I'm bored. I'm so bored. Ugh. Remi shot straight for the library. I've never seen this side of him before. He kinda looked happy. But now I don't know what to do. Libraries are boring and Churches make me feel weird. Everyone there is obsessed with souls and I hate how it feels like they're all staring through me. It's gross. I much prefer to walk down Market Street.

It's always lively here. So many people interacting in so many ways, it's almost overwhelming to take it all in at once. I used to spend hours every day just sitting on a bench, people watching. I remember when it was just some little dirt street that people would sell fruits on. It's grown so much, in such little time-- it passes so quickly. And how do people spend it? Everyone has some kind of routine, and even with thousands and thousands of people cycling through every day, I could always spot a handful of people at the same place at the same time every day. It's crowded in the mornings when everyone's on their way to work and gets quiet until lunch time when all the corporate Mages leave their high-rise offices to meander through the food stalls. The same thing every day. Every day, until they're too old to do it anymore. But I could understand why. It always smells so nice and fragrant; fresh roasted meat with lots of Ionian spices, bakeries with fresh bread every morning, patisseries with the sweet smell of pastries. Market is a nice place to be. It also happens to be where Cali kept her home, tucked on top of a noodlehouse.

I opened the door with her key and stepped inside. It's so dusty in here. It smells like musty, warped wood and mildew. It smells nostalgic; not for me, but for her. She had a lot of memories here, and they kept flooding through me. This is one of my favorite parts of shifting. I opened a few adjacent windows to let the cool air in. The breeze felt nice on my skin. Hers is so smooth and hairless. She really took care of herself. In the corner of the room, I saw an altar with a picture of a man she called Skips, an older man in his late 30s with salt and pepper hair and tanned skin. The photo was framed on a corner table and adorned with dead flowers. Him too, apparently. Recently.

A tear of hers formed in the corner of my eye and I wiped it away. She had a small bundle of flowers in her knapsack, foraged from the side of the road some time before we met her. I cleared the dead flowers and replaced them with the fresh ones, laying a hand on the altar, letting mana from the air through from my chest into the corner table, maintaining the wood, and reforming the frameme to add a subtle crown with tiny, intricate carvings. She's really great at this. She practiced every day.

I sat on the edge of her bed, laid backwards, and curled into a ball, hugging her smooth knees tight against her body. My chest feels so hollow and empty. I'm just, bored again.

Remi barely addressed anyone before he went directly to the Library entrance. He seems to be rather averse to talking to people; it's likely that I could count on one hand the seconds he's looked me in the eyes. I wonder how much he's hiding? He could barely put together a half-decent explanation to me about his educational/vocational background, or a quarter-decent explanation to the guard about his identity. What was his plan without me to save him? All I'm left with is more questions; for a man so experienced in hiding his expressions, he's not so great at hiding his cards. Or maybe, there are no cards.

"Hello, Chloe," said a gentle voice from behind me, and yet I jumped, startled from being too deep in thought, "lots on your mind?"

"Oh! Hello, Deacon," I replied, adjusting my crooked glasses, "Yes, quite a lot. I've had a very eventful mission from Ionia. Could we possibly speak in your office?"

"Of course, my dear," she said. We walked a few rooms over to the office space, "Water?" she asked, pouring a cup from her fingertips.

"I'll pass, thank you," I replied. I really don't like mana water. So irony. Like there's blood leftover.

As we sat down together on a couch in her office, she sipped from her cup and asked, "What has you so troubled, little one? You seem so inattentive and on edge. It's not like you to be like this."

"It's about my mission. Here's my report, ma'am," I said, as I handed her my chicken scratch. It's times like this I wish I was a proper Paper Mage, "I apologize for the hasty handwriting. I haven't had time to polish it, but I think it's important-- and time sensitive. The report is all prose, but this is speculation: I think this could be related a new Narrative Thread. If we could cover page three?"

"Oh?" she muttered as she flipped and skimmed through the page. Her demeanor quickly became serious and her face shifted from something warm to something cold, "Thank you, Chloe. That will be all for you," she said curtly.

"But ma'am--" I interjected.

"We will call you when you're needed," she said, bluntly, "And please, remember procedure. Do not investigate further. It's for your safety," and in less than a moment, she transcribed my chicken scratch into something legible and tucked it away, like a true Paper Mage. And she was gone.

I sat out in the courtyard for a moment, at my special spot, and lit my cigarette with the heat of my fingertips; smokeleaf always helps me calm down in moments like this. I don't know how this Church manages to get anything done when nobody knows anything. Deacon will hand off my report to her Priest, and hers to her Bishop, to her Archbishop, to the Cardinals, and meanwhile nobody knows what the plan is outside of their role-- except, I suppose, those at the very top. But even then, who knows? It's all so frustrating. If we were all on the same page, we could have found the new Archmagus yesterday, no gap in our leadership, Clairvoyence Magic guide us to an ideal future. But instead, I guess me and the rest of the grunts will just be twiddling our thumbs until the next assignment. Who knows.

I puffed the last of my cigarette and tucked the filter into my pocket. This side of the courtyard is nice. Nobody ever visits here. Just me. I watched as birds flew past with a few chirps, and let the buzzing sound of the cicadas fill the air, admiring the Plant Mage's excellent work reshaping the topiaries. It would be perfect here, without the skyscrapers littering the backdrop. I craned my head upwards and let out a big sigh. My mind wandered to Remi and his blank expression. I hope the system moves fast enough, before he leaves Locria. I've already lost track of Cali. Their souls demand examination, by someone more experienced. Someone who's not broken.

