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Chapter 210: City Rider
🕑 Added 2024-08-25 18:45:03 +0000 UTCEito led them away from the hotel at a crisp pace, moving in a direction Arthur hadn’t gone yet. Half a mile later, the group arrived at a sort of ramp that dropped into a covered area, big enough that four people could descend side by side at the same time.
“A tunnel? This takes us to where trucks are?” Arthur asked, accidentally slipping in an Earth-word.
“A tunnel, yes, but...” Eito moved down the ramp with Arthur and Lily in tow. “Please stop using that word. The translator knows what it means but it’s trying to include all your Earth-thoughts when it explains it to me and Lily.”
“Yes. It’s terrible,” Lily said. “Just say cart or wagon. That’s what it’s going to be anyway.”
The bottom of the ramp revealed that everyone was right on all points. As Arthur’s eyes adjusted to the dimness, he was faced with a line of ten or so wagons, all built differently than the carts he had seen before. Even Talca’s cart, which was fast, was nowhere near as stripped down as these conveyances were. They were two-wheeled vehicles with low walls, thin floors, and four seats. Arthur noted, with satisfaction, that all of them now had shock absorbers mounted on the axle. Nobody could pass on the extra stability and speed, it seemed.
“Wagon six can accommodate three,” the attendant at the ramp said, pointing. “The others will try to get you to go into their wagons. Ignore them. It’s just a joke.”
Eito nodded and all but dragged the other two members of the party towards the wagon, then got in himself. The other wagon drivers did hoot and holler at them, saying that wagon six was the slowest in the city and couldn’t be trusted to navigate a straight line without accidentally ending up going in circles. Arthur, Eito, and Lily ignored them, which turned out to be the right choice. The driver in six fought back, reminding the others that it was his turn in the line and that their rides were just as unreliable.
Seatbelts weren’t a thing in the Demon World, but each chair in the back of the wagon had a small handle mounted to each arm, presumably to grab onto for stability.
“All right, welcome, we’ll be leaving in just a moment,” the wagon driver said. “First capital transport wagon ride?”
“Not for me, but for them, yes,” Eito said.
“The rule is to stay in the wagon. If you do that, you’ll be fine unless someone rams us as a joke,” the driver explained.
“Does that happen?” Arthur asked. “The ramming?”
“Not often and basically never with new riders.” The driver picked up his reigns, whispered something to the pony-sized almost-a-rabbit attached to his cart, then turned around, apparently unaware how little reassuring effect his statement had on Arthur. “Just remember the handles by the seats and you’ll be fine.”
The driver stood up straight, bounced the reigns, and gave an audible yaw! order as the wagon lurched into motion. For a few seconds, the speed was reasonable. But only for a few. Soon enough, the wagon was hurtling down the underground road, then blasting, then blurring. It was faster than the fastest Arthur had ever ridden with Talca, so far beyond what he had experienced that he wondered if he’d get a new riding achievement from it.
“He can’t do what an outdoors transporter can,” Eito yelled over the winds. “Terrain would be harder. Turns would be much harder. He’s built for flat land, smooth riding, and going as fast as possible in those conditions.”
“Why do it?” Arthur yelled. He could barely hear himself. “If it’s that restricted?”
“Racing!” the driver yelled back. “The job is boring, but it sets you up to be a racer. Most of us just work transporter jobs to pay the bills and to level. After hours and on rest days, we have our own track. You should come out and watch. Lots of people do!”
Arthur nodded, weakly. The sheer speed of it all was starting to make him slightly sick, although he was more and more glad he wasn’t attempting to make the walk. Lily, on the other hand, was having the time of her life.
“Woo! Woohoooooo!” she screamed, kneeling on her chair. “It’s like Karbo on roller skates, Arthur! We have to do this every day!” She turned and yelled at the driver. “You can go faster, right? Go all out! We can take it!”
“All right! You got it, kiddo!”
Before Arthur or Eito had a chance to stop him, the driver hit the afterburners. They slammed back into their seats as the wagon shot forward, accessing a new level of disorienting Arthur wouldn’t have thought possible for a vehicle that would fit in with Earth’s middle ages. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore it all, waiting for the achievement that would make it better.
Luckily, he didn’t have to wait long.
City Rider
You’ve ridden on the fastest, most intense mass transit system in the demon world. Without more body-stats or a class dedicated to not vomiting, you wouldn’t be able to do this.
In support of mass transit and superfast, efficient travel, the system is pleased to award you with this achievement, which ties into any other rider skills and achievements you might have as a city-specific transit boost. You will no longer experience nausea and disorientation from high-speed travel in that environment, unless you encounter a particularly extreme speed or an unusually unstable wagon.
“Oh, gods, already?” Lily put on a pouting face and sat down in her chair. “It’s much less exciting now. Stupid achievement.”
Arthur tried to feel bad for her and couldn’t. When the achievement snapped into place, his stomach settled immediately and the sense of overwhelming speed got much better. He sighed, drinking in the relief of feeling stable for the first time in minutes. He enjoyed it for just a few seconds before the wagon lurched to a sudden stop, a couple steps from another ramp leading upwards.
“Thanks for the work!” the driver yelled, smiling ear to ear and shaking his head at Arthur as he reached for his coin pouch. “Don’t worry about payment. It’s a city thing. Rides are always subsidized and completely free during the expo. I wouldn’t charge you even if they weren’t. That owl girl giving me permission to go fast made my day.”
