but I hadn’t really expected her to be. Ivy had no obligation to join me, but Jinwei hadn’t been in Obsidian Forest with us. She was fun to talk to, and a good trainer, but I’d mentally marked her as flakey and unreliable. Perhaps that also should have made me angry, but honestly, I struggled to care. People reaped what they sowed, even if it took them a long time. It was her wrong choice to make. 

Dusk and Dawn had been the disappointment. While they were treated as any foreign personage within the fishing company’s province, within the Sekhem Court’s territory, their rights were virtually nonexistent, but their rarity would still be noticed. It would ultimately attract attention and trouble that I didn’t want or need. 

That left Ivy, Kene, and myself. I was surprised that Ivy had agreed to go, but when I’d asked him, all he had said was a mysterious ‘I have my own business with them’, before changing the topic to what kinds of fish were found in the seas around this area. 

“Are you just going to stare at us? Or are we ready to go?” Ivy asked, and Kene smirked. 

“I’m sure he wouldn't mind staring at us all day long.” 

“Hush you two, I was lamenting the fact that Dusk and Dawn couldn’t come with us. But yes, I’m ready.” 

I waved a hand and cast Antburden over both of them, then started to cast Seven League Step. It took long minutes, where Kene and Ivy made casual conversation, and then we were zipping off, thrown twenty-some miles deeper into Tianzhu. I turned left and started casting again. 

It was several hundred miles and many hours until we were in the territory of the Sekhem Court. At various points where my mana ran dry, I broke out my cauldron, Kene his broom, and Ivy sprouted his wings, and we flew inland. 

As we moved, the architecture around us also changed. There was less sandstone, and significantly more clay fired bricks. The patterns and intricate geometry of the buildings changed in turn, adapted to the new materials. They weren’t any better or worse than the ones near the sea had been, merely different. I did stop briefly to examine a building that seemed to be made out of ten thousand tiny squares of terracotta, layering into an overlapping dome. Something about the complexity of its construction felt oddly soothing to me, though I wasn’t sure why. 

When we crossed over into the Sekhem Court’s territory, things did change. It wasn’t all at once, of course, because province borders only really exist on maps. Even the river we crossed to get there wasn’t that much of an obstacle when flight was involved. 

But though it was subtle, there were differences. The greenery was thicker, for one, with more cork, neem, and banyan trees. I thought I sensed some more powerful beasts wandering through the underbrush, but with our veils dropped, none of them attacked. A lone arcanist steel-gray and black tiger with what I could only describe as metal mana did come close, but it seemed to be more out of curiosity than it was any sort of malice. It watched us as we flew by, sharpening its claws on a tree, but let us go by. 

But where the wilderness was allowed to flourish more than it had been in the territory of the fishing company, humanity was taking the worse for it. The buildings slowly became… more extreme. The nice buildings became even nicer, with some of them using gold and gemstones on the decorations. On the other side, the poor buildings became far more poor. In more than one case, they were closer to a ramshackle hut than they were to what I’d call a proper home. The people were fed and watered, but less than looked entirely healthy, and many of them had puncture wounds along their neck. 

What’s more, the power of the people started to change, and I wondered if it came with the change in philosophy. Nearly everyone old enough to manage it was at least second gate here, with most people at third, and a large number at fourth. It was a strength that, on paper, far surpassed the region where we had just come from, as well as any nation I’d ever been to save Crysite – and that one didn’t really count, since the civilian population hadn’t moved in yet. 

But despite the average citizen’s strength on paper being significantly higher than the power of people in Mossford, it was far worse. I’d put an average member of a Mossford guild up against any three people of the same tier here. The power of most people who lived under the power of the Sekhem Court felt rushed, and often entirely cut off. Many of them had forced their breakthroughs into third gate long before they were ready, and had cut off their ability to grow further as a cost. Among those who had made it to third gate without rushing, most of them hadn’t taken the time to dig their steps. And regardless of their level, few people had what felt like a cohesive mana garden. 

I wished I could write the people off as lazy, but I couldn’t. With so much social status reliant on gate level, there was good reason to rush through first gate, crack open your second, and instantly use a pill to smash through into third. Even if you were lucky enough that you didn’t need to rely on flawed methods for survival, digging out steps took time. The mana concentration presented a long term advantage, but it took a lot of investment for a limited reward. Blasting through gave you more mana then and there. And I knew that the Storm King worked hard to keep the influence of the librarians limited here, meaning that if you weren’t able to go to one of the region’s larger cities for spells, you just had to make do. 

No, I condemned the Sekhem Court for this, not the people. If the Court took care of its citizens, then this wouldn’t be needed. 

Things only got worse as we arrived in the capital, where the sharp divide between the rich and poor was even more exaggerated. The number of people forced to live on the street was truly staggering. Worse, as Ivy, Kene, and I all landed and began to walk through the city, humans scattered, fleeing from Ivy and I. As we moved into the wealthier areas of the city, where the Court’s massive domed palace was located, things looked up, but only on the surface. There wasn’t anyone sleeping in the gutter, but only because the vampires threw out any poor person who tried it. 

I was fuming with barely repressed anger when I approached the palace, and one of the guards stepped forward, sneering. 

“You don’t have any business here, fox. Take your dragon friend and servant and leave.”