NOVEL NEXT 142 - The True Face of the City
"Welcome," his father said grandiosely, "to the Imperial City."
Archmund thought it was a little silly. From his perspective, they'd been in the Imperial City for days now. But he also understood completely.
The parts of the city they had been in were like the Bronx or Brooklyn or a suburb of Chicago. Past the Capital Wall, the Imperial City transformed into a completely different creature.
Skyscrapers — no, he was overstating it. These buildings were at least 20 stories tall, nothing as impressive as the hundred-story skyscrapers that regularly graced the cities of Earth, and they weren't mere spires of metal and glass, but adorned with artistic flourishes and trappings — statues at the sides of windows, bas reliefs between each story, great Gem-conduits running up their sides.
"How do they make buildings so tall?" Archmund said. On Earth, older urban buildings were short and stout. The laws of physics constrained their height. He had never studied the matter in depth, but until the creation of good industrial-quality steel in the 1800s or 1900s, there were no materials strong enough to support their own weight past four or five stories.
His father pointed a finger towards the window tills. "You see those Gems, son?"
He hadn't noticed them, but now that his father pointed it out, there were Gems embedded in the center of each window till, glowing with pale green light.
"They're not just decorative?"
"Each of those holds a lightening Enchantment that makes the stone as light as the air itself and strong as iron."
"Every single one?"
"Every one," his father said. "Each Enchantment has to be maintained, in every building across the city. And each Enchantment has a certain amount of time before it runs dry and has to be recharged by a human hand. Even though the Imperial City is powered by Gem-conduits, the link of Enchantment is weak and so must be maintained."
Archmund swallowed. "Maintained how?"
"It's the most marvelous thing. At the heart of the City, there is a complex of a hundred buildings of this sort, stretching into the sky. Dedicated to the sole purpose of ensuring that no building in the city ever falls. Perhaps we can see it sometimes. I understand they use a combination of Enchanted hourglasses and mechanical clocks to keep track of how long it's been since each specific Gem has been maintained. And when each one runs about halfway empty, they send a newly-graduated Subbaron to its location to recharge it and bind it to the Gem conduits once more."
"They send someone there. Physically."
"Indeed," his father said. "It's not the most glorious work for a noble, but it's undeniably necessary. Without their labor, this city would collapse upon itself. It is only through the dedication and labor of the Omnio that the city shall forever be sustained."
He meant it as something marvelous, but Archmund was frankly aghast. If these skyscrapers were only possible because of Gems, something that, as far as he knew, could only be used with a human involved, that couldn't be powered or automated… well, it was a choke point. Why bother inventing stronger, lighter alloys that could create towers that pierced the sky when you could just convince "minor" "nobles" to spend the entirety of their magical talents on sustaining the city they lived in?
The bureaucracy existed to sustain the bureaucracy.
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"Do they have any chance of Awakening Gems?" Archmund asked.
"They already have an Awakening. They wouldn't be allowed anywhere near the crucial infrastructure otherwise. They wouldn't have even been allowed to graduate!"
But was there a clear and possible sense of progression within their roles, was what Archmund wanted to know. Would they have any chance of being more than just peons and servitors, gears in the great machinery of the city. Was there any chance of them delving deeper and attaining true power, the kind of power that could shape continents, send beams of heat spiraling through the souls of the damned, and split air into ions.
"I'm surprised this place isn't more dangerous," Archmund said. "Surely, if the whole adult population are nobles with access to magic…"
His father's gaze traced the building up and down, following the Gem conduits, before landing at the entrance. A few nobles were straggling in, after the morning rush hours. They placed their palms upon spherical Gems at the door and entered the building looking ever so slightly diminished.
"Ah," Archmund said. "Right. The conduits keep people weak?"
"Weak is a loaded term. If you called someone weak to their face, I would have to answer for it, and that would be most unpleasant in my current state. Harmonious, perhaps. Civilized."
Archmund noted that down. People cared about their honor quite a bit, didn't they?
He turned his gaze from the skyscrapers to the streets themselves as their carriage moved forward. The streets were wide, wreathed in Gem-light emanating from the Gem-conduits that ran along both curbs. Their carriage passed comfortably through the center of the thoroughfare, joined by scant others — it was hardly crowded, hardly a traffic jam. There simply weren't too many individuals allowed to journey to the heart of the empire, and those who did so often went on foot — even at midday, there were well-dressed lesser nobles in their work clothes striding about the innermost city. There were storefronts with cooks hawking their quick meals, which had lines of workers grabbing a bite before returning to the office, and there were storefronts for luxury goods, jewelry and high fashion and musical instruments and fine art, but they remained empty. It was a city, but one that catered to its upper class, its upper ranks.
"Every one of these individuals is technically endowed with a rank," his father said. "Every bit as much nobility as you or me."
"What separates us from them?"
"We are landed. They are not," his father said. "We gain wealth from our holdings. They work for their keep."
He didn't sound judgmental, and yet he had an air of utter superiority. These people didn't matter to him in the slightest. He thought of them as little more than the peasants he ruled over. At least, that was how his voice sounded to Archmund.
"And here I thought that being countryside nobles made us bumpkins who could never climb the social ranks of this city," Archmund said. Everything the princess Angelina had said had given him that impression.
"That's what they would like to think," his father said, his voice genial, "but no matter how descended from the Patricians they may be, they lack the birthright granted to us. They don't have the land, and that ties us to our ancestors far more substantially than they."
"And here I thought it mattered because we get to exploit a Dungeon when it opens, and they don't."
His father snorted. "You have a talent for stating the obvious."
They rolled up to a townhouse.
"Whose is this?"
"It's ours," his father said. "Before you succeeded, I was afraid we would have to sell this before you came of age. But the wealth you extracted from the Dungeon meant we could stave off the loss of our heritage for another year. Thank you, son."
"You're welcome, father?"
"You have already done far more for our legacy than my wildest hopes and dreams. When I was your age, all I could think of was going to the Academy so I could take the first steps to being a proper noble. Have you thought of that at all? Your debut?"
"My… debut?"
"You've come to society now. You're here in this high and hallowed place. You'll have to announce who you are and your goals soon enough. "
"But hopefully not too soon."
His father chuckled. "It can be quite a harrowing consideration, son," he said. "But it's also exciting. It's the first steps to being a proper adult, to being fully recognized as an operator in society. Once you've debuted, no one would dare show you disrespect, the way the Adventurer's Guild did when you challenged them back when the Dungeon opened."
That had felt a lifetime ago.
But it was a good thought to know. Really, it was almost silly, to think there were these cheat codes that guaranteed respect. Goofy, almost. But everyone in society wore a false face; everyone played a role. This was true everywhere. He simply had to undergo the ritual that marked him as a part of society.