Thanking the driver, everyone dismounted the wagon and moved towards the ramp. At the top of it, they were greeted by the biggest, most impressive complex Arthur had ever seen, on Earth or otherwise.
“It’s the meeting grounds,” Eito said. “All the parts that are made out of shiny rock are old. Older than some of our reliable history, really. The bear had them built during the early post-war era to have peace talks in. Well, except that one.”
Arthur looked at a large, round building Eito was pointing to, one that was especially gilt in shiny metals and statues of roaring ursine demons. It was smaller than a lot of the structures here, but very clearly had a special, more important role than most.
“What’s that for? Speeches?” Arthur asked.
“Now it is, sometimes. Originally, it was for naps,” Eito explained.
“Naps?”
“The bear needed frequent naps. And wasn’t, by all accounts, actually that useful in more complex matters. If he was needed to roar fear into someone, they’d wake him up.” Eito smiled. “There’s a whole poem about how bad of an idea it was to stand in the way of peace because it would awaken a very grumpy bear. I’m very fond of it.”
Away from the ramp, a group of demons stood with hand-made paper signs, each displaying exactly one name. Arthur panned through them until surprising himself by find his own name in big, blocky letters. The sign read, Arthur Teamaster of Coldbrook (and Earth). He strolled over, followed closely by Lily. Eito stayed behind.
“I’d imagine whoever that is can take things from here,” Eito said. “And I’m thinking about what you said, Arthur. I’ve decided to go have a long, hard conversation about it now. I’ll update you on my progress later.”
Arthur’s heart jumped in his chest, then settled. Whatever his job was, he had completed it with Eito. He wouldn’t meddle in Eito’s affairs after this, unless the trainer specifically asked Arthur to do so.
“What was that all about?” Lily said. “Eito has a problem?”
“Just a bottleneck,” Arthur said. “I think I helped him get past it.”
“Arthur Teamaster?” The frog demon holding the sign approached quickly once he spotted him. “It’s you, correct? They told me you’d look like…” He stopped suddenly, swallowing whatever bald-animal-but-too-pink comments he had to say with a visible gulp. “Like you look. I’m Philbin. I work as a tour guide and enabler for those visiting the meeting grounds, and I’ve been assigned to help you for the duration of your stay here.”
He paused there and glanced at Lily, which drew Arthur’s eyes in the same direction. Lily had tensed as the frog had spoken, and Arthur could tell this was less about the frog or his offer of help than it was about any incursion, however small, into her territory as assistant. Arthur reached down and rubbed the top of her head affectionately, which did little to relieve the territorial aggression that had built up in her little feathered soul.
“Great.” Arthur nodded at the frog. “Because I don’t know what I’m doing. I have these books, but I don’t really know how presentations go at these. Or where to go. Or anything, really.”
“Fantastic. No problem at all, Mister Teamaster.”
“It’s Arthur.” The mister stuff needed to be nipped in the bud. Arthur refused to live in a world where he couldn’t just be Arthur. Any more respect than that fit about as badly as a salad-bowl hat and felt even more ridiculous.
“He also answers to you, hey you, or how do you not know this already? You’ve been here for two years now,” Lily explained gruffly.
“Oh, right, offworlder.” Philbin clapped his hands. “I bet I’ll get an achievement for this. New world tour guide or something. They have that, you know. Nobody ever gets it because offworlders are so rare.”
“I’ll do my best to help. But, Philbin? I feel like we should get started,” Arthur said.
“Oh, of course. No problem. Now, you’ve never given a presentation or seen one before, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“I think probably the most useful thing for you would be to watch one then.” Philbin looked at a small notebook and nodded his head. “It looks like you aren’t slated to actually give any talks until this afternoon. If we play our cards right, we can watch two full presentations before then.”
“What about set-up?” Arthur asked. “Should we leave time for that?”
“Do you have much to set up?” Philbin looked at Arthur’s conspicuous lack of cargo. “Are more boxes coming later?”
“I suppose not. We’ll have to clip some papers to a presentation board though,” Arthur said.
“That won’t take long at all. If you’d follow me, I’ll be glad to pick some more accessible talks for you to watch. Unless you have a preference.”
“Is there anything about tea?” Arthur asked. “Or assisting people, as a class function?”
“Maybe!” Philbin went back to his pad. “Yes, it looks like there is, but not until a few days from now. After that, there’s a total of three talks on various aspects of tea, brewing, and ingredient harvesting, and two talks on assisting. Would you like me to make time in your schedule to see them? There are some conflicts with your talks, but we can always move the start times a bit to make room.”
“Yes, please.” Lily was much more engaged now that she knew there would be some assistant information to steal. “Can I bring snacks?”
“Are the provided snacks not enough?” Philbin looked shocked. “I thought they were pretty comprehensive.”
Arthur glanced at Lily, eyebrows raised. “I think we’ll like it here.”
“Yes, Arthur, I think we will.” Lily smiled at Philbin, who had captured her heart at the abundant-snacks phase of the conversation. “That will do just fine, Phil. Can we go to the talk now? I think Arthur is still a little sick from the ride.”
Philbin breathed out, apparently relieved to have finally broken the ice. “Yes, of course. Right this way.”
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