Chapter 7 Architecture & Slime Extermination (Part 2/7)

Light itself appeared to be sucked into the dark stone that it was made of. The weight of it was also listed on the greater than four Mithril price tag. Converting it to the metric system with the translation, it came out to about 52 kg. Who in the world could wield such a monstrosity?!

In any case, it was about time to head to the Travelers stone for the venture into the bowels of the city.

As I left, I called out to the apprentice who had initially spoken to me. "Thank you for letting me look at your wares, I'll be back another time to ask more about them."

He appeared to have reached a stopping point in his current work and was about to see to my possible needs. Now with my words, he looked a bit split between being relieved of not needing to help a customer at this time, but also, I could see his reluctance to re-initiate his previous responsibilities. I could certainly sympathize with such feelings.

*Chuckle* 'I hope they get a decent break on occasion.' I thought as I left the noisy blacksmith for my nearby destination.

At the Travelers stone a small contingent of official personnel appeared to have been waiting a while. Scattered amidst them were various demi-humans all garbed with the sash across their chest of red and black. What surprised me this time, was the presence of a different colored star. Instead of the usual gold-colored stars accompanied by the black stars, there were two red stars on each of their sashes. Other than the red stars they each had no more than two black stars.

Trying to recall what Monroe had stated before about the meaning of red stars, I remembered that the number of red stars corresponded to the level of criminal activity they had involved themselves in. A single red star alluded to them being untrustworthy, generally due to bad quality product history, multiple complaints from reliable sources regarding the lacking care by which they completed their tasks, and other minor discrepancies.

Two red stars alluded to them having committed and been convicted of minor crimes such as theft, property damage, intentional neglect leading to moderate harm, and other comparable crimes. I will admit that I was grateful that I didn't see anyone with three or more stars as they went from moderate crimes involving battery and assault as well as manslaughter to four stars for those involved in murder, rape, torture, and/or being a slaver. It was nice to know that slavery was condoned in general and especially here in the City of the Falls.

Those with the red starred sashes were accompanied by no less than equal opposing and stronger escorts garnished with one to three solid gold stars. I guess that this was considered to be a kind of rehabilitation and community service for minor offenders.

Hidden amidst the group, speaking with a statuesque wolf-man who appeared to be in charge with three black stars and three gold stars, was a single stout goblin creature with a pair of simple metal rimmed glasses. The goblin having noticed my approach appeared to end his conversation with the wolf-man and then turned towards me.

"Hi, Andrew the apprentice of the apothecary, was it?" He held out his hand in greeting.

 Taking his offered hand and shaking it in firm respect, I responded. "Hi, I'm afraid that you have me at a disadvantage. What is your name?"

Mild humor colored his crinkled eyes at my response. "My name is Tillamook. I'm actually a traveler like you. . ." Then he paused a moment as if to consider. "But I'm also unlike you. I am actually an employee of Millennial Enterprises in their structural engineering division."

My eyes widened at his response. Color me surprised! This guy was working in a comparable field to that which I would have loved to have been a part of, had my destiny not been pushed off course into the medical field.

A plethora of questions rushed through my head now that I had someone on the inside to pull information from.

"How. . . What?" I wanted to ask about the deeper details of why this world was so detailed and seemingly alive, but I decided to start out small. "Wait, first, what brings you here to join in on this group?" I asked genuinely curious about what he had to gain from such a venture.

Pushing up his eye glasses which had begun to slip a little, he answered. "I'm here to learn from in-the-field application of architecture for the use of waste management."

"Huh." I murmured. "That's actually quite interesting. However, wouldn't you have access to blueprints and designs to see from the programming of this place?"

A mischievous glint appeared in his eyes. "You'd think we would have such. However, our CEO Naathan Gnosis has determined that it would be highly beneficial for his employees to actually live and explore within this magnificent place." Holding up his hand as if to forestall me, he continued. "Now as an employee, I am in possession of certain knowledge that I'm certain you would find Very interesting and useful. Unfortunately, I among all the other employees which you may come across, are bound my non-discloser contracts from discussing certain key points about this place."

I frowned at that. In all honesty, I should have known such was a strong likelihood, as they probably did not want to negatively influence their research results. Scientific studies relied heavily upon untainted and sterile environments in which to accurately narrow down affecting factors and results. I had heard that prior to Millennial Enterprises emerging from the ashes of the world, that a vast majority of publicly disseminated research was performed and reported on by strongly biased scientists and researchers. Their published results would too often reflect that which their patrons desired to make manifest, in order to sway the public in their opinions. Accurate and unbiased findings were too often thrown out in favor of government and private company funding. It is all too easy to bend the results of a study to your will when a lucrative incentive to do so is there.

