To Kill a God

Clothes

While the distinct lack of fastfood joints bothered Al, he deemed that the quality of the meal they had more than made up for it. It helped, of course, that he was sitting across from a very attractive young elf.

Violet was talking animatedly, having hardly touched her meal so far. "The Hawkeyes are therefore part of the representational government. We are one of the three old elf homes in New York, and we have ties to London, Montreal, and a few other major city-states, though the last are rather tenuous branches of the family. In this city, the council is lead by representatives of seven races. Each representative is voted into power by members of that race."

"So it's like a congress," Al put in. He took another bit of perfectly cooked bacon. "And with only three old elven families, the Hawkeyes basically represent a third of a seventh of all the power in this city."

The restaurant was homey, with closed off rooms and wide bay-windows that looked down at the street a story below. Waiters walked in every few minutes, depositing more food and carrying away plates and used utensils.

"More than that, really. Of the seven, the elven guard has perhaps the most real power, since our race is strongly attuned to magic and a lot of businesses have elven magicians. We also own a few commercial enterprises across the city."

"Economic control over the base population. You can rig the system by lowering taxes on your own goods and increasing it on that of others," Al said.

Violet blinked, then had the dignity to blush. "W-well, it's not that simple."

Al waved her comments away. "It's alright. My mother would take one look at your system and figure out how to set it up so that she could rule within the week. We grew up in that sort of environment." He reached out and added a few eggs to his plate. On the other end of the long table, Mara was stuffing her face while Zips and Edwin had a long-winded conversation about the morals of her trying to rule the world.

The guard captain, Primm, had refused to eat, and was standing with some of his men near the entrance to the room, vetting the waiters as they passed.

Al found it a pain to eat with his hood up, but he could manage. "What are the other six representative races?"

"Elves, of course. Gnomes, Dwarves and Goblins are all closely allied. Orcs and the beastkin share links as well. And finally you have the fay. The last don't really care much for politics, though they can sometimes be a swing vote."

"Fay. I don't think we've encountered any of them yet," Al commented. Meanwhile, he wondered how many sub-races the beastkin had, and how badly they were represented.

"You won't. Not in the city. Not unless there's a ball, or you visit the guild halls." Violet daintily ate a piece of bread. "They don't like the bustle of cities, but they stay close around the edges to profit from the goods made here."

He nodded. Fair enough.

A few minutes later they were finishing up. Mara stuffed loaves of bread down her pants and filled her mouth with bacon while Zips tried to emulate Violet's example and clean herself off. Her dirty clothes didn't help. "We need clothes," Al said his thought aloud.

Violet looked him up and down, then did the same for Zips. "I suppose that you do."

"We have some currency," he said, pulling out one of the purses. He fingered through it and pulled out a handful of coins. Dozens of bronze chips, silver coins, and a few gold pieces. "But I'm not sure how your money works."

Violet seemed taken aback. "You understand the rudimentaries of politics, but not money?"

"We use representational currency, where we're from," he explained. "This gold stuff is new to me."