Before we entered the slums I had Fent and crew walk hunchbacked and made their normally elegant robes appear as rags. They appeared to be strong, old, beggers. I made myself out as a poor man leading my poor wife and poor son to our new home with our grandparents.
As we walked the slums most people lost interest with us instantly upon seeing how poor we looked, I can only imagine they were used to that type joining them in the slums.
The slums district was, as expected, decrepit. It was rare to walk by a corner and it not be occupied by a woman in skimpy clothing giving out 'good times' or a drug dealer in broad daylight.
"Why are the criminals so brazen around here?" I asked Benny as we made our way to his house.
"Nobody pays attention to us so we can get away with pretty much anything as long as the target isn't too high profile. Of course this also means we won't get any help, so everyone here is poor or stealing from the poor."
Soon we arrived at Benny's house, well, more like hovel.
"Is anyone there?" I knocked on the door frame because one cannot knock on cloth.
"One moment!" A woman said while rummaging around inside.
About a minute later she spoke.
"Come in!"
I pushed aside the cloth and found a knife on my throat. Changeling was in between the knife and my neck.
"What do you want from us!? Here to collect?" She whispered urgently.
"I'm here to help this kid's sick dad." I said flatly.
The eyes of my golems lit up and glared at the woman from under their robes, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Like hell you're going to help him! You just want to try so that you can shake us down later!"
'I don't have time to argue with her.'
I glared at her right in the eyes and summoned up the effect I learned back in school: Domination.
Her wrist started shaking and she nearly dropped the knife.
"Look, I'm not here to shake you down, just let me help."
The contrast between my words and Domination broke the camel's back, she fell to her knees.
"Where's your dad, kid?"
"He's in the back room." Benny pointed to his dad's door.
I walked over and shapeshifted Changeling back to my street clothes. Laveki followed, taking off the rags she had atop her normal clothes. When I pulled back the curtain to the room I noticed that it smelled distinctly of ammonia, like someone had left out a jar of urine.
"Hey, kid, what exactly is wrong with your dad?" I stood on his bedside and he was sleeping.
"He hasn't been able to walk for days, ever since he fell off the house."
'His back is probably broken.'
I reached out my hand and levitated the mess on his bed, like most things in the body, it was conductive. Once it was in front of me I opened a portal with Rift Garden to the woods outside of town and dropped it in.
"Now that he's clean, it's time to get to it." I drew a diagnostic rune that confirmed my suspicions. "He's got a broken spine, I'll fix it in a jiffy."
Benny beamed at me. "Great!"
I flipped him on his back and pulled a needle from my bag.
"What's that for?!" Benny suddenly looked terrified.
"If he woke up during the procedure he might die, so I have to drain his Eneru."
The needle barely pierced the skin and I imbued it with Spirit. Soon the Eneru flowed like a river from the man to me. With his Eneru reserves gone and his unconsciousness guaranteed, I placed my hand on his back.
"Oh... ok." Benny was on a rollercoaster between gratefulness and fear.
"I can't heal nerves directly, so I will have to make them close enough that they will heal on their own." I realigned his vertebrae and helped the nerves grow a tiny bit. "That's all I can do, give him one week of rest and he should be fine."
I left the room and saw Benny's mom sitting on the floor eating stale bread.
"Hey, why don't you get a job?" I asked in the most sincere way I could.
"Do you really think stores will hire a slum rat like me? How naive." She snarled at me.
"Oh, if that's the case I think I will solely hire from the slums from now on."
She looked at me like I was a chicken running around without a head. "What?"
"I'm going to hire from the slums. Oh, yeah, I'm Ingen Meiung, nice to meet you. Who are you?"
"I'm Pental, what do you mean you're hiring here? Why would you do that?"
"Well first, I don't like how this society puts down the poor instead of lifting them up. Second, poor people usually do one of two things when offered a job: steal or work hard. I plan on making a product that is worthless to steal but useful to sell."
"Look, kid, I'm not one to look a gift horse in a mouth, but what you're saying doesn't make sense, what can you make that isn't worth stealing but is worth selling?"
"Well, Eneru cables of course." I spoke like a salesman. "Since the government controls the generation, it's not really worth it to steal the cables 'cause you gotta sell them to the government."
"Hey, Ingen! I just got a message. Looks like Kursattle needs us." Laveki pushed aside the curtain.
I quietly opened my wallet and left six lions on the table before I left. "Make sure to use them quickly, I know how cutthroat this place can be."
I spun up Rift Garden once more, the portal was far more stable than when I used quartz. Once we stepped through, Kursattle greeted us.
"Ahh, so there are my favorite engineers! I need that airship scanner by the end of the week, the christening of the first Ark is soon and we need to verify it's effectiveness."
"Don't worry, we have everything we need, I'll have it for you by tomorrow."
"Great! Also, I want to open up a shipyard and land dock for these things and I heard you were a civil engineer as well, Ingen."
"Sure am, I'll work on that as soon as I'm done with the Fly Glass. Bye!"
I grabbed Laura's hand and we left before he could give us any more work.