Story:The Merespem Civil Militia Division

1. A Model Officer

Came out from Shym station heading south, I'm a few minutes late as they've been doing construction on so much of the center city since the war ended that getting a train on time is a miracle, I was lucky enough to not be affected too much personally, I was on a work trip in Agreement for much of the battle, doesn't mean the city isn't affected, every other surviving wall is riddled with impact craters or stains, the oldest town in the country reduced mostly to a bunch of rubble and corpses, when i returned it was like seeing an old friend bleeding out in the street, I can only imagine how terrible it must've been for people that have lived here for a lifetime. My apartment is a new build, a part of the Teren housing reforms for all the people that lost livelihoods in the war, its nice, maybe too nice, the concrete exterior really does not do it justice, compared to the ancient hovels of the old town at-least, people will still complain about it though, as if it was their right to live in a rundown building that should have been converted to a museum a century ago. On the walk up to my flat i have to pass a group of youngsters, probably just got out of school, they are listening to Mrael tapes on an old portable tape system, older than me even, there is tape keeping the battery compartment in place and the speaker sounds as if it was dropped down stairs for half a decade, this does not seem to bother the young men. The one closest to the system asks me for a cigarettes as I pass by, I have to root around my mess of a bag but i eventually find my pack and give him the last one, "its your lucky day, friend" i say as i give it to him, he responds with a simple "Uchek Kekiril" and our interaction ends. The elevator in our building stopped working last Yenso and the mechanic keeps getting into fights with the local Sumaasyl about payment so its been in this limbo of no progress getting done for like half the Uewen at this point, I don't mind the stairs since I only live on the fourth floor, which itself is only about halfway up the building, when the elevator first broke my elderly neighbor chose to look at the uranium lining and be happy about the extra exercise he'd be getting, my job is active enough to make it a slog after work but I'm sure if you are an office worker it could be beneficial. The stairway itself is clean bar a couple bits of graffiti, likely added by the teenagers downstairs. I eventually make it to my apartment at the end of the hall, my neighbor is complaining about Einru to his wife, who is notably not interested in politics as I open my door, he is a good man but has this problem where he believes his teenage years in the late Ywylin period were the greatest time to be alive, he was a royal executor during the revolution and loves to tell me war stories despite the fact he spent most of the time in Tinlea doing paperwork for the dead. I specifically have avoided telling him about my job cause I do not need a lecture from a living relic.

By the time i finish fumbling for my keys and enter my living room the two have moved onto talking about the Deysachini immigrant who lives in the floor below us, he spends a lot of time in the common areas so the old people know him quite well. One of the nicer things about these new apartments is the heating is much better, back when I lived in the Kelna old district I had to buy a new fan every few lerpoks. I unpack my work bag and start cooking my dinner; the cheapest brenya meat i could get at the butchers, it wasn't even labelled what cut it was, as a side I'm going to eat leftover soup from last nights dinner, since I don't feel like cooking anything else. I'm about halfway through cooking this mysterious brenya steak when I start to regret not spending a few more Đ on something even a little nice, its practically falling apart in the pan, the garlic seasoning seems to cut through it, by the time I'm done it looks like a puddle of stepped on meat. The taste isn't much better, the seasoning isn't enough to mask the fact that my poor cooking combined with an even poorer meat quality is not a recipe for success. As I'm going for my second bite, watching Neri fishing reruns on Television, my telephone rings, its in the kitchen so I get up, "Awit srekyen hore?" its work, something urgent enough to call me in at 9:45 after I had already gotten home, apparently something terrible has happened and they are waiting for me to get to the precinct before fully elaborating, so I put on my uniform coat, grab my bag and leave with the television still on. As I'm rushing to leave the building I trip going down the stairs, luckily covering most of my head with my elbow, leaving a mark that I'm choosing to ignore for the time being. As i reach the entrance of the walk-up the teenagers and I exchange greetings again, id love to stay and chat to some delinquents but I have places to be.

On the walk down to Shym station an incredibly drunk man leaving a bar thanks me for my service, I dont respond. He continues yelling at me until I'm out of earshot, at Shym station again and because of the construction I now have to wait a few extra minutes before my wonderful steel chariot arrives, i buy a cheap packaged coffee drink from the vending machine without inspecting the bottle too much, I dont realize its Mersyeyn brew till i take a sip and almost throw up on the platform, the only other person at the station just stares at me while this happens, he approaches and asks me whats wrong as if he wasnt looking at me the whole time, I explain how much i hate the taste of mersyeyn, our conversation ends with me giving him the drink and deciding ill find some real coffee at work. The train pulls into the station, its one of the new Syarb series, incredibly similar to the Syacan series except the seats are a different color and they sometimes have wraps showcasing various aspects of Utlian culture, the pulling in now is undercoated. The seat color is actually a quite nice change, i never liked the brown seats and think teal fits Unlaunen a lot better. I do not take a seat because the precinct is only a few stops away, i notice they've changed the posters on the train, theres now one showcasing Kalami-Utlian solidarity and a bunch about how great the House of Light is, its funny remembering the old ones that said the same shit about Akaria and Akuta, atleast the kalami have good food, I always hated when someone would suggest eating at some Akarian resturant and id have to look at the putrid colored walls they seem obsessed with, not only that, then id have to eat food that seems to be more of a punishment than a culinary innovation. Kalami food on the other hand is as good as Utlian food id say, they have some real geniuses working over there, id love to visit one day, see the beaches, would be nice to generally get out of the snow for once, its been a brutal Uyrin and some sun might fix all my problems. In-between the political propaganda posters is an ad for the new album from Hens Ureok, i dislike all the keym stuff and shes the worst of it, id take a thousand bum teenagers listening to Mrael over it anyday, I miss the day they showed ads for that stuff, it was only a few years but it was the best time for music in this country. After enough judging the train pulls into Uebha station, its noticeably older than a lot of the other stations in Merespem district, being close to the center city means they get renovated every decade or so but Uebha has been the same since 20 PC, I mean the bulletin board has a ratty piece of paper praising the democratization under Hia El, its practically like walking into the past. Uebha is also the only non-elevated station in central Unlaunen, which I appreciate since it means less stairs to walk up, whoever decided to build this city on a billion hills deserves to be tortured eternally.

I walk out onto Ereneop street and make my way to work, Unlaunen Militia Merespem Division, ranked 4th best station in Unlaunen during the audits last year. Number 2 if you exclude all the fake militia divisions in places that nobody lives in, no other city in this country would give a whole precinct to a place with 100 people but i guess they do things different here in Azznin. The precinct building is wonderful, I'm biased of course but ill always love its grand architecture, you can tell it used to be the city hall prior to the annexation of Merespem into Unlaunen proper, has a very rural vibe for a place so densely populated. Before i head to debrief whatever this horrible situation is, I go to the break room, it has a little kitchenette but nobody ever uses it since everybody would rather make meals at home, I open the shared fridge and luckily someone has left some coffee out, its labelled as being Ureste's so i dont feel bad about taking it and drinking it, i need it more than his lazy ass anyway, he sits at his desk and acts like being in the social work division is the most mentally taxing thing ever. On the way to my desk i run into Neseyret, she gives me the rundown on the situation at hand, 3 dead in a robbery gone wrong in north Merespem, I was called in cause the robbed business was Casean and I'm the only homicide detective in the militia division who can understand Caseic. At my desk i grab my gun, a Hyren Nebek, I was luckily enough to be approved a gun transfer as well when I moved from Orena to here, everybody here uses shoddy Utrey pistols, i gladly paid the fee to get our little emblem stamped on my Nebek so i could continue using it down here, the Merespem emblem is interesting, atleast comparded to the boring shield of Rebyuna, it has a marmot of some kind and hes wearing an Unlaunen civil militia jacket, its whimsical in a way more precincts should be, I'm lucky enough to work at one that isn't always serious, except for Ureste but i cant help how much he sucks, he was transferred here a couple lerpoks after me and is very prideful about being from the most dangerous district in Balmor, to me he just comes off as an idiot with a gun. The rest of my coworkers are fun to be around but he ruins almost any work event for me.

I grab a blank case file from my drawer and get to the garage, I dont own a car personally cause they are expensive and just lead to more trouble than its worth, I still have to have all the valid credentials and pass the tests because of work, our vehicles are as old as the station itself, I dont mind but in the colder months it can be uncomfortable driving without proper heating, our vehicles are assigned to us personally and mine is among the oldest models, meaning its less safe but also looks a lot better, i dont think a militia car should prioritize safety, they should be about getting places as fast as possible to respond to immediate threats, this opinion is not shared by the council since that one militiaman skewered himself a few years ago. One idiot has to ruin it for everybody. I turn the car on and start driving, the precinct is in central Merespem and this crime has happened in north Merespem, which is the wealthier part of town, atleast wealthier compared to the part I live in. The tapedeck in my service vehicle is broken so i have to listen to the radio, lots of orchestral Keral performances and Arke for me at work, its like a punishment, luckily the drive isn't too long and i make it to the scene before they start with the Ideokeo night showcase. There is already another 3 militiamen at the scene, only patrolmen though, no other detective to help me here. One of the patrolmen is a good friend of mine, Sm. Lyremen Utek, he has declined 3 promotions since i got transferred and is a terrible patrolman, geniunely abysmal at his job, they only try to promote him so they can get him out of the field and behind a desk, hes a good man though, they had him assigned as my trainerwhen i first got here, one of the first things he told me is that his favorite part of the job is getting to drive around the district and getting discounted meals from local restaurants. He debriefs me on the situation, barely anything is known because the owner only speaks a little Utyis, this part of Merespem is overwhelmingly Caseic so its not that uncommon, what is known is that there are 2 dead customers and 1 dead workers inside, i play rank to avoid talking to the other patrolmen and enter the building, its a fairly standard shop on the first floor of a rowhome, entirely normal for the country, on the salesfloor is the owner, visibly in a lot of distress, I struggle with these situations and I'm sure the three idiots talking about the best cut of grylbo meat outside isn't helping with his stress. I conduct a uniform interview with the man, he tells me that at 8:30 pm, two men wearing masks entered the store and demanded money, the teller was the owners son and speaks only a little more Utyis than his father, one of the robbers went around the store and tried to rob the customers of the store, leading to the other two corpses in the store, i walk outside and ask the patrolmen if they've gotten any forensics out here, they have not so i have to use the store phone and get the weird fellas out here, the rest of the precinct dont like them much cause they are frankly quite weird but they are fun to drink some eiyye with at work events. I continue with my interview and at this point the shop owner is outside and has calmed down a bit, being away from the corpses is probably helpful in that sense. He tells me that he has a camera set up on the outside of his store, i request to view the footage and he takes me to the back room, the camera and its system are old, practically taking up half a room in this relatively small building, the men are unidentifiable from a combination of bad quality and face coverings, something does stick out to me though.

One of the men has a tattoo on his hand with the symbol of a local gang, loosely associated with Lwyin-hermaed, this gives me a headache cause i really do not want to deal with that group, even beyond the criminal portion they are just smug and annoying, I thank the owner and leave the store, the patrolmen outside ask me for the story and i reluctantly tell them that its a lwyin-hermaed job, they seem unreasonably excited about it, a lot of patrolmen have this mindset that doing gang work, and specifically lwyin-hermaed jobs are the peak of militia work, its a kind of "shootouts are how i can earn my place in the deep!" ideology. I hate this mindset as someone who just likes to do his job and doesnt care about the violent aspect, which is humorous for a homicide detective, but you have to remember that usually I get to the scene long after the violence has concluded. I finish my case report in the car and leave the scene. On the way back to the station I feel that craving for a cigarettes, its part of my ritual to have one after every case i report on, so i stop at a convenience store on sebreka road, the same way I stop at almost every other day since its so close to the station, the man who works night shift has learned who i am and when i enter the family mart he likes to yell out like an old friend "ARYET MY FRIEND!" I quite like him, I havent learned his name but he knows the exact kind of cig I like and has started giving me a discount, the store itself has lackluster snack variety and is kind of decaying on the inside, its in a rough shape but its like how people dedicate themselves to a specific shrine, ive dedicated myself to this rundown shop. Hopefully it makes up for the fact I havent been to a shrine in a decade, if Azzta is watching he must be quite dissapointed in me, I get my usual, a pack of neresen cigs and a bag of salt and vinegar eyren, which is my favorite flavor of the chip, neresen are my favorite cig as well but since all cigs are owned by the province, all the brand name parts of it and packaging is just smoke and mirrors, all that money still goes to the same place, they just like to make it look like there's more variety than there is, i get into a conversation with my cashier friend as he checks me out "eventful day at work today friend?" "oh yeah, quite eventful, had to get called in on a special case tonight" our conversation drifts into politics and I feel like I learn quite a bit about the average Utlian ideology "yeah I like the Einru president, that Teren is strong, hes like Yyme, I dont like all this new House of Light stuff I'm in honest, I was fine with the Casean immigrants they make sense but all these Deysachini and their little exclaves in town are are just annoying, hopefully those Einru fellas get the sense to realize its Utlia first and Utlia only" I disagree but I'm not going to get into a fight with my newish friend so I just agree and leave the store. I'm driving back to the station when the Ideokeo showcase hour starts, I'm not supposed to smoke in my service vehicle but I dont care, helps me keep my mind off how terrible this music is when you arent a 20 year old from Orena.

Parking at the station I run into Ureste, also getting back from a different incident in north Mersepem, I try to avoid him but like the leech he is he latches onto me and accompanies me for my walk inside "Yeah it was a rough case man, wife is an ardey and husband is a recent mirroi devout, i didn't even know you could convert to mirroi, anyway they are getting in this big fight and he throws a tome at her, like not a normal book, you know the kind of Mirroi book I'm talking about, shes got this huge gash on her forehead, I was first on the scene so I had to defuse, luckily their neighbor called before it got too bad, howd your case go? hopefully nothing too taxing" I reluctantly explain the triple gang murder I just got back from "oh man I hope you're feeling alright, that stuff can ruin your day and Lwyin-Hermaed is nothing to scoff at either, good thing you have that special service weapon right, OH hey just letting we are decorating for Herk Bell Fest next week and it would be a great help if you'd wanna help me and Nersey put up the festivities." By Azzta this man never shuts up, I'm going to help purely because I like Nersey, though i have no idea why shes friends with Ureste, the whole station seems to like him more than I think I could muster and they are mostly sane Utlians. Before heading back to my desk I submit a copy of the case report to the organizational department, we had to get a new copier last lerpok and I had to get used to the controls, I'm still not very good as it as i accidentally press the Mepa button and print close to a dozen copies of my report. The lady who works in organizing doesnt like me, shes a new hire who seems to think I'm cursed or something, she does the most to avoid me at all costs, I think I may have told her I dont go to the shrine twice a week or eat mor-crab during festivals or something, shes the kind of Azztanist that has issues with that stuff. Despite all this she runs the organizational department quite well, before she got here we had a guy with no idea how the Braia organization system worked so he tried to get us to swap to a color system where each case type had a color associated, everyone told him it was stupid and eventually he just stopped coming to work, he said he was going to the east ocean for something and then just never came back.

As I'm leaving the station i run into Ureste again "oh hey you live by Shym station right, mind if i tag-along? I'm only one station before you we could talk about work and life and whatever" I agree as to not come off as rude. We begin the walk to Uebha station together and he starts the conversation "So did you hear about forensics and corpses?" "No what happened?" "They got hit with a heavy fine last audit for improper storage of morgue corpses, something about the temperature of the bodies was wrong, the bigger part of it was that they were mistagging cause of death from autopsies, I heard a few of the patrolmen say that with these new civil militia regulations their department head is probably getting detained soon, i personally hope they send him to LS1S, his whole department is full of freaks, I wish theyd keep that stuff in a seperate building so we could interact with them less" Ive never heard this man be negative about something like this so i cant help but laugh a little bit in response "Haha yeah those guys are a little weird, they have like their own accent you know." "i never thought about it like that but yeah they do talk like theyve been isolated in their morgue basment since Swyl was in power." For the first time in the two ueuwen since ive worked here i feel good talking to Ureste, maybe i just had to see a few dead Caseans to make his prescense feel like comfort. Our conversation about the lads in autopsy continues until we reach Uebha station and run into two incredibly well dressed men, clearly of wealth, they look at us with a kind of disgust I didn't know was possible, Ureste notices this and intentionally bothers the men "oh hello sir nobles we just got done keeping the city safe for people like you! you should thank us!" At first the men try to ignore him but after I laugh one of the noblemen turns to us quickly and snaps while his buddy tries to pull him back "You and the civil militia has done nothing good, Yyme Braia was a failed experiment this country needs to return to the democratic state of justice, the death of Swyl Shote was the worst thing to happen to this country since the revolution, you and your entire division should feel ashamed, if our family still had the military you would be executed" at this point Ureste is practically hysterical and I'm not far behind, the men trying to play rank and mention their blood like being a Shote is some kind of birthright that lets you command respect

Ureste and I eventually get tired fighting with the nobles after the train arrives, they purposefully board a different car to avoid us anyway, we spend the ride to his station laughing about politics and I find we actually share a lot of opinions about the state of the noble families in this country, its like Unlaunen is one of the last places they get proper respect so they tend to flock here. At his station I bid him farewell and go back to looking at the train, the one that picked us up has newspaper displays in every car, a photo of President Terent giving a speech in Tinlea is the big story, he said some stuff about Einru ideology and world progression into a new age, stuff that people like I guess, other stories include "man in Serees district caught with 32 churgs in illegal breeding operation" "new tsunami protection and alert system meant to minimize causalities in natural disasters officially begins testing in Unlaunen-Ut" that ones good for the people closer to the west but Merespem is in northeast Unlaunen, tsunamis arent as big a problem up here. Eventually i hear the wonderful "next stop is Shym station" and get up, the walk from station to home is quieter than usually, its the middle of the night so i it makes sense, doesn't help but make it feel lonely, even the bar i passed on the way is pretty much dead, just one dude sipping eiyye in there now, my apartment building sticks out like a sore thumb, its the only big block renewal one they build in this part of Merespem so inbetween the gabled rowhomes its like a monolith to Einru. The walkup is empty and the air is cold, no Mrael playing, just the hum of lightbulbs and the faint whispers of life happening beyond the wall. On the third floor I do run into one of the teenagers from earlier and he greets me with a "CIGARETTE MAN! THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE!" as i walk by, i talk to him for a moment, complimenting his taste in music before heading up to my room, my neighbor is outside his room and hes reading some book about Akarian history and as he spies me, his smile quickly turns to a frown as he spies my uniform "Oh i didnt know you were one of them, a shame isn't it mate, i figured you were smarter than that, no hard feelings though" he says, clearly meaning hard feelings, I'm too tired to fight with him about it so i just get into my apartment, unpack from work, i didnt forget to bring my gun home today, its a habit i picked up back in Orena, since there we werent allowed to bring weapons home, here its encouraged, ill never understand the tiny differences between precincts, even between individual districts its like whole other cultures. The tv is playing some tv-film adaptation of the third Adventures of Nyis book, I always liked that one so I eat my eyren while watching it, my puddle steak from earlier still sitting on the table, i decide ill deal with it in the morning, the bedrooms in this building are one of the few negatives of living in these new build blocks, the closet is too small and the bed is too low to the ground, something about traditional Utlian living in a modern shell, I just want to be comfortable tradition doesnt mean much to me in this case. Just before I get into bed i receive a call, i sluggishly make my way back to the living are and answer "Awit srekyen hore?" its the morgue, they got the bodies registered back at the station, cause of death is gunshot, which i could've told you. I return to my bed and after a slight struggle with it, fall asleep.

