Oct. 13, 2070
Monday
Deep in the swamplands of Louisiana, canals and waterways weave a web of back ‘roads’ for the smugglers that ply their trade near New Orleans. On a byway far removed from even the paths far removed from favored smuggler routes, a lone Spitzenreiter crawled on silent, electric engines.
A popular fishing craft for independents who ply oceans along the coast, the boat was a bit big for such backwaters, but the danger of grounding her was remote. Hunched in the pilot’s nest, the owner kept his attention focused on virtual data, the sensors of the ship streaming live feeds to his cybereyes, the information floating in his vision. The moss-choked trees served a backdrop to this data as the captain often glanced into the surrounding swamp, brow furrowed as he tried to spy any danger – he did not trust his life to sensors alone.
This man had a dark demeanor, a sort of large, sinister fellow who bore a striking resemblance to the Richard Dreyfus character from the movie Jaws, the shoreman’s cap replaced with chrome ports fed into his commlink. Unhappy that the sensors showed nothing amiss, the man (known in the shadows as “Jugular”) peered into the surrounding swamps yet again.
“Piman keep yer eyes peeled,” he bawled, “I don’t pay you to look pretty.” Jugular had a husky voice, oddly reminiscent of a woman’s.
Piman stood upon the prow staring onward, ignoring the grumpy comment. When he spoke, he had a strong accent, a mixture of Creole and Cajun. Any who lived in the rough, impoverished areas of the decaying sprawl around the Spire spoke in such a manner. He was a large man with a bizarre fashion sense (picture the Rock, but sporting a massive mullet that would make Joe Dirt proud). Few could laugh at his comical looks, however, for the man’s body armor and FN HAR Assault Rifle, standard issue of private security, screamed heavy hitter. He gripped the weapon casually, confidently. This was no mere bumpkin from the ghettos of the sprawl, this was a mercenary for hire, and today he worked for Jugular. The merc scrutinized the swamp around him as his Friend-or-Foe (FoF) software continually assessed, then rejected potential targets.
The skipper at the helm grimaced as he dwelt on their current run. Yes, they were far off the beaten path. Yes, the likelihood of running into trouble this far out was slim. Yes, the pay on this smuggling run was a pittance, illustrating a job hardly worth any worry. Yet still, Jugular’s successful smuggling career only hung in with his paranoia – never, EVER assume a run will go without a fight. Besides, he had a bad feeling about this run, and he had no hacker contacts to speak of, no one to dig into this one to see if the Johnson was trustworthy. So, Piman was hired in case the additional firepower was needed. Also, he’d been looking to expand his operations. The rigger needed a team he could count on, and you could never figure that out by simply having a beer with potential chummers – you needed to be in the thick together to see what they’re really made of.
The merc mentally flicked at the augmented-reality (AR) controls feeding the images into his cybereyes, playing with his smartlink to keep his attention focused. Any shape resembling a foe was locked onto by the FoF software, the outline highlighted as crosshairs closed in on potential vitals, trajectories and bullet drift calculated instantly. Targets ‘fell’ systematically to his mock fire as the merc whiled away the boredom. He secretly hoped for some real action.
As they rounded yet another floating island of weeds, the FoF software flashed green amongst several red targets. A prone, distant shape on the shoreline was highlighted. “Non-combatant, child,” the floating words read beneath the glowing outline, “possible medical attention needed, no PAN detected.”
Piman stood straight, shocked at the impossible message. His image magnification zoomed in on the still form. A child? Way out here in the muck?
“Cap,” the merc grunted, feeding Jugular the image he was seeing, “yer not gun’baleeve dis.”
The engines growled as the ship accelerated, rudders cut hard to keep well away from the prone child and the shore he lay on.
“You’re right, I don’t,” Jugular spat, “must be a trick.”
Piman shot Jugular an incredulous look, though only for an instant before surveying the area further.
“Aw trap, Cap? Who on earth would use aw sha (child) for aw trap en dis gawd-forsakin swamp?”
