The Tower of Emnu

Aaron balanced on the top of a tree as he studied the Town of Beginnings. Dense fog drifted up from the nearby river cutting the Town in half and fueling its mote that surrounded the rather expansive Town. When Aaron had first spotted it he had thought it looked rather small, but in the last few days that illusion had been thoroughly debunked. Now it was time to give this Town a closer look. It was still cold in the early morning hours, frost coated trees and although there was no snow anymore it was still very chilly. Not that the cold bothered Aaron, but his sensitive skin felt the cold just as much as if he had stood naked on top of the tree. The wind was like always predictable as was the weather. In half an hour the fog would clear and the sun would shine in an attempt to mimic an early Spring. It was the best time to infiltrate the city Aaron had decided.

Almost without a sound he leapt up into the sky, right into the fog. In an instant Aaron was surrounded by a thick white cloud blocking even his enhanced sight almost completely but he did not need his eyes to orient himself. His other senses would do that job far better in the fog. He could smell the sewer like mote pass underneath him and could hear the street. His jump angled correctly should bring him close to a rooftop. Aaron could feel the wind around him. Wind steps giving him arcane and strange sense impressions that he could distinguish from his actual senses. He had felt this before in Mei’s memories and the more he relived them, the deeper he started to feel the Qi respond to the wind, predict its path. But he did not need it in the end.

A rooftop appeared like magic in front of him, appearing suddenly like a ghost out of the fog and Aaron landed quietly. He could hear people moving in the building underneath him, the desperate and destitute. He could tell how well of these folks were because of the intensity of the stink that wafted over from the mote around the city. Nobody liked to live here unless they had no choice. He had seen the people who had made this their home. Poor laborers and hawkers. People whose only fault in life was that they were weak or unlucky. Weak because they had no powers, for no Vessel was truly poor in this city. He had found that out on the first few days of his intensive observation of the outskirts of the city. It was an interesting social dynamic. Normal people without powers were treated like second citizens by the Vessels and were expected to go out of their way, to be unobtrusive and invisible. He had seen more than one Vessel bully one of the normal people, no overt violence, but pushing someone into the muck of the street was not uncommon. Most Vessels were unapologetic as well, besides the few summoned people who clearly thought this was a terrible thing to do to anyone. But just as common people were pushed around by Vessels, Mages did the same to Vessels and common people alike. They were the true ruling class, the nobility and everyone tried to go out of any mages way. There weren’t many of them in the Town, only a few hundred and so from what he had heard, a thousand at most and as such most of the prominent ones were well known. In many ways there were treated like celebrities and were the city’s true rulers.

Aaron had spent a whole afternoon listening to some washwomen chatter about this and that while they washed clothes in the clean water of the upstream river. It was probably some of the most important intelligence he had gotten since waking up in the Tower. They had gossiped about which mage was in favor by the guilds, who was ahead in knowledge or power, which group of Climbers had brought back a huge haul, which young mage was marrying who and a thousand other things that on their own were harmless gossip. But put together Aaron had been able to make himself a fairly clear picture of the city and its inhabitants. The city was basically split in two camps. One was Emnu’s Army, which apparently maintained a base and a boot camp for anyone who wanted to join them, summoned Vessels especially. They controlled a huge part of the city with many extensive buildings and they had their own laws, rules and kept themselves almost entirely separate form the rest of the people of the Town. The Soldiers were technically all Climbers, people who climbed the Tower, but they did so in groups determined by the army, using classes the army needed and climbed together in huge army like formations usually 100 men and women strong.

