Most of the crowd seemed unperturbed, either changing route and climbing the ladders that led to the gondolas, or detouring to a store for some mead to pass the time.
Gloria had floated up a few meters and was watching intently. She must have felt my mounting curiosity as she called down, “Wanna see?”
I nodded eagerly.
A screen popped up in front of me: “Gloria invites you to a broadcast. Accept or Decline?”
I accepted and had a semi translucent screen materialized. It broadcasted a brawl, although that was a generous description. It was a one-sided fight as an auburn haired man thrashed three frog-like humanoids. The man’s expression was listless, as though the fight was an inconvenience, not a threat.
“This is a benefit of psychic focused faculties”, Gloria explained, “Projecting thoughts and vision can be a great boon in many circumstances.”
“Neat skill” I thought back.
“The red-head is Everik by the way. Third year at The Academy. A bit of a jarhead but one of the better fighters at his level.”
“What do you mean by level?” I asked.
“Oh, right… Your just new born…” She paused, “Think about a status page, one that would display all the features you want to know about yourself, and when you have that in mind, think of the phrase
I followed her instructions, imagining what a general stat screen might look like. To my surprise, a huge list of traits and their ranking slid into view.
There were the typical “strength, stamina, intellect and charisma. However, everything that I was curious about, conscious and subconsciously, seemed to also appear such as “confusion, deductive reasoning, attraction to redheads”
I choked at the “redheads” stat after seeing it ranked highest on the page. “That’s ridiculous,” I thought to myself, “how can that even be a stat.”
Gloria laughed, having heard my thoughts from the shared link we had activated to view the fight below.
“Just tighten it up, make sure you have a clear mind when you envision the stats page. But otherwise great work. It normally takes more than one try for others to succeed.”
At this point, Everik had single handedly knocked out two of the frog men. The last one was bouncing about nervously, considering if it should stay and fight or try to escape. Seeing that the surrounding crowd would impede it’s escape route, the frog man resigned to fight. The frog man charged at Everik, who side stepped and tripped the creatures, kneeing it in the gut as it fell. The frog lay motionless, clearly having lost.
A few guards had arrived by this point, their bodies in phantom form allowing them to bypass the obstructions and crowds. One particularly burly guard was carrying a pole with a hoop on the end, similar to what one might use to clean a pool. The burly guard chanted a short phrase and a portal of oozing magenta formed within the loop. With deft movements he scooped the three frog-men into the portals where they fizzled out of existence.
“What does that do?” I asked
“It’s a Hell loop. Teleports them to a jail cell while awaiting trial.”
Everick noticed Gloria’s magical gaze and locked in on us, making a b-line for the ramen store.
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“Ummmm Gloria?” I hesitated.
Before she could reply, he was beside me - eyes searching and calculative.
“Gloria”, the man said in a flat tone, “spying on me?”
Gloria floated down to my side and smirked, “maybe… what was it this time? Did the Froggians (I assumed the correct name for the frog-men) irritate you? Look at you the wrong way?” She emphasized her last few words with a mocking bow. “Your highness.”
Everick’s brows furrowed deeper.
“We were just curious…” I cut in, wanting to avoid an ass whooping similar to the one I had just witnessed.
He regarded me again, somehow with less interest than before completely dismissing my comment.
I felt indignation warm my blood and imagined hurting Everick. Unexpectedly the thought activated a skill, “mindspike: inflict psychic damage by sending a surge of energy into your opponent's mind”. I wasn't a raving idiot nor a child so I used my common sense and brushed off my bruised ego.
“What was that about anyways?” Gloria probed.
“Just the usual scuffle, some idiots trying to extort me.”
“Idiots indeed, they mustn’t be from here to not recognise your ugly face” she retorted.
As their banter continued, I noticed that an alert had popped up titled “Quest Unlocked”.
I commanded it open and couldn’t stop myself from swearing.
“Quest unlocked: you found your chaperon. Mission completed after induction and integration into The Academy”
Everick must have also received a similar notification as he paused and turned to me, his indifference from before now morphed into equal parts impatience and spite.
“Well shit…” we sighed in unison.
****
Everick was several yards ahead, his pace requiring me to jog to keep up. He clearly had no desire to be a chaperon, and he was not doing a very good job of “educating” me, as we moved through the town towards The Academy Admin office.
When Gloria had found out that he was my chaperon, she had laughed till she cried. “Oh Beth, you do make me laugh.” she had commented before wishing us luck and ditching me. I was a bit disappointed she had left so abruptly, not even guiding me to The Academy as we had planned, but I was starting to get the drift that friendships and social interactions in Hell were different from what I was accustomed to. Demons would bump into me without slowing down or apologizing, a couple of times they even snarked that a ghost shouldn’t walk around in a material form “taking up space unnecessarily when I could just float through the crowd”.
Everick had only managed to increase the distance between us, when I unceremoniously tripped on a passing demon’s tail and crashed to the floor. The tail whipped up and smacked me across my back in retaliation, the beast spitting at me in contempt. I was about to afront the beast when Everick appeared before me. He gave a curt nod of his head and then apologised on my behalf.
After the tailed beast had walked away, I turned on Everick, fury annihilating any previous inhibitions. “What the fuck was that!?” I seethed.
He clicked his tongue and replied, “Clueless newborn.”
“What?”
“Why are you even in town?”
“To go to The Academy, of course” I replied, confusion and anger mixing into a growing dislike of Everick.
He paused and then rubbed the back of his neck in exasperation.
“You don’t NEED to come to Flags to go to The Academy. You can just phantom form through the plateau.” His condescension continued, “And if you are in town, to stay in material form, tripping and bumping into people like an utter clutz. You're begging for a fight - it’s just so disrespectful.”
“What?” I uttered in complete bewilderment for the umpteenth time today, “What are you talking about?”
Everick just sighed, and then looked around us before spotting a ladder to a nearby gondola platform. Without answering my question, he just said “Follow me.”
We climbed up the ladder which was approximately twelve meters above the walkway, on a small platform that could only fit ten people at a time. An attendant stood by a gondola that was shaped like the basket beneath a hot air balloon, with several pulleys and ropes that attached it to the longer cords that spanned across the pit. Each gondola held five passengers, but when Everick approached he handed the attendant an emerald coin. The attendant looked surprised but quickly recovered, and allowed the two of us to ride alone on the next available gondola. As we departed Everick sighed, his shoulder deflating as he turned towards me.
“Look, I know you are new, but how could you not be aware of the most basic etiquette. It’s all in the tutorial you receive at the nurse’s office.”
I turned red with embarrassment replying, “I may have skipped that part.”
Everick gave me a dumbfounded expression, “How?”
My face turned a deeper shade of scarlet, “That old demon was being an ass, so I kinda left…”
There was a brief moment of silence before he clicked his tongue again, “my first time being a chaperon.. And of course I got a daft one - just my luck. Look kid, (irritation warred inside of me until I remembered I was reincarnated as a teen) I don’t have time to baby you.”
He snapped his fingers and a book materialized in his hand, “This is the tutorial, give it a read later. Then ask me if you have any questions. For now, just don’t say anything to anyone and stay by my side.”
We lapsed into silence as the gondola creaked its way out towards the central building.