With a good 20 meters between them and the shore, the Spitzenreiter came to a halt. With a mental twitch, Jugular ordered his scout drone to scope the area. The tiny drone shot out of its rack from the back deck, high overhead as it fed a wealth of images and data back to Jugular, one of his eyes scanning the overhead images as the other surveyed the surrounding swamp. No sign whatsoever of anyone other than themselves and the small child. From the images and his own eyes, it was apparent the kid was unconscious, sprawled face-down on a bed of weeds, covered in dried blood.
The merc caught a glimpse of the child’s chest rise, then fall slowly.
“He’s breadin,” Piman gasped, turning quickly to Jugular as his long mullet flared dramatically, “c’mon, cap, we can’t leeve de poor sod out here, gators w’git em fo shore!”
Jugular frowned, annoyed at the potential problems that damn child could cause. “We’ll drop him off at the next town,” the captain spat, “let them have him.”
Even as the words were spoken, the boat lurched into life, guided by Jugular’s mental commands as it turned and headed to the shore, the helmsman walking out to stand next to the merc as the ship maneuvered – thanks to technology, the need to lay real hands on a real steering wheel was an inconvenience only for the most primitive.
As the stern of the boat ran aground near the child, Piman hopped off to lend aid, slinging the FN HAR over his shoulder.
“Whoa,” the merc breathed, pausing with surprise. The child was pitifully clothed in little but tatters of what had obviously been, long ago, a very fancy robe of some sort, worked with gold stitching that was little to look at now. But what gave the merc pause was the small child’s body.
The kid was cut. His muscles were hard and firm, ripped with tone and bulk as if a six-year-old had the physique of a miniature body builder. And his skin wasn’t covered in dried, faded blood… it was orange. His hair was a startling contrast of fiery red fading with yellow highlights, a wild, tangled mop of bloody spikes.
Shaking his head, the merc leaned over and picked the small form up, grunting with surprise at the effort it took.
Once they were back on the boat, the engines gunned in reverse, freeing the ship from the vulnerable perch and pressing onward as the merc carried the body below deck.
“Bondye (Good Lord!),” the merc breathed, “dis no sha, dis aw dwarf!”
Laid on his back, the small metahuman could clearly be seen for what he was. To mistake a dwarf for a child was a common slip. Despite the dwarf’s bizarre skin and hair color, Jugular relaxed visibly. Now some slotting dwarf lost in the swamp, yet making it out this far… that was far more believable than some little kid pulling the same stunt.
“Make a hole,” Jugular grumbled as he shouldered the merc aside, pulling the medikit off a wall. The kit flowered open at a touch, and in moments the rigger had the sensors placed about the dwarf’s temples and chest. Then, he strapped the flexible arm of the medikit to one limp forearm of the patient. The auto-assist interface fired up, guiding an IV needle home within the sleeve as the AI in the medikit got down to business.
“Assess and report,” Jugular ordered.
The AI immediately replied in a neutral, feminine voice. “Subject unconscious… vitals faint… subject shows signs of severe malnutrition, excessive stress within extremity muscle groups… DNA analysis reveals subject is Caucasian male, 24 years of age, homo sapiens pumillonis, commonly known dwarf-meta-varient… no cyberware detected, no bioware detected…”
“Aw white dwarf?” Piman scoffed, “da fellow’s skin uhs orange.”
“Dyed, maybe?” Jugular mused out loud. He glanced at a chemical analysis. “Nope, no signs of anything on his skin. Probably a SURGE victim.”
“Toxicology analysis complete,” the medi-kit cut in pleasantly, “four class II and one class I toxins detected within subject’s system. Natural immune response repressed by malnutrition. Analysis indicates subject has never received any CAS-approved immunization treatments.”
Jugular glanced at the report and suggested treatments. Thank god for tech, the rigger thought to himself, for his own medical skills were pitiful without the medikit. Keying in some responses, he watched as the AI pumped nanites into the patient’s bloodstream, fighting the diseases from within.
The effect was dramatic. Within minutes, the dwarf improved before their very eyes. As the medikit signaled an end to the treatment, the dwarf coughed and shook his head, peering up in a dazed confusion.