He had seen one of those companies move out of the Town on his second day of observation and had thought it was the manhunt looking for him at first, but had soon realized that this was not the case. To start with they had looked too uniform. They all wore the same equipment, moving in Platoons of 20 people each with usually a group of archers and the rest melee classes. There were almost no mages in the army. The whole 100 man company he had seen had not a single one and was lead by a high leveled Vessel. From what he could tell it was a proper army with ranks, military discipline, uniforms and they moved in unison through the first floor. It had intimidated him a fair bit, because he was not sure if he could exploit an organization like that in combat. An army would know how to defeat individuals, they would train for it, coordinate properly. Their equipment looked also especially deadly compared to the rather lax standards of equipment for most Climbers he had observed. The entire platoon he had seen were all armed with metal armor, the rangers and archers wore chain-mail and looked more like vikings with bows than the typical archers clad in leather he had seen before. The melees wore what looked like a strange mix out of Lamellar armor, small plates of metal folded over each other to form metal scales and plate armor. Most had metal breast plates and most of the melees carried shields and spears as well as swords as sidearms.

It looked a bit like what Aaron imagined a group of roman legionnaires would have looked like if they carried medieval weaponry. They were terrifying in their numbers and they all were Vessels. Every single one. But the military did not really interfere with how the rest of the Town was actually run. That power rested with the mayor and the three guilds.

Aaron had tried his best to find out anything he could about Aurix. He held a bit of a grudge against the man after he had repeatedly ordered to kill him and it was good to know your enemies. Vital even if they had an obvious weakness he could exploit. Aurix was mayor because he was the strongest mage in the whole Town. Apparently he had been banished here for some transgression and was originally from Ambition. That fact was well known and a very common topic for the gossips Aaron had listened to. He had also heard that the man was a lecher and that it was scandalous that he was unmarried and kept inviting young women to his house. Aaron had filed away that fact for later, because it was a weakness he could possibly exploit, but it was not really feasible to execute any plan relying on anyone but himself for now.

Aurix was powerful though because he had direct authority over the City Guard, their police force and the Climbers themselves. Mages were a tightly knit community for the most part and seniority was apparently just as important as military rank for mages. He had listened to one of the wash women go on about this one handsome mage over and over again. Telling the other woman what a shame it was that he was a junior mage with only 6 month of experience, as he was so much more powerful and handsome than his superior, a brute of a man she did not like at all. This hierarchy of seniority was why Aurix controlled a small army of mages, who all wanted to stay in his good graces. Apparently he controlled access to knowledge or something like that. But Aaron had not really found out any credible information about how he kept the mages in line with knowledge about magic alone. Should it not become common knowledge if he spread it as rewards? He had not really heard anything but hints about it so far and was fairly sure unless he managed to eavesdrop on some mages he would not find out anything remotely accurate.

Fact was that controlling the mages enabled Aurix to control almost all of the Climbers in the Town of Beginnings, simply from the fact that every mage was a group leader by tradition. So each mage, no matter their seniority usually formed a group of Vessels to climb with. Aaron had observed that fact plenty of times. Every group that had come after him had a mage leading them and they all needed to stay in Aurix good graces somehow.

But in the end Aaron found out that Aurix did not govern alone, in fact he did not govern at all. He was more like a president having control of the executive while the legislative and judiciary power rested with the three guilds.

The biggest of them was the Creators Guild, that had control over all of the Vessels who had chosen crafting classes. The cooks Aaron had met before all of this mess must have been in a smaller chefs or cooks guild while the Creators guild was the overarching organization that set important rules, laws and regulations. They kept a very tight leash on their members, making sure everything was up to regulation and that even low leveled Crafters of any type could find sufficient work. Many people Aaron had listened to had been especially mad about the taxes and regulations imposed on private businesses not under direct guild control and it was a common complaint for anyone that the guilds were too overbearing. But they were too strong and held the city in an iron clad grip.

The second guild and interestingly enough also a Crafting related guild was the Alchemist guild. They controlled not just the Alchemists who brewed potions, like the ones Aaron had on his belt and had saved his life before, but also created many other remedies, from contraception to cold medicine. The Alchemists guild was one of the biggest buyers of materials brought down from climbs. They bought herbs and different animal parts, while their counter-part in the Creators guild bought whatever was left: pelts, bones, sinew, meat, edible plants of low alchemical value. The guilds incredible need for resources and the economic impact of it was only supplemented by the “green” mages, also part of the Alchemist guild, mages who grew the towns food in small greenhouses. It made sense that they had become an entity on par with the other guilds if they controlled the food and medicine supply of the entire Town. Especially because apparently healers were exceptionally rare. That Aaron had fought one at all was really, really rare and he had heard many groups of people moving in and out of the Town gripe about potion prices and wishing for a healer.

