Humanity's #1 Fan

The six of them materialized out of the warp spell and stared at the strange sight of the vast world lying before them.

"'Miniature city,' you said," Frost said, voice containing a clear note of awe.

They stood on a platform looking out into a cavernous, artificial chamber shaped like an egg that was miles across. They were at its midpoint, and a bowl-like depression lined with tiers and tiers of structures could be seen below them, mirrored by a similar shape with structures hanging from its tiers above.

Everything was built by multihued stone with a metallic lustre, faintly luminous so that it could clearly be seen despite the lack of bright light sources. A pillar spanned the center of the space, though it was so covered in scaffolding and structures that jutted out of its sides, its original contours couldn't be seen.

Lights could be seen everywhere. Illusory script that was functioning as advertisements scrolled and bounced through the sky. Lightly purple beams spanned the cavern from wall to wall, marking out lanes where it was acceptable to fly. Multihued pinpoints marked where lamps lined streets and dotted the tops of buildings, giving the whole place the appearance of a particularly orderly galaxy.

There were people everywhere: walking the streets, flying through the air, congregating on rooftops. Even at a distance they could tell how densely populated the city must have been. The din of them filled the air, a steady roar that came from every direction.

"Welcome to Arc Enival," said a smooth, cool voice that seemed to emanate from the platform itself. "Abide this: you will wait here to be processed."

"'Kay, one sec," said Kylie. "The interdimensional TSA isn't going to search my extradimensional storage, are they? Because there's a lot of dead people in my purse. Also weapons. Also two of Ashtoreth's sisters." She paused, then added, "And some mana."

"It would be 'interplanar TSA'," Dazel said. "And no. My knowledge may be a little out of date, but I don't think processing involves much at all. Oh—this might be it."

He pointed with a wingtip, and Ashtoreth saw a small mass of faintly glowing bluish green tentacles floating toward them.

"Greets for you, greets for you!" the turquoise mass of gelatinous tentacles said in a very clear, exuberant male voice as it floated through the air before them. "Greets for you, greets for you! Greets for you, greets for you!"

The strange creature floated away a moment later, apparently having done all he came to do. Ashtoreth assumed he'd somehow focused each individual greeting on each of them, though there'd been no way to tell as much as he had no apparent face or eyes.

"Well he seemed nice," Ashtoreth said, smiling as the floating tentacle-man moved toward the next nearby platform.

The smooth, cool voice that they'd heard earlier came again. "Abide this: you have been processed. You are free to move about Arc Enival; guides to laws and customs are available elsewhere."

A diagram was displayed in illusory blue lines in the air before them.

"See?" Dazel said. "That wasn't hard."

"That wasn't… anything, from the looks of it," Kylie said. "I guess they were scanning us, or something?"

"Who knows?" Dazel said. "Nothing I saw. Let's not pretend that humans don't automate pointless courtesies into their systems all the time."

"Can we get some of those guides?" Frost asked. "It just said elsewhere. Not exactly helpful."

"That was what the diagram was for," said Dazel.

"Oh," Frost said. "Those symbols? I never ate anyone who understood them."

"Yeah," said Dazel. "'Elsewhere,' was just a bit of a poor translation. The point is that there's another location where you can pick up a map and a local primer, and it's not here. It's below us in that group of buildings."

"How do we get down?"

"We fly," said Dazel. "These circles are faster to use than the walking ones."

"Nice," said Kylie.

"Flying privilege is pretty much universal across the cosmos," said Dazel. "Sadie, if you can't fly, you just want to warp to that double circle down there—the one with the purple on the inside and the blue on the outside."

"There are a lot of creatures down there," Sadie said, looking anxiously down at the circle.

"Do we need to talk about anything while we're up here and not down there?"

Don't mention anything sensitive out loud, Ashtoreth said. Like my father, or the monarchy, or… you get the idea. Other than that, let's clear this landing pad so other people can use it. It's just polite.

They descended almost a hundred feet to land next to the circle, and Hunter and Sadie teleported next to them a moment later.

For a moment they all just stared at the crowds around them.

"This is wild," said Frost. He stared at a near passerby: a fungoid giant whose lower half was nothing but tendrils and whose upper half had two dwarves riding atop its shoulders. A single, orange orb hovered above an open cone of leaves that took the place of a head.

