Four days pass after Ajax and Shaula’s meal with Angelidis. Since that talk, they’ve traveled through the city and learned a lot. The first thing they confirmed was that the people of the city are in a state of fear and gloom. The homeless, the merchants, the guards, the laborers, the children even. They’ve found the full reason why as well, more details than what Angelidis had mentioned.
This is all due to the war between deities of near-equal power. Ajax and Shaula learned about these deities through multiple street preachers.
One of the deities, Osva, has his own religion in this continent. The church of Osva has many branches here. The entire continent is actually unified under the rule of the church. Since God is a real being here, he personally rules the nation. Since this nation contains all of humanity, God has authority over all humans. Ajax and Shaula had to repeat the idea to themselves a few times.
This nation is named the Holy Federation of Osva. Within the sacred city of Reid, capital of the Federation, the central church holds Osva’s throne. It was hidden in a location secret to the public.
The current doctrine of the church is that Osva created the human race over ten thousand years ago. His power is also seen every so often through divine scale miracles performed in the sacred city. Furthermore, he has a vessel aside from his divine throne. This second vessel allows him to personally travel and experience the world without harming it.
Where this vessel went, the world saw Osva’s power manifest.
However, things took a turn a few months ago. His traveling vessel was destroyed by the Empire. At the same time, spies within the holy city of Reid destroyed the throne. Without those two sacred objects, he was forced to descend upon the world with his full power.
His two vessels were made of pieces of his divine body imbued into ten thousand year old artifacts. If they remain unharmed, Osva cannot be destroyed.
If one of the vessels is damaged, his body instantly travels to the remaining vessel. Whenever the Empire had tried to destroy his traveling vessel in the past, they had failed to defeat him. But, when both are destroyed, his spiritual body becomes exposed.
The opposing side of this war is Semjaza, a goddess who personally rules her own nation just as Osva does. This nation, separated by the ocean from the Federation, is the Semjazan Empire.
Once he had become vulnerable, she had tried to destroy him using her own full power. Whether or not she succeeded remains to be seen. Even the street preachers would not boldly confirm his victory.
The church apparently hasn’t been very clear about the current fate of the war. Ajax and Shaula have not yet visited the churches of Osva within this city. But, thanks to the loud preachers, they gained useful context for what’s going on currently.
After gathering this information during the first day, they learned how currency works in this world. A silver coin is worth 25 bronze coins and a gold coin is worth 25 silver coins. They have decided to assume that the meal that Angelidis treated them to was at least $5.
It would be difficult for them to learn how much food is in relation to other prices. But, they had a temporary measure.
Using this relative scale, they learned that a silver coin is worth around $125 dollars and a gold coin is worth $3125. Most daily transactions are handled in bronze coins obviously. In the street, people would pay for food, carriage rides, weapons, and clothing. However, consumerism has not yet taken root within this city.
Ajax and Shaula had visited the commercial district within their neighborhood of Astrid. It was a small enclave of stores built on the lobby floors of apartment buildings. A place for haircuts, groceries, hand to hand weapons, etc.
Furthermore, carriages within Tritol were not as common as cars back on Earth streets. Perhaps because of this, neighborhoods within the city were built only a walking distance away. The entire city could be traversed within a few hours.
Shaula had thought at first that this was because of the massive walls. The costs to build them would lower if the space within the city was lower. The fact it was a walkable city was nice for both of them. But, the rampant poverty could not be hidden. It was surprising that there were so many poor people within the city. Shaula had thought they would have been pushed out.
The property within the walls must be extremely valuable, reserved for the wealthier classes. Abandoned buildings in this city felt odd to her. She had not figured out the answer to this question yet.
Their time was not just spent on learning about daily life in this city. They soon became well-versed in the criminal underbelly here. Crime in this city happens semi-frequently, definitely more often here than on Earth. Although, they could just be noticing it more because of their new senses. It’s not like either of them were well versed in crime stats.
Whenever they notice crime here, they get involved. Unlike the first time with Angelidis, they are forced to help the victims early. Not everyone is as strong as she was. Most of the victims and perpetrators are beastkin in this neighborhood. They decided to remain in this neighborhood for the time being.
They practice their ability to discern the sound of violence from ambient city chatter.
At first, they heard a violent incident from far away every few hours as they walked around. After a while, they started to notice them occurring every couple hours. They were only able to detect the loud violent crimes. This was a problematic limitation for Shaula, but better the loud ones than none at all as Ajax had said.
Any criminals they find, they dealt with. Shaula does most of the work.
Ajax would prefer to get the victim or victims out of the situation and leave things at that. He prefers not to risk killing someone because he can’t control his strength. Shaula is more thorough. She also has more confidence in her control over her new powers.
Every new mugger, purse snatcher, violent attacker and rapist she meets gives her more combat prowess. Their hearing allows them to find violent incidents within a multi kilometer radius.
There was an anomaly however. Certain buildings were completely silent even though people could be seen entering and exiting. Ajax had noticed this phenomenon on their third day here. They didn’t know how but there were countermeasures against people trying to eavesdrop. Most buildings were unaffected but the rest were completely silent.
Their current hypothesis is that magic of some sort is being used to hide. Maybe a barrier of some kind preventing inside noise from escaping the building’s walls. They’re not sure if barriers actually exist in this world but if they did, these buildings must each have their own. The funny thing is that buildings within wealthier neighborhoods all had this sound canceling feature.
As a result, finding wrongdoing within the buildings of the rich was nearly impossible. Ajax felt it was not their business. Shaula knew though. This city is hiding grotesquery. After all, even back on Earth, human trafficking, murder, rapes were being committed in an organized manner. Either through organized crime, the black market, or the excesses of the wealthier classes.
It was always hidden away as well. It felt annoying to Shaula that her hearing was limited in this way. But, Ajax felt that being limited their reach to the streets was good. It felt somewhat troubling that he and Shaula had the ability to peer into the private homes of people.
Shaula also became good at dealing with criminals. Tough but firm. Depending on the severity of the crime, Shaula might throw in some broken bones or some torn tendons. For one rapist caught in the act, she broke his arms and legs. The victim was left him, encouraged by Shaula to take whatever action she saw fit.
Through this all, she felt exhilarated. Never before had she had such freedom. The power to achieve her immediate desires was where this freedom came from. Ajax had always known that Shaula had this vengeful side to her, so he managed to push through his worries. For now.
