Magic without a magic

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel wakes up. This is not where she went to sleep. She has a peek at the stream -

- And lets out a surprised yelp at the nonsensical cacophony.

"What in the blue hells is this place?" No answer is immediately apparent, so she climbs to the top of the ravine, carefully avoiding the various inexplicable things in the area. The snake-goat hybrid was particularly grotesque.

The top of the ravine has a road. She tries to fly, but can't. Again, very strange. This is a pretty nice road, physically, but magically it's completely undeveloped. She walks towards the city, peeking at the stream once in a while only to see fog, and seeking an explanation.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

There is, in the distance, a town. It too is completely fogged.

[sturdycoldsteel]

She walks through the town. The flying leathers are starting to be too warm, without flying to cool her down. She takes some of them off. She tries to buy some food from a street stall with some copper coins.

[alicornucopia]

"Where the heck did you get these?" asks the fellow selling the potato pastries. "Where are you even from?" (Steel is very unusually pale compared to everyone else about.)

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'm from Opri, but I woke up at the bottom of a ravine surrounded by - monstrosities. This one seemed harmless." She produces a fuzzy clothes-button. "Would you happen to know where I am and why the roads are all wrong?"

[alicornucopia]

"Ohhhh, you're embroidered in the brain," says the stall owner. "Look, I can't weigh these or tell if they're all copper or have chocolate centers or what, but I'm sure there's somebody who'll be able to tell you what they're worth in real money at the bank or someplace."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Embroidered? I sincerely hope my brain has not been worked on with needles. Never mind, where can I find a bank?"

[alicornucopia]

"No, embroidered like, magicked but at least you aren't a candlestick with eyes and you still speak Esevi? Bank's two blocks that way one to the left."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"A - a candlestick? Why would anyone do that? How would they even do that? Body modification is very difficult, and I can't even fly here."

"...If it was random it would explain the goatsnake, I suppose."

[alicornucopia]

"Okay... magics are things that take anything that falls into 'em, like you, and spits out random stuff, sometimes nice stuff, more often bad stuff, usually just weird stuff, you seem just weird far as I can tell."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"...Alright then. If I was constructed from nothing half an hour ago, I wouldn't necessarily know it, would I? Thanks for pointing me towards the bank." She walks towards the bank, and when she arrives, looks for someone who seems in charge.

[alicornucopia]

There are a couple of tellers, one of whom is helping someone and one of whom waves her over.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Hello. I have, apparently, come from a magic. I have some coins that I would like to get evaluated and exchanged for local currency if possible. They're pure metal. Or at least I think they are."

[alicornucopia]

"All right, we can evaluate those for you," says the teller. "What is it that you think they are?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Copper, silver, gold, a few platinum. I actually have rather a lot, my probably-embroidered memories say that I was responsible for the civil service payroll. Is there some sort of room we can go to so I don't lose track of them all?"

[alicornucopia]

"Of course, ma'am." He leads her to a back room, where there are scales and volume measures, and sets about confirming the purity of all her coins. Eventually: "I can give you one thousand five hundred seo for these."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"How much gold will 1500 seo buy, by weight? How much silver? And does that include my platinum coins?"

[alicornucopia]

"It includes your platinum coins and if you want gold denominations of seo it would look like -" He picks up a coin. "About a hundred and fifty of these."

[sturdycoldsteel]

She does some mental math. They're taking a fairly solid cut, but not an outright ridiculous one. And it's not like she can spend silver circles here. "Very well, it's a deal."

[alicornucopia]

"I'll be right back," says the teller, sweeping all her coins into a box, setting it on a scale and noting the total weight presumably in case she's about to make a surreptitious swap, and departing. He's back with a bag containing a hundred and fifty gold coins.

[sturdycoldsteel]

...She thinks about taking a few coins from the box, and holding it down with bluestream. But the bank hasn't done anything wrong.

So she stashes the bag in her backpack and goes back to that food-seller's stall to buy a filling meal. Food is important, you can't think on an empty stomach. "I have seo now," she reports, holding out a gold coin. "Do you have enough change for a gold if I buy something?"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah," says the seller, and she gets silver and copper denominations back with her potato thing.

[sturdycoldsteel]

She eats the potato thing and chats with/subtly quizzes the seller. What's this city like? Who's in charge? What kind of jobs are there to do?

[alicornucopia]

This is a midsize city, second biggest in its duchy, with a good-size market that way. A lot of people are craftsmen of one or another sort, or merchants or financiers. This fellow's brother is a postal worker and his sister's a vicar.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I can probably be a crafter. And I'm set for a while anyway. Thanks for the advice."

She wanders around the city, trying to find a craftsmen's street.

[alicornucopia]

They don't seem to be quite that obviously localized. She does find the market, where she could ask some craftspeople where they work.

Some of the things for sale are slaves.