Kwatsura and Isrilnea stood over the EIHT circuit on the terrace walk raised 20 feet over and encircling the high tower at its base. A slicked white, metallic awning covered the walk, its roof angle back and catching a waterfall of rain poured against the tower’s ivrosian chest plates. A current of motor bikes flowed across the one-way transit, wheels cutting through a sweltering of piling rain that rushed forward and down grooves, cutting through lanes and dropping into Rsola’s belly. A loud roar (shhhhhhhhh) drowned the sounds of the atmosphere or muttering voices of the other terrace pedestrians, passers by. The riders and passengers looked like a swarm of robot moths, their slicked white, black and gray rain tunics fluttering in the rush of air and rain drops: the flow of traffic had emerged only 3000 feet or so from the north mid tower’s bridge raising the transit over itself in tunnel after describing a loop around the north east mid tower; it plummeted south in a blur of vibrating tunics for another 5000 feet to the south east mid tower, dipping down again and curling itself around the building, under itself again in a 200 foot tunnel and then a long 7000 foot curve around the periphery of the central high tower or Rsolan’s east districts. In total, the flow of the circuit described a D spun over on its axis and with laced edges at the head and foot of the glyph’s spine. In the laced curves at the spine’s edges, and in intervals across the abdomen, narrow alleyways connected other circuits, and so the flow of traffic moved through the vast shell metropolis.
We’re grundas. Isrilnea spoke in a soft voice only faintly audible to Kwatsura under the roar of wet traffic. Her hands were clasped over the rail and gaze still fixed upon the circuit.
Kwatsura glanced to his left to the young Rsolan woman close to his age - he guessed maybe a year younger or older; he hadn’t received these bits in the last Kforretc transmission. He observed the ruddy brown of the Eisen leather of his coat reflected in a soft blur in her white vest; the glowing white was tied in the middle, swelling a line of cleavage between her petite breasts.
I should have guessed you’re a chronologist. That would only make sense for a creedless Rsolan, neh?
Well, doesn’t it still strike you particularly odd for a Rsolan woman to engage in such matters?
Not really.
Why? You seem to meet any seemingly unusual circumstance as is if it were expected, natural or just entirely in its place. I don’t really get you there.
Well it is. That is just my honest word. I read a lot on social matters, market opinions, etc. I’m not only a bookie around infrastructure alone. Infrastructure is just the only necessary bits I need to collect. You know, neh? Met with some Yreskians at the terminal you know talking all sorts of vulgarity on Rsolan women. There are a lot of preconceptions amongst folk of the continent on Rsolan women which I don’t normally find to be true except on some usual matters, like sharing skin, neh?
Isrilnea laughed; her orchid irises interacting with chemicals from the soap-laden mist from splattered rain were shifting now to a soft green or grey, tiny explosions of dust rising from a murky sea bed.
Well that’s one part of the reason why my grand uncle paired me with you as a guide. He figured it was time you establish a grunda in Rsola. There’s not much on my files in the Kforretc library. Most of what you can find is in the Rsola registers only. So I’ll tell you some more. Certainly I’ve piqued your curiosity some on my person, not being authorized for Rsola transmissions, no?
Well, yes there, course.
My area of focus has been in social matters, mostly brand evolution and devlolution with creeds and their objects. I would consider that primarily a internal concern for Rsola in the next few thousand duns or so but it shall become more a external concern after that with the export trends as they are now. So naturally I’ve kept my chronicles locked in the Rsola registers only. I want them to reach a point of equilibrium before organizing and removing the untruths or redundancies and finally transmitting to Kforretc central. I know of course reading the Kforretc transmission much about yourself. But let’s walk towards your resting spot for tonight and you can tell me your own story.
Kwatsura obliged the suggestion and the two headed south along the terrace walk at an ambling pace.
Well of course you know I’m in infrastructure. And you know I can be a real piss sheit to your grand uncle and colleagues on matters of project scope and labor allocations, or some of the disturbing trends there. Nothing official to stir any resentment between my city’s chiefs and there’s, just enough yelping at their angles to make em piss on meat. And I’m of minority opinion amongst like chronologists, except for one grunda who mostly follows with me my lines - or sometimes I follow his.
This is where my grand uncle would wish I tried at convincing you that your prophecies of Rsola’s future and its impact on the 20 Eidon reserves are silly. I’m not sure I entirely disbelieve them though.
Really?
Oh, there, now you’re surprised. I’ve read all of your infrastructure chronicles on Rsola and some other related works, Kwatsura. Being a Rsolan and not a stupid one, I know these observations in my own rote, first hand as a\ Rsolan breathing these airs and treading the streets each day. I’m afraid to record these thoughts directly in Rsola. If I had, I would never had chance to meet you or much less be your appointed and ordained guide as I am today. This was my plan. From two suns ago. It was I who prodded Slotragahna to let me be your guide and consider prospects of being grundas now. Slotragahna thinks of me as a lesser chronologist, as he should, for I have reserved many publications to attain this usually, but not in these circumstances, unfavorable disposition from him. That was my plan, and like any good chronologist a plan can be trivially made into reality, neh?
Kwatstura was surprised by Isrilnea’s injection of his dialect towards to the end of her words. They walked on for a few seconds of silence. Kwatsura was considering how to continue the conversation or rather prod her to continue her monologue as he was more interested now in adding to rote every bit he could on this woman.
How many times have you been outside of Rsola?
Only once, when I was three, I don’t even remember it. Oh, you’re surprised at this bit as well?
Well with your style of dress, or lack of style there, I could only assume it was some outside influence. Maybe Fgord or some place I might have assumed.
Yeah, right a carefree Fgord immigrant, like I would have ever moved back to Rsola then. Have you any other nosy questions of me, like how many gropsas I have? Oh I’ll tell you everything. Five but only two active. All Rsolan of course, as your lot says: Rsolan Woman, Rsolan Man. But I will leave Rsola, to finish some last bits of my initial chronicles to begin transmitting to the Kforretc.
They reached the end of the D’s spine. The terrace walk forked in two directions: one to the left across a bridge connecting the high tower with the south east mid tower’s base terrace and another sloping down and parallel with the lower subterranean line of the circuit curling back around the high tower wall to the west.
This is where you can sleep Kwatsura.
Isrilnea gestured with her left hand to the doorless entrance of the high tower’s hip staring down the terrace bridge. The entrance led up into a glass enclosed honey comb of small alternating one a two person hrots. A series of ladders connected the layers of common vestibules, glowing gray rings of a passages behind the narrow and angled doors concealing each hrot’s resting hearth from the floor’s entry corridor and the bubbled window often in a small corner or at room’s center at a shoulder or neck’s height.
I’ll wait for you here if you want to go down to a drinking spot for the evening. Some more light and regular Rsolans there. Fancy, might even be one of my grundas there. No telling.
Kwatsura nodded and disappeared into the honey comb’s mouth, then up three flights of ladders to find a vacant hrot where he left his damp coat and changed into some grey courtesy garbs left in the corner chest - the usual wear for a sojourner a day or so into their visit. Ahhh, feck, no tunic. Feck it.
In less than five minutes he arrived back at the entrance and followed Isrilnea down a set of spiral of steps and through an open mouth swallowing the two into a bustling den of some anonymous drinking spot.
