(72) Scutes And Ladders
Ellie stalked through a decorated hall, the thick rug hiding her footfalls. Elaborate tapestries hung from the wall, and thick curtains covered the windows. Their bright reds and golds, normally loud and ostentatious statement pieces as much as works of art, seemed sullied by the long shadows.
The afternoon sun seemed to only glance into this hall, casting most of its attention where it would be better received. The faint haze from constantly burning candles and incense roiled within the umbra. Those boisterous reds were dyed crimson in the shade, as if the viscera of a decaying house painted across its very walls.
She wrung her hands as she walked, such an overt display of apprehension unthinkable mere months ago. Yet such issues no longer concerned her. Not only was the hall vacant, but the remaining occupants cared for neither formalities nor the hall's former prestige.
Gingerly unfolding the crumpled note, she stopped to stare briefly at the words adorning it, the fixation of her thoughts since she had first beheld it that morning.
We have watched. We have seen.
Your brother’s condition is sad. A simple potion or spell is all that is required. Does the marquis not care for his servants?
We can provide such services. We value our people.
We are a family. Our members’ families are our families.
We are everywhere. You have met us already. We know you.
Join us.
We ask for little. Live your life. Listen. Observe.
What troubles the marquis? What delights him? What rumors drift through his halls? What do servants whisper when their masters leave the room?
Information. That is all we want.
Protection, resources, and family are given in return.
Should you decline, simply discard this letter. We will not pursue you. We will not punish you.
We respect your choices.
Should you wish to accept, pluck the thread.
The rest will find you.
Ellie stared at the note, the words inked onto what seemed luxurious silk. Ellie knew what was being asked of her. Espionage was something all servants in high places were aware of. Rare was the servant of any nobility who had received no offers in exchange for surveillance, and rarer still were happy ends to those stories.
She folded the message and returned it to her pocket, continuing on her way, though her thoughts remained with the words.
Her brother.
Could he really be cured so simply? Ellie had not worked for the marquis’ estate for long, but the pay far exceeded what the minor merchant she previously served could offer, yet every healer that had looked at him, each more expensive than the last, had assured her that her brother’s treatment would require coin that she would need an entire life’s savings to afford.
Ellie’s thoughts refocused as she ascended the grand stairs, stepping carefully. The great windows on either side of the double doors at the entrance were also covered with thick fabric, casting the otherwise warm welcome hall into darkness.
At the top, she turned down the right hall, heading for the lord’s chambers. She straightened her skirt and pulled the string holding her bun tight, ensuring her appearance was impeccable and in order, doing whatever she could to avoid thinking about the whispers floating down the hall.
Their volume waxed and waned like waves, some seeming shouts, others fading nearly into background noise, but they were ever-present.
“—incessantly since the instant you passed! Not a single moment—”
“—wasn’t me, couldn’t have been. How could I be—”
“—so useless! It’s just a shame it didn’t happen sooner—”
Ellie took a deep breath and knocked on the door, which cut through the ravings. Their immediate cessation made her skin crawl, but she clenched her body tightly, maintaining control.
“What is it?” a deep voice called from within.
“Marquis Douglas, several city officials have stopped by, wishing to meet with you over the past couple of days. They speak of a disturbance in Promise City. The citizens grow increasingly incensed, and the officials fear that they might—” Ellie reported.
“They can deal with the peasants. That is their job. If they do not like it, they can abdicate. Do not bother me with such trifles,” came the reply, the voice steady and sure, belying its previous madness.
“Of course, my lord. May I have your ear for another matter?” she started, mustering her courage and taking a chance. “The truth is, my brother—”
A furious thumping interrupted her, and she unconsciously stepped back as the door was thrown open. A skeletal man loomed over her, one hand holding the door open, the other gripping the frame so hard his knuckles were white.
His pale skin stretched over his bones, as if a skeleton were merely imitating a human. Dark circles surrounded his beady, bloodshot eyes, and his fingernails were long and yellowed, cracked and chipped at the ends.
“I said, ‘Do not bother me with trifles,’” Marquis Douglas growled through gritted teeth.
“O-of course, my lord,” Ellie squeaked, bowing low and remaining so until she heard the door slam closed.
She stood frozen to the ground, unable to force her feet forward until the inane muttering began again, picking up where it left off as if never disturbed.
Ellie stuck her hand in her pocket, gripping the silk tightly. She turned and headed away, her steps sure, her mind made up.
Just pluck the thread, huh?
——————————
“See? You can’t just walk through the gate,” Tara declared triumphantly.
Nephthys stood transfixed. She vaguely heard what Tara said, but her full attention was directed at the city before her: Promise City.
Back in Prelude, Promise City was nothing more than a semi-permanent encampment, the Vadenlaudian expedition to Ashreach having just made landfall. Now, a shining metropolis sprawled from east to west, nearly across the entire horizon. The buildings were all a shining white stone, contrasting sharply with the mute brown of the shell they were built in and around.
