Tyranny, meet anarchy

[aestrix]

The city of Eantasyl is fortunate in its placement, and is considered old for even an elven city. The streets are some kind of shimmery stone, the buildings neatly arranged and well maintained. It's pleasant, and generally considered a nice place for the rich to retire. There's a noticeable lack of greenery and foliage on the streets themselves - the place is kept very dense, and it's can be guessed that its citizens thought they had enough foliage already. It sits at the base of one of the very first world trees. One could be forgiven for missing the city for the tree - it's several thousand feet tall, and its branches bring shade to more than half of Eantasyl. They do not need gardens. They have enough to spare, up in the sky.

(The leaves are a pain to rake.)

Despite many of its flaws (and there are many) the Sunrise Empire isn't actually a horrible place to live. This place especially. Just steer clear of the government, keep your head down, don't join any rebellions, and don't break any laws, and you'll be fine. Probably. Unless there are dangerous criminals running around, causing trouble.

But that hardly ever happens. The Ministry has it all under control.

Comments

[aestrix]

It doesn't burn her hair off! But her hair does drip sparkly water. And shimmer in a magic fashion.

Does she want to drink this water?

[itstandsforjinx]

It is pretty and magic and probably won't kill her much. And hey, what's life without a little risk?

[aestrix]

Well, she's allowed to drink the water.



It tastes like sawdust. Magic fizzy sawdust.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx frowns. Okay, that's... Interesting. She wiggles her fingers experimentally. Anything? She tries counting in her head. Six? Twenty-one? Nine? Nope, nothing obvious. How would she even tell if she had new magic powers, anyway? She sighs and continues on along the walkway.

[aestrix]

There are no obvious new magic powers. Maybe next time.

The little floating light buddy floats along and lights up the walkway. It starts to become a lot more necessary. The water cascades down some kind of tiered system of waterfalls, and the light from it is lessened considerably. The place - is big. Really, really big. There are not enough lights to go around to light everything up. There's darkness far above and around Jinx, darkness and a ludicrous amount of space. And roots bigger than houses. Large houses. The only light is the magic sawdust water, far below, and Jinx's light buddy. Don't worry, Jinx, your light buddy will stick with you.

There's something more than walkway, up ahead. It looks like the walkway meets several sets of roots, and the roots curve around neatly and reform after. This wouldn't be anything to sneeze at, except there's a little outpost. There is an elf in it, looking bored. He has a light buddy, too. His is yellow. Jinx's is white. How boring for her.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx can make her light buddy yellow, with a little bit of fiddling and one of the devices she has in her many belts. She quickly does so before bored-elf-guard has a chance to notice her, on the assumption that a yellow light means a higher rank. Then she saunters right up to him, smiles politely, and just keeps on going.

[aestrix]

Her light buddy is now yellow! It bobs in a happy fashion upon its yellowing.

The guard eyes Jinx, bored. "Identification, please -"

Jinx cannot keep on going. In front of her, instead of ordinary air, it is exactly like walking into an invisible concrete wall.

[itstandsforjinx]

That is interesting! She bounces off relatively gracefully - after all, she's no stranger to surprises - and nods to the guard. "Ow. Sorry, wasn't paying attention."

She frowns and touches her shoulder.

"Drat, where did it go?"

She shifts the rocket launcher on her back to a more comfortable position and makes a show of going through her pockets - well, what pockets she has.

"... Sorry, nope. Can't you just let me through this once? You know how the bosses get when you're late."

[aestrix]

Sloooow blink. "Afternoon shift doesn't start for an hour, bet you have time to turn around and find it."

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx sighs. "Yeah, you got me there. I just didn't want to have to walk all that way back." She leans against the guard stand, quickly scanning for something that looks like proper ID on the guard or a control for this magic gate thing.

[aestrix]

The guard has a number of clear crystals on his uniform, and some kind of red garnet on his wrist. There's some sort of glass thing in the center of the guard's table, with glowing water under it. Maybe that's it?