The last guild of the three was the Adventurers guild, which was a weird mix out of merchants and Quest givers. They organized the vast majority of quests that apparently gave Vessels actual experience if absolved and bought especially rare materials that were native to the lower floors, but not available anywhere else in the Tower. They sent caravans up to Ambition and kept the monster populations under control. They had the most direct power of the guilds because Aaron suspected that they controlled most of the manastones and shards in circulation. They could afford to spend manastones like nobody else and paid out most bounties, making it possible for Climbers to make a living. Aaron guessed they got their power from that, but he had not enough evidence to go on to be sure.

Overall the three guilds controlled the Town together more than any one person. Their guild directives were akin to law and a guild elder was usually judge and jury in any court cases the people brought before the guilds.

Still, while all of that was good to know it really did not help Aaron with his fundamental problem. That he was still hunted and a wanted man. It was only a matter of time until someone spotted him or he made a mistake. Soul Catcher was incredible and the power he could get from absorbing spirits was the best way for him to advance, but doing so safely and secretly was almost impossible. Aaron had tried, he really had. But abducting people was too suspicious and if it happened to frequently it was impossible to hide that fact. No he had initially thought his best bet would be the beasts on the first floor.

Groups of Climbers went to the wolves and bears territory to gather herbs and killed the monsters for their meat, pelts and alchemical ingredients. The lower ranking teams did take some of the corpses with them back to the town to be slaughtered and processed. Accidents happened out there during these hunts and Aaron had successfully lured a pack of wolves to a group that was already fighting bears and had forced them to retreat with casualties. That had been the last spirit he had absorbed, from a man who had died while being mauled by beasts. It had sadly not been enough to bring him to the next minor realm. The exponential need for more Qi was really quite terrible. The man’s spirit had only filled his dantian by about 40% and that prospect worried him greatly. He was only in the third minor realm of Qi Refining working to break through to the forth realm. If the Qi he got from absorbing spirits was this low his estimates for how many people he had to kill was way off. Not that continuing to ambush people while they hunted beasts was an option.

The guilds had instantly responded to Aaron’s little trick and had sent two dozen groups to slaughter what they thought was overpopulation. It was just not feasible to get many spirits this way. No, he needed to find a real solution to his problems. A more permanent one than skulking around in the woods and picking off people occasionally. He was stronger now, far stronger, but even with the Unceasing Palm kata giving him better defensive capabilities he was still far away from being able to take a small army of Vessels and Mages head on. No, he could not really fight a big group and all his tricks, tactics and advantages did not amount to much to solve this problem.

But this little scouting trip into the Town just might. Because while he was gathering information there had been some interesting tidbits that might help him with his problems. The Town of Beginnings had more than 100.000 inhabitants and as such it was no big surprise that there was a red light district. A whole street filled with brothels, gambling houses and drug dispensaries. Those “businesses” were controlled by a criminal organization he had heard about in passing. They were just called the Red-light district and didn’t have an independent name themselves. But they apparently wore red armbands which marked them as part of that organization.

Aaron had a lot of experience with criminal organizations and one who openly controlled a whole district would be well connected and accepted by the powers to be. But they were still criminals and Aaron had no doubt they could benefit from his skills. He knew that his abilities to scout and infiltrate were exceptional now with Sensory harmony and his experience in stalking, abducting and disposing of people was probably unrivaled in the Tower. So his services might be very valuable to a criminal organization and if Aaron could get a steady supply of bodies from that organization to harvest with Soul Catcher it would solve almost all of his problems. They might even be able to help hide him or even ensure the manhunt would stop. But Aaron did not know if this criminal organization was even remotely capable of doing any of that. He did simply not know how far their influence reached and he needed more information, he needed to see how powerful the people controlling this red-light district really were, or more accurately, he needed to be able to eavesdrop on them.

