"Stay quiet you two I am heading into the town."
Azemo had not made it into the town the previous night and had fallen asleep on the side of the road. At this time he was finally preparing to enter civilization.
Azemo expected that someone would stop him before he entered but as he got closer he noticed that no one moved to greet him. He also noticed that this city had no walls and wares were set on the ground.
In fact there were almost zero buildings and the ones Azemo could see were little shacks that looked as if they would collapse at any minute. Azemo continued deeper into the town and unlike usual he was interested in those around him.
The people were all grimy and dirty and none of them gave Azemo a second glance as they went about their business. It seemed like they didn't have time to waste and surprisingly Azemo could not find a single beggar.
In his past life and this one, every city he had ever been to had a beggar asking for help on a street corner, but this grimy dusty town had not a single one.
Azemo was shocked because after the clean streets of Zenath this city seemed like more of a campground then anything.
'I wonder.' Azemo reached into the room bag and woke up Ima and Bella. "I think it is okay if you explore outside, I don't think anyone will care."
Bella quickly leapt out while Ima took her time but if Azemo had expected a reaction from the people he would have been disappointed. Not even the flash of movement drew their attention and Azemo began to wonder if they would freak out if they actually looked at the tigers.
Either way Azemo continued to walk past various people and none of them gave him a second glance, most of them didn't give him a first glance.
"Okay Soul Essence have I completed the first task?"
The orb responded in an extremely sarcastic voice. "Congratulations you have completed mission one. For your next quest please obtain a working brain."
"That was a bit rude and I don't quite understand what you want me to do for the second task."
The orb answered in a state of fake excitement. "Quest issued! Please learn more about Kaclzan from this city."
"Quest? Is this a game to you?"
"I hate you so much."
The orb seemed to be in a bad mood so Azemo decided to go find someone to talk to. He walked towards a vendor before realizing that he had no idea what currency was used in this world. He quickly turned around experience had taught him that vendors did not like to talk to people who were not customers.
Azemo continued on through the city until he found someone who did not seem to be busy. The person he found was a woman who was just standing around with an odd badge on her chest.
"Excuse me, can I ask you a few questions?" The woman didn't even glance at him.
" I have solved it." Azemo said to the orb. They could converse without anyone else hearing them if they wanted. "The people here have issues with their sight and hearing."
The orb offered no response but Azemo could sense it's displeasure with him. He decided to try the woman again and this time he tapped her arm.
"Hi, my name is Azemo and I just arrived. Do you think you could tell me a few things?"
Surprisingly the woman actually responded. "Oh thanks for introducing yourself, I am Indigo and welcome to the land city of Crsnt."
'Was it my name or the fact that I touched her…'
"Thank you for your time. I was wondering if there are any major problems around here." What a perfect question, if she answered this Azemo would be halfway done with the Soul Essence's main objective.
"I beg your pardon but everything is quite fine down here."
"Oh sorry for the weird question, I am just a bit tired from traveling so I misspoke. Can you give me the layout of the city?"
"No worries and I would be glad to." Indigo went on to explain the entire city with great detail.
Azemo learned that there was only one true building in the entire city and it was only the vacation home of the governor. Every other part of the city was random and could move at any time because the sectors of the city were only marked by who did business there.
For example food vendors would sometimes be on the outskirts of the southern side while other times they would be near the heart of the city. No matter where they were the sector they were in was called the Market.
"Why do they stay grouped up? Wouldn't they get more business if they spread across the town?"
"I don't know if they would make more money and the reason they move around is because that is a loophole in the law. The governor doesn't like people trying to earn money by selling things, he just wants them to work. So there is a law in place that states, one cannot sell goods in the city for more than three days. However, if they move around the enforcers don't care because it confuses the governor."
It seemed like Indigo enjoyed talking and talk she did for another couple of hours explaining various aspects of the city. One such aspect that was shoved into Azemo's ears was money.
Azemo had half expected the city to have some sort of bartering system but the people here used coins. The coins were not like coins back in Kaede's world but instead were perfect circles of a plastic like substance that had colored rings on the outside. The colors indicated the value of a coin and they were red, purple, yellow and brown. With red being the most valuable and brown being the least. A yellow coin was worth a hundred brown coins and a purple was worth a thousand yellows and a red coin was only worth ten purples but the more valuable coins were few and far between.
That would have been enough of an explanation for Azemo but Indigo continued to discuss money. Apparently no one in the town had ever seen a purple coin much less a red one. Most goods only cost a few brown coins and the average salary in the city was ten brown coins a week.
Azemo's head was buzzing, it had been filled with odd and extremely random facts. He needed to change the subject.
"Umm you said something about this being a land city."
"Oh yeah, have you never heard of the floating cities?"
Indigo did not give Azemo a chance to respond and the next lecture started, this time about flying cities.
As it turned out most of the Kaclzn's population lived in flying cities and the people left on the ground were the poorer folk. While there were not many jobs in the flying city most workers would do their job on the ground before returning to their home in the sky. The governor of Crsnt lived in the floating city right above Crsnt and only came down now and again to check on the state of the city.
'It seems I will have to go to a flying city to learn more about this world, not only do they have more people, they also have a better vantage of the land.'
"How does one go to a flying city?"
"Well usually you have to be a resident or you have to buy a resident pass."
"That sounds expensive."
"Yup it costs fifty two yellow coins."
'Aiyah time for more labour.'