2. List of Lists

Its my day off now, my head hurts so i decide to head to the shops as a start to the morning. I need other things and its been some time since Ive been in central Unlaunen anyway so I get ready, my bathroom light flickers a little as I turn it on, its the dirtiest room in the apartment. There was a time in Orena where me and Junior Orbit Detective M. Sweyen got called to a run-down warehouse in our district of Kerkesetko, the caller was frantic, explained that they saw someone dragged into the warehouse and assumed it was a kidnapping or some other violent act waiting to happen, the precinct was short-staffed so the Investigatory department was called in to deal with it, we rush into the patrol car, drive through the streets of industrial decay from when Kerkesetko had coal and a reason to exist, make our way to the warehouse and unbeknownst to me or JOD Sweyen, we were on the border between Kerkesetko and Seberyeie, so the Active Response from Seberyeie's division also got called in, they arrive shortly after us, the lights in this warehouse barely work and flicker constantly, making it near impossible to see without a personal source of light, so these response guys walk into the pitch black, the light flickers for a second and they just see the outline of someone with a gun facing them and they fire haphazardly at the figure, killing the detective I was supposed to be training nearly instantly, I immediately began yelling back at them, mostly expletives and accusations of murder, we get into a huge argument and have to call both stations to log the incident, I know they had to fill out the mountain of paperwork that I did too because I know that the officer who shot her defended himself by saying that the different uniforms led them to believe we were gang affiliated, that officer would become the Dyelt Officer of Seberyeie within the next year, both precincts swept the incident under the rug and no consequences were ever dealt and Kerkestko would continue to be an industrial rathole. It was the main reason I chose to transfer to Unlaunen after doing pretty much my entire career in Orena, though on the official report I stated a desire to get some fresh air away from the dense city. I later found out that the incident that we were called to investigate was some music video being filmed.

Since then I haven't been too fond of flickering lights or Active Response teams, if you put me in charge that entire department would stop existing, promoting a patrolmen to Active Response just gives him a sense of power and a heightened stupidity in everyday interactions. I finish getting ready and put on my second best jacket, my first best jacket is my work uniform and I shouldn't be wearing that off duty. The building is lively today, the elderly people on my floor are coagulated in a corner by the window at the end of the hall, complaining about the teenage delinquents that have recently moved in. In the stairwell itself I run into one of those delinquents "Uchek cigg man happy Aracetnaara, its a beautiful start to the season" as infectious as his smile is, I had completely forgot today was the start of Aracet, its been such a cold Yenso I never thought it would end. The degenerate, who Ive now learned is named Netet has a cyals ball under his arm "yeah me and a few of the mates set up a cien in the courtyard, hopefully management dont yell at us for it" his smirking tells me otherwise. Its bright and the walk to Shym station is fairly crowded, in the late 40s PC the stretch of Haryk street between my apartment and the station went through a bit of urban renewalm mostly just the local sumaasyl voting to let city planners go wild with the shops and restaurants, this place used to be a fairly quiet part of Merespem, the oldest stuff was build prior to annexation into Unlaunen so its distinctly Merespem, the new stuff inhabiting these old buildings isn't bad, its a nice atmosphere but Azzta forgive me these people are annoying, all the restaurants that moved in seem to cater to the worst type of Tinlea faux-elite, the type of Utlian who thanks you for your service while asking you to kindly leave them alone, they want the civil militia to be strong but they never want to see proof of a working militia division. All the boutique stores that opened are also full of these peoples, shoppes that cater to them with promises of exotic trinkets from far-away islands to make you seem more worldly, a few of these stores got driven away when Einru built the concrete apartment block and brought in people like me and Netet, which I appreciated greatly. The biggest problem though is Shym station stays crowded constantly, northern district idiots in costume as tinlea elites rushing to eat Okriti food cooked by a Casean and act like they have reached the peak of knowledge about the archipelago. I grab a coffee from the vending machine in the station concourse, the platform is crowded as expected, luckily no construction delays for the morning though, the train arrives just after i reach my platform. The seats are all taken so I'm forced to stand for the duration of the ride, I'm heading to the wonderfully modern district of Awelat, in north-eastern Unlaunen, it was build to be a big shopping district modeled after all the ones in Rebyuna and greater Orena, something that has been mostly unique to Orena, and moderately successful here, I never cared for the culture of it but they are incredibly convenient for errands. I get off at Meyyet station and am immediately hit with the grandeur of it, the large pedestrianized area, flyers and banners everywhere, advertisements pasted on every surface, alluring lights on every building, dense alleyways, in Orena i hated how over-the-top it all was but being here now I cant help but feel nostalgia for my home.

My first stop on the list of errands is the medicinal store, there's one in the closest row of shops to the station so I walk past a crowd of people and enter the store, its brighter than any building I have been in all Yenso, because of how medicinal business operate, you have to speak to a clerk and tell him your symptoms before receiving anything helpful, this would be fine if they didn't exclusively hire the meanest people in the city, the clerk today looks especially rude as i approach him, he has sunken eyes and the kind of face that screams 1st Firebomb lyet kill-count leader. "uh hi I have been having headaches-" before I can finish speaking he wordlessly walks into the back of the building and grabs a vial of liquid from a shelf, brings it back to the counter, sighs and says "3 dolare" Before Ive even finished paying hes gone back to looking at a newspaper. Next stop is the supermarket, which is just across the main pedestrian square, sandwiched between a luxury liarn/coat store and a place that sells shoes. The square itself is quite the beautiful place, there's a large statue of some Utyr i cant name in the middle of it. The supermarket feels larger than it is, the actual aisles are quite cramped but the store feels wide for this shopping center.

I need bread, a harausyyaro, some myloe fruit and carp, much like with cigs everything is branded as if its owned by some separate company despite all being owned by the Bureau of Agriculture and its food board, the different branding is supposed to help you differentiate between different types of a single product that may be sold, like the difference between a brenya steak with bone vs one without bone, my rebuttal to this is that i could just read the words on the package because I'm not illiterate. I'm in the bakery section looking at pastries trying to see if they have eibto left when I hear a familiar voice "Aryet? Is that you!?" Letsek Hens is not just any member of the Unlaunen-Ut Sumaasyl, but the presiding speaker of it, we went to school together, all of primary school and then the first year of secondary school before I transferred to the junior officer program in Kelna, I haven't spoken to this man since i was fifteen years of age. "Uchek Letsek, hope all is well for you these days" "Cant believe I ran into you here, I mean its been about thirteen years since we last saw each-other, forget how I'm doing how is another third of the Rebyuna buffoons bureau doing" the RBB was our circle of close friends, we used to skip school and steal bottles of alcohol from the trash receptacles in central Rebyuna, trying to find some bottles that weren't entirely empty of liquid. he continues "So did you ever graduate that program? I feel like I heard something about you working in Kerkestko, I would have already been down here by the time you got back to Orena though" At this point the two of us are fully blocking the pastry section of this supermarket "Yeah I graduated, did my job training, moved back to Orena, decided against working in my home district cause I'm an idiot who makes bad decisions, got hired up north, transferred here about 2 PC ago." "Oh man I'm sure you saw the news, I'm presiding speaker and now that its Aracet, I'm about to officially announce my run for Masevi of Unlaunen, ha-ha don't tell anybody yet though" I completely forgot its municipal election season, I once watched this man steal Eiyye from a sleeping homeless man and now hes about to attempt to run for the highest position of power in the city. "So Aryet, do you remember Syeren, she moved to Rebyuna near the end of primary school and went to our secondary school, she used to hangout with us near the tail end of the RBBs existence, you were less active in the group since you spent all the time studying for the Militia Program but shes actually the reason I moved here, we got married after graduating, we would love to have you over for dinner later this lerpok!" This information should not make me feel the way it does, I never liked Syeren I found her an annoyance who constantly complained about us having fun, but I still feel a sense of dread. I try to ignore it and respond to him "I would greatly appreciate that, I work most days but I can always come in after work if need be, I live out in that new block apartment in Merespem, if you ever need to find me personally" "That sounds like a plan, ill be in contact, until then ill let you get on with your day, old friend" he writes his address down on a piece of branded stationary and leaves me with a "Thank you for your service detective Saaryu!" I grab the last harausyyaro and move on to the adjacent bread section of the bakery, most supermarkets in Utlia are 1 third packaged food, 1 third fresh fish and 1 third bakery, this one is half bakery, theres so much bread to choose from, I pick the same one I grab every time, Kelna-Dyeltuen, its a sourdough type and its the only bread I buy for myself. By the time i make my way to the fruit section of the store all the Myloe is gone, if I had known it was the start of Aracet prior to waking up this morning I could've predicted this, Herk Bell fest is in a week and people need myloe for ceremonies, I just wanted some for eating though. Last thing on the list is carp, lucky for me this is never out of stock, usually I'm the only one who eats carp, everyone views it as gross and dirty but I love to thoughtfully grill and season a carp, its the perfect dinner in my opinion; as expected there is a full stock of carp at the fish desk, I get two uncut carp, its actually less expensive than getting any cuts cause you have to prepare the whole thing yourself, which I enjoy doing myself, its a kind of tedious process that I believe gives you a greater appreciation for the meal, you learn to really understand the fish's inner workings and the patience makes the dish itself taste better. As I'm leaving the supermarket I get hit with the realization that now I have to carry a bunch of fish and groceries around the next shops I visit, its too late now so might as well make it work but I cant help but feel judged for my bags.

Next stop is in a place called lightning-alley, the second alley down the main covered pedestrian street coming off of the Meyyet square, it is littered with Keym album and concert advertisements, people passing out fliers, clubs, general electric goods stores and what I'm here for, tapes, there is a tape seller around the midpoint of the alley so I have to pass by the people who get paid to harass others, for a second the thought crosses my mind that I should flash my badge at them but that just feels rude, not like I'm doing my job, I'm carrying bags of fish right now I'm obviously off duty. I do my best to ignore the promoters as I snake my way through the crowd, luckily the music store is fairly empty, I'm looking for 10-30 TT Era Kepet, that when the genre peaked in my opinion, not commercially sadly, it never caught on and by 6 PC most of the bands had dried up, Kepet itself had a bit of a revival from 27 to 31 PC before those Balmor Yetkeo freaks killed it in its cradle, I have nothing against Nerota, I mean I do but I still enjoy it, it gets compared to Kepet a lot but they are incredibly different, people just see counter-cultural genres and feel the need to lump them together, Kepet was founded on violently abrasive instrumentation with pockets of melodic bliss, a sense of folklore and mystique behind every release, vocals that range from sounding like someone being murdered in Bal Forest to guy sounding like hes about to murder someone in Bal Forest. Dont get me wrong I like quite a bit of Nerota like Archek! and Slab-Head but I just find comparison with Kepet to be ignorant on all levels. Anyway like i said, store is empty except for maybe three or four patrons and the single worker, currently reading an old Paze issue. The store is large, the biggest tape dealer Ive seen in the entire city, its magnificent, two of the other patrons are crowding around the considerably large Arke section, one person is perusing non-tape memorabilia and the last is in front of a display, the sign is an unreadable font but I know the second I see the Hogmelter debut album its the Kepet section, some young woman is perusing so I politely wait for her to finish besides the rack, of course she notices me "Oh are you a Kepet fan? Dont meet many of them, especially this far south, this store has the best selection in Unlaunen though" shes smiling at me in a way that suggests no ill will "Yeah I picked up an appreciation up in Kelna, knew a guy who was obsessed with the atmospheric folklore bits, I mostly just liked the music though, never got too into the culture beyond a few local gigs, how do you know this is the best shop in Unlaunen though, do you have any idea how many tape dealers there are in this city" I'm trying to come off kind of saracastic but inquistive but I think my tone of voice makes it seem more like coming off as rude and a Nremsy. She seems to take it well though in her response "Well ive been to almost all of them for promotional concerts, hopefully thats changing soon though" Azzta I apoligize for being a dickhead, "Oh are you a Kepet keralist, ohh wait actually you strike me as a low-lerouwa player, maybe even a percussionist they surprise you sometimes" she responds confused "Did you not see the fliers outside?" "No I ignored that guy" "Oh well I'm an indepdendent Keym, I'm playing what I think is my last show without a label here in about an hour, I have a meeting tommorow with Uchek records, going straight to the best roster if they accept me, what about you, are you a musician carp-man?" "Oh not anymore, I used to play in a Kepet band during my time in Kelna but I was only in the academy for 2 years, joys of specialized education means you get to shave a year off your expected finishing year, we were really small only played shows at rowhomes and community centers really, I was our electric keralist and I was terrible, kept the instrument through all my moves though" She has shifted her full attention from the tapes to our conversation by now, its nice to speak to someone whos not musically ignorant "The academy? which university did you go to up in Kelna?" oh boy "uhhh no, was the junior program at the Civil Militia academy, graduated and am now a detective over in Merespem, sorry to dissapoint, my job isn't very glamorous compared to yours" she seems geniunely quite supportive of the civil militia, rare for Unlaunen, where the half people just want the royal military police back and the other half are actual gang members "Well thats far more important than singing songs, if youd like to see me play I can put you on the guest list, its just down Meyyet at the Idemyet club." I dont like her genre of music but if I wasnt busy id probably watch just to support a fellow Ketpilit, I explain my errand situation to her and she seems a little dissapointed "Oh well we can just exchange information" she pulls out a piece of paper from her bag "write your district address and telephone number on this ill keep you in the know for my concerts" I dont really want to be called more but why not, I give her the completed information slip and she begins to walk away before turning back to me "One last thing, I noticed your Nerukfeyro jacket, that venue was incredible, sucks they had to tear it down for that university expansion" Neruk-Feyro was a music and art venue in the Rebyuna district of Orena that me and my friends in the RBB would frequent, we were familiar with the owner and before it shut down we got a bunch of merchandise related to the place, I was lucky enough to get the only jacket they had left, I was told they only ever made about 5 of them cause the cost of the "high-quality" material was too expensive.

I leave the store without buying anything, blaming this on the nice interaction I had, leaving the alley the mid-day chime plays, the walk out of the alley is uneventful but I have one more stop, not on Meyyet street though I have to head back to Shym station, so that is what I do, at this point in the day the crowds are at their peak and I would want to head home first anyway to put this food up before heading out for my last stop. On the train out of Meyyet I do not get a seat again and a child stares at me the entire time, at first i thought he was looking at the carp in the bag but after a minute I realized hes just making straight eye contact, he looked too old to get away with that if you ask me. The ride and my subsequent walk home are fairly boring, part of why I love these days off is I can see my apartment in its sunbasked glory, usually i work from sun up to sun down so the only times I get to see the light reflect the floral tile in my kitchen and hit the entire living area with a beautiful glow is on these days off, of which i only get two per lerpok, union standard is three days off per lerpok but the civil militia is a government institution and therefore under the COUR Azznin union, which sounds nice until you realize it just means every choice, descision, policy change and leadership statement has to appeal to the entire government of Azznin, so nothing gets down, hopefully Einru can gut some of this bureacrocy soon, maybe ill write a letter to that Heyel guy, he likes to give interviews and respond to the people, he might listen to me. After putting the groceries up I make my way to the common area of the apartment building, I almost never come in here cause its usually just the old people talking about the young people and the immigrants who find our low-grade recreational activities novel, and today is no different, my neighbor is sitting on a bench reading a Doreonya novel titled "La Rossan Women and their exotic methods" in plain view of the entire room, he gives me a look before going back to his, I assume highly engrossing story. There is that one Desyachini immigrant in the room today, marvelling at the food options at the little snack cafeteria. The walls are this weird light greenish wallpaper that is nowhere else in the building as far as I'm aware, I dont even know if the other blocks have it or if our management is just uniquely stupid, atleast its not peeling the bathroom wallpaper, I cant prove it but I would bet my place in The Deep that someone is urinating on the walls in the bathroom and ruining them in the process.

This time when I leave my apartment block I turn right further down east Haryk street instead of right towards Shym station, further down here is one of my favorite parts in Merespem, a generally quiet residential area with few supermarkets and essential shops, that is if you ignore the three story hobby shop in the middle of it, I am not a man with many hobbies, mostly because I cant due to my working all day. The store itself is massive, they advertise themselves as the largest hobby shop in Azznin but I'm fairly sure its true but I dont know how you would even quantifiy that measurement. The store interior is fairly cozy, its cramped but in a homely way, it kind of look like it used to be offices, it has that unique Utlian office carpet-tiling for flooring you dont see elsewhere, upon entering theres a helpful noticeboard of where items are, the first floor has gardening and other stuff that would be painful to carry down stairs, like anvils. The third floor has Doreonya novels and games, I got my copy of Sailors and Storms that I have still yet to play from there, I also think theyve started selling radios up there, lots of misc/more niche hobbies get up there. My destination is on the second floor, though I would love to get into gardening, dont really have space but maybe i can ask Netet if he wants to setup a communal garden and pretend building management allowed us to. On the second floor is where the model kits are, my personal moneysink, I started building them after moving back to Orena since Nimberely district pretty much invented it and my cousin who lived there would always bring me them as gifts growing up. There used to be a real rundown shop in Kerkesetko that I'm fairly sure was only stocking kits so I wouldnt figure out they were some kind of front. This specific visit I have nothing in mind, I walk around for a bit and eventually decide on a UT1b-Rurl scout tank. I have most of the scount tank series built already and this is one of the last few I need to complete it. The man at the counter is probably about a decade older than me, long brown hair and a beard, hes working on a model UT-85 as I approach. As he checks me out he lets me know of some of the new sets coming in next season, things like "Syetin Ur-A" and "Liamia Class Destroyer" kits, sounds interesting but I dont know if id be into building boats, I never cared for the water much, always found fishing more fun in concept. On the way out of the shop a patrolcar blaring the siren rushes down Haryk street, I recognize it as Sm. Byyei's, he left a nasty dent in the bumper after failing to park in the garage on the first day of having his new parking spot, its not bad enough to require maintenence so they just keep it busted.

Back at the apartment I postpone building the new model and instead choose to do case research, I still only have that hand tattoo as a guiding piece of information, luckily its quite good information, a symbol of the Oueien-Overduct, a street gang associated with Lwyin-Hermaed. They tend to be the guys Hermaed sends to do low level dirty jobs like robbery or murder or intimidation, things the real organized criminals dont want to be associated with. We have a mole in Oueien and the hand isn't a common place for gang tattoos, if i can get in contact with him finding the primary shooter should prove fairly simple. I'm a bit shocked to be doing gang research in Merespem, Lwyin and its subsidiary gangs tend to bother the south-eastern districts, them being this far north is worrying, my main theory is that it has something to do with the immigrant population here, something to do with extortion and manipulation of local Caseic businesses being seen as easier than Utlian owned places that know better and might be armed. This expansion north could also be Lwyin testing the waters of Militia capability, if we come down hard enough then they know the Merespem division is gonna be a real roadblock on their conquest north, if we dont then it means they can continue to ramp up operations done up here.

After the research I decide to cook one of those carp I bought, the annoying thing about grilling anything on my stove is that only the back burner works, the front one broke after about a week of me living here so I have to fully extend my arm to cook anything, the carp turns out alright, slightly burnt but I like the taste enough of carp enough that the actual quality of cooking doesn't matter as much, I season it with some light Merriyem herbs that have been sitting in the cabinet for three seasons. Its dark out now, I decide to catch up on sleep for the long day I know is ahead of me tomorrow.

3. In Spite Of Something

Its early in the morning, Uebha station is crowded by office and factory workers who need to pass through Merespem to get to where they actually have to be, the local workers tend to use the much smaller Merespem station just north of Uebha, I would use it too if it was closer to the precinct. The precinct is busy, before I get to my desk Ureste stops me as I turn into the main Investigatory/Social department area, its like he was waiting to pounce on me "Hey detective, I know you're working a case but can you come with me, got a joint job for our departments down on porek street, domestic problem that needs some of that keen insight you guys posses" hes lucky the day just started, part of me wants to ask why he cant just get one of the other half dozen detectives to do it with him but I'm in a good mood so I just accept. He already has a report folder so we make our way to the garage, because hes a special social worker his service vehicle is specially branded as "Merespem Community Help Department" which is the only place the social department is called that in the entire Militia Division system. His automobile is nice though, its newer than most of the cars owned by the departments that dont see a lot of violence, like both of ours, the heater even works properly! I open his passenger side compartment as I get in and its got Unlaunen candys and a few stuffed Urla in it, he looks over at me and elaborates "Oh yeah thats for kids, supposed to help them." he laughs slightly. "Anyways" he pivots "So this is a fairly simple case, husband and wife both blame eachother for a death, both called in at seperate times to accuse their signifigant other of manslaughter, heres the call log if you wanna take a look" he passes me his case folder, inside is a transcript of two calls, one placed at 5:03 AM this morning, about an hour ago, the other at 5:13 AM, the actual content of the calls goes about as was described, what sticks out to me is that neither of them go into detail about this death beyond saying it was the result of the others actions, I bring this up to Ureste and he responds with "Yeah I was confused about that too". The street we are heading to, Porek, is one of the social departments most visited, it has fairly low income and high birthrate, not a terrible part of Merespem, just not the best, personally I quite like the street, it has some great markets on the west end of it.