So Aaron peered over the roof down into the still mostly empty street and jumped across the road to the next roof. He needed to be careful doing this, because apparently people running on the roofs were quite common. The agility based classes apparently did this as a way to show off and train and so he had to be fast and make sure he was not seen. Or at least make sure he did not look out of place. He had recovered a half destroyed coat from the poor guy that had died to the wolves and wore that draped over his shoulders. He had to wash it twice to make it halfway bearable, but it was still not entirely comfortable. His whole outfit was basically in tatters and Aaron would give quite a lot to be able to just go down and buy himself a few new outfits. But he did not want to risk it, not yet.

Aaron strained his ears and listened into the fog for what he was looking for. But the noises of people firing up ovens, making breakfast, waking up their kids, opening up shuttered windows and the like made it difficult to concentrate on what he was looking for. The smell in the end proved far more reliable as he could smell the quite distinctive odor of sex and perfume in the air. He followed it until he ended up on a roof overlooking a long cul-de-sac where people were just leaving after a night of excess. Windows were opened and people started to clean the brothels. Aaron could also smell the stink of chemicals waft out from basements across the road, where they apparently made drugs. Or they could be making regular potions. He had no idea. Still the signs at least made his guess credible. Across from a Brothel called “Velvet Delight” was a store called ‘High Noon’, that, you guessed it, opened at noon and sold drugs. Aaron had to smirk at the obvious bad pun and read over the row of shops and peered into their mostly closed window displays. “Cosmic Insights”, “Orlag’s Chemicals”, “High-light” to name only a few of the drug dens and dispensaries. All of the stores had displays that made it clear what kind of chemicals they sold.

Some of them were also clearly magical in nature as Aaron could feel them through their shutters in some cases. Especially “Cosmic Insights”, their display practically oozed magic. They were just in the process of opening and Aaron looked around for any places to hide and listen to the people working and shopping in this street. It needed to be mostly abandoned but close by and capable of hiding him without being suspicious. All of the buildings were clearly used though and there was a fairly surprising amount of activity for the early morning hours. The brothels were just winding down and cleaning up while the Drug dens were starting to make whatever merchandise they sold. He could not stay on the roof, but down in the street were far too many eyes. Then Aaron spotted the buildings attics. Most of the roofs of the Town of Beginnings had pointed European style shingled roofs that ensured snow could slide off them or at least distribute the weight in a way so the buildings would not come down on their inhabitants. Which meant almost all of the buildings had attics and from the smell quite a few were dusty and unused.

Aaron climbed over the roofs with ease and confidence since he did not need to fear falling and peered into some nearby windows to the attics. Most were simple shutters and some were obviously used. But he quickly found a suitable one, looking at another building. It was the only window in a very dusty attic and Aaron looked around, checked with all of his senses if someone was nearby before he climbed into the attic via the closed shutters. Opening them was easy, the lock was basic and he could have ripped it apart if he had not been more than capable of using the tip of a knife to open it. Aaron closed the shutters behind him so that they were still almost entirely closed, but open a slit, enough so that he could listen out of them and spot anyone underneath the attic. The attic itself was as expected a dusty storage room for broken bed pieces and furniture for the brothel in the building underneath him. From the dust gathering on the floor nobody had been here for months.

Aaron cleared away a the dust and random debris away from the window with his tattered cloak and then sat down. Not the most comfortable environment, but just what he needed to eavesdrop on this little criminal paradise. He closed his eyes and calmed his mind and body, quickly slipping into a meditative trance like state as if he was trying to cultivate. Cultivating for 6 hours a day, 3 in the morning and 3 in the evening had taught him to quickly enter a state of focused meditation, but instead of cultivating Aaron started to focus on his hearing. His concentration narrowed until the dusty smell slowly drifted into the back of his mind along with the feeling of wooden boards underneath him until hearing was all that was left of his senses.