"I know!" Ashtoreth said, grinning at a flock of more of the gelatinous tentacle-creatures that passed above them, all of them different colors.

"I think I thought this place would be more basic fantasy and less… this," Frost said.

"It's a crazy world out there," Ashtoreth said. "Imagine the kinds of adventures we could have if we weren't dealing with all our actual problems."

Kylie laughed. "I think she's starting to understand the human condition, you guys."

"Aww, thanks, Kylie!"

"I'm going to go grab us some guidebooks," said Dazel. "You guys might as well wait here, I'll be fast."

He zipped away, and Ashtoreth shrugged. Even if she'd read the diagram, Dazel was small and could work his way through the crowd more easily. Within a minute he'd returned and was passing around square booklets around eight inches on a side, each of them filled with luminous letters and diagrams.

"Look how far apart the words are spaced," Sadie said, holding up her guidebook.

"Makes it easier for the system to translate," said Dazel. "You may be proud to know that your language is actually pretty space-conservative, compared to most other scripts. Even if the rules for how you pair the letters to make certain sounds are basically just a long list of warring guidelines stolen from other languages."

"It's the language of commerce!" Ashtoreth said.

"It may well be the most crossbred mutt of a language that I've ever seen in my life," Dazel said. "But I'm getting us off topic. I'm the only one here with any experience in an outer market, even if it's been awhile. Don't be too worried about getting the rules wrong, this place is a melting pot for a lot of different kinds of people in the cosmos, and—actually, just like, look at that guy."

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All of them followed his pointed paw. "Fuuuck," Kylie said in a low voice as she saw who Dazel was pointed at.

The creature looked like it might have been a cross between a giant cockroach and a grasshopper, and was taller at its shoulder than any of them.

That might have been strange enough… but the creature was wearing a sort of net covered in what appeared to be hats and headgear, from shell-colored helmets to more decorative affairs that looked to be made of felt and glass beads.

"Arrival hats!" the insect said in a boisterous voice, striking a sort of pose by sticking out one hind and one foreleg, then holding their head to one side. They scurried a short distance away, then struck another pose. "Arrival hats!"

"You know," Frost said, watching the massive insect hawk their wares. "I guess it's making a lot of sense now why you didn't really try to explain what to expect when we got here. I might have just interpreted 'outer market' to mean 'copious amounts of very hard, very potent drugs.'"

"Seriously with the fucking bugs, you guys?" Kylie said, reaching up and rubbing her temples. "Where's the plane made up of nothing but medium and large-sized dogs?"

"I dunno?" Ashtoreth said, "That fella seems nice too, though. I mean…" She shrugged. "I like hats."

"All right," said Dazel. "Back on track. What you all would call, uh…"

Humanoids, he said via telepathy.

"—Make up a lot of the cosmos, but probably not more than half of it. However, even when we're not talking about those who walk upright, most creatures have eyes that see, limbs that move them, lungs that breathe, and a stomach that hungers. This central area here—the two bowls stacked together—is supposed to be operable by sight alone. Most creatures will have an item like the boss does for creating illusions. Out here, light is the preferred language of commerce. You'll still find a heavy bias toward audio, but you'll always be able to communicate by writing something in your mother tongue and letting the system translate."

"Just make sure you use big spaces," Sadie added.

"Very good, Sadie," said Dazel. "Purple is more like the green traffic signal you're used to, it means go or assent. Yellow is more like your red. They use both liberally, so if you find some bright yellow light in your way, figure out why before you cross it."

"I think in some parts of the world, blue is like green," Hunter said. "You know, for traffic and stuff."

"And with that contribution," Dazel said, "we'll move on to bartering. There's a symbol somewhere in the guidebook, I'll find it in a second, but it basically lets you know whether it's appropriate to haggle with someone. Merchants will wear it or put it up in the open. Because it's so open and obvious, that rule is one you'll be very rude for breaking. Any other accidental missteps are more likely to be forgiven. It's all in the name of…"

He turned his head as a creature in the crowd seemingly distracted him. "...Commerce," he said, his voice turning grim.

Ashtoreth turned to see a line of five creatures, obviously slaves, each with a collar connected to the others by chains. Their pack was led by a particularly sad and malnourished looking elf who was chained, of all things, to a devil just behind him.