As we pull onto Porek street it starts to snow, a reminder that Yenso isn't fully out the door, the apartment building we've been called too used to be a factory and the interior is noticably not built for residential use, the lobby is oddly shaped and the slit windows let in little sunlight, the room is quite dim and fairly a receptionist rushes over to us and quickly explains that the couple in question have just returned from a family trip, on the return to Merespem they fatally hit a member of their extended family with their vehicle outside the apartment building, before coming inside and calling the Civil Militia about it. We take the stairs up to room 403 and three active response officers are already on the scene, two are outside as we approach the door one of the AR patrolmen puts his hand out and denies us entry "Sorry but we've got this under control" Ureste is visibly annoyed "This is a domestic dispute and the AR has no jurisdiction here, please step aside." The rather overweight patrolman doesnt budge "We were already in the area and we've already dealt with it, besides theres no need for detectives or social workers in a manslaughter case, just because it involves a family doesnt mean it involves your department." Ureste signals for us to go back downstairs, as I follow him just out of earshot he begins cursing the patrolmen "Nremsy stonebrain doesnt understand case priority, I'm filing a report when we get back, its this kind of ketma that ruins divisions." The first floor receptionist seems confused to see us leave so soon.

While we were inside the snow came down harder, as we leave the building the visibility has dropped drastically, Ureste wipes off the snow on the windshield of his service vehicle with the sleeve of his coat before we enter, the heater sounds like its about to fall apart trying to push back against the outside temperature. For the first time in the two Uewen Ive been working here, I see Ureste unsettled and angry, part of why I've always held resentment towards him is his un-naturally relaxed demeanor about having one of the least relaxing workplaces in the archipelago, especially for a social worker, he should be the most neurotic guy in the precinct. seeing him like this gains me a newfound respect for the man. As we turn off of Porek he asks me how the Caseic robbery case is going and I explain the Oueien connection, he asks to tag along and despite the parts of my brain that want to tell him to go away, I accept. On the drive back to the station we get stuck behind an army transport convoy, probably on its way to Mesyetet-Ut where it will be split in two, half sent to the east ocean for storage and half sent to Brenjia, where the vehicles, guns and equipment will be sent to Prefichi high command. I used to harbor regrets about learning Caseic as a teenager, I thought it was useless, I had no intentions of being a translator for throw-away novels or working in the noseless archipelago at all, I truthfully did it entirely because I wanted to seem more well-read, I didn't read anything but manuals and required material for the majority of my life, I spent my teenage years being annoying about Kepet and listening to Kelna underground stations. This did not bother me until I became acquainted with my secondary schools "Society for Expanding Horizons" a club with a vague, nothing name that ended up being my gateway to much of the academic world, I had no dreams of going to the University of Orena or Merekeyen academy but the majority of the people in my secondary school would stop at nothing to be admitted to those kinds of schools. I only got into the school I did because of nepotism, I remember when I went to the applications center, even at age 14 I could tell they didnt read any of the actual admissions essay, they saw my last name and approved me without thinking. The Society for Expanding Horizons was full of the most ambitious of students, I was never an official member but when the RBB was boring me I'd often sit in on their meetings, they all knew about Okriti politics and could understand Akarian law documents and had opinions about foreign laws, I started to feel like I was being condescended to. Mostly out of spite I decided to fully dedicate myself to Caseic language and culture studies, I chose Caseic because nobody else in the club seemed to be able to get past the barrier to entry, I got a tutor and about a half dozen books and by the time I had achieved near-fluency and was ready to showcase my skills to the society, it was time for me to transfer to the Militia academy in Kelna. As I got older I realized that my spiteful teenage-self was actually a genius, as Caseic would become one of the most sought after languages in Utlia, mostly due to Brenjia, the nationalist wet dream manifest, proof of Utlian might, Liaia might have been a fluke after all, Brenjia proved that when we set our minds to dominance we can not only obliterate our enemies in battle but control their territory better than they ever could. Greater Utlia grown from a hypothethical idea of what a more violent-minded nation could accomplish to a hypothesis put into action; morals and ethics about the nature of cultural oppression aside, it proved beneficial to me, after the Brenjia referendum and the ever-expanding list of deals made with Prefichi, Caseic immigrants piled into Utlia and unlike the Deysachini that would come after them, they usually assimilated well into Utlian district cities, of course some places such as Merespem still hold some non-Utlian flavor, districts where the disapora still holds on quite tightly to the homeland and do everything in their power to convert the region into a home away from home.

Before returning the station Ureste and I decide to get food at a fairly recently opened Guplets, a chain restaurant with the gimmick of having food from "all across the archipelago", they started popping up in Orena, Tinlea and Unlaunen shortly after Utlia joined the House of Light, the business model relies on cheap importing of ingredients from other House of Light nations, the food quality varies wildly from dish to dish and day to day but some people swear by the place. I attribute its cult following to the lack of successful chain restaurants in Utlia, I mean the last churgburgers closed half a decade ago and was in extreme debt for most of its time spent open. The interior of a Guplets is uniform across all locations, maps and decor from all the nations of the archipelago, even the ones that dont have any menu items, this specific Guplets has a big map next to the menu board and during the last Nuriit someone scraped off Akaria and Faltir from it though and placed blue tape over where they used to be, I assume to symbolize ocean but it was done poorly and just looks like someone vandalized the board with an icepick. The yellow and teal color scheme of the building hurts my eyes, its like waking up in the dark and someone turns the lights on, you have to wait for your eyes to adjust to it. We get in line, theres a couple of people ahead of us, at the very front is a family of four, they all order fairly standard things, a mix of Kalami and Utlian food, nothing out of the ordinary. The man behind the family but infront of us is a middle aged construction worker on break, he orders two bowls of hooves, I did not know they had hooves, I frankly did not know hooves were edible, Ureste turns to me with a confused smile and says "Must be a secret item." The man quickly turns around and shoots us a look I can only describe as hateful, obviously hearing Urestes comment and taking offense. His food arrives and he sits at a booth in the corner of the dining area, where he begins eating his hooves, I'm not sure how I expected hooves to be eaten but as a soup makes the most sense. Now at the front of the line, we order our food, Ureste goes first "Hi yeah I will have the Kalami fish sandwhich and yknow what, side of hooves I'm feeling adventurous" he says the last bit louder than the rest of the order before then looking back at the construction worker, giving him an ear-to-ear smile; something I've noticed when hanging around this man is that his level of social awareness is on par with someone suffering from brain damage, every stereotype about Utlian comraderey and politeness is thrown out the window, he seems to love nothing more than bothering people for his own amusement, its a jarring change from his work persona where he tends to be very cordial and rule-friendly. For my order I go for something simple, grilled trout and some Deysachini coffee, people act like its weird to get Utlian food at Guplets but its the only cuisine thats consistently good, I dont like having to gamble with the quality of my meal, especially with how expensive it is, my simple order ends up being 7Đ, I pay and move aside to wait "Shouldve gone with the hooves, only two dolare." Ureste and I get our food and sit in a corner by the front windows, the view out of which showcases the bustling streets of central Merespem, this Guplets is on a hill just north of the central part of the district, from here you can see Uebha station, the shopping area around Uebha, the apartment towers going towards Porek street and another Guplets restaurant. Ureste finishes his main dish and is staring down at the bowl of hooves like they're poison, as I start to eat he eventually powers through one hoof, he doesnt seem very excited about finishing the second one by the time I complete my meal, I'm satisfied by mine but however good his fish sandwich may have tasted, it's been fully replaced by the hooves.

The drive back to the station is short and quiet, Ureste seems regretful regarding the hooves; as we park and head inside he splits off to file a report, during this time I figure I should request the address and information of the Oueien guy. On paper its fairly simple, ask for the form, fill out the form, submit the form, the problem is that the organizational department is filled with people that nitpick and critique your form to no end, the fact you need to fill a paper out at all for something as simple as a criminal informants location is indicative of real structural issues in Unlaunen, part of my problem with the decentralization of Civil Militias comes from having to fill out a form on something time-sensitive and in the hour or so it takes to get looked over and approved, I'm already too late. Fortunately for me the devout desk-woman is not working today, I recieve the form and start to write in the required boxes, things like "Why do you need this information?" and "How will this help you with your current work?" It's only one page long and after I turn it in I've got about an hour to kill so I head to the break room, usually I would forage for something in the fridge but since I just ate I'm just going to watch television. After only about a minute of sitting down with an episode of Awit Maaryn? Onel Maaryn! which is this horribly written, convuluted mess of a tv show about a pet sniff-hound that goes on adventures throughout the archipelago, it was specifcally created to appeal to everybody, so it appeals to nobody, a child isn't going to understand any of the plots about Onel navigating his way through Akarian politics and none of the adults are going to care when its clearly written in a way to where nothing bad ever happens to Onel, if theres no chance of him getting cooked alive in a Deysachini village then who cares, theres no stakes; the only channel our break room television gets is NPUV-CC, the all ages version of NPUV-C because the childrens model was cheaper in the store and our old Dyelt-Officer was a bit cheap; the episode playing when I sit down is about Onel travelling to Eee, where he must stop a massive bank fraud scandal that nobody is doing anything about. Only a few minutes into the episode, the precinct Field Overseer, Nersey Hib, strolls into the room "Oh Detective Saaryu, you're a rare find in here" she is smiling in a way that suggests she has just recieved wonderful news "Yeah I try to minimize the time spent slacking in here" "ha yeah understandable, you have always been a hard worker..." she looks away for a moment "uhhh so just letting you know, since you dont come in here often I trust you enough to tell you this but someone has been stealing food and drink from the fridge lately so please if you see anybody in here acting suspicious do let me know" she finishes her sentence and the smile immediately returns to her face "I'll let you know if I see anything" she thanks me and leaves the room, presumabley to go bother the only person in the precinct she cant give orders. I finish the episode of Onel Maaryn, it ends with Onel bringing the fraudster to justice, he ends up getting sentenced to a massive fine for 150% the fradulent amount. The next episode starts and I can feel my eyes getting heavy, I put my head down and rest.

A man gets home late from a grueling job, the only light as he approaches his front door comes from moonlight reflecting off a navy civil militia uniform, common colors in the districts of Unlaunen, he is alarmed to see that his door is cracked open, he distinctly remembers closing it this morning after he left for work. He proceeds with caution into the home, the man turns on the living room lights, nothing is out of the ordinary, he calls out for his wife but recieves no response, as he gets further into his apartment he realizes that none of his valuables are actually gone The man turns the light on in the hallway and calls out for his wife again, no response again, he checks the bathroom, the light flickers flickers a little, everything is in its right place. He thinks he hears something falling over in the main bedroom so he calls out for his wife again, and when he does not recieve a response for the third time he begins to fumble for his service weapon but cannot seem to locate it, moving further down the hallway into the bedroom, he turns the light on and everything is in its right place, beggining to suspect he may have just made the mistake of leaving the door open he begins to head towards the spare bedroom, as he passes back through the living room he hears noise, the sound of something falling coming from the spare room, he approaches slowly and with slight movements, he enters the room and everything is in its right place, he calls out once more for his wife band is once again met with no response, he goes back to the living room and uses the phone to call his wifes workplace, as they say she left at the normal time, he hears the noise louder than before and with no reaction his life is taken away by an assailant. Its a classic Utlian story, as a kid I first heard it when me and a group of fellow ten year olds wandered off into the woods west of Orena, we took the train line and when we got there we only had the objective of instilling fear in eachother. I remember being confused, it didn't scare me it left me with questions, I heard it again in secondary school and a third time in the academy, where it was modified to add a bit about the man finding his wife dismembered in the bathtub before being murdered himself. I found that version a little too shock heavy, usually told by the dumbest guy in the dorm floor, in painfully dull form. the kind of man who would go on to be a patrolman for the rest of his life and be perfectly content with it.

"DETECTIVE, your request got approved." I wake up to the sound of Ureste yelling at me mixed with the episode where Onel gets stuck in an Elemite Imp cult and nearly gets sacrified, he throws a folder down on the table "Lets go."

The mole lives in an apartment building in the southeast district of Lorowse, known for having the highest crime rate in Azznin and being the birthplace of Lwyin-Hermaed, the district is also home to the core of Oueien-Overduct and most of the smaller gangs that act as Lwyin proxies. Lorowse sits on the outer edge of Unlaunen, two districts sit between it and Merespem and it is ranked the second largest by area, Merespem is fourth in the same rankings. In the garage Ureste goes to grab his service weapon from his glove box before joining me in my wondefully "vintage" vehicle. He uses a syneri revolver in a grylbo-leather holster, he notices me inspecting it as he gets in "Oh its nice huh?" he pulls it out to show me, it has intricate engravings in a vine pattern extending from the syneri branding on the hilt, the vines branch throughout the rest of the gun with ivy leaves coming off of them the entire way "You wouldnt believe the amount of paperwork that went into approving this thing when I got transferred, actually yes you would, you did the same thing when you moved here didn't you?" I take out my Nebek and we compare the quality of our stamps "Oh yours is way better done, look at this, you can still see the Balmor emblem partially under mine" theres some kind of spear emblem peeking out from under the Merespem mascot of his Syneri. After some more discussion about firearms and the many forms of bureaucracy related to being a member of the militia, we set off on the long drive to Lorowse.

I am never more aware of the state of my service vehicle than on long drives like this, sandwich wrappers and packs of cheap cigs on my dash, floor, embedded in the seat, smashed into the cup holder, a gentle reminder that I need to be cleaner, have more respect for my surrondings, Ureste doesn't seem bothered atleast, he is reading a magazine in my passenger seat titled "FIREARMS OF THE ARCHIPELAGO", the top stories advertised on the front include "3 DEAD IN POLICE SHOOTOUT, FIND OUT WHAT MODIFICATIONS MADE IT POSSIBLE" "HOW TO CLEAN AKARIAN ARMS WITHOUT AKARIAN HELP" these kinds of publications were banned when the civil militias started cracking down on gun ownership a few years back, Ureste here most likely confiscated it off a guy and took it for his own collection. He has a few badges on his uniform, almost every specialized detective does, but he has one that is entirely unrelated to militia work, it says "DEEP EINRU GUN CLUB" on the top and "LIAMIA-UT" on the bottom; it seems to have been "foraged" in the wild, I'm not sure his political affilation but I'm fairly certain he was not involved in the Einru war, he wouldve been back in Balmor then and even if he was involved, he is the kind of man to spend more time writing about the evils of the Syenter government than actually fighting it on the ground. We enter the district of Huwest, south of the central district Leorzyet, which itself is south of Merespem. Leorzyet is a nice middle class, high density area adjacent to the city center, Huwest is an industrial nightmare, unlike Kerkesetko where the industry shutdown forever ago, in Unlaunen it is alive and well, Huwest is the second largest industrial area in Azznin, second only to Uywlaun-Ut, the city around the port west of Unlaunen that theyve been talking about annexing as a district of the city proper forever now. Huwest primarily refines uranium and steel but also has a sizeable manufacturing industry centered around the National Army, its depressing and smells like fire and garbage, the parts closer to Leorzyet are actually fairly nice but as you get closer to the center it gets poorer and less suitable for life, eventually the industry ends and you find yourself in Lorowse, a district with heightened density, better air and at one point, the home of the Seb noble family, their Wyckryn is the nicest building in the district and the streets around it have some of the highest militia prescense in the entire city, which is odd cause that does not extend to the rest of the district, where it seems the miltiia do nothing but sit and file reports all day, having to cooperate with the precincts out here is like pulling teeth. The fellas in Huwest are fairly nice, they do the best with what they have access too, their precinct actually has a specialized factory department within their division. The districts of Huwest and Lorowse are considered the worst in Utlia, even the "plague" sections of Balmor have undergone revitilization and renovation under the Republic and Einru, Kerkestko is turning into a quiet, primarily residential district under the same government; southeast Unlaunen was seemingly forgotten about in those grand renewel plans. Despite everything, Huwest has some of the best paved roads in the city, because of the heavy vehicles commonly driving them they get maintained quite often. The foundries in the center of the district spit endless flame and smog into the mid-day air above as we drive past, pieces of metal four times as large as my service vehicle being moved with haphazard machinery to its designated spot. It makes me think about the pre-industrial parts of the archipelagos, we have played a key part in the factorization of Kalam, a nation that I fear is too beautiful to taint like this, Azznin is the sunniest part of Utlia and still doesnt reach half the sunlight hours that Kalam does; theres nothing I can do about it, I am not the minister of foreign affairs and I do not have ties to Einru command. Whenever I read the news its always some crisis in another country or Utlia helping to rapidly progress the technological capacity of a worse off nation, usually with guns or electricity or economic deals, I think about how much that actually helps to avoid the crisis that seems inevitable, just today the news playing in the lobby of that Porek street apartment building talked about La Rossan democracy in a fairly poor light. I guess it could be worse, the Tvaqi that live to the far north seem to have progressed so far beyond the need for nature and it gets even worse with their little known about neighbors, the Steamworks, I doubt Utlia could ever reach that level, nature is too beloved here but I could see the nation coming close. Eventually Ureste snaps me out of my thinking "oh thank Azzta we're out of central Huwest, I couldn't stand the smell, you need to fix your heater Aryet, this windows down method is detrimental to the morale of this journey." He pulls a half empty pack of ciggarettes from seemingly thin air and lights one before going back to his magazine.

Entering Lorowse from Huwest lets you see the buildings go from an average of two or three floors straight to five to eight averages, it feels like forever ago that they decided Lorowse would be the jewel of southern Unlaunen, they built apartment towers, theme parks, big statues, they put all their faith in it, then the Sumaasyl got shuffled, a few politicans that championed the project retired or got replaced, eventually leading to the district being forgotten about, then the gangs moved in, Lwyin-Hermaed had been active throughout the city for a while but the dense outer urban area of Lorowse proved to be perfect for them, even before they started bribing officials the Civil Militia prescense in the district was sparse. The streets are sparse, its stopped snowing, now the sky is a gray overcast. We pass an advertisement for Fokyan, an Utlian brand of baked snacks, they make lots of little classic Utlian pastries, Ureste perks up "I actually know the guy who became CEO of that company" "You do?" "Yeah he went to the same school as me back in Balmor, he married my sister" "Oh, how'd he take the federal investigation? mustve been hard on him." "He lost his mind for a few seasons, eventually when he only got fined he calmed back down, he stopped talking to me about work, thought I was planning on snitching or something, I tried to explain that I'm not in the Bureau of Safety and cannot do anything about the case but he wouldn't listen, made festivals weird" Ureste quickly pivots the subject by pointing at the gas indicator in the middle of the dashboard "We should stop, for gas and I kind of want some Fokyan now" I agree and we start scouring for gas stations, Lorowse has a lot of gas stations, we stop at one on the outskirts of the central part of the district. As we get out Ureste nudges me and alerts me of two Lorowse patrolmen standing by the entrance, one is eating a bag of eyren while talking to the other, as we walk up they stop us before we can get inside "Merespem is pretty far from here" "Yeah?" Ureste has taken charge on this one, Azzta help us all "What are two 'Spem detectives doing down here" while patrolman one is interogating us, the other one is staring me down "Oh you see we have a case up north, and this case has led us to your wonderful heap of a district, as you can probably tell" Ureste is getting impatient with the men at this rate "Can I get your identifications, just incase of any trouble caused in our jurisdiction" he reluctantly gives his id to the man, who then gestures for me to give mine, I root around my pockets for a moment before giving it to him, he hands them over to the other patrolman, who opens his mouth for the first time upon reading them "Social Detective Diytsjik, Investigative Detective Saaryu, please remember to stay out of too much trouble during your stay in Lorowse, keep in mind your status as guests in our neck of the woods" his words have the tone of kindness but read as a threat, a common way for militiamen speak to suspects, its complete nonsense, a scare tactic, patrolmen love this move, its their way of saying "this is our tree to piss on, go back to where you came from" it gives them a little power rush, despite the fact that if taken to court me and Ureste would win in a heartbeat unless we did something geniunely horrible, our rank and service awards alone would be enough for any judge to give us a pass, I could shoot this nremsy in the head right here and probably get away with it. The patrolmen continue to eye us as we enter the gas station, as soon as we get out of earshot within the store Ureste begins to complain "Part of me really wanted to tell them that they probably have real crimes to attend to but we have places to be so I didnt want to lengthen our interaction" he grabs a small bag of Foykan brand sweetrolls and I grab nothing I'm not in the mood for snacks, the inside of the store is rather clean, its a standard rest stop, it has this insane ad for a Caseic drug called Tiyic featuring a mrola mascot telling you that it lets you "see beyond the deep" most foreign drugs are fairly regulated these days but you can still find places where they sell it in the open, like here. There are pipes for smoking sreajoa for sale at the front, packed tight in a glass case under the register, weirdly no actual sreajoa for sale though, despite its full legalness. I get ten dolare on pump A and we head out.