The guard looks at her, implacably. "Sucks to be you. Luckily you also have time to get into uniform, too. I know how the bosses really get when that happens." Was that dry? That was very dry.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx eyes the glowing thing. It is glowy. She doesn't think it's the kind of glowy she knows how to operate.

Well then!

She rolls her eyes at the guard, and strolls off back down the walkway to find her earlier elf friend - he probably wouldn't mind lending her a uniform, right?

[aestrix]

The guard watches her go and doesn't comment.

Her light buddy accompanies her to the exit of the world tree nutrition plant, then does a quick circuit around her, bobs in a friendly fashion, and goes back to join its brethren. Possibly to show off how it is yellow now, isn't that exciting! Yellow!



The elf friend from earlier is drawing an absolutely gorgeous and detailed mural that accurately depicts three sexual acts at the same time that together are anatomically impossible, but lovingly shaded in pink. He looks up.

"Oh, hello!"

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx smiles, giving the elf's artistic skill an approving nod. "Hey there again. Do you ever happen to go into the World-Tree Nutrition Plant? There's an annoying guard down there who doesn't want to let me past, even though all I want to do is look around a little. Said I didn't have proper ID or something."

[aestrix]

"No. Sorry. I just clean this place." He waves to the pointless hallways that probably serve some purpose that isn't readily apparent other than being a long damn walk. "Well. Did. But I don't think you'll have any luck with that entrance. Touristy entrance is better if you want to see it."

[itstandsforjinx]

"Well, still. Mind if I borrow your jacket? It's at least a little more official-looking than, well, this." She gestures down at her leather shorts and bikini top.

She tilts her head.

"... Y'know, I could get you someplace much cooler if you wanted to come along. You've got some serious tagging skills."

[aestrix]

"Sure, here you go," he shrugs, taking off his jacket and offering it to her. "Not like I need it anymore."

He looks at his work, and grins. "Thanks! I paint in my spare time. Nah, thanks though. My husband's going to kill me for this already."

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx shrugs. "Bring him, too, if you want. I can go grab him like that." She snaps her fingers.

[aestrix]

"Thanks! But he'd refuse. Also possibly lecture us both. But hey, the makeup sex'll be amazing."

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx grins. "Aw. Shame I won't get to be there." She winks, and heads off towards her green box, tossing a wave behind her after she shrugs on the uniform.

[aestrix]

He waves back, and goes back to vandalizing.

The jacket's kind of big on her, but not ridiculously so. Her green box is exactly where she left it.

There's just a group of guards surrounding it, and the alleyway has been taped off with shimmery multicolored ribbon that reads, 'RESTRICTED AREA'. The guards haven't touched the box. One of them seems to be calling their boss and asking for an arcanist to come look at it, the others are organizing people away from the mysterious green box.

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx rolls her eyes. Really, it's like they'd never seen a green box before. She tosses a nice big stun grenade out of the grate, plugs her ears, and waits to feel her teeth rattle and her hair stand on end.

[aestrix]

It goes off!

Every guard but one is downed, just barely outside of the radius of the grenade. The remaining one hesitates for a fraction of a second, but reaches for one of the crystals on her (very different, more battle appropriate) uniform.

"We have been engaged by hostile forces, send backup, corner of twelfth and -"

[itstandsforjinx]

Jinx drops her with a shot to centre mass from her Zapper, and watches as she slumps over, her muscles twitching. Lightning guns will do that to you.

She casually kicks the crystal with her boot in passing, and it leaps up into her hand.

"Hey guys, I just thought you should know that you're totally lame. You should probably take up, I dunno... surfboarding? Eh. Something you're better at than LAW ENFORCEMENT. So yeah, ta ta!"

She saunters in the direction of her box, hand ready on the stock of her collapsible minigun.

[aestrix]

There is silence, from the other end of the crystal.

No one gets in her way, but several civilians flee.