He could hear the people of the Town waking up and going to work. The prostitutes, male or female were closing shop and going home yawning and the alchemists greeted them in passing. Some of the shops were opening already and Aaron listened to an Alchemist going through their selection of goods with an assistant or maybe shopkeeper. He could listen to them as clearly as if they had been standing directly underneath his window although they were inside of their shop at least 3 buildings away from Aaron’s position in the attic.

“How much Stardust do we have in stock?

“Only around 5 ounces. Crystal dust is almost impossible to get with the bosses orders to stockpile it.”

“But what about our stockpiles?”

“I used up most of it in the batch I made last week.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?”

“Why would I? You just have to sell it.”

“I have clients coming today. Mages who have ordered it in advance. 5 ounces barely cover half of my orders today!”

“You should have asked before agreeing to their order.” the Alchemist, Aaron guessed said with a scoff.

“Easy for you to say.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, just... you are an Alchemist and a Vessel, you don’t know how a mage treats a regular person.”

“Fuck you, I do, you think just because of my class they treat me any different? If I wasn’t selling them mind opening drugs they would not give me the time of the day. So don’t you think for one second you can use that as an excuse!” They went silent for a bit and the Shopkeeper continued reluctantly.

“So what do I tell them? That they can only have half of the amount?”

“We have no other choice, Mike. If you have the orders on the books, Grisha will want the full sum at the end of the day.”

“Oh god, they will be so pissed.”

“Not our fault there is no crystal dust supply anymore.”

“The boss will fix it. If he is stockpiling dust then he knows of the situation.”

“Of course he will. Now I made a fresh batch of dream powder that you could offer at a discount to the disgruntled mages.”

Aaron the rest of the conversation fade and moved on, listening to random conversations, focusing on one voice after another. It was difficult and Aaron could sometimes barely distinguish between the voices. Slowly he got used to it though and he had already heard two important facts. One, the name of some Boss was Grisha, but he was not “The Boss” and two that they had supply problems making drugs. The more Aaron listened the more clear it became that all of the alchemical shops had severe supply problems. He listened to junkies and customers being more than a little angry about not getting their fix. The most interesting part was that mages apparently used some of the drugs to increase their ability to learn magic. He could listen to two mages chatting about different “supplements” while waiting in line in front of one of the shops.

“I hear they doubled the price of Stardust again. I really want some though. Last time I used it, I was able to understand a whole page of the manuscript I bought. Its so good, but I don’t think I can afford it anymore.”

“Yeah, Stardust is the best, but you can try some other...supplements.”

“Like what?”

“Dream Powder is good, you take it before going to bed after reading a passage out of a manuscript and then you wake up with insights and vague memories of beautiful dreams.”

“Not quite the same as Stardust.”

“No, true. The Mushrooms the green mages grow are quite good too. Hallucinogenic, make you feel one with the mana. I hear its quite a high too.”

“Eh, I don’t want to risk the hard stuff. Its dangerous enough already to get hooked.”

“There are detox pills you know.”

“Which are more expensive than a months supply of dust.”

“Fair enough. But you’ll be left behind if you don’t push yourself and how would that look in front of your group?”

Aaron moved on. It was interesting finding out that mages consumed a lot of illicit substances to understand magic better. It felt like a bit of a roundabout way to him. Why not just learn the magic without it? Was there some intrinsic reason that was hard to do without being high in some way? There was also apparently a difference between Manuscripts and Grimoires. The latter being much easier to read but less powerful somehow. It was all kind of confusing. But Aaron knew one name already that might be important and so he listened for anyone calling someone Grisha or Boss. Most of the time it was random nonsense he got from it. The red-light district had its own policing force of red arm-banded thugs, one of which wascalled Grisha, but he was just a low ranking grunt, so it was quite annoying to filter that man and his conversations out.