As we leave the two patrolmen are still standing out front, they continue to stare us down as I pump gas and Ureste eats his sweetrolls while leaning on the car, the other customers have a habit of glancing at us as they leave the store, the Merespem uniform jacket has these lines down the sleeve of reflective silver not unlike a high visibility vest, its especially noticable at night, they added it after a guy got hit by a car because the driver could'nt see him, I like it stylistically, the jacket is much cooler than the beige rancher-esque piece we had back in Orena. This gas pump has a number of stickers and marker graffiti covering the sides, the graffiti mostly being gang tags, actually its entirely Oueien-Overduct tags, like over a dozen of them in slightly different fonts and styles. I finish pumping gas and we get back in the car, the apartment building is just down the street, further into central Lorowse, its one of those renewel buildings, situated next to the rundown theme park and district square, architectually its quite obviously from the Hia era, thats when they built a lot of these odd classically inspired concrete buildings, like a mix of Yyme style and pre-revolt style, I'm not an architecture student by any means but it is noticeable when a building takes after the style. This specific complex was built with three rectangular apartment buildings lined up just off the aformentioned central pedestrian square. It takes some time to find a place to park but we find a spot on the side of some street, we have to walk about a bock north before reaching the building, its eight stories and has a surely respectable group of people smoking sreajoa outside, one of them even has a neck tattoo that says "pure love" which is surely about having true love and not the anti race-mixing slogan common among ultranationalists, the men do not pay us any mind as we walk in, which is a nice change of pace but I guess it would only matter if we were Merriyem or Akarian or something. The lobby is a mess, theres a large tattered carpet and an overflowing trash can immediately greeting you, the receptionist is behind iron bars and is very clearly watching pornography on his television without even attempting to hide it. Floor four, apartment fourty-two, the way to it is uneventful, their elevator actually works, which is one point over my building. Its not a clean elevator but it works atleast, the buttons stick in for too long and make an incredibly unsatisfying noise. The fourth floor is empty of people but the halls have this strange yellow tinged wallpaper, I cant tell if its meant to be faint or if its just been unmaintained for long enough that its started to fade. We walk down the corridor, the only sounds are our footsteps and the heater working overtime in the background. We eventually reach apartment number fourty-two, there is a classical keral piece being played in the apartment, I knock loudly, no answer, I knock louder, the music stops and a man rushes to open the door. A lanky, pale man with small eyes and buzzed brown hair opens the door "uhh hello, how can I help you?" "I am detective Saaryu, I have some questions for you." "Oh its you guys, but you arent from this district, this is about the shooting up in Merespem isn't it? come in." He leads me and Ureste into the apartment proper, the lights are dim and the decoration is bare, save for a large shelf full of classical records on one of the back walls and a pile of moving boxes filling the room. He sits on the couch and with an exhausted look asks "what do you want to know?" I take out my notepad and begin the interrogation "Only two things, who has the hand tattoo and why was your group operating that far north?" "The hand tattoo belongs to Cibyren, I dont know his family name, him and the other guy were up there both to test the waters of expansion in the far north, and initiation of the other guy, thats why Cibyren was there in the first place, he was guiding the new-hire." "Do you have any idea where this Cibyren lives, anything helps" "Uhhhh I think hes got an apartment up in Merespem, he spends alot of time down here crashing at random peoples flats but his registered address is up near you guys." The lanky man lights a ciggarette "You guys didn't hear any of this from me but especially this next bit, you did not hear from me, Cibyren is a freind of the Lorowse Militia Division, hes a frequent drinking buddy of many Active Response guys, just saying you should be careful, I've had guys come here before and tell me off for giving away too vital of information, you guys are lucky I'm moving out of this hole soon." "Oh congrats, we wish you luck." Ureste says to the man in a chipper tone "We'll be out of your hair now, we appreciate the information." I put away my notepad and the two of us leave the apartment, as we get out, Ureste begins a debrief "No family name available sucks but I'm sure he has a criminal record in the system, we have to search for him and see if any potential Cibyrens live up in Merespem." Our conversation is quickly halted as we leave the building, Ureste points out a Lorowse Civil Militia vehicle parked not far from where I parked my own service vehicle, this is worrisome, "Should we go tell him?" he asks me "No, too risky to go back in at this point, lets just go home."

The car starts after a couple attempts, I chock it up to age catching up to the old beast, we start driving back through central Lorowse and as we hit our first stop sign I notice that my brake is not working, I turn to Ureste and before panic sets in I inform him of the situation "My brakes arent working, I cant stop" "What do you mean" "I mean the car cant stop, what else does that mean" "Thats.... not good at all" then the panic starts, I keep driving, having to swerve through traffic just to avoid crashing, the thing is that its just delaying the inevitble, theres nothing I can do at this point, a billion thoughts race in my head on how to stop this but none of them have legs, I have never been in a car accident, for the third time in my career I am truly without hope, usually I feel like I have an idea of what to do in stressful situations but here I am lost, so I just keep driving, we are going about 68 KPH when Ureste says to me "maybe it will stop on its own." his voice is quivering, as we get further from central Lorowse I have to dodge less traffic, I have a final idea, I let off all parts of the car including the steering wheel and pedals, I look over at Ureste and he is braced for impact, I close my eyes and can hear him muttering swears to himself in the passenger seat.

Three Whaling Ships Have Gone Missing In The East Ocean, the news headline playing while a teenager is eating his morning meal, a fish sandwhich and some coffee, his home is average sized and lived in, knicknacks, trinkets line the walls and there are family photos everywhere, he changes the channel to a show playing Intense Battles For Everything an adaptation of a doreonya novel series of the same name, it focuses on modified military vehicles destroying massive beasts and other threats to the archipelago; the boy is only able to watch a minute before his mother walks in, she is wearing the uniform of the Orena Board of Child Education and Safety "You need to get going, you dont want to miss the train to school" she scolds him and he reluctantly gets up, on the walk to the train station he runs into a friend "Uchek!" he calls out, the two walk to the station together "How did your Shym fest go? only two days off but two of the best days off in the year." the friend asks the boy "Was alright, I mostly just stayed inside and read." "Thats lame, we went up to Surpa-Ut and did all the touristy stuff, got a couple trinkets I gotta show you after school hey did you get a haircut man, it looks shorter than usual" the friend is staring at the boy, he has brown hair and brown eyes "Yeah I got one yesterday, dad was getting mad at me, said it was too shaggy for a student of my caliber" "oh that sucks, you shouldve just told him to leave you alone, you're practically an adult now" the two boys board a train crowded with other students wearing the same school uniform, a freshly printed advertisement for an Uchek records album is on the wall behind where they stand "This bullshit again, music in this country is going down the drain, I mean its been going down the drain for a while but it just gets worse every season" the boys friend laughs in response before pivoting to talk about school "Did you hear about Berun, he got fired for throwing a bottle at a student who asked him a question he thought was stupid" "No but that sounds like him, thank Azzta I dont have him this year, he once yelled at me for giving the right answer cause I didnt have permission to speak or whatever." "Yeah he was always looking for an excuse to get pissy, did you do any of the reading?" "I didn't know we had reading" "Nothing major but Areea assigned a short story to read, its about a guy going insane and killing his family, I just had Syeren read it and do my analysis for me since I was in Surpa, I can let you copy in second class if you'd like." "I'll see how I feel, I might just accept the lecture." the train reaches its station the students on the train get off, the two boys walk alongside the rest of the crowd towards the secondary school on Obryn street, the students around them are having conversations about entrance into university and career plans and a large banner that reads "UNI SHOWCASE" is draped across the entrance of the school "ah shite is today the career fair, you might not be able to copy me at all it seems" the boys friend is annoyed "wouldve just skipped today if I knew it was today." As they walk into school the friend is stopped by a girl, she has long black hair and green eyes, her uniform has a button that says "Orena trash-cleaners" the girl leads the friend away from the boy, who continues walking towards his first class homeroom. The boy is greeted by his teacher as he walks in, "Welcome to class, you're the first one here today!" she smiles at him but he does not smile back, just a simple "Uchek" in response "Do anything fun during Shym?" she asks as he takes a seat "Uhh I got a haircut" "Sounds eventful" "Sure was", after enough students have filled the room and the first bell has rung, the teacher takes her class to the uni fair, at which the boy is approached by an admissions officer "Hello there, sorry to butt in but I saw your transcript and we think you would be perfect for Orena university!" "Sorry I already have plans on where I'm going" the boy responds, the man continues to press the boy, trying to convince him to come to Orena university, eventually the boy just walks away. The fair lasts for half the day, two classes, the other two classes go as normal, one is history and one is slept through. After school he meets up with his friend and they decide to visit a bakery, on the way to the bakery they take a shortcut through an alley, during this shortcut they are approached by two men, they corner the two boys and demand dolare "What are you gonna do if we dont give it to you?" the boys friend asks, the fatter of the two men punches the boy in the face, knocking him to the ground, the two boys give them their wallets.

I'm awake I think, my eyes keep changing between open and closed, I am being pulled out of a car, my eyes blink again and someone is holding me, dragging me really, I think I catch a glimpse of a road but before I can comprehend my setting too much my eyes are back to closed. Eventually after enough eye flickering they stay open, I am now on an almost empty train car, next to me on the train is a coworker, his face is bloody and his arm is wrapped around my torso, I look down, my uniform is bloody, my hands are too, it looks like glass is sticking out of one of my hands, what happened I wonder to myself before my eyes close again. I can faintly hear the train announce that we have reached some station, I cant make out which though.

Utlian forces have landed in Akaria with the goal of securing the Oken Kadrike the headline as a young boy walks home from the shops with his mother, he is carrying a small bag of groceries. The streets are lined with decorations celebrating Nuriitnaara, the boy is wearing a traditional Nuriit cap and the mother a floral dress. The boy gets seperated temporarily after running ahead chasing a street-hare, he looks behind him and his mother is gone, he turns back around and the street itself has gone quiet, night has fallen and nobody is around, the boy is confused and afraid. In what feels like a split second the street returns to normal and the boys mother is calling out to him, scolding him for running ahead.

My head hurts, I'm somewhere familiar, my eyes adjust to the bright lights, I am in a hospital room, hooked up to fluids, my left hand is heavily bandaged, the room is a standard short-stay room, a bed, some cabinets, a window, a tray with some cold food on it, a door to a bathroom and a door to the hallway outside. The only other person in the room is Field Overseer Hib, she doesnt seem to notice I'm awake, she sits reading a book when Ureste walks in the room, light bandage on his head, little damage to the rest of the body, he is carrying coffees, he gives Nersey her coffee before looking at me and realizing that I've woken up "Oh hes back" Nersey looks up from her book "Detective, welcome back." "What happened" I dont know how I got here "We got sabatoged friend" "Ureste here filled me in on your incident, someone cut your brake lines, your vehicle has been taken to a mechanic by the way. Despite what he may say, there is no evidence that this is foul play from a Miltia Division and the current report says that your brakes simply gave out as a result of the automobiles lack of maintence in its old age. I am also placing you on self-judged medical leave, you should not be working in your condition, you have one day mandated for healing once you get out of here and then from there its up to your own discretion, but please take your time, wouldnt want a repeat." It is a lot to take in, the two give me the full recap of what happened, bickering throughout about malicious intent and militia honesty. After what feels like hours of bickering, Ureste runs out of the room, saying something about a gift he left in the lobby, he returns shortly with a novel titled The Northern Malice "It's about this guy who was born in a cult and when he eventually is rescued he has to adjust to normal life, figured you'd like it, seems up your alley" "Thanks" my sides have started hurting, its like the parts of my body are waking up in turns and realizing "oh no we arent okay" after some more conversating with my coworkers a nurse walks in and dismisses them, she asks me about how I feel, I answer honestly but would rather I lied so I could get out of here quicker, she administers some pain relief medication and explains my situation, left hand full of glass, torso impacted heavily, head damage couldve been worse, lost quite a bit of blood getting dragged here but I will be fine. I have never liked hospitals, I've never been hospitlalized in my life before now so this is all very new to me, its worse than I imagined, I remember visiting dying family and just the atmosphere felt so oppressive, this is not a good place to be, even with the best medicine in any archiepelago its still horribley depressing, I hold a similar feeling towards normal doctors offices, growing up I was told I have an irrational fear of medical operations, I think thats not irrational at all, its maybe the most normal thing possible to not be okay with being surrounded by death and disease but I guess thats not a popular way to feel. The nurse keeps talking about treatment and payment and how bad she feels for me, all I really parse is a thank you for your service, once she leaves I look at the window to my right, its evening, the calendar on the wall says its the next day, I was out for a while. I get bored just sitting there so I go back to resting, its fairly easy as a side effect of the pain medicine. As I fall back to slumber thoughts race in my head about the case, I try to supress them and just get a good nights sleep.

4. Fish Packed With Plastic Explosives

I get discharged today, its been a grueling few days, after enough time I got used to the pain but its mostly been the boredom eating away at me, there isn't a television in my room and the radio is too staticky to be of actual use. I got about halfway through that book Ureste got me, I'm fairly certain he just grabbed it off his own shelf, its clearly pre-owned, not a terrible book but it lacks in plotting and the main character spends too much time being idiotic for me to fully enjoy it. It is early in the morning and I am greeted by my nurse as she brings me my final hospital meal, eggs, a carrot and some milk, they arent allowed to give coffee so they give milk in the mornings, I havent drank milk since I was a very young lad and I do not enjoy it, it coats the inside of the mouth and makes me want to gag when I think about how it gets cultivated, I only have this with milk oddly, cheese, which is much grosser of a process does not bother me at all, maybe it has to do with the fact that milk is a liquid, I drank a lot of milk as a kid because I was told it would make me tall, I ended up average height though so it seems like a scam to me. I remember we took a field trip in secondary school to a cattle farm, part of a bunch of trips that were all meant to give us ideas for careers we would want to go into, supposed to imbue us with a special understanding of a job and its daily duties, during this journey we went through an industrial brenya farm and the process in which a single brenya is slaughtered, cut and sent off to the packing plant, the way our guide made me sick to my sotmach, he described his quite revolting job in a far too excited manner, I feel like you should only work in a meat or slaughter plant if your life has taken a drastic turn downward and are on the verge of taking lives, your own or others.

The nurse leaves after dropping off my breakfast before returning around half an hour later with a hospital attendant in tow, the attendant hands me a clipboard and pen, latched on the clip of the board are my discharge papers, three sheets going through my entire stay, why I was there, what I was given as medicine, my own personal info, anything that would need to be known about the stay, at the bottom of the first page is the important part, a spot for a signature that when signed will allow me to leave this place, it also removes liability from the hospital if you die the next day or whatnot, basically saying "We have done our best to assist you, please leave." I sign my name and hand it back, the worker smiles and leaves the room, the nurse steps forward and begins unhooking me from the fluids machines I've been stuck up to, "Your things are in locker U11 downstairs" she tells me, hospitals in Utlia have this odd system where when you stay overnight they put all the stuff you came in with in a locker room on the first floor, its an odd way of doing things but I guess its to prevent any infection or disease that may be on your possessions from contaminating the sterile building, even then that feels like a flimsy explanation but I'm no doctor, something horrible probably happened a century ago and now the locker system is mandated. I get out of the bed, my legs feel weak but they slowly reacclamate to standing upright. The room feels larger than before, I step out into the hallway, the air is cold and the atmosphere is calm, I am the only person in the corridor, the sun shines through the third floor windows, casting a warm glow onto the tile of the building. I walk around until I locate the stairwell, I head down to floor one and before even turning onto the main hall I can hear the bustle, lots of doctors yelling medical codes and announcements being made, people getting into arguements about visiting their family with Direnestia, it is a lot at once, especially coming from the tranquility of the third floor, I move past the people in the narrow halls and make my way to the reception desk and retrieve the key before heading to the locker room, its a quiet, dim room tucked away in the corner of some random hall on the first floor, pipes run up the walls, the room looks to be a former boiler converted to being a locker storage. I find U11 and unlock it, inside is my uniform folded neatly, ontop are the contents of the jacket and some miscellaneous possessions from my car like my keys, gun, badge, a crushed pack of cigarettes and my wallet. I grab my belongings, the uniform is a bit blood stained but I put it on and tell myself I will just clean it when I get home, luckily my pants arent stained nearly as bad, I get undressed and dressed since no one else is in the room, leaving my hospital gown in a collections bin by the entrance.

Leaving the hospital I get hit with the smell of Leorzyet street food, for some weird code reason it is the only district in Unlaunen where street carts are allowed to sell legally, so they tend to clog up the busy streets and near train stations, the hospital is right next to a train station and one of the busiest streets in Unlaunen, however overwhelming it was to go to the first floor of the hospital, this is about ten times that feeling, I have been transported to the center of the city and it takes a few minutes to get adjusted. I walk towards the rail station and get barked at by three different street vendors, I do my best to ignore them since I think after three days of hospital food something grilled on the street might send me right back to the emergency room. Leorzyet station is vast, its the largest, busiest station outside of the main Ut-Rail Unlaunen station in the old town, in the concourse a drunk man smelling of urine is being accosted by two Leorzyet patrolmen, the crowds of people pass by without noticing, or atleast without making it known that they notice the incident, I want to use the vending machine right beside the drunk man so I interupt the patrolmen with an excuse me and move past, they continue their talk with the intoxicated piss man while I buy a pack of eyren behind them, I feel as if my uniform is the only reason they didnt immediately tell me off for getting in the way, I probably smell like gas and rust, honestly it is quite surprising how little anybody seems to notice it because it is all I can think about walking around the station, maybe its a politeness thing where nobody wants to seem rude or like they're being a sorempt in public, just another benefit of the badge I reckon. After picking up my eyren I board a train making its way northeast, eventually it will stop at Shym station and I will get off, for now though I am staring at the advertisements while packed next to white collar workers heading back from their mid day meal break, there is an advertisement for the new novel from genre writer Norek Subyen, he got popular in the late 30s for his Civil Militia novels, usually about a division taking down some drug ring or stopping a terrorist attack from Akarian nationalists, things along that line. This flyer though is for his great change in approach, a novel about two people sailing out from Mesyetet and visiting all the countries in the archipelago, going on daring adventures from Akaria to Okrit, I read the synopsis in a bookstore a few lerpoks back because I want to get back into reading fiction and he seems beloved but this specific novel just seemed like a retread of Adventures of Nyis stories but less interesting because they are about real places, if I wanted to hear about idiots in Okrit id read an Okriti newspaper. Funnily enough, next to this book flyer is a hiring poster for the Leorzyet CM division "Protect the cultural center of Utlias greatest city!" it says in bold white text, the below-average Leorzyet division emblem sits in the corner and above the text, no wonder they cant hire anybody that tagline sucks and so does their bland spear emblem, they should fix that before trying to hire new people I think. Eventually I hear the announcement lady say "coming up on Shym Station, Merespem" I get off the train once it stops and walk down Haryk street, the air is warmer than usual, the occasional breeze keeps the cold in memory but it is a beautiful day out, lots of people walking around, taking their kids shopping, eating outside at the trendy restaurants. A wonderful smell is in the air, I sometimes catch a whiff of it through the wall of stench my disgusting clothes have built around me, its a mix of grilled meat and flowers blooming in the median and by the sidewalk of the street, the city started planting clusters of mer flowers along Haryk and other big streets of Merespem to celebrate the city of Merespem being annexed, a little "thanks for letting us conquer you decades ago" gift, mer flowers are unassuming looking, a droopy blue flower at the end of a somewhat short stem, but they smell wonderful.

