1 The Moving City Richter
"What happened to me?" says Krilo looking confuse.
Everyone seems so tall and looks at him menacingly. The way they see him looks like how they see another convict amongst them. Half scared and the other half harbors hostility. All eyes are looking at him at this precise moment.
Everyone except this teenage boy. A blue haired boy maybe about 15-16 years old. Wearing a long-sleeved white and magenta checkered shirt, although the sleeves are retracted towards his elbow. A beige old school cap that looks like it comes from Europe in the 1900s. And a pair of brown long pants that have 2 buckles rested towards his shoulder.
He is the only one that is covering poor Krilo from the hostile gaze.
"Get away from that thing son!" A woman screams with a hint of fears in her eyes just like the others.
They are looking at Krilo!
But no, the poor boy standing there with both of his arms firmly stretched ready to take all the attention from poor Krilo.
Something came out from the crowd behind them. Beast or monster with such unique design. Half of them are bipedal and the other half is four legged. The resemblances are varied, some look like deer, salamander, and there is even a bigfoot look alike.
Even with the resemblance, Krilo is not convinced those things are from earth.
But what is this place exactly? Looks like a grand hall with its ceiling 20 feet from the floor. The floor itself is made from a really expensive marble. There are dozens of rows of well polished wooden benches. All of them are facing where Krilo stand.
Krilo took a glance at a large structure behind him. A statue of some deity with wings and stuff carved from stones. But something eerie comes from the materials that this statue is made from. Cogs and levers are spinning and seem so loud in the statue.
Some of them are exposed and coming out of the statue. Even so, there are cogs 2 times the size of adult male in the perimeter of the building. All of them interconnected into the outside.
Beautiful stones that have various colors. Red stone, orange stone, yellow stone, and many more until a purple colored stone. It is sequenced similar to the rainbow color palette.
It is some kind of church or place of worship.
Krilo then took a glance of what he was surrounded with. Under his feet there was a circle painted with a red marker. With its inner outline resembling the shape of cogs ... a summoning altar?
'W-what is this? What am I?' Krilo looks at his yellowish arm. It is not just the color of the arm that shocked him the most. The shape of it terrifies him also. Pair of stubby arms but rather muscular. And some pair of really big and muscular leg muscles.
With sturdy claws as his toes. Rather contrast with the size of his arms. He is quite curious or afraid to look at his current face, a beak is present when his hand touches his face.
But the size of his muscles doesn't stand a chance with the creature in front of him. They look like they come from a gladiator ring and eat tons of challengers there.
The people in front nearest to him look like some kind of clerics. And the people behind them look like an attendant. With their fancy yet suffocating top apparel.
"Bastard! I will not let you all ruin this important day!" The teenage boy screams. His voice still somewhat resembles a pubescent boy. But his build is almost as if he is an average high schooler.
Two big burly individuals from the back cutting the crowd wearing red metal vest, silver metallic helm that has a point on top. One of them holding a blunt weapon and another one wearing similar attire but with the addition of a really long clack metallic rifle in his back. There is a mouth cover that hides his mouth section and lower nose.
The ones without the mouth cover do the talking. He forcefully grabs his arm but the boy resists. The guard then shoves the poor boy's body until he hits the marble floor.
The guard with a mouthpiece comes to Krilo. He wants to fight back but seeing the guard's hand holding a knife, he is discouraged from doing such an act. The mouthpieced guard puts a leather collar around Krilo's neck, with a stick on it's other end and proceed to take him away.
"Why are all of you doing this to me?! He is my Compfreund. Please, I beg you, don't crush my hope." The boy recovers and bows down in front of the guard's heavy boots.
Krilo's eyes widens. A total stranger really cares for him even against all odds.
A heavy kick swept the blue haired boy's body once again. But, the woman from before comes forward to the boy's direction and hugs him.
"Get away from me, mom!" his hand shoves the woman with minimal effort and continued charging towards Krilo.
His unwavering eyes squint like a hawk finding its prey. 'He chooses me rather than everyone in this crowd, rather than his mom?!' Krilo astonishingly surprises.
A strike goes to his neck by the guard that previously struck him. Rendering the boy unconscious.
The commotion then stopped and both guards proceed to push Krilo with the stick. He is just as tall as their hips. Krilo once again feels so small.
He sees the boy get taken away by the crowd and follows his direction. The sunlight brightly shines on Krilo's face, indirectly coming from the colorful mosaic ceiling on top of the place of worship. There is a strange feeling of vibration that he felt from the beginning. It is like he is inside a car of some sort.
Krilo's eyes widen once again when he finally sees the world outside the cathedral. The world outside looks like a carousel. Trees and hills are passing his field of vision at an insane speed. Also, said trees and hills look pretty small compared to the altitude he is in.
Looking at them continuously makes his stomach acid rise in his throat. The slight motion sickness he is feeling inside is the result of this building, no, the area that supports this building that is currently moving.
No-not just THIS building. There are towns underneath this building. It is so steep that looking down in addition to moving horizontally will make you nauseous. Other buildings with red roofs are built at various elevations. All cramped in this 'moving town'.
There are no cars, especially bicycles with this kind of inclination. Only pedestrians trying to 'climb' and going down the zig zag paving block. With a line of sturdy handrails all over the edge of pedestrian pathways.
There are so many fatal scenarios in Krilo's head. If the speed of this thing stops all of the sudden like an emergency brake. All of this structure and people will experience inertia. Buildings smashing the wall, pedestrians 'flew', a total catastrophe.
But now he is standing in front of an iron platform just outside of the cathedral courtyard. Both of the guards are staring towards a black wire that is attached to a pulley stand next to them. The wire spans approximately 700 meters in length.
Something slowly coming from the other end of the wire. A gondola somewhat similar to a ski resort on earth. It arrived safely and the door opened in front of them. A force pushes Krilo inside before he could even react.
"Move lizard! We can't wait to dissect you. Those shiny colors will make us rich. How would you spend your end of a bargain eh buddy?" The loudmouthed guard throws an ice breaker to his silent friend.
The door closed and they got onto the moving gondola.
"I'll smuggle it to the outside, to my wife and daughter. No one is providing them in the capital because of this stupid area dispute." His friend's expression is not like my expectations.
His friend sighed. "The city of Grunbergen has been established well after any of this dispute exists. But why now the Voltingen Monarch suddenly mobilize its forces there?" The last bit of his sentence sounds like he is talking to himself.
'Voltingen?!' Krilo's eyes widens. Something important struck his memory.
His friend does not answer.
"Those goddamn barriers in this city are making us suffer. If I would blow up Richter just for them to lift the barrier, hell, I'll blow this place thousand times with its cursed inhabitants if I have to."
His loudmouthed friend inhales. "Agrees. Our plan to get out of this shithole begins with this compfreund over here. Thanks to captain, we are going to be filthy rich." His annoying hand pat me with an uncomfortable force.
"Don't touch me!" A sentence just blurts all of a sudden from Krilo's mouth.
A sharp look cast upon Krilo once again. Both of his stubby hands are holding his beak. He doesn't know if his creature form should talk.
Those two look at each other and a satisfying laugh bursts. "Look how cute this creature growls. Who's a good boy!" His hand scratches Krilo's neck.
'Damn that's the spot!' Krilo fell into ecstasy as it got more comfortable the more the scratch. 'So they don't understand my ramblings just now' A sigh of relief is released from Krilo's mind. At the same time, a feeling of dread replaces it. There is no one in this world that understands him.
The gondola stops and the door opens itself. Revealing a busy town square.
