Editing Story:ROAD TRIP! (Warhammer High)/Part Two (section)

==Traversing the Hellscape==
===Onwards!===

Several days of tourism passed, as Venus and company explored Nocturne.  Venus traveled alone to Ignea, to meet several of the nomad tribes that lived there.  They were more reluctant to acknowledge their Princess, but Venus came away from it satisfied.  She had made a point of meeting all of her people.  That was what she wanted.

As they slowly acclimated to the heat and gravity, the rest of the party found their time better and better spent.  The cities of Nocturne may not have had the incredible artistry of Macragge or the magnificent architecture of a Forge world, but their mixture of rustic durability, skilled crafting, and pragmatic design were beautiful in their own way.

Venus had been hoping to show her companions the individuality of the cities.  In this, she succeeded; the lovingly-crafted buildings of Aethonion, settled against the edge of an ash waste the size of one third of the continent, were as distinct as the magnificent, half-mile-tall walls of the Jewel City of Epithemus, set as it was in the middle of an ocean of acid.

When the group toured the Merchant Sprawl of Clymene, they nearly had to drag Venus and Freya away from the colossal markets that surrounded the system’s largest spaceport.  Restrained only by the knowledge that they would have to load their cargo for the trip home, both girls came away with armfuls of Nocturnean artwork and gadgets, and even Jake found himself sorely tempted by the selection of wares in the city’s exotic art and book stores.

In the entire duration of the trip, Alex didn’t hear from his father’s ship at all.  As they were aboard the Thunderhawk that was taking them to Skarokk for the final leg of the stay, he finally relented and called his father himself.  Raising his voice over the din of the engines, he reluctantly dialed the Corundum Star.

“This is the Corundum Star.”  A voice on the other end finally picked up.  “Who hails?”

“This is Lord Alexander Carlin, calling Trade Lord Joseph Kimball-Carlin,” Alex said.

“Alex!  Hey, kiddo, your father just left,” the voice on the other end said.  “Sorry about that.”

“Left?  What?” Alex stared into space as the rest of the group pretended they weren’t listening in.  “Where is he?”

“He’s on his way to speak with some merchant or other in Clymene, as long as he’s here,” the vox officer said.

“Oh.  Great.  What’s wrong with the Star?” Alex asked.

“Void shield projector shorted out in a horrible accident involving some escaped cargo,” the vox officer sighed.

“Uh huh…he’s not going to come find me, is he?” Alex asked apprehensively.

“You couldn’t be mad at that, could you, Alex?” the vox officer asked in surprise.

“Oh yes I could,” Alex grumbled.  “This is MY vacation.”

“Oh…I have no idea,” the vox officer confessed.

“Great.  Fantastic.  I’ll see you around, Max.  Bye.”  Alex turned the vox off and nearly slammed it down on the deck of the Thunderhawk.  “Damn him!”

Venus reached across her seat and squeezed his shoulder.  “Say the word.”

“No.  There’s a chance he isn’t here to bother me.  I’ll let it slide until he does something stupid.”  Alex sank back into his chair and looked over at where Venus was tapping away at a slate.  “So…anyone going to write home before we leave Nocturne?”

“I am!” Freya excitedly proclaimed.

“Me,” Jake said.

“I think I will too.”  Venus contemplatively tapped her slate.  “Dad said not to worry about the Underground and the violent immigrants.  I guess I won’t.”

“Good.  So…tell me about Skarokk,” Jake said.

“Well, it’s called the Dragonspine because of its location.  It’s built into a massive mountain range, which is essentially one colossal block of volcanic rock over a hundred seventy kilometers wide and two klicks high,” Venus explained.  “The air pressure and temperature will be lower here.  Much lower.  The mountains back up to a sea on one side and a huge volcanic delta on the other, where meltwater from the polar glaciers and Time of Trial snowfields pour through pumice fields and into the ocean.  There’s a tunnel under the mountains, I should show you.”

“You had me at ‘less air and heat,” Jake emphatically said.  Venus grinned and settled in to wait.

The Thunderhawk shook a bit as it descended through the clouds to the city below.  Arranged through and in the massive spires of rock from which its name was drawn, the city was home to massive plateaus that had been hacked from the craggy mountains, and leveled with Mechanicus technologies to serve as foundations for the city’s buildings.  Landing pads and void shield generators dotted the massive sprawl of buildings, which covered the entire center region of the massive mountain range.

Venus stood and grabbed a few of her possessions as the Thunderhawk Transporter settled down on the plateau nearest to the Dragonspine Castle.  Aptly named, it had been built by boring directly into a steep vertical mountain; the structure plunged deep into the mountain and high into the sky above them.  It was bristling with defensive turrets, reinforced windows, and landing pads that jutted out from its side.

The ramp hissed open.  A small honor guard of serfs and a single Salamander from the sixth Great Company stood at the bottom of the ramp.  Sixth, Venus had explained, had long held a connection with the city.  The group disembarked and waited as Venus and the Salamander underwent their, by now accustomed, ritual.  When it concluded, he led them into the castle proper, while the serfs behind them directed the cargo servitors to move their luggage.

The rooms they received were more sparse than they had been in the other cities, but this was the most isolated surface community on the planet, and had few visitors.  Venus and Jake settled into the Imperial Suite, while Remilia and Freya and Alex found their own rooms on the floor.  Meeting up after offloading, the group headed into the city to get lunch.

Jake slid his sunglasses on and breathed deep in the mountain air.  “Mmm…it’s cooler here than anywhere else on the planet.”  He looked up and saw the heat waves emanating from the rooftops of every structure around him.  “I mean, relatively speaking.”