I eventually get to my apartment block and upon entering the lobby, am greeted by the sight of two Merespem patrolmen, arresting a teenage boy that I recognize as being Netet, he spots me as I walk in "Aryet! explain to these men that I didnt do anything!" I approach the two officers, one of whom I notice has a familiar overweight build and short black hair with a pristinely kept mustache, that familiar description belongs to my friend Lyremen Utek, I try my best to help out the delinquent "What has he been detained for?" I ask the men "Defacing government property with graffiti." Utek responds, "I know this kid, hes got good character, unless you caught him in the middle of the act I doubt it was him, he spends a lot of time helping out the community around here." I say, doing my best to make it seem like Netet is an upstanding citizen while not technically lying, usually that community help is just getting drugs or cyals balls for his friends though, Utek turns to his partner and tells him "Aryet would not lie for some degenerate, we must have the wrong Netet." the partner patrolman looks confused but goes along with it and the two men take their cuffs off of Netet and leave the building. The young man runs up and hugs me before nearly immediately letting go upon smelling me "did you seriously tag your illegal graffiti with your own name?" I ask him, somewhat bewildered by that insane design choice "How else will they know it was me?" "You use a pseudonym or something, anything but your actual name really." "okay" he says, before changing the subject to my abscense "Where have you been by the way? You come back after days of being away smelling of dumpster fire to help me out like a homeless guardian sojourner." I explain my situation to him and I watch as his jubilant expression slowly fades to geniune concern "Thats rough, glad you made it out okay but you should really wash your clothes." I take his advice and make my way up to my apartment to change into a normal outfit, entering my apartment I feel a sense of relief coming home, I head to my closet and quickly change into an old shirt with a faded beer logo and a pair of old jeans. I put my uniform into laundry bag and head downstairs to the lobby again, this time turning down a hall and going down a short half staircase into the laundry room, I wish we had in unit laundry personally but I guess it isn't that much of a hassle if you dont have to do laundry that often, the room itself is completely empty save for one old woman watching her clothes turn around in the washing machine, I go to the machine furthest from her and put my dirty uniform in before turning it on the fastest setting, after closing the washing machine I head to the mail room located further down the same hall of the laundry room, my mailbox is surprisngly low, I figured after three days away I would have a lot more, even what I have isn't important, half of it is just election garbage anyway, included in the other half of mail is a letter from the speaker of the Unlaunen Sumaasyl Letsek Hens, its an invitation to a dinner at his lavish Awelat district manor, lucky for me I didn't miss the dinner, the date being tommorow night. I head back up to my unit to let Letsek know I plan on attending his little party thrown just for me, when I get to my phone it helpfully lets me know I have three new messages from my time in the hospital. These messages go as follows:

• Aracet 3rd 22:12 60 PC: "Hello this is the Merespem Civil Militia Division precinct calling to alert the household of ID. Saaryu that Aryet Saaryu has been hospitalized at Leorzyet-Mryn central medical in Leorzyet, visitation is allowed starting tommorow, we cannot disclose information regarding this incident as of now, we hope you understand.
• Aracet 4th 09:00 60 PC: "Uchek resident of apartment 4-A32, this is complex management and as I am sure you are aware, it is officially the start of a new season and as such you owe your seasonal rent tax, you can pay via check or in person at any Einru office in Unlaunen-Ut
• Aracet 5th 13:20 60 PC: "Uhh hi this is Eruya Simiko, we met at that tape shop about a lerpok ago, just thought I would let you know that I'm playing my first concert signed tommorow and I went ahead and put you on the guest list, if you would like to hang out at all before or after the show just call me back!"

It is customary for a militia division to send out a message after a work injury or accident if it results in hospitalization, intended to alert the family or roommates of the injured militiaman of their condition. I assume its quite helpful if you dont live alone. The second message is quite annoying, because I live in government housing I technically do not have standard rent payments and instead have to pay a small tax at the start of each season, its basically rent but much cheaper, its annoying because seemingly everybody goes to pay on the same day and you end up in a tiny waiting room packed like fish in a can for half the day before being seen by an incredibly rude Einru agent. Shit, today is the sixth, I should call Eruya back, let her know that I will be attending, I find her music entirely detestable and part of the cultural rot ruining contemporary music but she seems nice enough so I'll support her. First I pull out the invitation from my pocket and dial the number listed on it 08 Y12 5, after only a second of dialing someone picks up "Hello?" the voice is noticeably not Letsek, it sounds like a Liaian woman "Uhm Uchek is this the home of Letsek Hens?" "Yes, what do you need?" "Can you just let him know that Aryet will be attending his dinner tommorow?" "okay" she hangs up before I can say thanks. I call Eruya back and it dials for a good minute before she picks up "Hello, who is this?" "Its Aryet, remember me?" "Oh hey whats going on?" "kind of late notice but I will be at the show tonight." "Great, I was kind of worried you weren't going to call me back, I'll make sure to say hi after the set finishes!" "Alright." I'm not sure how to end the conversation so I just hang up, I have laundry to grab anyway. On the way back down to the laundry room I see that one of my neighbors doors has noticeably muddy footprints just under the doorknob of their home, either they got robbed by a guy who just came in from the rain or they forgot their keys and decided the best course of action was violent retribution against the door. In the laundry room someone has graciously taken all of my clothes out of the washer and put them on the table in the corner, left to soak the shoddily crafted wooden counter. I gather them off the table and stick them in a dryer on the wall oppisite of the washers. I sit for a moment in one of the few uncomfortable metal chairs haphazardly placed in the room, trying to figure out how to spend the thirty minutes before my clothes are done drying, I eventually decide to go get some food to kill the time, this proves to be harder than expected as I leave the laundry room and run into Netet again "Hwiyen Aryet! here" he hands me a cigarette "A little thank you for your help earlier." He is grinning ear to ear as if I saved him from being sentenced to Yekajyu, I take the cig, lighting it as I start to walk towards the exist of the apartment block, Netet follows along, mentioning that he is on his way to Shym station, something about going shopping for a new tape player "Yeah my old one fell down the stairs after I dropped it the other day, sad stuff." he elaborates, in a now playfully somber tone. Once we get outside he makes small talk by complaining about the wind, the breeze shooting his shoulder length brown hair directly into his face and mouth "fucking hate this season, you know what I mean." He is relating to the fact that I'm also in need of a haircut, only slightly shorter than his degenerate styling, it fits him well though I reckon, better than it does me atleast. "You're getting food right? I'll pay, just pick a place that isn't too expensive." He is geniune in his appreciation of my small act of kindness, I dont mind free food and in my head I can rationalize this as "community outreach" an officer of the law keeping an at-risk youth off the streets, of course this is just the explanation I would give in the unlikely scenario that our eatery of choice is descended upon by a legion of my coworkers who for some reason care about what I do during my time on medical leave, this incredibly improbable hypothetical scenario still gives me a bit of anxiety, despite the fact that even if it did occur, I am a grown man and can do whatever I want with my free time, not like its against the law to hang around with seventeen year olds. As we are walking down Haryk street Netet turns to me and voices a disdain with the food options "All this betetoko [hipster] shit is lame, we should get food down sryebskin alley." I agree with him and we turn left onto syreb street before getting far enough down to see Shym station; syrebskin is an alley attached to syreb street, a fairly normal mixed use street with a lot of two to three story rowhomes, some with shops at the bottom as well as standard shops with a few floors of apartments above them, syrebskin juts off from it like a horrible tumor, built in the mid 20s PC as part of Hia Els own brand of urban renewal, it exists as a meticulously curated culinary showcase, a place you show to tourists to say "SEE! THIS CITY HAS MORE TO IT THEN OLD BUILDINGS WHERE SLIGHTLY LESS OLD PEOPLE DIED!" it was built with a few specific restaurants in mind, a bunch of already quite renowned places opening little hole in the wall shops here, almost instantly upon the alleys construction, which itself came about from the wrecking of a fish factory that had been abandoned since what feels like forever but is actually 10 PC , which is not forever, I feel bad for the guys who just used it do foreign drugs before its demolishment but the positives ceartainly outweigh the negatives in this case of tearing down "historic" buildings. The rest of the space was taken up by relatively unknown guys taking advantage of a government benefit placed onto buildings within Zoning area UN--A1, an area used exclusively in this alley, it essentially subsizes all costs of running a private restaurant save for the standard private company tax that all businesses must pay to the Coalition fellas over in Tinlea.

We pace down the alley for a bit before unanimously deciding to eat at a place called "Ureyeks Pastry Berels!" a place that seems to advertise itself entirely on the fact it serves food in barrels, we decide on it cause its one of the larger proper interiors down the shopping area and its not nearly warm enough to want to eat outside, it is also one of the only places not fully crowded with people doing the same thing as us. Upon entering the first thing I notice is that every piece of decoration is related to barrels or shipping or ports in some way, an incredibly odd choice for the notably not coastal district of Merespem, maybe it's to remind people of a different, more interesting place, I think, more interesting in this case just being "different from where I am now" because a port on its own is not interesting, it's the things that go on within the port that are interesting, all the little logistical quirks of how goods get to one place from another, all the people paid to faciliate that journey, my hope for this restaurant is that it fully satisfies the part of my brain that finds that kind of information neat. we walk up to the counter, there is a chalkboard menu hanging from the ceiling and a glass case with pastries being warmed, behind the counter I can see a kitchen full of people steaming sandwhiches, this is a sandwich restaurant that also happens to have a large selection of pastries. We stare up at the menu, the food is cheap, handwritten specials with noticeably fresher chalk sit below a drinks menu that looks like it hasnt been updated in decades. After a short time of pondering, a man in the back notices us and comes up to take our order "hesye whatis can I get you twoe?" he frantically asks in a noticeably Merriyem accent, quickly summoning a notepad and pen from his apron pocket, Netet takes charge "yeah can I get teye-hog on seeded mor bread, hold everything but the tomatoes, one side of salt & vin eyren and a handle of Eiyye, please and thank you." I watch as the worker scribbles at an incredible speed, jotting down his order at a pace I would have though impossible if I didn't obersve it with my own two eyes; I order next "hi, I'll get a grilled brenya burger with a side of mrola beak soup, for a drink just give me some myloe juice." the man finishes his scribbling and looks up at us "Alright take a seat wherever, food'll be out in a minute." we take a seat in the corner of the rectangular interior closest to the entrance, right in front of a window and under a big painting of a cargo ship entering a harbor the whole place is shotgun shaped, the front dining area is the barrel and the kitchen/back area is the rest of the shotgun. My expectations aren't high and they dont get higher as we sit down, the floors are sticky and so are the tables and chairs and just about every surface in the establishment, it's actually impressive how unclean it feels to sit down in here, many of the white tiles are yellowed and some are even cracked, the walls are in a similar state, offcolored wallpaper and the tiles near the floor suffer the same issue, like its all caught a plague of un-maintained; I bring these problems up to Netet as a way to make small talk and he has a glass half full viewpoint on it "Just means they care more about their food than most care about cleanliness eh?" the table has this little plaque on the edge of it, reading "This table was made from REAL reclaimed harbor cargo barrels!" I think I'm supposed to be excited by that but it just makes me think about how gross cargo ships must get, hopefully they cleaned the barrels before flatenning and table-fying them like this. I remember a story from my mom, she was never in any kind of manual labor, I come from a household of bureauocrats and office workers who found my desire to work in the most dangerous profession on the mainland baffling, anyways she told me a story of her uncle, a man who worked as a sailor, specifically he was a loader and unloader, a job where you mostly just move crates from the ship to the proper spot on the port and vice versa, when you arent moving crates you act as a general assistant to the higher up members of the ship, doing every horrible odd job, it is a fairly tedious career where the primary benefit is getting to daydrink around the archipelagos waters during downtime. This uncle of mine was inspired because sailors are revered for some reason, he read all the classic explorer stories and got all into the culture of being a true Utlian sailor, eventually he started working on a cargo vessel that was still made primarily of wood, one day they are approaching some Akarian port, I want to say it was Oksken but I might be wrong, and as they get the land in their line of sights, a loud booming crack is heard from the hull, he and a few of the other loaders rush down into the cargo bay and see a small colony of wood-suckers, a controversially classified as parastic species of squid, they eat wood, not dissimilar to beavers, they originally come from the rivers of southern Utlia and had stowed away through the journey, slowly wittling down the integrity of the barrels they can do some serious damage to ships if left ignored, but that takes some time; the sound was from one of them eating straight through the center of important part of a barrel, just fully cleaving it and making the "impact powder" stored within explode a hole into the floor, luckily the crew was able to make temporary repairs and kill all the woodsuckers, allowing them to make their stop at the destination port, where they got proper repairs. That is what I think of in this restaurant, I explain this to Netet and despite him seeming invested in the story, he replies with "Yeah barrels are gross when they have parasites but I'm sure they washed and polished these before shippin em here" after another few minutes of discussion, a man wearing a grease-stained apron approaches our table with a large serving plate, ontop of which a collection of barrel themed plates and bowls sit. The man wordlessly places our food on the table, my burger and soup are steaming as they get plopped onto the table, Netets order looks less appetizing than mine, his teyehog sandwich doesnt look cold but it does look unfinished, the coloring is off, his eiyye also came out in bottle form, I assume because they don't have taps in the kitchen, still feels a little cheap, especially in tandem with the bag of eyren, they could have atleast opened the bag and placed the chips on the plate, perhaps I'm being to harsh, the burger tastes quite good, I'm fairly picky with burgers usually but this one has surpassed my expectations, the soup is alright, not much there to say beyond the fact that I like the little mini barrel they serve it in. Netet finishes eating just after I do, he pulls out a messy wad of bills from his pocket, seemingly not in possession of a wallet, he pays for the two of us and as we leave the eatery asks me "So why did you join the militia instead of the army? Was wondering since I know the pay is worse for a lot more effort, seems like you kind of shot yourself in the foot yknow." at first I want to respond with a joking answer along the lines of "The uniforms are cooler" but in trying to format a proper reponse I realize that I dont really know beyond the fact its something that I wanted to do in secondary school because I thought normal jobs were too boring. The army isn't too different from being a militiaman, as a young man you go to a school for a year or two like with the militia, of course they end up getting paid more and have to do a lot less, as a soldier in the national army you only have to do training every two lerpoks and if there isn't a war going on that involves Utlia you get the rest of the year off. I think what disuaded me from the military is that every soldier ive ever met growing up had the biggest unearned ego ever, they act as if exercising twice a month gives them the right to behave like the entire nation is only standing because of their actions. I remember when I told my extended family about my plans they were dumbfounded as to why I wasnt planning on going to a nice university like the rest of my family, when they inquired about why in Azzta's name I chose the path I did, I would always respond with snark to make them stop asking.

On the way back to the apartment block theres a man selling "exotic" fruit from a converted newstand, hes been closed for the past couple weeks, I remember when he opened up and I was happy cause I wouldnt have to hear the barking of the news guy trying to get me to buy stonebrained magazines or newspapers that say what the radio already told me twice this morning. This hope was quickly dashed when I walked by the fruit stand for the first time and the guy yelled at me louder than I thought a mans voice could go, trying with all his might to get me to buy fruit that at best is unappetizing and at worst is a geniune health hazard, I distinctly remember him trying to sell me on a brown fruit that looked so old it was starting to resemble a walnut, his only way to persuade me into buying it was saying "BUT ITS AKARIAN, THEY USE IT FOR MEDICINE!" which has never made since to me, everyone knows medicine tastes bad why would I eat something used as medicine for fun, thats just silly. Honestly I thought his stand was closed I had never seen anyone buying anything from it. Today the man returns, his wrinkly rosy skin is interupted by bruises and his arm is in a cast, I am no expert but I would assume organized crime immediately, older men love their honor codes about family or whatever and maybe this guy just ended up on the wrong side of Unlaunens criminal geneology. I walk up to his stand, not to buy anything but to fill my curiosity "What happened to your arm?" I ask in my most concerned voice, though it comes off more like I'm questioning him for work, "Oh yknow, I took a tumble at my nephews birthday a couple weeks back, was carrying his pastry platter down the stairs and slipped a little, cracked 4 ribs and shattered my arm, by the time they got to me the dog had already eaten all the pastries, are you gonna buy some fruit? I got some okriti ribbon fruit in here yknow its real nice, juicy its got an unfamiliar taste, I found out that in Okrit they have an extra flavor called Nakale that describes how a lot of their food tastes, you should try it!" The mans serious expression turns back into the fruit vendor I know as he goes into his ad, I politely decline despite his barks and continue back to the apartment. As I enter the lobby I spot a seemingly middle aged man of tall stature smoking just under the no smoking sign, the receptionist behind the counter is visibly annoyed but isn't doing anything. I pass by wordlessly, just making my way to the corridor with the laundry room, its empty but the warm, everpresent hiss feels like company, I grab one of the free laundry bags off a corner table, the free bags arent very high quality but they get the job done most of the time; I have had some incidents in the past with the handles snapping while I'm in the middle of a stairway, causing my bag of clothes to spill onto the disgusting concrete stairs, I should probably go back and wash them again when that happens but Ive never been bothered enough to, I'll just take the unheard of diseases and medical conditions from the stairs. Luckily the handles hold sturdy during this ascent, the mid day sun shooting through the reinforced windows of the landings as I haul my bag up the empty stairwell. I hit my floor, unlock my door and place the bag against one of the halfwalls seperating the kitchen and living space, I will tell myself I'll go through and sort, organize these clothes but I never will, when I need something specific I will just rummage through the bag. My reasoning for this is simple, I am tired and its not like anyone is visiting to be abhorred by my laziness. I consider making a meal but decide against it, I instead choose to watch television, I turn it on and the first channel is the news, it always is, NPUV requires their twenty-four hour news channel be default on all televisions sold on the mainland, I knew a patrolman with a Liaian model that let him change what the default channel is, he seemed very proud, probably because he overpaid an absurd amount for a feature that saves around 3 seconds of your time. I flip through channels and eventually land on a documentary about warfare across the archipelagos, its ostensibly about all civilized nations but seems mainly focused on Utlia and Faltir for some reason; titled "How The Many Fight" it seems to focus specifically on the history of weaponry, luckily I catch it at the start, its only just now getting into the material. I shut closed the curtain in the living room, blocking the bright daylight as I lay down on my sofa. I watch the documentary talk about spears and hekreo for around 20 minutes before my eyes start to get heavy, the sound of the tv becomes background noise, my eyes close and my mind begins to wander.