"It should go without saying," Dazel said. "But nobody do anything stupid. Your world had plenty of slavery in it for every single day leading up to this one, yeah? Don't start caring today of all days when it's going to fuck up my chance at emancipation."

"Roger that," Ashtoreth said.

"I'm talking to Frost."

"I got it," he said, his tone utterly caustic as he stared at the line of slaves.

"Let's not stand here and find every argument we can possibly have," Kylie asked. "The reasonable thing to do is to take a break for pamphlet reading, make sure we're all on the same page regarding the rules, then split up and start looking for a soulweaver, yeah?"

"We can probably find a less crowded area on the lower tiers," Dazel said, watching as the arrival hats insect began making a second pass through their area. "Come on."

Sadie couldn't fly, and so they walked rather than risk breaking of any rules. Several wide stairways later, they'd found a much quieter area near a multihued pool to fan out and read their guides.

"Listen," Frost said before they settled in. "I know you're probably sick of this, but I've got another question about this place's safety."

Dazel groaned. "Another one, you say? Who would have thunk that the cop can't accept that he's safe? Not when that involves an existing structure of authority that happens to ask you to rely on those who have monopolized force for your alleged safety? Gee, it's almost like you know something..."

"Sure, yeah, love you too," Frost said, his tone almost disinterested. "But if this place is so open in terms of its travel restrictions… doesn't that mean that there's nothing to stop Hell from invading them?"

"Yep!" Ashtoreth chirped.

"But… what happens if Hell invades them, then?"

She shrugged. "A bunch of people die, probably. Then the Monarch here goes and makes a different outer market somewhere else."

"I don't get it," said Frost. "How come these places aren't just constantly being looted, then?"

Ashtoreth shrugged. "I don't think it would get you much. For one, you've still gotta remember that a lot of higher-levels people retire in places like this. Hell would want good intel and a strong set of bossmen to bust this place up."

"Which would work, make no mistake," Dazel said. "Hell's high-tier fighters are a different breed."

Unless you're me! Ashtoreth said with telepathy. In which case they're pretty much the exact same breed, albeit slightly inferior in every way.

"Yeah, sure," said Dazel. "But higher-tiers get… weird. There's a lot fewer apparent weaknesses and a lot more fight-defining strengths. People with multiple bodies, multiple phylacteries… That last dragon you guys fought had an invincibility cheat, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. You really can't just show up in a place like this and start slapping people around."

"And even if you do," said Ashtoreth. "Everyone with wealth tied up in this place is probably warp-capable in some way. They'll just stow their goods before they leave. They've all probably invested in good escape plans."

"So the cost-benefit analysis for attacking an outer market comes up bad," said Frost.

"Very bad," said Dazel.

Frost sighed.

"What's up?" Ashtoreth asked, surprised he still hadn't relaxed.

"I just… I have a bad feeling about this."

Ashtoreth scowled and exhaled loudly through her nose. "Okay, Sir Frost, I know that I never come at you like this… but at this point, I'm starting to think that you're not really bothered by the risk, exactly."

He eyed her warily. "What do you mean?

"You just don't think we should have to pay any cost or take any risk to free Dazel. You know, because you don't like him."

"I… okay, I don't even know how to respond to that."

"I do. Look Dazel in the eyes, deeply, and tell him that you like him."

"What?" Frost said.

"What," Dazel said.

Ashtoreth laughed. "I'm kidding, you two."

"I've never objected to the why of coming here, Ashtoreth," Frost said stiffly.

"And if you had, I'd have shut you down," she said. "Whatever risk there is here is calculated. And it's necessary. It doesn't matter that Dazel isn't popular. He's ridiculously useful. He's put up more than he needed to in order to earn this."

With telepathy, she added, Cutting a deal with him was a critical part of securing his help in defending Earth.

"I know, all right? I never said I didn't think we should do this. I just worry, okay?"

"All right," she said. After a pause, she added, "I love that you worry about me, Sir Frost."

Frost looked momentarily embarassed. He opened his mouth to speak… and Kylie made a retching noise.

"Oh, sorry guy—something caught in my soul, I think." She cleared her throat. "Get her right in the daddy issues, Frost. It's her one weakness."

Frost glared at her. "You're a real beam of hope and joy, Kylie."

"I'm not," Kylie said tonelessly, looking down at her guidebook.

Ashtoreth laughed. "Come on, guys. Let's get through these quick—I really, really want to get shopping."