Eight thousand Leagues to the West from Virin, (or over twenty thousand miles, also used as thirty-three thousand kilometers) on the other continent of Ascheere, Jezera Mil-Na was taking a long car ride into the city of Tenebris and caught her self thinking about the strange fact, how many different cultures used different measurement systems. She just calculated the distance between here and Virin for six different measuring systems. Virin was on her mind because hopefully right now, according to her knowledge, her assistant Tarn Shadik should be getting on a ship there to head east and through the Rift to Nineveh. If he chooses wisely, which she doubted, he will need a bit more than two days to get back. Therefore she did not expect him back for a week. She sat back with a long sigh and tried to enjoy the last few fields she could see through the window, before the towering walls of the industrial city would hide it from her. It was sadly, not much to see: all was covered in the white veil of mist and the fields were dried out (or outright poisoned for that matter) and even the occasional dead trees were masked by the foggy morning gloom. She knew this was no ordinary fog, this was already the smog of Tenebris. It was disappointing to see how deep technology has fallen, when the need of survival is so great that they abandon the rules which ensured their longevity in the first place. Long since, if ever, she has spoken to an expert engineer of the Dominion since the Third Apocalypse. Without planning, cities became these breeding grounds of pollution and sickness where the well known solutions of the Old World are buried under trash and piles of corpses. She remembered that cities were meant to follow rules to avoid safety and environmental hazards, how planning before building was no effort compared to the costs of fixing the flawed structures. She remembered how there were bathhouses next to factories built above and under parks in cities like Uruk on Ninsun. And it was all in perfect harmony. And on top of all this, they were all designed to look beautiful. Glass towers rising above the garden. A firm contrast to the rusty and crumbling towers connected with the spider web of cables which can be seen these days as an effort to rebuilt the world.
Her slim cherry lips gave away the bitter emotion when she thought of the fate of Uruk. The whole metropolis was predicated on the idea of intelligent design; they chose to build it on a barren land at the heart of the continent. For over six thousand years it was the shining jewel of the Alliance, the capital of technology, wealth and power. And that is why after the fall it quickly became a desert ruin that it is today.
The horses slowed down, and her cart rocked when they transferred from the land passage to the paved road. The two horses clicked and clacked loudly as the occasional cars roamed by. Traveling like this was slow, but not unheard of at the edges of the Western-Silvercoast. It was offered for her with a driver, payment up front and letter. All of this was a classic example of the aristocracy which was growing in power. For the reason she said yes was still bothering her. She was more curious about the state of the world through the eyes of this family than the job she was offered. It's not like she did not welcome the money, even her sources were not unlimited, but while there was no chance for her to create her new creature at the moment, this was a change of scenery which might have a positive effect on her inspiration. She pulled out the letter from her bag and opened it. It was the elegant handwriting of someone very confident but not precise. The open R-s and K-s even suggested that this person is not always honest, however the whole notion of the handwritten letter and horse with carriage pointed towards the fact that this man is obsessed with how he is perceived. She would have presumed all of these without her graphology knowledge, but it made it perfectly clear for her: this was more of a show and less of a rescue. She gave little thought to the actual content of the letter, about their sick boy who needed to be treated and the invitation itself. She already knew the most common reasons for the child's symptoms, it had to be more to this charade. She noticed how she was called 'madam' and not 'sal' which indicated both of their influence of Twelve Cities to the north here, or even connections to Suen (probably through an avestan tutor) and that they wanted her to feel like she is highly regarded. In the back of her mind she evaluated if the Church wanted to track her down and draw her into a trap to be dragged in front of some old fashioned inquisition scene, but she dismissed this. If the Church wanted her, they would've sent some witch hunter who puts her in chains and drags her through the mud to show a lesson about the 'dark arts' or 'forbidden sciences' as they call them. As romantic as that might sound, she was still cautious enough to avoid such a fallout. Given the current signs, this was about something entirely different and she wanted to know what. That is why she left her mercenaries back at the tower. They are better off guarding her tools of trade than her anyway.