I wake up panicked, my eyes havent adjusted enough to read the clock so I sit up and stare at the blurry abstraction on the wall until it comes into focus, it is 43 minutes before the show starts and I am barely concious, smelling of beak soup and dead brenya. Still groggy, I rush to the bathroom to get ready, a quick shower and teeth brushing later, it is 33 minutes before I need to be there, at this point I think to myself "does it even matter if I get there on time? Its not like we'll see eachother till after its over anyway." I discard this thought and continue in a slightly less hurried manner, I grab an assortment of plain civilian clothes out of the laundry bag, put them on in the middle of the apartment, and leave the old clothes on the floor between the kitchen and entryway. Of course by this time in the day, people are getting home and the stairwell is somewhat crowded, I try not to rush through, I've fallen down the steps on the way to work before and don't care for a repeat of that humilation today. Few obstacles sit between me and Shym station, I end up making it in time to catch a somewhat crowded train headed southbound just enough people to where I have to stand but not enough to be packed like tinned fish. The venue is a fairly high status Ideokeo club in the district of Lekrero, named after a guy who did some truly great things during the Azztan annexations, from the Utlian perspective atleast, the man credited with the ideas of "Fire-Extermination" the method of destruction that focused less on military instillations and more on pure terror, loading all the Utlian mepalar with shots of fire and directing them towards infrastructure and populated areas, mainly town centeres and shopping districts. This proved to be exceedingly effective at moral damage and making the freshing unified nation seem scary to the detractors. I recently read a report that they teach Lekrero, along with other figures from the Unification less than when I was in school, the official Education Bureau reasoning being that "there is too much history to spend entire units devoted to single individuals" I mean personally I liked the Lekrero unit because when we finished, all the kids who got 100% on the final unit exam got to launch a fireball in the courtyard with a makeshift mepalar but I get what the education people are saying, so much happens everyday now, I remember growing up and hearing from elders about how great things were before the calming, I can chock up a lot of that fondness to nostalgia but it is undoubtable that peace and quiet were far more prominent then, everywhere you go you have to hear about news and stories and what happened where, I cant blame them in the slightest for wanting to shut it out. "Coming up on Dyelma station, Lekrero" the announcement jolts me from my thoughts, I leave the train and walk to the side wall of the concourse, where the local district map is, the venue is on Satlka street, about a 10 minute walk from the station. Leaving the station I am hit by a surprisingly pleseant scent, the row-buildings in Lekrero have wall planters burning and encasing especially nice smelling flowers, as I start walking I notice the buildings are all shops and services for things I never realized were problems, things like a mechanic specializing in vacation shoreboats, a store selling what seems to be hat accessorises and nothing else, I even pass a car dealership. Satlka street isn't as decadent but still showcases a high level of wealth for Unlaunen. The club resides on the first floor of a large corner building, there are a few people smoking outside and some loud commotion happening inside, I walk up, approaching with my attempt of a friendly smile on the frail looking bouncer, he has the build of a malnourished homelesss man but is wearing designer clothes, seems as though he couldnt bounce a small dog if he wanted to, "Hi there, I think I'm on some kind of special list, name should be under Aryet" the man looks at me skeptically before disapearing inside, I get that I'm probably the most disingenous looking guy that could approach, I probably still smell like shitty food and dried blood, maybe that makes me cooler among the faux-struggler upper class though, if the bouncer is anything to go by, that seems to be the crowd at Eruya's shows. Before I can finish that thought, the frail man returns, a smirk painted on his face as he tells me "You are on the list, oek Aryet." he hands me a slip of laminated paper, similar to a ticket but with a special thing stating that I have higher privilege than the rest of the attendees "If you get any trouble from the other security, show them this and they'll leave you be." I thank him with a nod and head inside, the venue being the entire first floor of the corner building means that the inside is quite expansive, theres a corridor with a stand for snacks on one side, oppissite is a box office that has been abandoned, the shutters slammed down. The hall leads directly to the main venue space, large hall with a stage at the front, a bar at the back, bathrooms in a hall across from the entrance, and an upstairs vip area complete with a balcony overlooking the stage and some eye-straining colored lights, puffs of smoke occasionally waft down from the balcony onto the general audience area. That area is quite full by the time I arrive, the show itself hasnt started yet and I seem to have made it just in time. I head over to the bar during the soundcheck, the bartender is a lady wearing a graphic tee with some joke on it, its a little dark and I try not to stare at her chest, as much as I want to figure out the punchline, she runs up to me, cutting a conversation with a coworker sat at the other end short, her short red hair glistens in the headache-inducing atmosphere of the space. "Hey there, what can I get for you!" "Uhhhh can I just get a Set Iket" "Coming right up!" We are practically screaming over the sound of everyone else here, after a short wait she brings me the bottle I requested, she smiles at me before quickly returning to her conversation with her coworker. I leave the bar, drink in hand and debate trying to get closer to the stage as a "show of support" though I eventually decide to just stay near the back, let someone who cares more get that up close spot, plus I like the extra personal space in the back. The crowd here isn't what I expected, nothing like the "faux-struggler" luxury fella outside, mostly people closer to the bartender in style and apperance, which is a nice surprise, I dont particularly like the ideokeo aesthethics but its more honest than covering yourself in mud and living off your dads war money. The crowd also seems to be losing it, in a way that reminds me faintly of playing Kepet shows in the back of tape stores or in a degenerates basement. These people have real passion, which is respectable enough even if its passion for something that kinda sucks.

After a few more minutes Eruya comes out, she clearly has the stage prescense for this kind of thing, I never did, I hated everyone infront of me when I played, which might have been a positive depending on your outlook on the genre; as the crowd quiets down she grabs a microphone off of the stand and begins speaking "Uchek Uchek everyone, thank you all for showing up to this, its my official signed debut and I plan on making it unforgettable" she continues on some speech and by this time I've finished my beer so I go back to the bar, "Back already?" she asks "Yeah I usually try to drink my beers as fast as possible cause the taste sucks" "Just dont drink beer than dumbass" she says, laughing "Well okay what would you reccomend" before ive even finished my sentence she pulls out a bottle featuring some pinniped logo I have never seen before "Its East Ocean in origin, uses the underwater fruits around Grylbo island, I know the guy who runs the brewery they make it in, I'll give you the first for free" she seems very proud of this "alright ill try it" I take it back to my spot in the backline. At this point Eruya has finished her speech and is starting to play, her backing band has come out and as the intro to her first song starts I taste the alcohol I was gifted, it is the greatest thing I have ever tasted, it is geniunely heavenly, as I sip it the rest of the world goes quiet, this is all I can think about, I check the label "Ikeropa Gryswen 14% ABV" I have to remember that name. She finishes her first song, its alright, I finish the Gryswen, its incredible, I go back to the bar, make small talk with the bartender about how good it is, order another, Eruya plays another song, I drink, she finishes a song, I order. This cycle continues for about 5 songs before I realize I should stop drinking, I order one more for the road and after another 5 songs no drinks taken I start to feel a little bit sober, she announces shes going to play the final song and I decide to drink the road liquor now, vowing that it will be my last tonight. This song is different than the ones before, maybe its just my inebriated state but the guitar seems harsher, the drums are punchy, her vocals sound strained, I actually find myself really liking it. At this point ive accidentally ended up near the front of the audience just with some drunken movements, at some point during the middle of the last song she notices me, we lock eyes, I think atleast, I am half blind with all the venue lights moving around so its hard to tell, her light brown hair seemingly sways in time with the music, she looks at me again, her big dopey eyes have an unmistakable friendliness to them. The song ends, she gives a little speech thanking everyone, then walks off stage. I walk to the right side of the stage on the same side as the bathrooms, thinking about pissing when I see her backstage, gesturing for me to follow her with her hands. I show the little laminated ticket to the bald, overweight looking security guy blocking the backstage entrance but he doesnt budge at the sight of it, as I argue with him I watch as Eruya comes up from behind him, she yells in his face about not doing his job properly, he then steps aside, letting Eruya take me up the little stairwell that leads behind the stage. After a series of corridors we arrive at the green room, I take a seat on the sofa "SO what did you think?" she asks in a bright tone, taking a seat next to me, her black and white dress skirt compressing as she lands "I thought it was great, really blew my expectations out of the east ocean water yknow, type of thing to really engross ya, I mean i was- i was capitvated, you did a great job." "Thanks, thats good to hear, I was so nervous earlier but I got used to it up there I think. OH right what did you think of that last song?" "Oh that was my favorite by far, you guys killed it, really strangled the infant with that one, truly." she gets up and walks over to a mini fridge "Yeah I wrote it after our conversation when we met, I thought about how I could mesh genres that dont seem to work well together, glad to hear it turned out well, atleast to you." she pulls a bottle of eiyye out of the fridge "figured we could celebrate-" before she can finish her sentence she notices my hand "Are you okay? What happened to your hand" "Oh just a workplace car accident, the hand isn't a big deal, I think I might have brain damage but I'm trying not to think about it yknow, if I dont think about it, it cant hurt me" "Sounds painful, I broke one of my wrists a few years back and that was minor compared to your problem" she continues her earlier thought "Anyway, the record label paid for a taxi home for me, figured we could drink this eiyye back there, instead of this sty of a green room" I thought it was a nice room, the sofa is comfortable atleast. After another minute or so of talking a loud honk interupts "Oh that must be the ride" I get up and follow her out a backdoor, my eyes take a moment to adjust to the night sky, everything is still spinning a little but I think I'm handling it well; there is a Herejil brand taxicab with the Uchek records label logo plastered on the sides like a police cruiser, it even has a siren on top, I dont know what the practical reason for that is but it looks nice.

The seats in the cab are more comfortable than an average train seat for sure, the vehicle is clearly modified aftermarket, there are cup holders in the back, the windows are tinted, theres a seperator between the back and front seats. it feels like a real luxury compared to public transport or even a normal car for sure. As we get in and the vehicle starts moving, any sense of sobriety leaves my system, I dont usually get sick from train or car rides, even as a kid it was never a problem for me but right now I feel closer to projectile vomiting than I ever have in my life. I find that looking out the windows makes my nausea worse but staring down at the ground also makes it worse, I manage to keep the vomit down atleast, even if my body desperately wants to release it, "Feels a little overkill to me honestly, I think I can take the train home and be fine, I dont feel bad about them spending their money on me though." Atleast she seemingly hasnt noticed my sickness "yeah yeah for sure, if I get in a car I want to be driving yknow." "That seems like a fun perk of your job, you get to drive around all day, I mean the rest of your job experience seems kind of terrible but those inbetween bits sound real peaceful." "Indeed." She continues talking at me about how her opinions on my career path and I try to sound interested and receptive while also somehow managing to not throw up all over the back of this nice car, eventually we stop. the doors open, she leads me into an apartment building, I'm pretty sure we are in Kwen, a part of Awelat but I couldnt honestly cant parse many of the streets features with my drunken stupor combined with the pitch black night combined with the bad street lights. The lobby of the building is exquistely decorated with brenya paintings and statues and rugs. They also have a functioning elevator, which we go up to the ninth floor on, her room is at the end of a standard looking hallway, she unlocks the door, the apartment itself is shockingly similar to mine, its far cleaner and the layout is different, kind of reversed with the kitchen to the right of the entrance and the bedroom placed in the west hallway. At this point she leaves me to go to the bathroom and I spy a record collection by the television set, I of course begin snooping through, I have to re-read the album titles around 5 times to get them to actually stick in my mind and I still lose track after a couple minutes. She comes out the bathroom and startles me "Find anything to your tastes?" I look up from the mess of records I left on her carpet and shes changed clothes, now wearing a shirt and sweatpants, she looks normal now "Yeah I think" I say, going through the pile trying to find one I thought had cool cover art "It was in here somewhere." "Let me pick, my collection after all." shes smiling and it makes me strangely uncomfortable. Taking a seat next to me on the floor, she begins going through the records until she finds one she likes "oooo I think this one works, fits the mood AND I dont think you'll hate it." The cover is some bonfire crackling with a forest in the background "Wait what album is that I dont recognize it?" "Iru Skeyw by Artyeyk Eoterel" really intimate acoustic album, its so pretty, one of the only albums to make me cry actually." "wow high standards here." She sets it on the record player and as she presses the needle down onto the player I feel an intense need "Uhhh can I use your bathroom real quick?" "Yeah of course, just down that hall" she points down to the room she came out of earlier, which ends up being connected to the bedroom, I take a cursory glance at the layout of the bathroom before I piss, all of her sink supplies are neatly organized, her shower curtain doesnt have mold on it, theres a family photo above her toilet, thats an odd spot for that but alright, guess you get reminded of it alot, as I open the toilet to empty my bladder I feel a different part of my body trying to take hold, something disgusting and warm coming up my throat from the deepest recesses of my stomach, the worst part about throwing up is the anxiety around it for sure, that intense feeling of terror when it feels like your entire body is being filled with bile, nose feels like its drowning in the stuff, throat burning red hot with chunks of it. The whole process i s much worse when you are as drunk as I am, not being able to fully articulate or understand whats happening in time, I end up spewing the first bit on the wall below her family photo before managing to hold it in long enough to drop to my knees infront of the open toilet and release the rest of the burst, the second worst part of throwing up is the actual hurling part, some disingenious fools would have you believe it feels good but they are lying, there is nothing satisfying about feeling every part of your body fill with the disgusting puke half-liquid consistency, I think people tell themselves that only because it is slightly better than the anxiety ridden tension at the start of a spewing bout. As I am watching every bit of steak, fish, beer and eastern fruit come up out of me, eyes barely able to stay open during the whole ordeal. Eruya walks into the bathroom as I'm beggining the second burst with not even a knock or anything "Oh shit are you okay, how much did you have to drink?" "Uhghgtht aa owly a feaw ugfhghg drinks yknow." "Have you had any water today??" "What? ughgh No." I respond sternly "Let me grab you some." She rushes out of the bathroom, leaving the handle of eiyye she was carrying around on the sink counter, she returns incredibly fast, at this point the second round is over and I am dry heaving over the previously beautiful porcelain, now stained with evidence of my horrible diet. She practically bottlefeeds me the water in what I can only describe as embarassing to my entire bloodline, all I can hope is that I dont remember any of this in the morning, I mutter a thanks between intense gulps; she leaves the bottle at my side as she gets up and undoes the cap on the eiyye "Awww I'm sorry, I was about to make you drink some of this." She takes a few big swigs of it and I find myself strangely drawn to the thought of a glass "Can I have a drink please" I say almost fully out of breath "No" she says, moving the bottle close to her chest like I'm gonna leap at her for it. The dry heaving stops for a moment, a nice bit of calm immediately ruined by the third burst of disgorge racing to escape my body, Eruya also racing to pat me on the back and give reassuring words, no doubt an attempt to make me feel better that I appreciate but truthfully I wish I just wasnt in the situation for it to happen, I like it but I shouldn't, I am not in need of this, I could handle it on my own anyways, I shouldnt be burderning her with my problems. Eventually it stops, the third burst and then its subsequent dry heaves both fading out, at this point I feel sober for real this time, she gives me a smile as I look up from the toilet for the first time what feels like hours before finishing off the bottle of eiyye, it seemingly not affecting her in the slightest. "So you feeling better now?" "Yeah I think. I think I can go home now, I'm sorry about the hassle" "no no your fine, not your fault after all, I wouldnt make you take the train back to Merespem after that anyway. Ill set up a ekezret spot on the floor." she leaves the bathroom and I try to collect myself, for the first time in a while I can comprehend the music playing, she was right about it being pretty but it will now be forever be backing track for the one of the worst moments of my living memory. I leave the bathroom, the music is no longer playing, shes sitting on the couch reading some mass-market doreonya while the television plays reruns of IRU IRU IRU a sketch comedy show that has started get massively popular lately, I thank her and lay down on the ekezret, setup on the floor between the television and the couch, essentially bridging the gap between the two pieces of furniture, her sofa area is similar to my apartment except she doesnt have a table in the space like I do. I sit and watch the episode, the sketch playing as I lay down is a satire about the formation of the Azz'marin they had to get approval from both the government and the Azz'marin to air, the latter of which having script control completely killed all of the jokes by making themselves way to righteous in it and removing anything poking fun at them, the original version was probably incredible compared to the censored nberek they ended up approving. The next sketch that plays centers around a Casean man who ends up in a notoriously foul smelling Mountange town, he cant smell any of it so he thinks the place is wonderful and all the Utlians he meets are trying to convince him to leave but hes too stubborn and ends up inhaling toxic gas and dying in a horrific two-minute long suffocation scene, I think because they didnt have a proper punchline to the episode. I end up mindlessly watching a couple more episodes instead of sleeping, I end up pretty invested in a bit about a Civil Militia Division patrol officer who considers himself a pacifist and orders his partner to open fire on suspects instead, this investment is quickly derailed when I hear and then feel Eruya get up off the sofa, put her book down, and crawl into the ekezre behind me, my body wants me to react, it wants me to scoot up to be atleast arms length from her but I am far too tired to move at this point "I usually sleep with the tv on, is that okay?" "yeah yeah I usually do the same its fine." IRU IRU IRU loses my attention and I try to fade off to sleep.

5. Wealthy Connection

It is an hour before noon when I wake up, the events of the previous night hitting me in waves of disgust like a forensics examination of a man shot by a cannonball and dipped in acid and lit on fire. When I wake up Eruyas' arm is wrapped around my stomach and her eiyye ridden breath is shooting down my neck, I cant fall back to sleep as much as I want to, my head is pounding and my brain wants me to commit ritual suicide, I am also a standard kind of tired too, eventually she gets up, in no time after waking up she is up and ready, she asks if I want breakfast but I decline, something something I have work, she seems dissapointed and I feel a little bad but I also feel too much shame here "Alright well, I'll call you later!" she exclaims as I leave the apartment, I say my goodbyes and make my way out of her apartment building. When the elevator opens on the lobby, I realize those brenya decorations are tacky as hell, its so bad that only a management council could be behind this horrid choice, why is the carpet white too, bad taste all around. The walk to the train station is uneventful, I cant think with this headache, I just want to get on the train, and get to work, I end up catching a train southwest right on time, it is dead, the working crowd already got their trains, the only other passengers on my car are a delinquent pair of teenagers skipping school and a train enthusiast with an expensive camera, hes taking high quality photos of the train interior while the two delinquents drink shitty booze from the bottom of a bottle, I assume found in some rat-ridden dumpster. I end up half asleep for the rest of the ride, only coming to before the announcer mentions Shym station, my mouth is so dry and my bones feel like they spent 100 years encased in the desert sand. I get off the train and speed-walk down haryk street, out of breath and with my body wanting to go for a fourth round of spewing, I make it back to my apartment in one coherent piece. I take my time up the four flights of stairs. When I reach my apartment, my elderly neighbor is sitting outside reading, he gives me a revolted grimacy, like hes trying to be nice but simply doesnt like me in any way and cant muster even a visage of positivity. I ignore him and unlock the door, I drink a bit of iced coffee I have in the fridge before taking my work clothes out of the laundry bag, it feels good to be back in uniform, like I'm back to the real me. I wash my face quickly in the bathroom, hoping it does enough to mask my alcohol and puke tinged stench. I grab my gun and badge, leave the apartment, get on the train and get to work on Ereneop street without thinking much about anything, I felt like I was in a hurry for the first time in a long time. I walk into work and as I approach my desk I am greeted by a defeated Ureste "Hey, I thought you would do atleast a few days on leave yknow." he says, eyeing my injured hand the whole time "I'm only doin a half day today, gotta leave for a dinner thing later." "Fancy, hey I assume you didnt hear the news coming in today, you're gonna love it." his sarcastic tone prepares me for something incredibly dumb "What news?" "Unfortunately you, and by extension me are off that gang shooting case, they reassigned it to some Active Response team that will be quote more active unquote about it, real load of brenyashit if you ask me." "Oh, really? Damn, now I have nothing to do today, I was gonna do some research while i healed up but now I realize i couldve slept in a ltittle more." "Oh well, I'll go talk to Hib, see if she can get you on an easy case or call or something." He leaves the investigatory department and makes a beeline for Field Overseer Hibs office, I take a look at my desk drawer and find that all of my files relating to that case I was working are confiscated. I grab my notepad from the bottom of the drawer and write todays date on a new page, Aracet-7-60 PC, as I wait for Ureste to return, I watch as someone I have never seen before enters the investigatory area, she has a mailbag and medium length black hair , she takes a seat two desks behind me; Ureste comes out, approaching me with a big grin on his face "Aryet! We got something good! poultry theft! technically its assigned as my job but you'll be co-heading it since its an investigory thing." I motion for him to come closer, he leans in confusedly "whos she?" "Oh shes the new homicide detective, just got transferred from Balmor yesterday, not a talker from what I heard. Do you want to help with this poultry? cause I'm ready to go." I nod and get up, Ureste moves on ahead of me while I gather my things, as I'm getting ready I hear a voice behind me "Detective Aryet." I turn around see the balmor girl stood straight up, arm outsretched, she has a small face, like it was pasted onto her head "Yeah, what do you need?" I say as I shake her hand "I, Myik Ap, transferred here yesterday from Balmor-Ut, Pewet district, I am trying to introduce myself to the investigatory department, you are the last coworker I've met." she talks with this commanding tone but her voice just isn't built for it, feels like being yelled at by a child "Nice to meet you but I have places to be, see you around the precinct."