Piman was taken aback. Such blue eyes!
As the dwarf’s eyes gained focus, a gripping fear seized his small, worn face. His entire body tensed as he darted his head around like a trapped animal.
“Calm, now,” Piman tried to sooth the fellow with his deep voice, his mullet draping to frame his face as he flashed a goofy, yet friendly smile.
“Where…” the dwarf muttered hoarsely, then he cleared his throat and tried again, “where am I?” Even though the hoarseness had slightly lessened, the voice was still rough and gravelly.
“On MY boat,” Jugular spat, placing the medikit on the floor, the leads still connected to the dwarf as the AI continued to monitor his condition.
“W’found ya en ruff shape,” Piman offered, “But Jug’lar’s got y’all patched up now, ya shud be bon.”
“You… you helped me?” The question of the dwarf took both men aback. It was asked as if they were fools, as if such an act was unthinkably stupid.
“You’ll be alright,” Jugular grunted, “just lie here and relax, we’ve got work to do. Piman, get your ass back on deck.”
Nodding, the merc un-slung his FN HAR as he returned to the top. Without another glance, Jugular followed him.
Onward the boat cut through the swamp, their new passenger left alone to recuperate below decks. Jugular and Piman continued to try to peer through the foliage in a vain effort to spot any trouble. The rigger barely took notice of the scout drone as it settled back into its harness and powered down.
The dwarf examined the medikit display. Once satisfied that the kit would be of no further use, he disengaged himself from it. Snatching a water bottle from a nearby fridge, the raspy dwarf soothed his throat with a long, steady draught. Taking a deep breath, the little one closed his eyes and focused his will.
“Sean,” he whispered into the astral, “I bid you to answer my summons.”
What answered the call was ghastly to look at. It was a Spirit of Man, appearing in the image of a ghostly dwarf, accusation in its eyes and a hideous hole torn through its belly, the insides apparently gutted out. The spirit waited for its orders.
Still, the dwarf paused, running the litany through his mind that bore repeating every time he summoned the spirit. This thing is not really Sean. Sean is dead. This form of the spirit is imposed by my will, must be, for this is not Sean.
The dwarf opened his eyes, daring to lock gazes with his penance. Despite his resolve, his hands trembled and his voice shook as he spoke.
“Conceal me Sean,” his rough voice whispered, “please.”
Mutely, the spirit invoked the power of concealment, hiding the dwarf from mundane, technological, even magical sight. If someone had witnessed this, they’d have seen the dwarf fade from view. The dwarf was still there, averting his eyes while the spirit slipped back into astral space, to take its customary place behind him where he would not have to see it should he look into that mirror realm.
The dwarf arose and walked out onto the deck. Jugular happened to be passing by to check on something at the back of the boat, unaware that he side-stepped to avoid the unseen fellow. The dwarf began to tail the rigger, opening his astral senses to survey the man’s aura.
Jugular’s cyberware was evident in the astral plane, blotches of gray peppering and lacing an otherwise bright, colorful aura, roughly a third of the man’s mana-flow blocked by the tech. The man had a strong sense of alert vigilance. The entire boat was glittering with touches of the man’s aura, as strongly as any home one lived in and called such.
Satisfied that the man had no ill intent, the dwarf went to the front of the boat, where the large, mullet-man stood guard. Two-thirds of his aura was blackened by tech, most likely this one was a razor-guy, one who had himself modified heavily for combat. As corrupted as his aura was, what was left of his humanity was heavily colored with curiosity, but even more so with a powerful a source of goodness and a heart as the dwarf had rarely seen in people. This was a man who could be trusted, even admired for his strong morals. The dwarf looked away, unable to stomach the thought of what would happen to this innocent man should they learn of his help.
The dwarf settled down as the boat ferried onward, lost in his own dark thoughts.
Piman, unaware of the little dwarf at his very side, perked up as he spotted trouble up ahead. “Cap,” he warned, yet Jugular had already spotted them as well.