I reached for another cig and lit the tip once more. I need mine examined too but soul docs are so expensive. Rent is due next week, so I'm lucky to have been granted my mission, but commission only goes so far when work comes by so slowly. Maybe I should have taken the Medic Magic position on the Eastern front. Or not. I kinda like being alive. Ugh. Maybe if the Church got their shit together, I wouldn't have to worry so often about my bills. I wonder if tithings are running dry. There must be more to life than this. I thought being a Mana Mage would be more than... balancing a checkbook. I puffed the last of my second cig, then flicked it to the ground. Then got off the bench to pick it up, and tucked it in my pocket.

"Goddess Elkae," I muttered to myself, leaving the courtyard, "by your divine grace, grant me purpose. I'm in a rut. I'm trapped."

I truly do not understand anything about this world. The first thing that struck me wasn't the large walls surrounding the perimeter of the outskirts, nor the stretches of stables near the entrance-- that much, I would have assumed-- but the vast and seemingly endless skyscrapers that I saw on the horizon. And not eight- or ten-story skyscrapers; these buildings must be in the range of fifty to eighty. Just how many people live here? I thought about my home in the Bay, the comparatively small stretch of buildings I saw across from my workplace, and the Salesforce Tower (which everyone hated but I secretly loved), and this city puts all of SF to shame. I mean, not that there was much there compared to other global city centers, but even Hong Kong couldn't compare. But the most striking fact was that across the whole city, there was no electricity anywhere. Everything is powered manually by swathes of specialized Mages. This world is starting to look less like JRPG fantasy and more like alt-history.

Our goods were handed off to a supplier almost immediately after entering the city (quickly too; I marvel at their efficiency) and Tavi led us over to the subway beneath the stables (and if mass transit is possible in this world, why carriages?). Chloe handed me a parchment map with a detailed layout of the whole rail line as we walked the tunnel through to our train. I stared at the map as we walked, bumping into people along the way (hard not to with the density of this crowd) and Tavi stopped me as we met our platform. There are ten platforms here, layered and stacked, on top and beside, all headed to different transfer stations. In a way, it's actually kinda beautiful.

But the whole ride over, I couldn't stop thinking about how wrong everything is. Nothing feels right. I don't even feel like I'm in a real space. Everything seems so constructed-- and not in an architectural sense, but in a personal sense, and maybe even a narrative sense. Locria is everything I've ever wanted in a city; homeless are nowhere to be found (which implies an intentionally balanced unemployment rate and affordable housing), everyone plays a role that's dictated by the title of their profession (nothing vague like "senior tech consultant" or "data analyst" or "executive administrative assistant"), city planning seems streamlined to the highest point of efficiency such that anyone can go anywhere in a handful of minutes, and there's such a vast amount of people that there's no public social performance-- everyone is just doing their own thing. That's extremely irritating.

How could this city be everything I could have asked for, and everything I wouldn't expect? The horse drawn carriages led me to suspect that their civilization-wide research advancements would have been fairly primitive, and now I'm met with a city that's better than back home in every way. Except for the lack of digital tools. And in that way, my narrative is following the Hero's Journey to a tee. I've left the familiar world behind and entered a strange new land, an experience that's guaranteed to change me through death and rebirth (although that one is a little too literal). I'm certain that as I continue exploring this world, I'll meet new permanent characters to add to the roster-- I'm still lacking my mentor, after all. But it's the particulars that keep irritating me; the narrative is poised to drive me insane. I still haven't proven the 5th Rule is truly led by plot contrivance (I'll need harder evidence) and the 4th Rule hasn't even become relevant yet. Maybe the narrative is drip-feeding me information but I'm not content to idle around and let that happen to me. I need to find it for myself.

The ride over was smooth and noiseless. I'm so used to trains being deafeningly loud. Although, there wasn't much to look at. Just some magic to light up the tunnel which reminded me a bit of the Transbay Tube (but quiter), and these trains are fast. We arrived at Tavi's transfer station in no time (mages can build a bullet train but we can't, apparently); it only took two before Tavi split (we'll meet up again tomorrow in front of the church, she said, as would a permanent companion), and another transfer until Chloe and I made a brief walk to the Church. It was awkward. I didn't know what to say or do so I chose to stay silent and it seemed like she was okay with that until we made it to the library where I gave a quick wave and headed off.

The library here is weird. There are no bookshelves, as far as I can see, just a counter with customer service reps and a cafe-esque lounge area that I would associate with an upscale hotel (and I admit, the atmosphere felt rather warm and cozy). I figured they wouldn't have computers for a lookup query, but I didn't expect it to be so, bare? For a Church, the design feels mid-century modern-- the same vibes I got from my old apartment.

"Hello, sir. How can I help you?" asked the associate at the desk. Ugh. This again.

"Um, I'm looking for... books?" I asked, hating every moment of it. She looked at me up and down with a certain face I couldn't understand.

"I see. There," she said, pointing at a desk with what looked like some kind of dispenser, "feel free to fill out a form with details of the book you're searching for, and we'll have it prepared for you right away." I walked over to the desk and took a form from the dispenser (which was not intuitive to use, at all) and looked for a pen, the kind banks have tied to a desk. There was nothing. I went back to the service desk and asked for a pen (and she gave me the look someone would give to a stray dog) and reached below the desk to grab one.

"Here," she said, "please return it when you're done."

The form itself looked like it was typed out on a computer (which doesn't exist in this world, unfortunately) and the layout was very familiar to me.

ELKAE LIBRARY LOOKUP FORM

Search by:
○ title ○ author ○ LSBN ○ subject

Search:
[________________________________]

Format:
[ any format ▼ ]

Availability:
☐ Show available books only

Published:
[__________]

[ Search books ] [ Clear ]

It looks exactly like the kind of frontend record lookup form I would see on a website. It's literally formatted exactly like it; radio buttons, text fields, drop-downs, and a submit button. If pens aren't the norm here, how would this typically be used? In a magic society. Right. Through magic. Fuck.