Merespem is a great place to transfer too, one of the best in Unlaunen for sure, I see why so many people end up here from across the island; meeting people is maybe my second least favorite part of work though, not talking to civilians I actually tend to like that that, it plays into the problem and puzzle solving part of the job I love but coworkers are different, they want to befriend you like in this case or they treat your relationship as some sort of rivalry. Even the good connections that come out of the job end up being guys you aren't sure you even like ending up in car crash that is your own fault. New girl seems nice enough, atleast.

In the garage, Ureste is smoking a cigarette while leaned up on the drivers side of his vehicle, his weird nose and slowly growing buzz cut almost look cool shrouded in smoke. The haircut suits him. As I approach he takes a folder off the roof of the car and tosses it to me "Call log from this morning." he monotonely says while getting in the car. We start driving and I give the folder a glance-through, the Anerel family is dealing with theft of chickens from their farm in the plains north of the city, the patriarch of this family seemingly blames his nephew, citing some "bad people" he is apparently involved with. We are driving to their family townhouse in the wealthy part of Merespem, they have lived in this part of the city for a long time, big local benefactors apparently; the Anerel's were never noble officially but were about as close as you could get. Pre-calm they applied and tried multiple times to get official noble status, they didnt care what they had to run as long as they got to be officially noble, post-calm they ended up with more money than any lesser noble due to the Braia era cutdowns of the monarchist governments practices. The heater sounds like its bound to explode at any moment but I look at the guage and its only at half of its maximum power, I turn to Ureste and try to start a conversation "So these guys live up north right?" "Yeah, right on the district border pretty much, none of their operations are in the city but they dont want the grimy rural life I guess, the mansion townhome is more dignified for wannabe nobles I reckon." Ureste finishes his cigarrette and sloppily ashes it in the cupholder. On the way to the northern border of Merespem we pass by that Casean-owned shop that got hit by the shakedown last week, they seem to have reopened already, cant imagine they feel great about running the shop still. My head is killing me so I ask Ureste if we can stop by a pharmacy "Uhhh check the glovebox I think I left some hangover cure or pain meds in there." I open the glovebox and as he said, there is a bottle of Hejwoe brand headache reliever, its nearly empty but it's better than nothing, I decide to wait till we stop moving before taking it, don't want to spill whats left of it on the floor. The daytime sights of Merespem are charming, despite any complaints I have about the district, all the alleys, rowhomes and shops come together with the somewhat odd assortment of people groups that live here and make a unique character you don't see elsewhere on the mainland, if nothing else, its interesting. Maybe its just the way the sun is hitting the buildings but today it looks especially lively out. After a few more minutes of driving we arrive at the home Anerel family home, they bought a selection of rowhomes on the wealthiest street of Merespem and converted them all into one, adding a fourth floor to the central one where all the things they actually use stay. We park further down the street and I pour whats left of the Hejwoe into the flimsy plastic cup that latches onto the bottle and gulp it down, it tastes like chemically engineered dirt, Hejwoe is made using moss I think so thats not that odd but for some reason it tastes especially vile right now, I grab the bottle and hold it up to see the bottom, where I find that it expired on Yenso 29, hopefully it still has some kick left in it. I watch Ureste as I put the bottle back in the glove box, he takes hold of his holster, which had been under his jacket, and moves it so that it is clearly visible on his right side just under his shoulder, I assume its some kind of authority thing, you seem intimidating as a militiaman if you have your service weapon out, makes you seem like you could use it at anytime. The "common" way of doing things for a detective is to keep it placed on your belt, half obscured by the militia jacket over it, for patrolmen or AR they tend to have it in about the same belt spot but their uniforms dont have jackets so its visible to anyone nearby, I personally keep my holster loose just under my right shoulder, I dont like having it press against my undershirt or snag on things while running, keeping it on my side is the most logical option for comfort and practicality. Ureste and I get out of the parked car and begin to walk towards the megahome, "I don't get it." Ureste says, sighing "Get what?" "Why even merge the homes, its not like one is small or something, just seems greedy." "Yeah, I wonder what you do with all that extra space." "Nothing of benefit to anyone." He says, we arrive at the front door of the house, he ignores the ornate doorknockers, opting instead to bash on the beautiful wooden doors with his fist, after a few seconds the door opens and a woman, clearly a servant greets us "Uchek awit Welk ." Ureste takes charge "Uchek awit, I'm detective Diytsjik and this is detective Saaryu, we are with the Merespem Civil Militia Division, is Votan Anerel here, he called-" before he can finish the servant turns around, beckoning us to follow her. The servant leads us through the halls, they are decadent but not gaudy, marble columns and priceless art lining the walls, the whole place is decorated in a very traditional wealthy way, what catches my eye is the amount of bookshelves, names like Lemenek Heknet and Aryeym Kobslit stick out, real classic stuff, lots of philisophical work from some of Utlias most important people on the shelves too, I even spot some Lumrern Ket, also notable is that they are seemingly sorted by country of origin, genre and alphabetically, each bookshelf has a sign above it denoting these things, the majority of the books look read as well, not unkempt but noticeably worn from use.

The servant takes us up some hardwood stairs, three sets of them and into a lounge area, expensive looking sofas and chairs, arranged for conversation, even more bookshelves but these seem to have picture and art books stored in them. There are windows on both sides of the room, the sun is beaming through them, one side is cracked and you can feel the Aracet breeze coming in; in the middle of the room, on one of these extravagantly priced chairs is an older man, maybe mid 60s maybe early 70. The man is wearing little to signify his wealth, he has a standard jacket not much nicer looking than our own uniform and common trousers. "Sit, Sit." he vocalizes as we enter and the servant leaves, me and Ureste take a seat, him on the side of the room with the closed windows and I opposite him on the street-facing side. "Hello oek Anerel, I am detective Saaryu and this is detective Diytsjik, we are from the Merespem Civil Militia Division." "I know, I called you this morning." he remarks "What is the deal with this poultry business you are worried about, you didn't go very in depth during your call." Ureste says while looking down at the folder, he looks up after finishing his sentence "Do you lads not want something to drink, eat, anything, we have plenty, it feels mighty rude of me to not offer such distinguished guests of the Braiaists sustenance." "No thanks, we just ate." I proclaim "Suit yourself." He murmurs back before continuing louder "We have a farm, east of here, by the lake, it is one of our smaller operations, it is currently in the hands of my brothers son, he recently returned from a vacation to the east ocean islands and Casea, which is why I call you now, this young degenerate, Lowek, is responsible for the theft of a hefty percentage of our lost chickens, we get these chickens imported from Spyron so it is not cheap, breeding them here is hard and we tend to already lose many from predators in both cold and warm seasons. I called so you would deal with my idiot nephew and his associates, I do not know what they use the chickens for nor do I care, I simply cannot allow such blatant disrespect to my family to occur." I jut in "These associates of your nephew, do you know if they may be a gang or criminal syndicate type of organization?" "I have no idea but they are criminals, he has been in with them since he was about eighteen, hes twenty-two now and they have only gotten worse, he was never a bright young man but these friends of his do nothing but cause trouble." I look over and Ureste is furiously writing in his own notepad, it is branded with a childrens myloe juice mascot, like he got it in a sweepstakes. I continue my questioning "So you say hes out east, could you give me his address." The old man grabs a piece of branded stationery from a book-less shelf behind him and summons a pen from his trouser pocket, he quickly writes a street and home number in neat traditional looking Utyis before passing the paper over to me. I take the paper but before I can continue the interview Ureste chimes in "I know you said you dont care about why they are taking your poultry but if we had a clue as to why your farm has been targeted that would be immensely helpful." "I'm not sure why they would do it, what do criminals get out of chickens, I assumed it was possibly a front for something, as in they take the chickens and ship them across borders along with illegal goods, the chickens acting as a cover for them." the old man explains "Sounds like a fairly risky and roundabout way of doing things but I guess if your nephew is a known poultry-man then I can see it being a viable reason. Thank you for your time mr Anerel, we will be on our way now." Ureste gets up and I say my farewell to the man before following, that ended rather unexpectedly but I guess Ureste got all he was looking for. We leave the way we came, passing through the halls of fortune, the old mans family have appeared in the various rooms now, like they were avoiding us earlier and got caught by our abrupt exit, they talk of foreign news and worries about the Teren government, these family members are dressed in a luxurious manner, as we come near the front door an opulent looking older woman that smells bizarre comes in from the other side, a wide set of shopping bags from various boutiqes set under her arms, she stares at us for a moment before moving over to the side of the soor "Sorry officers! Wouldnt mean to obstruct important government work!"

These people, not just this family but the dozens more like them, are worried about the Teren government and their upcoming "wealth gut" an enactment that just passed in the Maasyl last lerpok, it will impose restrictions on business conducted outside of government, much like the Yyme era "Equality plan" but this time they actually seem to be serious about enforcing it, the enactment will also drastically raise taxes and fees for those who own businesses or make too much money in a given euwen, it harshly reduces the powers given to independent entrepreneurs. The Anerels specifically will probably lose their poultry due to the importing restrictions to be put in place but I dont even think they know that, the whole thing is clouded in political jargon and legalspeak, all these people understand is that they might not exist at the end of the season, might as well spend what you have now before its redistributed.

Out on the sidewalk again, Ureste turns to me "I know you have places to be later but we should sit down and debrief, theres a cafe down the road a bit, if you're up for a bit of a walk." I take him up on the offer and he takes the lead, I follow him, the cafe is further than I thought, every turn we take the average salary of the area seemingly gets lower. Eventually we end up in a concrete multi-use tower lobby, Ureste is staring at the directory "Okay I remember it being its own building years ago. This is definitley the place though." he says while pointing to a place listed as being on the fourth floor. According to Ureste the cafe, a place named "Feysum Ek Netret" has some of the best Utlian coffee he has ever had, we take the stairs up a few flights and end up in a humble, subtley decorated diner. The eatery is not really themed nor does it give itself a gimmick, it is simply a place to get food, I see why Ureste likes the place, the only paintings on the walls are of wealthy looking Wyckryn and ships in a storm, the primary colors of the place are white and blue; the tiles, walls and ceiling are a white concrete and the seats, tables are a nice nautical blue. We walk up to the counter and Ureste rings a bell, a tired looking worker, only a hat and apron denoting him as an employee appears from a door to the right of the other side of the ordering counter, the menu of the resturant is incredibly simple, fish and a few different types of feysum coffee, it doesn't even specify the kind of fish. The worker reaches in his pocket and pulls out a small notepad, "Hi, what can I get you guys." he is beaming with a smile, Ureste goes first "I'll have a cup of classic feysum and a two piece fish with eyren." the man writes it down, when he finishes I give him my order "I will have a classic feysum and a two piece fish, no eyren." The man smiles, tells us the order will be ready soon and goes back to the kitchen; me and Ureste step to the side, making way for customers that dont exist, the place has a couple people sitting down and eating but none are with another or talking so you can hear every noise clearly, the sound of the fish being grilled and the coffee beinig brewed especially. Me and Ureste stand awkardly for a few minutes before the man returns with two trays, I take mine and Ureste takes his, we thank him and find a seat in the "quietest" part we can find, a seat in the far corner by the windows, peering out onto the rowhomes, towers and concrete apartments of Merespem below. The booth seats are not comfortable, the blue material is vinyl-esque and seems to be made more for ease of cleaning than guest comfort. I try to start eating but Ureste starts talking first "So, tommorow we gotta talk to that nephew right, I dont know how you feel but I feel think old guy was just blaming his delinquent family." "Yeah, we'll have to take the field trip out east and talk to him, I dont want to interrogate him to where he feels in trouble, gives him an incentive to lie, if hes anything like his uncle suggests, getting him to accidentally admit to something shouldn't be too hard." Ureste nods, unable to speak due to shoveling food in his mouth the whole time I was talking. We eat wordlessly for a few minutes "Can I have some Eyren?" I ask him, regretting my descision to not get any "What?" he responds "You shouldve gotten some yourself." he looks puzzled but still passes the bag over to me, I grab two pieces and pass the bag back. As we eat there is a man a few seats ahead of us with a tapedeck and about half-a-dozen tapes splayed out on the table, all undone, their tape entrails spilling out over the vinyl table, I try to parse his actions for a bit but I simply cannot decipher what he is trying to do, as hes taking a screwdriver to the tapedeck and just taking it apart. I choose to focus the rest of my mealtime on whatever this guy is up to.

We are halfway back to the station when Ureste turns to me concerned and says "We didn't pay, did we." I realized this about five minutes after we left the building but I didn't want to go back in and pay "Oh shit, we didn't." "Damn now I feel bad, we'll have to chock it up to a militia discount, I mean he didnt come up and give us payslips once, I don't think we were supposed to go up and ring the bell again, did you see anybody pay?" he spends the rest of the ride coping, trying his best to justify the theft we committed. We pull into the station, Ureste always parks in his designated spot, the same cannot be said for the divisions patrolmen, we turn up to the floor his space is on and there is a vehicle parked neatly in it. "Nremsey churgfuckers cant even read basic Utyis, why do we give them guns." he shouts He parks in a random patrolman spot thats open on the same floor. He purposefully parks shitty as a way to get back at them, which I don't fully understand since they are still coworkers, but who am I to judge someone for grudges, grudges feel great. Back at the desks, Ureste angrily types up his day report before handing it in to Hib. He continues to complain about the incompetency of the patrolmen to me at my desk, I agree without paying much attention until he gets interrupted by an unfamiliar voice behind our desks "Excuse me, I have a few questions about your work today." We turn around, its Myik, "Oh yeah, what do you need answered, we can probably help." I try to be helpful in response.

"Great, so first I was wondering what the protocol is for interrogations, I have yet to do anything beyond paperwork on my own and was wondering how you all conduct interviews. Second I want to know the policy on discharging a service weapon, do you have to file every shot fired or just every kill, in what situations is it okay to dischard said service weapon, that kind of thing. My third inquiry, I want to know about the vehicle situation, do I just get assigned one after training or will I have to request one. Finally I was wondering if I could swap my trainee, I have Detective Nneyer and we are not meshing together well, he seems wholly uninterested in training me, often gives me busywork and doesnt let me contribute to the one case we are working. That is all, sorry if it's a lot but Field Overseer Hib told me you two were the best in the precinct." She has a nervous smile on her face, I try to answer her the best I can "We don't really use any protocol, the interview method in the handbook is very broad and not the most helpful, it is more of a framework of what to do, it sucks in practice cause its devoid of context, we tend to freeform it. For your second question, we tend to only file the deaths caused by firearms but I know some of the patrolmen dont even do that, also dont use kill in reference to us discharging our service weapon, the precinct heads do not like it since it makes us sound malicious or something. Third question, your training should be over tommorow since its day 3, then they will assign you the vehicle, I know in some districts they do it different but here its assigned." "Back in Balmor it was a yearly raffle" Ureste interjects,"five or so people got first place and the newest models, then ten got second place, you get the idea." "Anyway" I continue "About Nneyer, you'll just have to deal with him tommorow, he is a real control freak asshole and takes his job far too seriously, he never accepts or asks for help though so after you finish training you wont have to deal with him. Hope we could help" "Yeah he also hates women so you probably get the bad end of the stick, his ex-wife left him cause hes such a cunt." Ureste interjects again "Sorry I shouldnt spread gossip -but also-." Myik stops him before he can continue "Thank you, I appreciate it. You were a great help, truthfully I've been having trouble getting used to it here, everyone is so different from my district." "Oh yeah you were up in Twus district before this werent you, everyone in Balmor knew those guys were antisocial freaks. Back in Serees we had someone that inter-district transferred from there and they hated working up there, oh I'm sorry, didnt mean to shittalk your old district " "No its fine, remember I transferred here on my own accord." Before we can continue the conversation, her name gets called by someone entering the desk area from the main lobby "Myik! come on, we have to go, stop talking!" its Nneyer, he seems annoyed about something. She grabs her bag off her chair and rushes over to follow him, they talk in hushed tones about some case and leave for the garage, Ureste also gets up to leave "Oh right, you have plans, ill get out of your hair, I got social work to do anyways, see you tommorow." He gives me a friendly smile before he heads to the call intake-center. I grab my weapon and non-confidential stuff, leaving through too the hall that Nneyer came out.

I have to go to dinner in two hours, I make my way back the apartment, the train stations are full of Utlians and non getting off of their normal jobs and heading homes, I manage to grab a seat on the first train but after the transfer on the way to a Shym, a pregnant woman ends up with the last seat. Despite the business of the hour, the apartment is fairly empty, a few normal sights in the recreation area and lobby but no sign of my neighbor or more worryingly, Netet, the lobby receptionist isn't even at his post, I assume cleaning up some mess in the courtyard or something. My hall is fairly busy, a family of four lives in the apartment across from mine and I feel bad for whoever lives below them, they have a five year old and an eight year old child, they are out in the hall playing around "Oh hey Aryet, hope work was well." "yeah, had a productive day back." the father speaks to me, on the way to my door the mother stops playing with her childen for a moment and stairs at my injured hand, as I unlock my door I hear her say "Remember to stay safe." They are by far the kindest people in this building, I remember we had no heat for a week and they came over to gift me a blanket, I was embarassed in the moment cause they saw my mess of an apartment but I appreciate the act now, I still use that imported-wool blanket. I put my work jacket on the kitchen counter, I notice my phone has a message, I press the messages button down and hear the beep so I decide to try to find something nice to wear to my politicians dinner while the message plays. As I sift through the laundry bags I hear a familiar voice:

• "Hey Aryet! you probably guessed it already but its me Eruya, would you want to go out on the ninth, I have nothing to do and want to go to Awelat, do some shopping, maybe see a movie, we had such a great time the last we saw of eacother, I figured we could have a proper date, if you want of course. Just call me back wheneverrrr you get a chance."

