Exploring The City 4

Eventually, we arrive at Darling Harbour. We take a small break from walking and sit down on the benches to recover our stamina. Well, Skylar and Mia do. Ivy and I are pretty set in that regard. Being an artificial spirit, Ivy never gets tired, which includes muscle exhaustion. As for me, Gamer’s Body ensures that I’m good after a minute’s sit down. After all four of us are rested, we raise our hands again.

We find ourselves in a marketplace that looks surprisingly similar to a farmer’s market from the mundane world. There are stalls everywhere, parasols for shade and many weird and wonderful species of abyssals walking around. Far from a mundane farmer’s market, the products offered for sale are very different.

One stall is offering various books for sale, with strange inscriptions on the cover in languages that I don’t recognise. A few different stalls are selling jars full of strange coloured liquids, and things that look ripped straight from a list of alchemical ingredients in a video game. There’s one with a few racks of clothes and one with a table full of weapons, both magical and non magical looking.

“Let’s take a look around. Stay close. This place looks mostly safe, but you never know.” I tell my guild. They nod in affirmation and we begin walking between the rows of different stalls. We find that the variety of things is even greater than expected. There are still a load of magical things for sale, but also very mundane things.

Lamps, furniture, model planes and cars, little bird statues, toys, food, fruits and vegetables advertised to be grown the perfection by biomancers. They seem to have it all here. Checking out some of the stores, we find that they accept Australian dollars as a currency, which is slightly weird to me. I would’ve thought that they’d use something different, but thinking about it, I guess it makes sense, given that the abyss auction takes Australian dollars too.

We find ourselves not just looking around, but also shopping. Mia finds a pretty sculpture that she likes the look of, and she buys it, giving it to me to store inside my inventory. We take a particular look at the stores selling weapons, armour and books on magic. Nothing really catches our eyes though.

A lot of the weapons and armour are really low quality compared to what we have already, and the spells seem to be really basic. The more advanced spells and higher quality weapons and armour are out of our price range for the moment. Prices for things are crazy here, the higher quality magical things are going for tens of millions of dollars.

The one thing that does catch my eye is are a few different books on elemental magic. The books for fire and lightning particularly interest me. After a debate with myself over whether or not I should buy the book and see if I can learn the magic, I finally give in and buy the fire book. As the harpy running the store gives the book to me, I wait to see if a popup appears for me to learn the magic.

Instead, I get a disappointing but mostly expected message restating the limits of my elemental abilities: that I can only master one element. Apparently I can only learn anything about another element once I get to level 50, which is something that annoys me quite substantially. I’m really close, so I put the book away in my inventory for another day.

We talk to a few of the stall owners and we find out that the marketplace is run by a gang called The Ironsmiths. Apparently a small group of craftspeople banded together with some bruisers and founded the marketplace, on the idea that it would be safer and easier to accumulate wealth through selling things the smiths crafted instead of stealing it from others. The marketplace expanded over time until it became a neutral place where everybody can sell things.

The bruisers make sure that nobody attacks this place, and several other powerful gangs get discounts at the stores in exchange for protection. The Ironsmiths take a cut of every sale, and supposedly they’ve made a fortune over the past two decades from this operation.

With that in mind, it isn’t too surprising when we stumble over a row of stalls that are nonetheless, incredibly upsetting. Small groups of chained and collared abyssals sit on tarps, looking dishevelled, miserable, malnourished and mistreated. Signs advertise the slaves and give a few stats about them based on what they’re most likely to be used for. My stomach sinks, the anxiety hits and I shudder as the disgusting treatment of these people really hits me.

“Let’s get out of here.” I say shakily. Mia and Skylar nod solemnly, putting an arm each around me for comfort. I bring them close, holding them for support. “We can’t just leave them here!” Ivy protests. “Keep your voice down love, we don’t want to attract attention. As much as I want to help them, we can’t do a thing right now. We don’t want to cause a scene and we’re not strong enough to fight our way out of here. I promise we’ll do our best to help them, but not now.” I tell her quickly, managing to steady my voice despite the feeling of dread and despair creeping through me at the sight of the slaves.

“Fine. As long as we help them when we can.” She relents quietly. “We will babe. Come on.” Skylar says gently, offering her hand to Ivy. The healer takes it and together we quickly move to get out of the awful area. “Honestly I kind of feel like some lunch.” Mia says after a few minutes, her tone slightly strained. It’s clear she’s trying to lighten the mood, and I appreciate it.

“Once the anxious feeling in my stomach goes away, I’ll probably be quite hungry too.” I say. “Oh honey, I hope you’re alright.” Ivy says, and a feeling of worry comes through our mental connection. I smile at her. “I’ll be fine my love.” “Want to look for some lunch then?” Skylar asks. “I reckon so. We can check out some more random buildings around the city.”

During our search for a restaurant to eat at, we check for more barriers and find more of the same that we’ve found so far. Groups of abyssals living in poverty and gangs who periodically raid them. Luckily none of the gangs try to fight us, and we can gather this information with no real problems. An easy to follow pattern is emerging: here, the strong rule and the weak suffer.

Eventually, we stumble across a small barrier that contains an abyssal restaurant in it. Walking inside and talking to the hostess, we find that it’s a pretty safe place. Apparently although gangs all know where this restaurant is, they pretty much unanimously agree not to attack the place, because everybody loves the food here.

At least, that’s what the hostess tells us. She is trying to sell us on the restaurant, so I’m not entirely sure how much of what she said is the truth. Either way, an abyssal restaurant sounds interesting to me and a quick glance at the menu shows that they have a selection of my ‘safe foods’. Supposedly another autistic trait is sticking to a really limited selection of foods (safe foods), because nothing else feels right to eat. We take a quick vote and let the hostess lead us to a table after we all vote to eat here.

After we order our food, Skylar starts the conversation. “So Gemma, how’s your music therapy going?” I give her a small smile. I gave her a quick rundown of everything that happened on the day that Mia **** me to listen to a bunch of my old electronic music. Ever since that day, I’ve been forcing myself to listen to it for at least half an hour each day, to get used to the memories and break the hold the past has over me.

“It’s going well. It’s a slow process but I’m really proud of my progress. I can listen to the music without having a mental breakdown now, so that’s nice.” “You should be proud, you’re doing really well.” Mia encourages. “Thanks honey.” I smile at her. “How exactly did it work anyway? I’m sorry for asking, but it does seem a little strange to me that your past is linked to music so heavily.”

“It’s because I used music as a coping mechanism for so long. Music is a really important part of me, and I’m very susceptible to emotional music. Over time and through bad experiences, I associated certain types of music with difficult things, then shut out my enjoyment of the music as a way of repressing emotions about my past. That’s why it’s working the way it is. Forcing myself to listen to the music is a way of forcing myself to properly process my past.” I explain.

“That makes sense. I’m really proud of you baby.” Skylar says, smiling at me. “Same! You’re doing amazing my precious Gem!” Ivy praises, and I blush. “Thanks loves, you’re the best.” I tell them. Our food arrives and we dig in. Pasta for Skylar, pizza for Ivy and I, and a hot dog for Mia. “Okay this food is pretty good.” I say, enjoying another delicious bite of my pizza.

“It’s not hard to make pizza for you.” Mia teases. “Says the woman eating a hot dog, which is arguably even more plain and easy.” I fire back. “Sausage, bun, sauce. Simple and elegant.” “Honey, you have sauce all over your face. How exactly is that elegant?” I giggle. “Shush! Not the point!” Mia laughs, grabbing a napkin to wipe her face.