The wide channel they followed (the only one in the area that could accommodate their boat) was blocked up ahead, a large log of driftwood floating in the center. On either side, two flatboats lay silent, the whole mess forming a blockade. The men on the boats were outlandishly dressed, a contradictory clash of color, but one predominant theme was certain: each wore a broad red sash and knee-high red buccaneer boots. These men were standing and grinning luridly as they brought rifles to their shoulders.
Every smuggler in the region knew of these bottom-feeders: Lafitte’s Sailors, swamp pirates who make their living waylaying smugglers and adventuresome tourists too far off the beaten path. That they would run into these cretins was possible, but the rigger had calculated that this route was so back-water they would have no trouble.
“Shit,” muttered Jugular. The intention of these men was perfectly clear. Piman was tagging along for just such a situation, but the rigger had another gun at his disposal. Behind the tiny scout drone, another sat nearly as big as a barrel. This was a Ford LEBD, a mini-heli drone. Often used by security forces, this one’s standard auto-grenade mount (typically loaded with tear gas) sported a far deadlier weapon – a Desert Strike sniper rifle, the sniper autosoft in the drone’s AI very accurate and very, very illegal. With a flick of the rigger’s thoughts, the combat drone in the rack jumped into life, lifting high into the sky on muted chopper blades.
The dwarf had noticed his companions’ discomfort, spotted the men in the boats. As he glanced at their auras, his heart threatened to still. They had a little cyberware but were mostly human. Their auras, however, stank of hostility and ready cruelty, even glee. Their intent to do these people harm was obvious, and the horrors they’d inflicted on others hung about their auras like a cloud of vomit.
Anger shook the dwarf, and the spirit named Sean shrank back from its master’s wrath. Unintentionally, the short mage fired a subconscious order to reveal himself standing beside the merc.
“No,” the dwarf bawled in a graveling, throaty shout as he materialized, “These are good people!!! You cannot harm them!! I won’t LET YOU HARM THEM!”
The last word from his raspy voice blended into a low rumble, and the dwarf began to bulge and swell into impossible shapes, his skin stretching as if some giant thing fought to get out. The merc fell back slack-jawed as the dwarf exploded, bits of skin and hair fading to smoke as a feathered dragon emerged.
Not a dragon, one tiny rational part of the merc’s mind corrected while the rest of him mentally shit himself, but a feathered serpent.
Nine feet long the drake was, its serpentine body covered in blood-red feathers, except for a long blue tail ending in glossy green spikes. The wings were orange and yellow, like a fire that spread outward as the drake raised its wings. Its long, orange snout glistened with dagger-like teeth too long and curved to be concealed, and its purple tongue writhed like a little snake as its jaws opened wide.
A primal roar erupted from its throat. The feathered serpent slithered into the air, its wings trimming as it rose, and with a deeper roar it spat fire that ate through the distance, swallowing a shocked-man’s expression as his upper half blackened and caught like a kerosene-soaked briquette.
The other men, terrified, opened fire. The sound of gunshots broke the spell that held the merc still, and with no effort the FN HAR jumped to his shoulder as the FoF software selected vitals of the first man who fired. The first three rounds rang out in a quick staccato, one for the gut, one for the heart, and one for the head. Even as he sent the first burst home, alternate targets were assigned their order of dying. The body was flying midair from the impact even as Piman shifted to his next target and repeated the feat.
“Eliminate all hostiles on enemy craft,” Jugular mentally ordered the drone.
“Targets acquired,” the drone responded tersely. An image of selected targets flashed in the corner of the rigger’s sight, plus that of the flying drake, an unspoken question as two options appeared in Jugular’s AR: Friend or Foe?
Hesitating only for an instant, Jugular selected ‘Friend’, keeping a close eye out and ready to change his answer should the creature turn on them.
Bullets sang around the boat as the men fired back. Automatics crackled in their hands, echoed by the FN HAR as Piman answered them. A silenced, single shot from the overhead drone whispered quietly, the boom neutralized by the massive suppressor on the barrel, however a bandit’s head loudly popped open in response.