If nothing else she is persistent, I manage to find nothing that formal, I do have a dress shirt though, I'll wear that with some work pants. I grab the clothes I need for tonight but before that I start getting ready and forget to call Eruya back I get it out of the way. She isn't available but I leave a message "Just letting you know that I can be free the ninth if you want. I'll do a bit of work in the morning and then we can do whatever later in the day." I leave the clothes on the counter and go to take a shower, the bathroom light flickers a little, despite the otherwise generally well-constructed apartment, the bathroom was seemingly rushed, the shower being the most well-crafted part of it, which is probably for the best. I turn the knobs on the wall so the water can heat up a bit before I get in, I can usually tell when the water is warm enough for me because the ill-fitting showr head will begin to let out a slight hiss when it gets past a certain temperature. My bathroom isn't the neatest, its fairly dirty compared to the rest of the apartment but it manages to still feel calming, it has a cozy aura to itself, though I feel the sound of running water does a lot of the heavy lifting for that emotion, making me forget that I should clean the cracks in the ceramic tiles because they get easily clogged with grime. I start to hear the hiss and after taking off my work clothes, step into the shower. It has been only a few days since I last bathed thorougly but it feels like forever ago. Back in Kelna, during my days at the academy one of my roomates was an Akarian immigrant, he was my least favorite house-mate by far, he never cleaned up or anything, spent a lot of time arguing over basic chores, he thought it was biased persecution as he was the only one not also attending the militia academy down the street, one day another member of the house snapped at him and in retaliation he snapped our shower head off the bathroom wall, among a list of other reprenhensible actions before storming out. Included in that list is also throwing a bunch of plates on the ground and leaving an incredibly spiteful note on the fridge voicing his frustration, when we got home he was already long gone. The shower head was the thing that always bothered me most, it was the quiestest part of the apartment and the sound of the water near completely blocked out whatever loud-conversations-with-girlfriends or riffing-with-annoying-friends was going on in the other rooms of the old district hovel we lived in, the building was once a home for ledey passing through the area, it was nice during the early unification days but not up to contemporary standards. After the shower broke we spent just over half a lerpok without it, of the four members of the house, two decided to shower at other peoples places, one just didnt bathe for the six day period and I used the incredibly underwhelming academy gym showers, the gym was always empty and rarely had anyone working in there, unlike the rest of the pristine and historic academy it had been left to rot, the showers were nice though, if you could get past the wall-grime it was quite the relaxing experience. I don't think him being such an awful roommate had anything to do with the fact he was Akarian, he didn't make me hate Akarians, their eccentricties dont bother me unless the Akarian involved is like my housemate, I haven't met many of them and the only one ive known for a long period was him but I doubt they are all like that. In the present I wash my hair while thinking about how annoying he could be, he once got mad at my friend for tossing a durable-looking drum aside because his stonebrain self left it on the couch, where people are supposed to sit, he also used to always read really basic philosophy and act like he was reaching enlightment cause he thought we didn't know who Kteloi of J'rum or even the most basic Akarian thinkers were. I finish washing my hair and as I turn my head up to rinse, I spy a rather large spider in the corner of the ceiling and as I rinse my hair out he doesn't move an inch, I think about smashing him with a towel or bottle or something for a moment but I decide to let him stay since I'd rather have one spider than dozens of smaller, grosser bugs like Kserm or ants. As I finish bathing, the spider sits in his web awaiting his meal. He is still there as I get out, staring down at me with his many big brown eyes, I think, I don't know if spiders have eyes in the same way humans do; Diren tarantulas were my favorite animal as a kid so you would think I'd know more about them but despite all the books I rented from the library about spiders I don't recall any of those facts now, I used to torment classmates by grabbing spiders from the big dens we had in the courtyard of my primary school and bringing them into class, I got a lot of write-ups but only stopped after another classmate stepped on one and I cried for the rest of the day. I turn off the shower and step out of it, grabbing a towel from the bathroom cabinet and drying myself off in the fairly small standing space of the room. I throw the towel in a laundry hamper in the corner and leave the bathroom.

I put on the nicer clothes that I left on the counter earlier; it's evening now, leaving the view beyond the window bathed in the blues of a not-quite completely faded sun, that odd time where the day is over but the night has yet to begin, when it's both bright and dark, when you realize it's time to go home after biking around town all day. I have an hour till dinner with Letsek, it should take around thirty minutes to get there, nothing wrong with being early, it leaves a good impression I reckon. I grab the invitation off the couinter so I don't forget the address and leave the apartment. Out in the hall my neighbors have retreated back into their homes for the night, the shoes I put on take some time to break in, a pair of formal shoes I got as a gift from my mother after I moved to Unlaunen, it was during the Slenper festival that year so she came down for a day and gave me a whole box of stuff that she thought would be useful for me, these shoes being probably the most expensive thing there, I think my dad had a similar pair but these were brand new. I'm used to the servicemen boots I wear at work, the same style that the Einru, Arznyr and National Army wear but they get called combat boots when worn by them. These dress shoes are far more comfortable even before breaking them in than the service boots have ever been. The train to Awelat is one of my favorite lines in the city, the majority of it is elevated and you can see a lot of the northeastern side of the city from it, during the day its one of the prettiest views in Unlaunen, the specific train I'm on has a few people but is nowhere near capacity; I'm a little disapointed since its that time of evening where its too dark to see anything but none of the towers have their lights on yet so the sight is lackluster. Above the row of seats across from me is a cleanser and moisterizer advertisment proudly proclaiming "THE REASON UTLIANS HAVE THE BEST SKIN IN THE EAST ARCHIPELAGO!" I recognize the model in the design as a woman I went to school with, she is half Kelemite, bit far from Utlian but I guess most people wont know just from looking at her, I wonder if I could claim false advertising and have them pay me a settlement for it, could be a good way to make some extra money. "Coming up on Awmy station." The train announcement stops my own train of thought, I quickly get up and exit the carriage, in Unlaunen they have a tendency to close the doors way too early, I think they probably get more leniancy with it and the conductors here just want to get a move on.

Out on the streets of Awelat I walk through mostly uncrowded sidewalks, occasionally peering in stores to see one or two customers perusing before closing time. As I reach the residential streets, everything gets quiet, the hum of street lights and the cold night breeze shaking the branches of trees, these roads are the oldest parts of Awelat, the homes are mostly Yyme and Ywylin era builds, sixty, seventy, even eighty years old, they all have a distinct brick style, detatched from the row home and tower ubiquity seen in much of the city, it completely does away with the modern stylings of Awelat itself, resembling the streets from a television show or doreonya about a normal family getting up to hijinks more than a place where people actually live, people do live here of course, these homes aren't the most expensive but they do go for more than most could afford. I turn onto his street, it is still quiet, only the sounds of occasionally-passing cars to break up the soundscape; Letsek lives in a relatively modest two-story home, not too dissimilar from the one I grew up in actually, though I lived in a much more urban area with this kind of house. I always hated the silence of these rural-urban areas, its not far enough out to be farmland or forest but not close enough to feel like a part of the city, its an uncomfortable middle, its stagnant. At his front door, I give a nice good knock to the wood, a few moments later I hear a frantic "COMING!" from some woman inside, who, after a few more moments opens the door, she has green eyes and while it takes me a moment, I recognize her as Syeren Hens. "Aryet! Come in, come in!" she beckons me inside and I follow, where I am greeted by the sight of a fairly nice abode, its spotless actually, not a speck of dirt or sign of mess anywhere. In the entryway, the upstairs staircase sits infront of me, a large dining room and smaller kitchen lie past an arched doorframe to the right, to the left is a living room and straight past the staircase further down the hall looks to be a lounge or conversation area, like a living room without any entertainment. The decor is tasteful, reproductions of classic paintings, family photos and maps of the archipelagos line the walls of the home. I am greeted by Letsek himself, walking out of the kitchen with a big smile on his face "How are you doing, my friend?!" Letsek was once a buzzed-head asshole, now he has an actual haircut, a combed over look that really makes him look like a politician. He also has a beard now, I remember when he was mad he couldnt grow facial hair. "I'm well, how about you?!" "I am doing fantastic, actually, I'd like you to meet someone." he says as I take off my jacket and hang it on a rack by the door, as I'm doing that I hear him yelling a name, Nerie or Nekti or something like that, a minute later a girl appears from the upstairs and begins walking down to the entryway, she is probably seven, maybe eight years old. "Aryet, this is Neresik, I never got a chance to tell you but we had a child some years ago. She loves police shows!" "Aw thats nice." I respond. "Where are my manners, come, come follow me." he leads me through to the dining room, like everything else it is surprisingly modest for a man of his caliber, once again not too different from where I grew up, his table is larger though, six seats as opposed to my familys four. A large portrait of his family sits on one wall, the other one has a row of cottage windows leading into a corner turret, which itself has a nice looking wooden cabinet sitting in it. Letsek catches me staring at the portrait, it captures them well, his brown hair, Syerens eyes, his noticeably pointy nose "We got that comissioned earlier this year, a little large for my liking but its well done, I personally really love the technique on the faces, the artist used a special paint thats hard to come by, was used a lot by Early Unification era painters, the problem was that the Merriyem field they got it from couldnt make it fast enough and the flowers the pigment came from take two decades to grow into maturity." "I mean it looks incredible." I respond, I don't know anything about art history so I can't really meet him here. "Anyway aryet, take a seat wherever youd like, dinner tonight is a Yak roast, its a special recipe I got gifted from the Oversi of the Engineering and Infrastructure Bureau.

I take a seat on one side of the table, Syeren and his daughter fill seats on both ends of the side oppsite me, Letsek sits in the middle, right after he hands everyone silverware and plops a tray of yak meat on the table. "So hows it been, officer." he jokingly says, as if my profession is comedic to him "Its been pretty good, today I talked to an old man about chicken theft." "Did the chickens do that to yer hand" he asks, clearly eying the gross bandage "some pretty sharp beaks they must have." "Oh thats from a work related automobile accident." "Sounds serious." he says while putting a forkful of yak in his mouth. His daughter turns to me "Did you catch the bad people you were chasing." she chimes in "Not yet, right now I'm not supposed to but my frie- coworker is fighting to get us back onto them." "I'll ask Azzta for you, he can help you get back to it." she says, reassuringly, both parents laugh "She loves going to the big Awelat shrine, especially during festivals" Syeren adds on. I start eating, the yak is incredible, its practically melting in my mouth and the flavor is distincitly amazing, I've only ever had guplets yak but this surely blows any homecooked yak out of the ocean and into the outer reaches of the deep. "You know, its weird seeing you like this Aryet, you look so much like you did back during school its uncanny." "Wish I could say the same for you, you look like you took another mans skin over." I joke, Letsek laughs before continuing "As I'm sure you are aware, Masevi elections are soon, candidates get announced in a few days, voting in a lerpok, I will actually be doing a speech in every district, I'd love if you came to the Merespem one." "For you I would jump infront of a bullet in each district my friend." "Good to know, sadly I already got bodyguards hired from the province, perks of being an approved Einru candidate though." He is clearly prideful in his status "So why politics, to me you always seemed like you would be a civil servant or a militiaman, you seemed to hate spotlights." He takes a second before responding "Well, I grew up, you cant stay mad at everything forever, you eventually realize that things can change, and furthermore that you can change them for the better." "Thats very noble, are you sure you're a politician?" We laugh together and it takes me back to skipping school and cursing the militiamen that yelled at us for doing it, of course that world no longer exists, neither of those people exist now either but thats probably for the better. "I mean hey, you're one to talk Saaryu, you wanted to be a doreonya artist and a musician, detective isn't that odd though, you have always been a little prick." I chuckle earnestly, his daughter and wife have started having their own conversation in the background, "Nice home you got here Letsek, I wouldnt mind living here if you ever get tragically assassinated." I say sarcastically He cackles at the prospect "It would take more than assassination to put me down. I have an idea, how about some Eiyye to wash this stuff down with. Remember back when we found a near-full bottle in that trash can and treated it like ancient treasure, that was the greatest thing we had ever found, I think we drank half of it during Sletes's class." The memory he is recalling was actually in our study hour, we went to the library and along with the other, third staple member of the RBB drank most of the bottle and spent the second half of the day wasted during exam week. I barely remember it but it stays as one of my favorite days of my life. "Hey Letsek, you were in Rebyuna longer than me, whatever happened to Lofse, I havent heard anything from him, you and Syeren atleast sent me a postcard while I was in Kelna. He just vanished." "I wish I knew the answer, he always believed you and me were closer than he was with either of us but he also had a lot of friends, guy was well-liked and after you left in the middle of secondyear he drifted into those other circles, after graduation I never heard from him. I wonder a lot about what hes doing." "He always liked music production didnt he. maybe hes doing that for some record label we've never heard of." "I mean you arent drawing panel doreonya though so he could be doing anything, he is still in Rebyuna, or atleast Orena though so it is a possibilty." He doesnt sound too sure of himself, your dreams as a fifteen year old arent the most permanent thing, he could've gone into bricklaying or carpentry or serial murder or the occult, theres no telling without going to Orena myself and snooping around. We drink Eiyye out of well-crafted glasses, printed with the emblem of a Liaian glassblowing company "So Aryet, have you settled down yet, been wooed by the wonders of personal connection yet?" "Uhm, uhh" "didnt mean to put ya on the spot, just wondering if a woman has penetrated your dense heart yet." "Actually, uh yeah, recently I started seeing this woman, shes a keym and we are actually going out again tommorow."

Letsek and Lofse used to tease me constantly about it but I never cared for romance, to my parents this made me "careerminded" and to my peers I was andu in nature, I always found it hard to connect, I never really felt like I was doing things right, like I was merely imitating what a person is supposed to do in those situations. I did have a couple girls like me though, in transitionary school, a girl saw me drawing shitty little doodles instead of doing work and we talked about books, television, she wanted to be a writer, we had a lot in common honestly, it ended as many twelve year old romances do, she moved to a different city for secondary school and I never saw her again. Syeren juts in to the conversation "Oh shes a Keym? Neresik here watches a lot of NOWS MUSIC! on the television, she loves ideokeo, has us subscribed to all the magazines." "Yeah Eruya Simiko, shes pretty ne-" I am cutoff by the daughter "Oh ekerom shes the best, she just came on but shes already super popular, shes so nice to everyone." "Is she as nice in person as she is in interviews." Letsek, says joining back in to the conversation "Yeah, shes incredibly kind, generous." I respond "Doesn't really seem your type." he retorts. The second time I was involved with a woman was setup by Letsek and a minor member of the RBB, a guy named Netet funnily enough. She was pretty, she found me attractive, we dated for half a uewen, we went on a lot of dates, during which we mostly peoplewatched in central Orena, mocking random passerby who had no idea two idiots were specatating them. Our cynical outlook on society was all we really had in common but it actually held us pretty close, nobody in our grade liked her because she was a massive bitch, it was my favorite part of her, she kind of looked like Eruya actually, with red hair though. We only kissed once or twice, tried to have sex once but her younger brother walked in and threw up everywhere before we were fully naked. She went on to be really successful, wrote for alot of popular television, right now shes the head writer for Sbem Oke Lsek, currently the most critically acclaimed piece of fiction on the mainland, on Liaian charts its like third and in Brenji I wanna say its tenth. Our relationship was ended mutually, when I left for the academy in Kelna.

"So why didn't you bring her with you, she sounds wonderful." Letsek asks "Yeah, we would've love to meet her." Syeren adds on "I mean we haven't really been together long, would feel weird to introduce her to you guys. Nothing rude intended but you are my past, a part of me she hasnt met yet, wouldnt want to make her uncomfortable with a bunch of people shes never met but I know well. I know it would make me uncomfortable atleast." Pretty good response on my part I feel "Fair enough." Letsek says, giving me a conceding nod. We finish eating the roast and I am a little dissapointed, I wanted more honestly "It was incredible. I need to come over more." I tell Letsek as I finish my plate. He thanks me and we make some more small talk on the past, remenscing about what little shits we used to be, his daughter interupts "Dad tells me you dont pray. Is that true?" Letsek looks at her like she just called me a slur, "Neresik!" Syeren barks at her "I am so sorry Aryet, we simply told her that you arent one for Azztanist tradition." Letsek is doing damage control but I dont really care "No shes right, I havent been to a shrine in years, I only visit them when I have to for work and similarly I dont really do festivals, I watch the special television blocks, with the documentaries and themed episodes of tv but beyond that I am not the most sojournlike." I say, both to calm the situation down and answer her question." "Ah well still, we dont accuse people in this household." he says, lecturing his daughter but looking at me. Letsek quickly moves past it, he gets up "Wanna see some fun stuff." "Of course." I answer. He leads me to his living room, Syeren and Neresik stay behind, talking about ideokeo I think. The family tv is in one of those big wooden entertainment centers with shelves and cabinets. On the shelves is a variety of knicknacks and trinkets. He takes me through them "This is a signed letter from Reto Heyel, framed and put here to remind me what I stand for" he points up to a case slightly above eye level, pulling out a custom made display box before continuing "This is my collection of archipelago currency, I have almost all of them now, Krone, Argotto, you name it, except Loteng, that makes me sad, I need to get to a card in eee one of these days." It is a very nice collection, Letsek more than anyone knows I love a good collection and I'm about to make it even better "Actually you need a Loteng?" I say, reaching into my pocket, grabbing my wallet, pulling out an expired Eeean debit card from my seasons long work trip "Is this for me?" he says "Yeah, I wouldnt pull it out if it wasnt, I was there investigating a noblemans sons overdose for a couple seasons, ended up living in a nice little agreement flat." I hand him the card and he places it in a spot clearly made for a loteng card, the display case is a really nice wood, the best possible outcome for one of these cheap-quality currency cards. "Wow, this is even better than getting one myself, not only is it a story, but now I have proof you exist as my friend." he says half-jokingly, pointing to my name, etched into the face of the card. He puts the box back and continues to show me his stuff, its all very nice, the man has a knack for making the most mundane items seem like the single most important things in the archipelagos. We talk in the living room for another hour or two, he shows me a UT-85 rifle that Lumrern Ket gifted him, it's a rare factory defect, the chamber is all sorts of fucked up and the bolt action is busted. I would be positively dumbfounded if the man doesnt win Masevi in the elections, hes likeable and just about everyone in Einru is backing him.

Eventually I bid him and his family goodbye, venturing our of their cozy home and out into the cold and quiet night, the walk back to Awmy station is quiet, I think about how in years time I will likely look back on this night with the same reverance I do for that schoolday the RBB found an bottle of eiyye in the trash. Letsek, Lofses were both my friends but Lofse was right, Letsek and I were closer, I dont blame him for drifting away. I think about how tommorow I am going to probably have a very annoying conversation with that dipshit nephew but for now I am in the aftermath of a good time. On the train ride back to Merespem the lights come on, the city, central merespem and its surrounding density of towers and streets are lit up, the hills between Merespem and Awelat giving the ideal viewpoint.

6.

Me and Ureste are driving east, in the middle of the Maltye district, Maltye has the highest car ownership rates in Unlaunen, its on the eastern edge of the city, driving out of Unlaunen through the place lets you see the cityscape go from various towers and mid-sized rowblocks to small town or village proportions in real time. That real time thing doesnt work well this morning, we are pulled over at some random service station. My partners vehicle is damaged, he is smoking a cigarette and getting a tire dismounted from the car. I walk into the station with multiple goals, grab some snacks and reading material for the next few hours of the drive, grab a new tire, and enlist the help of the cashier in putting it on. The smell of an aggressive air freshener hits me as I walk in, I ignore it and navigate to the magazine racks, a few on the front rack catch my eye immediately, "Bug Catching across the Archipelago." its not the most eyecatching but I used to read these hobby magazines a lot as a kid, before we had a lot of good television I'd just read about random hobbies and get excited like I was actually doing them, I grab the magazine and stuff it under my arm, in the middle rack a gun magazine called WATERARMS is staring at me, I consider buying it for Ureste but hes' probably got like a thousand of this kind of shit at home. Next to WATERARMS is a bog-standard pop culture publication, Keosmye is one of those legacy publishers that got super big during the magazine boom of the 10s, the cover has a photo of some random ereset actor in a battlefield, clearly mimicking the first civil war, he even has a UT-85. I grab it despite my own apathy towards this kind of literature because the articles look like some junk to keep me occupied "Neryk Aeol on the war occuring in balmors top Ereset guilds." cover story explains the cover image, I remember getting really mad as a teenager when NPUV-A would swap to ereset footage after 10pm, Ive grown to respect the artform but I still dont enjoy it. "Who is Heyren, the rising Rebyuna star?" is the second story, nobody knows this guy is yet hes mentioned on the front of Keosmye, guess I'll find out soon enough. The final story mentioned on the front of the magazine, "The great journey! How she plans on executing it." is about Neri Ishyetko and her plan to go west, to the border of the storm, she has always been passionate about "pushing the boundaries of survivability" or whatever her shows slogan is but I think trying to venture into the storm, even slightly into it is about as close as you can come to a statement of intent for suicide. I decide thats enough reading to handle the drive, in the snacks section I pickup some salt and vinegar eyren and a bag of sharn cookies. I grab a coffee from the drinks stand before making my way to the register, the guy behind the counter is a teenager with large eye bags and an uneven haircut, hes reading a doreonya titled "HOW THE ARCHIPELAGO MOVES" on the cover is an illustration of tenthousand or so carpenter bees holding up a map of the world. As I approach he puts the book down, I put my items down and as hes checking me out I remember why I came in here "Oh hey you guys do little car fixes right, like tires and the like?" I ask the lad, "Yeah, we do" his expression doesnt change as he answers, he puts my items in a bag and hands it to me before stepping out "Whats the problem you need help with?" "Oh we hit some debris or sharp animal of some kind a few intersections back and the driver tire got obliterated." "Alright" he says before moving to stare out the window, "Fairly common model, we should have some replacement parts in the back" he dissapears into a store room and I head outside to catch Ureste up. Out by the service vehicle, the quiet hum of