Hours passed and Aaron slowly but surely got a better picture about the criminal underworld here. Somehow this organization had monopolized all illicit activities by creating this district and making prostitution, drug dealing and gambling a criminal offense everywhere but here. Which almost felt like a deliberate move from the guilds themselves. There was no Town Guard here and no laws besides those enforced by the thugs hanging around on the streets and standing guard inside of shops. It felt like there was an agreement here. But Aaron did not know if it was deliberate or just by chance. If the criminal organization actually had enough sway to create this pocket of criminality or if this pocket was what the guilds left intentionally to rule itself.

Addiction was a fairly big problem for normal people who came to get their fix, even though there was the famed detox pill that was this worlds equivalent of going to rehab in a single night. It made you really sick apparently and was very pricey. But a lot of junkies came back to get their fix even after a detox pill. So it probably just detoxed the body, but did not get rid of the problems that had led to the addiction in the first place. It was sobering that even though this world was so different from the last, some fundamental problems remained.

Around noon the street got busier, gambling dens and casinos opened their doors and let in the crowd. While the brothels also did not shy away from opening early as well. A lot of people came to the red-light district and although most of the visitors were men, there was a good amount of women as well. The busier it got, the more chances Aaron had to hear something important, but it also got harder and harder to isolate voices out of the wall of noise that soon surrounded the whole district. In many ways this was an adult theme park with all the illicit fun one could imagine.

The gambling dens turned out to be some of the most interesting to listen to. Because you could not only gamble away money there, but also get a loan there. If you needed shards then one of the casinos was your best bet to get a loan. The interest rates were of course murder, but that was on par with the business model. The adventurers guild rarely gave out loans and so if people needed to pay for something quick they came here. And in one of those Casinos Aaron finally managed to snag the end of a conversation.

“...Boss.”

“Put them on my desk. Anything I should know?”

“The Alchemists are complaining about crystal dust again, a few of the shops have run out entirely.”

“I know, the Boss will take care of it. There is nothing we can do. So just tell them to ration it or sell something else for now.”

“Yes, Grisha.”

“Anything else?”

“Our profits are down. Across the board basically. The manhunt is bad for business. The groups get paid, but there are few ingredients coming in and that means only the Climbers have cash, the rest of the town is hurting.”

“Mars will not like this. Tell the enforcers to collect on some loans to make the balance. We can hold on for a few more months before it will affect the agreement.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Good, go.”

A new name. Mars. Aaron was getting there, slowly but surely. So there was an agreement and the red-light district needed to keep up with payments? Interesting, but not really surprising. Grisha was not the boss, as expected, but Mars might be, whoever that was. The afternoon turned out to be quiet on important information and although Aaron strained his abilities he could not hear Grisha’s voice again. Either the man had left to report to his boss or he sat quietly in his office. Either way he had vanished from Aaron’s senses.

During these quiet hours of listening, Aaron thought long and hard how he would approach this whole issue. The organization did not like the manhunt, which was good, but it might tilt them in the opposite direction, hunting him instead of trying to get the manhunt shut down. Which was obviously not what Aaron wanted. So how could he turn this situation to his advantage? What did these people need and what could he offer? He had not heard a single word about any competition the whole time while he was listening so there was no easy enemy he could fight and destroy for the red-light district. What would be appealing? Basic resources? He could not make a dent in what a whole city needed so that was out. What else then? His ability to spy? What could be so attractive to the bosses of this organization that they would side with him over everything else?

It was a difficult question because Aaron did not know enough about the bosses or their organization yet. But he was sure that this little criminal empire could help him out quite substantially. He could live here easily and be supplied with anything he needed for example. Aurix and the guilds had little influence here and if he could ally with the red-light district there was a good chance he would solve all of his problems.

In the end Aaron did not arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. He still needed more information. It had grown dark and Aaron stretched out his legs, who were a bit stiff after sitting around in the same position for an entire day. There was no way around it, he needed to question someone. The red-light districts activities only really picked up after dark and it grew increasingly difficult to ignore the sounds coming from the multitude of brothels. Aaron sighed and slipped out of his hiding place into the night. It was time to find, abduct and then question someone connected to this little criminal organization.