The fight was short, brutal, and very one-sided. In six seconds it was over, the smuggler and his crew uninjured, and only one bandit nursing a shoulder wound survived, any fight bled out of him. The drake settled on the bow of the boat, its eyes with a very humane expression in them at odds with the alien body language. The drake spun and slithered through the air, closing with the remaining bandit who began to scream.
Piman’s breath caught in his throat as he watched the serpent coil its tail about the man’s midsection, drag him over the side and hold him under the water. An arm thrashed weakly for a bit, then the water stilled. The merc glanced at Jugular, who wore an ugly expression of disgust.
“Wha we do, cap?”
“That logjam will have to be cleared,” the skipper spat back, ignoring the larger question.
As if in answer, the feathered serpent hovered over the log and wrapped a blue, scaly tail around it, the spikes at the end making a screeching sound as they dug into the wood. Flapping its wings furiously, the serpent drug the log aside, clearing the way. Then the drake circled overhead. Hidden to their mundane eyes, the mage-drake carefully obliterated any trace of his magic in the astral plane.
Jugular grunted, the overhead targeting of his sniper drone giving a split view of the drake. The drone wasn’t fully ready to trust the drake, and tracked it as the feathered serpent returned to roost on the prow of the ship.
The midsection of the serpent then bulged obscenely, and the body flew apart in bits that wisped into smoke as the dwarf stepped out. He wore a dire expression, full of guilt and self loathing.
“Had to drown him,” the dwarf whispered harshly, “he saw me.”
Piman cleared his throat awkwardly. “Uh, w’saw ya also.”
“And you helped me,” the dwarf shot back. “For both your sakes, never mention what you saw me do, what I really am. All who’ve known such secrets have died horribly. I’m sorry.”
Neither man took the words for a threat, for the dwarf was too remorseful for that.
“Sean,” the dwarf whispered. The apparition appeared, causing both men to step back in disgust. “Hide me.”
Both apparition and dwarf faded from their site.
“Aw shawmin, huh?” Piman mused aloud.
“Mage, actually,” the dwarf’s voice answered back from somewhere they couldn’t pinpoint. The drone’s search was hitting overdrive, urgently warning the rigger that the target had been lost. Jugular ordered the drone to stand down, and with no further objection the rotors dropped the drone back in its rack as it returned to standby.
“So what now, mage?” Jugular said aloud. The boat was already in motion once again, threading between the empty fan boats.
“May I come with you?” The dwarf’s question was hesitant, a bit needy even.
Jugular spotted a blackened form floating near the shore, the first victim of the drake. Extra muscle for protection, at no cost to himself? “Sure,” the rigger nodded, “yer welcome to stay.”
“Thank you.”
Their new shipmate would take some getting used to, of that they had little doubt. He asked a lot of questions, never answering any about himself. Carrying on a conversation with someone invisible should have been unnerving, but not much different from chatting over a commlink. Certainly nothing to fret about compared to what the dwarf really was. Piman’s face screwed into a comical expression of worry. What was this dwarf, really? The merc couldn’t even guess at how to approach that question.
The maze of trees and fetid water finally subsided at their destination: a secluded cove on the outskirts of the city Houma. Here, much of the muck of the swamp gave way to cleaner water, the shape of this inlet clearly man-made, though the foliage was thick all around them, promising privacy. The Spitzenreiter pulled in, the only other craft a small, two-man hydrafoil awaiting them.
“That’s them,” Jugular advised the merc, even as his craft angled to approach.
Both men on the hydrafoil rose to watch them draw near. One was all business, his body armor and assault rifle signaling his profession. The other was outlandishly dressed in a questionably-fashionable suit, his obscene grin exaggerated by his tusks – the suit was an orc, his image matching the datafile attached to Jugular’s cargo. This was Pierre, the man paying for the single crate she had stored below.
“Well done, y’all,” orc’s voice drooled with a slow-drawn, Louisianan accent. “Y’all have my thangs?”
The unseen dwarf opened his astral senses to survey the two. The bodyguard was heavily cybered, ready for trouble. The orc’s aura was shimmering actively, a sign of the awakened. His mood was heavy with a sick sense of hungry amusement and excitement.
