Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School (106/?) WiP 1

Hey everyone! Here is the Work in Progress for Chapter 106 I hope you guys enjoy! :D

I hated to admit it.

But that splash of brackish puddle water saturated to the brim with muck, grime, and god-knows-what was probably a blessing in disguise.

Because the further I marched into town, the less the crowd seemed to notice me.

Some had taken a concerning level of interest the moment I left richtown, sure. 

However, the more I got lost in the crowd, the less those curious eyes seemed to follow me.

EVI confirmed as such.

But that wasn’t the only thing the EVI had confirmed in the minutes following my deep dive into partially-unknown.

Indeed, the complex orchestra of code was currently throttling through chunk after chunk of entirely novel datasets — mostly in the form of background chatter.

As for the first time, save for that brief utterance of Havenbrockian courtesy of Thalmin, more than half of all audible dialogue was entirely untranslatable. 

The EVI had already taken into account twenty-seven distinct patterns of speech just in the first ten minutes of our walk alone. Each of which was entirely unique from one another on preliminary analysis, all bearing negligible instances of High Nexian within entire strings of conversation.

It was in that moment, walking in the midst of the vibrant evening markets, lit by a hundred different forms of lamplights, packed shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers belonging to more species than I could count, that I finally experienced it — one of the much-anticipated moments SIOP had attempted to prepare me for — culture shock.

Or more specifically, a specific type of culture shock, one stemming from being thrust into a rich and entirely alien environment — filled to the brim with an overwhelming kaleidoscope of all manner of sensory input that bordered on the edge of overstimulation.

The controlled environment of the Academy had ironically mitigated these sorts of feelings. 

However, it was the gift of auto-translation courtesy of the EVI had truly shielded me from this for the past few weeks.

I’d only had to deal with a certain level of culture shock following my integration into the Academy, with much of the blow of the impact softened by my ability to understand practically everything around me.

But here? In the midst of an absolutely bustling side street? With coal-burning, smoke-producing, bell-ringing food carts competing for attention from pedestrians as varied as the billboards plastered haphazardly on every available storefront? 

I felt almost absolutely out of my element, and a part of me felt genuinely anxious in a way I hadn’t felt before.

Thankfully, I realized the panic before it could spread, as I began honing in on what I could focus on, maximizing situational awareness to the best of my ability.

“Fancy skewers! Fancy-style skewers!” I noted a particularly aggressive food hawker yelling, his hands deftly moving from the delectable pieces of over-charred meat, turning each of them over, and causing their juices to drip aggressively into the red-hot coals — generating consistent wafts of gray and white smoke which blew upwards towards a hazy, cloud-obscured night sky.

“Eggs! Any form or type! Big eggs! Two for fry-now! Pick your toppings!” Another hawker shouted, practically yelling into the busy crowd despite the already long queue haphazardly forming by the side of her stall. The female satyr was busy mixing eggs by the cup-full, with a smaller satyr deftly cracking more into what looked to be an assembly line of eggs-in-cups, all of which were customized to order with various toppings and then fried inside of a giant wok. 

“Corn! Get fresh corn now! Grilled! Roasted! Baked! Deep-fried! Broiled! All corn! Any corn! Any time! All time! Big time!” A male kobold yelled out from the bottom of his lungs, as a literal troupe of green-shaded kobolds began the process of shucking various forms of corn-like produce, before processing them into what could only be described as a health-code violating menace of a machine. With ovens, broilers, grills, and even deep-fryers all arranged condominium-style, stacked atop of one another with smoky embers scattering everywhere anytime the stall even slightly shook. 

“With BUTTER!” One of the kobolds shouted, just as he lifted up a vat of freshly-churned butter to prove his point. “REAL BUTTER!” Another reiterated. 

“AND SUGAR!” Came another, as this one clamored and skittered to the rafters of the stall, grabbing what appeared to be cane sugar that’d been drying atop of the tiles. 

The fight to draw attention continued, as my own fight to keep focus finally won out, my fixation quickly shifting to food; the most coveted thing on my mind that I was constantly denied.

Because with each step I took, my mind had anticipated some form of sensory feedback in the form of the charred smell of slightly-burnt meats, the eggy smell of freshly fried omelets, and the rich and sweet assault of buttered, sugary corn. 

However, I got none of that.

As through stall after stall, all I smelled was that metallic-infused sterilized air. 

The same air you’d smell in hospitals and decontamination centers.

Not even the less-intense version you’d get on smaller ships and stations.

I’d gotten used to it by now.

But it was in these moments of sensory dissonance that I was acutely reminded of what I was missing out on.

And it sucked.

Regardless, that sense of suck did help in narrowing my mind’s eye, as I started looking out for signs and symbols that were recognizable as medical centers.

The Nexus, thankfully, seemed to have the same idea as Earth — in that they actually standardized the symbol for healthcare facilities. 

Which made sense, given how I was starting to wonder just how many people here were actually literate.

A simple, easy-to-recognize symbol was vital in allowing people to quickly access services even if they couldn’t read the signs.

I think barbershops started that trend with those red blue and white polls… I thought to myself, as I came across the first clinic on the map.

So while back home the symbol was often either the red cross or one of those ancient greek staffs, in the Nexus, it often seemed to come in the form of a simplified version of a potion bottle superimposed against a shield. 

With a deep breath, I pushed open the unassuming oak door, revealing a small, somewhat cramped reception area with a few wood-weave chairs, and some sturdy but improvised looking wooden stretchers strewn about.