There had been much social contention between various political parties due to such inaccurate results being published as fact, before my time. So many had been debunked since then, when ethically unbiased research had been incentivized and repeated.

Breaking me from my brief thoughts, he did add in one thing. "All that we are permitted to say, is that it is VERY worthwhile to invest your time and learning EVERYTHING you can while you are here." He then gave me a wink and walked away to engage another official in conversation.

Now That, was interesting and good food for thought.

Any further thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of 2 troopers pulling a wheelbarrow filled with small cloudy crystals and a pack lined with various arm length poles or hollow tubes.

The Wolf-man whom I had mentally attributed as being the leader of the group, then went and proved my claim as he spoke up to address all those gathered.

"Alright! It appears that all the expected personnel have arrived and our rock salt along with the pressure tubes needed for this venture." Turing his gaze to the convicts, he addressed them personally. "For those who do not know me, I am Lead Cain. Although I will have final say and provide orders in confrontation type situations, I want each of you to follow the direct requests of your assigned patrolman. Any deviation from their orders excepting mine of course, will result in increased duration and severity of your sentence for the crimes you have committed."

I was feeling thankful that I wasn't among those that where here for mandatory community service. He then turned to address Tillamook and myself. "Gentleman, convicts, we have with us here today two new Travelers of esteem to our city. Apprentice Andrew has recently been taken under the wing of Victoria, our cities apothecary. . . "

Several of the convicts appeared to shuffle a bit fearfully at that declaration and their somewhat haughty and light hearted attitude had become more subdued. This however, did not stop the leader from speaking as he continued to address us. "We also have Tillamook who appeared shortly after Andrew. He has been very helpful in providing practical ideas and suggestions by which we can improve the architecture and structural integrity of our fine city."

I turned to the bespectacled goblin with surprise evident on my face. Was he, as an employee of Millennial Enterprises, allowed to so blatantly interfere with the natural development of this Virtual Reality?

The look of grateful pride that shone in his eyes, did not give a hint of shame or being caught in misbehavior. To be honest, I was feeling a little jealous of his recognized acclaim from the leader of the group. I mean, he certainly appeared to have earned such respect garnered to him, however, I was feeling a sort of hollowness in myself at my lack of articulable accomplishments. This open display of respect stimulated deep within me a desire to prove myself as well.

Don't get me wrong. I was happy for his accomplishment and glad that he was able to find great satisfaction in a field of study that I yearned for. I simply wanted to make a mark of my own, not to reduce his created value, but to legitimately and separately elevate my own presence and importance.

You can cheerfully support the great achievements of your own peers for only so long, before you begin to feel the gnawing emptiness within your own life and lacking achievements.

However, everyone finds value in different things in life. I'm sure there are fathers, mothers, or homesteaders who find just as much satisfaction in their responsibilities and accomplishments of raising a family or building a home as whoever discovered and implemented penicillin in its amazing cure of a large number of diseases. There are also those who find themselves oddly lacking when they've written 10 best-selling novels and they take their own life out of growing depression.

Musing at my various thoughts, I followed the procession to another point in the marketplace as we set out to our destination below.

Traveling past the many mouthwatering food stalls, we came to a pen that held various animals that looked similar to goats and sheep. Except that the goats had black wicked looking horns and the sheep had a metallic sheen to their woolly coat. Neither appeared to antagonize the other, yet each kept a fair distance allowed within the small pen between the 2 groups.

It was behind that pen that was our apparent destination. A raised concrete platform with a ground level metal slab with a magic circle inlaying metal greeted us. The leader brought out a small stave of sorts and pressed it upon the glowing sigils of the circle. There was movement and a changing of the light within the characters of the circle. Then with a *Pop! * the lid opened, allowing us space to enter.

Descending into the depths of the city sewers had me very curious about what we might encounter. I had assumed from historical ancient architecture made for sewage, that I was in for a very damp and smelly experience. However, as we made our way down the declining walkway, I smelled nothing that would denote the expulsion of waste and fecal matter down here. If anything, there was a kind of acrid scent, that one might suspect of urine in a nursing home, but beyond that? Nothing.

The walls were made of well-maintained stone blocks and light glowed from the many lamps that adorned the walls. There were what I suspected to be exit chutes low down on the walls at various intervals which occasionally released a brown or yellow liquid of sorts into the depressed basin at the center of the wide hallways.

Amidst the incoming rush of liquid, I saw plate sized semi-transparent masses slowly congregating at the point of exit. The fluids rushed over their gathering bodies which then appeared to absorb the dirtied water that seeped over them. Then after a short while, I noticed that a clear liquid was seeping out from their leathery but moist membranes. This liquid made its way down the depressed groove and disappeared into the distance.