Jugular grunted as he hoisted the large crate in his arms.
“Right here,” he replied as he set the crate on the deck, “got my cash?”
Pierre began to laugh horribly as the bodyguard snapped the assault rifle to his shoulder. Water erupted to either side of their boat as two scuba men surfaced in armored suits, their harpoon guns at the ready.
“I think y’all be givin me my propertee a’no charge,” the orc drawled.
Piman brought the FN HAR to his shoulder in response, but in his excitement the merc made a stupid mistake. Mentally keying the selector lever, he accidentally ejected the clip from the rifle.
The loud clatter of the clip on deck echoed. Piman’s mullet framed a face colored crimson in embarrassment. “Red Pepper,” his name meant in Creole.
Taking the ejected clip as a sign of surrender, the orc began to laugh again. However, his silly grin froze on his face as an unknown, gravelly voice asked, “should I fry them?”
“Yes,” Jugular said tartly.
The bodyguard swept the ship with his smartlink, trying to acquire the source of the voice. From some place on the deck of the Spitzenreiter, a lightning bolt crackled through the air, striking the man’s chest. Dancing a stilted jig to the electricity running through his system, the bodyguard groaned and fell prone on the hydrafoil, shocked into utter submission.
Waving his hand dramatically, Pierre brought forth a glimmering barrier than encased himself and the hydrafoil in a protective, glowing sheath of magic.
Piman sprung into action, letting his FN HAR fall to sling on his side. Whipping out his Cavalier Deputy revolver, the merc spun to the left and put two rounds into the scuba diver on that side. Each round flattened on impact, causing the man to dance the same jig as the prone bodyguard. Stick-n-Shock rounds; not lethal, but that was no consolation to the man as thousands of volts surged through him.
Jugular activated the defensive turret on the prow. A water cannon (legal in every jurisdiction) swung and fired a never-ending blast of paint-peeling streams at the hydrafoil. The surge was too much for the protective barrier, and the orc took a long, punishing pulse to the chest, punching him backwards and over the edge. One of his fancy shoes got caught in the rail, and the orc flailed pathetically upside-down in the water, free leg kicking in the air frantically as bubbles gurgled from below the surface.
The lone scuba diver hesitated, afraid to fire his harpoon when no backup remained to support him.
“You’re outgunned,” the hidden, gravelly voice barked, “surrender.”
The diver tossed his harpoon gun into the water and his arms reached for the heavens.
“Fish your boss out… he’s drowning.”
The frogman surged to the hydrafoil’s side, pulling the orc’s head above the water and struggling to get him back on the boat. Pierre was puking up chunks of dirty water, but once air dominated his lungs the orc began to laugh furiously, the sick sound punctuated by hacking coughs.
Piman scanned the area for further ambush as Jugular and the unseen dwarf watched the display, baffled.
“That was simply wonderful,” the orc cried in his mirth, wiping tears and water from his eyes, “and tha magical backup, brilliant! Ah, darlings, y’all have passed my little test and made Pierre’s day!”
The orc looked about him, immensely pleased, “and look here, see, y’all didn’t even keel nobody. Had these here hired thugs subdued, y’all did.”
Pierre stood tall with a lurid grin as he began to applaud loudly.
“Your pay, as promised,” he grinned, and his PAN shot the thousand dollar payment to Jugular. Jugular accepted, but his face was seething with anger as he tossed the crate over to the orc.
“Aw now, don’t be mad,” the orc drawled, “I am most impressed… I may have more lucrative work for y’all in the future. Let me see this here finger-wriggler y’all brought with you.”
Pierre opened his astral sight, sweeping the deck, but all he could see of his quarry was a ghastly spirit hiding something – the mage, no doubt. He grinned in that direction. “Very well,” the orc drawled, “but y’all have nothing to fear from little ole me. Farewell, I’m looking forward to our next business transaction.”