A titanic tortoise shell was the city’s centerpiece, and the buildings sprawled along it, within it, and atop it. The goliath tortoise, sometimes called ‘The Guardian’ by denizens of Promise City, was long dead, its bones thoroughly buried or wasted away, save what remained attached to the underside of its shell. According to game lore, its entire species was extinct. Yet its shell was scaffolding and natural protection stronger than nearly any building material.
The expedition had set up camp within it for that very reason. It offered natural protection and limited the amount of walls and defenses that would need to be constructed from scratch, but Nephthys was surprised to see an entire city grow within and around it.
Curious that the city that sprawled around the shell had no secondary wall around it. It was almost as if the inner city, protected by the shell, had abandoned the outer city, though Nephthys realized that could simply be her projection.
Not that there was inadequate room for the entire city, as the shell was colossal. Though not a perfect circle, it was roughly a mile in diameter, with a great and terrible hole in the center, the crown, of the top plates, likely the wound that killed the beast. She scarcely even wanted to consider the manner of predator that could take a chunk out of a shell that large and strong.
“—just gonna stand here?” Tara asked.
“Huh? What?” Nephthys replied lamely, shaking her head to clear it.
Tara stood with exaggerated exasperation, her hand on her hip, staring at Nephthys as one might a senile elder.
“Haa…Let’s just start from the beginning,” Tara said with a sigh. “If you try to walk through the front gate, they’re going to do a test similar to the one at the guild, but they will not be as kind when you mess up their orb.
“Promise City tests all who enter, keeping close tabs on the strong in particular. If you turn their orb red or shatter it or…whatever else, we’re never going to be able to move around the city freely.”
“I see. What do you suggest, then?” Nephthys asked, still resisting the urge to gawk at the shining city within a titan’s shell.
“We need to enter through the Ricket,” Tara declared confidently.
“The what?”
“The Ricket…have you never been to Promise City?” Tara asked. “You sounded pretty confident about blending in and whatnot back in Nemesis.”
“It has been two centuries since I was here last, but I am adaptable,” Nephthys replied.
The two stared at each other, Tara’s bewilderment obvious.
“Right, well, the place is functionally divided into three sections. There’s Promise City, the white stone buildings you see within the Guardian’s shell, or maybe the ‘inner city’ is a better name. There is the ‘outer city’, the buildings sprawling around the shell, and then there’s the Ricket. You won’t see it till we’re close,” she explained, setting off to the west of the gate.
“The Ricket is…part of the city, but not?” Nephthys asked as they walked.
“Good enough description, yeah. I’ve spent quite a bit of time there,” Tara said, and Nephthys was astute enough to pick up her reluctance to say more.
The two walked for around an hour, the trip taking them out of sight of the gate and onto a barely-trafficked path that seemed to circle the entire shell. They were on the side of the shell that was closed, so Nephthys had to imagine that few came this direction.
Most of the surrounding buildings were squat stone residential structures, though there were also wooden ones. She thought this might indicate a less wealthy district, but she again thought it foolish to make too many assumptions when she had just arrived.
They reached a divot, the path lining the top of a hill, while the slope of the hill edged up against the buried shell. Here, Tara stopped, glancing around before quickly starting down the slope toward the shell.
Nephthys followed, her curiosity piqued. They seemed to be approaching one of the massive craters where two colossal scutes met. Perhaps it was folly, attempting to reconcile what she was seeing with turtles and tortoises from her home, but she imagined herself shrunk down and looking at the separation between two scutes on a normal turtle’s shell, wondering what Tara’s plan was.
To Nephthys’ surprise, Tara began digging with her hands, scraping the dirt away as if she were looking for something she had dropped. Before Nephthys could say anything, Tara stood triumphantly, pulling a brown sheet or tarp from the ground.
As she pulled it to the side, a small opening was revealed, a pinhole poked between the enormous scutes, but large enough for Nephthys to comfortably walk through.
“This is…?” Nephthys asked.
“These are tunnels that the residents of the Ricket made all over the shell. Ground gets mixed into the space between the scutes and hardens, and we dig tunnels through them to get up the shell without notice. It’s actually not too different from digging a shallow tunnel underground, except the angles are a little different,” Tara explained proudly.
Nephthys followed her explanation, tracing the line that was the scute separation as it traveled up the shell. If Tara was right, each of those lines was actually soil that had been blown and packed into the spaces between the scutes over centuries, maybe millennia, and each one could now have a tunnel dug through it.
Fascinating.
“Well? This does it, right? You need me here. I’m not going back to Gloamview while you do whatever it is you’re going to do here. I’m staying,” Tara declared firmly.
“We shall see,” Nephthys chuckled, shaking her head and ducking under the sheet Tara was holding.