The Spitzenreiter jumped to life as Jugular willed his boat to take him away from this lunatic. Then, with a vengeful grin, the rigger casually gunned the engines to max and cut the rudder sharply. The large craft tried to leap out of the water as it spun, Piman and the invisible dwarf thrown prone. The wake of the craft towered over the orc as his eyes shrank to pinpoints, then he and the hydrafoil bowled over as one corner of the ship smacked them in passing.
Pierre popped onto the surface cursing besides his inverted hydrafoil, shaking his fist at the retreating craft as the frogman fished around for the semi-conscious bodyguard.
Jugular laughed aloud as he left the crazy orc to soak.
“Jugular,” the invisible dwarf inquired.
“Yeah,” the rigger grunted, surveying the fastest route back on his digital maps.
“You’re a smuggler, I take it.”
The rigger grunted assent.
“Can I… is it ok if… I stay with you guys awhile?”
Jugular scratched at his scruffy beard.
“You came in pretty handy back there. Sure, stay with us as long as you want.”
Then the rigger went below deck, returning with a spare set of shorts.
“But visible or not you could probably use these.”
Jugular held the shorts out before him. The dwarf briefly became visible in a cloud of mist and blurring images as he seized the offered clothing, muttered sincere thanks, then shorts and dwarf faded from sight as Jugular let go. The rigger watched transfixed at the feat. Real magic!
“Sure,” the rigger said, “anytime.”
Two hours later New Orleans came into view. Though a familiar, welcoming sight to Piman and Jugular, the dwarf gaped at the impossible scene.
Following the last major hurricane decades ago, the people of this city decided they would never again be struck down by fickle weather. The New Orleans Spire was an engineering feat, the largest structure in the world. The entire downtown district was built above the ruins of the old, a single spire so massive that even the fabled arcologies of the megacorps looked like a two-story flat by comparison. More than 20 kilometers in diameter at the base, the structure stood seven kilometers high, narrowing sharply as it angled into a tapered spike, like a sagging, metal tee-pee that seemed to reach through the atmosphere itself. Housing thousands of businesses and residences, the downtown was a unique city unto itself, and many natives had never ventured beyond its protective walls in their entire life. Status was measured by the level you lived in. Only the very wealthy lived near the top.
Such an engineering feat was only possible thanks to a unique quality in the area. Following the awakening, construction crews found components of the ground to be indestructible in spots along the Mississippi. At first a headache to the city, these spots ultimately spelled their salvation from the growing storm seasons. A certain mixture of mud and water, dumped along these points, hardened into a substance similar to steel but unbreakable. The very shape of the spire, back before it was built, could be seen by astral viewers towering over the city.
After Hurricane Willa destroyed much of downtown New Orleans in 2030, city officials launched an audacious plan. By 2035 construction began, with corporate sponsors (who’d been promised choice spots to rent) lined up to foot most the bill. Almost none of the money had been gobbled up by crooked politicians, unprecedented at that time. Some of the most notorious and most crooked politicians disappeared entirely, and many rumors point to the foundation of the Spire as their final resting place.
In 2044, when the structure was more than a third complete, Hurricane Syd struck the Spire directly. Nearly everyone in the world had watched the now-famous news clip of the massive funnel tearing itself apart on the structure. Funds poured in at record levels that year, and by 2055 the Spire was completed.
The dwarf had missed spotting the mountain-like city so far only as the trees of the swamp had blocked the image, but as they approached the outskirts the Spire threatened his sanity as it ate up the sky.
As with all modern sprawls, the city itself was much wider, but the Spire served as its beating heart, an artificial mountain that stood as a downtown district like no other. The marina Jugular moored at was blanketed in the shadow of the spire every afternoon.
The rigger paid the merc, thanking him for his assistance, and both parted ways, leaving the dwarf alone on the craft. The tapered slope of the Spire gave the illusion that it went on without end in its reach for the heavens. It was a humbling sight.
Over the next few days, Jugular took note of the food supplies on the boat even as they were rifled by the invisible dwarf; small price to pay if the little fellow stayed on. Free magical protection! Even the cynical rigger had to smile at that one.