“Heh.  I know.  It’s almost tolerable,” Alex said.  He shook his thermoreflective clothing free of water droplets and sealed his water container shut.  “So…who’s up for what?”

“Something simple and quick, so we can go see the mountains,” Remilia said.

“I’m up for that,” Freya chipped in.

“Okay…should be a small café down the street, then,” Venus declared.  She led the group down the roadway, taking care to avoid the deep drainage slots.  The mountainous slabs of rock upon which the city was built were so hard that the creation of a modern sewage system and power grid had been something of a technological miracle by the Mechanicus, and its maintenance was difficult.  Outside the Castle, the sewers were only a few feet below the surface, and the drains were deep and imposing.  Fortunately, the drain pipes weren’t physically connected to the sewer lines anywhere pedestrians could smell them.

In the more pedestrian parts of the city, the roads were a bit broader, though not by much.  Towering metal lights illuminated the streets in the lower tiers of the city, fading to darkness near the higher ones, presumably where the richer people lived.  The roads cut laterally into the steep mountains, sometimes straight through them in the higher areas, and where cargo moved.

===Snacks and Tourism===

Venus paused outside the café to don her own mirrored sunglasses.  They rarely worked, but with her hair back in a sheet instead of a braid, she looked little enough like her regal appearance in the speech that she occasionally went unrecognized.

Jake held the door for her and the others.  As he looked back at them, he pointed across the street.  “If we want something to do tonight, let’s hit that bar.”

Venus shrugged.  “Want to go after dinner?” she asked.

Jake laughed again, shutting the door behind them.  “Why not?”

“All right.”  Venus walked up to the counter and started placing their orders as Freya grabbed a table.  As she returned with the food, Venus opened a map of the city and glanced it over.  “Huh.”

“What?”  Jake looked up from his soup.  Venus was staring at the map intently, looking vaguely puzzled.

“The city basically doesn’t have a tramway outside of the industrial and residential areas.  How surprising,” she murmured.

“Well…trains on a mountain,” Jake shrugged.

“Yeah.”  She looked up at him and quirked an eyebrow.  “So…mountains.  You got used to that pretty fast.”

“Hah!  Well, this one more than most.  So many people live in it and on it…it’s like a hive, really,” Jake said.

“True facts,” Alex chuckled.  “Home at last, huh?”

“No, home has a broken heater and a parking lot on the roof.  This has nicer air though,” Jake said.  He dipped some flatbread in the soup and munched.  “So how about you, Remilia?  What do you think of a planet with actual terrain?”

“Incredible place.  The way the technology of the Imperium and the harshness of the world blend is very interesting,” she said between bites of her sandwich.

“It is.”  Jake finished his soup quickly and stood.  “I think I want to go see what the terrace looks like.”

“Okay, we’ll meet up for dinner,” Venus said, pausing her own meal to peck him on the cheek as he passed.  Alex and Remilia grabbed their own bags and stood, heading in the opposite direction.  Freya and Venus lingered over their food, still looking at the map.

Outside, Jake adjusted his sunglasses and walked up the terrace.  The brilliant afternoon sun glared down on him from above, and he shifted his collar, glad he had taken to applying even more sunscreen after burning to a crisp in Hesiod.

Arriving at one of the large switchbacks in the mountain road, he paused, slowly removing his sunglasses to take in the view.  The Ash Deltas stretched out to infinity before him.  A thousand tiny rivers of glacial meltwater flowed towards the mountains, around them, under them, even through them where the Mechanicus had built culverts.  The glistening water poured over hard-packed volcanic ash in rivulets that looked no wider than a hair, but in reality were the size of cars.  Larger lines of red and silver denoted thick streams and rivers, each the size of the road he was standing on or much larger.

“Absolutely magnificent,” he said under his breath.

“Ain’t it?” someone said.  He glanced back to see a Nocturnean walking along the sidewalk behind him.  “You never get tired of the view.”

“What does it look like in the Time of Trial?” Jake asked.

“Actually the same, only the water’s shallower.  It’s after that looks different.  The whole plane turns bright white from the volcanic snow.”  The local stood beside him at the low stone balustrades.  “The whalers and prospectors come in and line the streets, looking for food, while the plains outside get a new layer of ash on them.”

“Cool.  Where does the water that reaches the base of the mountain go?” Jake asked, peering down to the next terrace.

“Eh, it just kinda pools at the base of the mountain and sluices through the tunnels.  How do you not know this?” the man asked incredulously.

“I’m not from around here,” Jake said.

“Oh.”  The man looked at him askance.  “Well…enjoy your stay,” he muttered, walking away.

Jake rolled his eyes and put the glasses back on.  The simmering hostility he’d sensed throughout his entire visit was even more pronounced here.  He wondered how many Terrans there even were in the city.

===A Breather===

Venus sat back on a chair on the highest point of the city and stared out at the view.  The beautiful lines the water carved through the ash fanned out over the plains like a giant fossilized fern.  From their source at the north pole, the ribbons of water stretched down towards the sea, and flowed under the mountain in their path towards the seas.

The plainclothes serf next to her spoke inaudibly into a small microphone at his collar and walked away.  Venus languidly stretched and sipped at her water bottle.  “Hell of a view,” she said contentedly.

The plainclothesman knelt at her side and put his hand to his ear.  “City Governor Sralah wishes to reiterate his invitation to a formal dinner tonight for your Highness and your companions,” he said softly.

“Nope.  We’ve got plans for tonight.  Tomorrow, or any other day, sure, but not tonight,” Venus said, lacing her fingers behind her head.

The plainclothesman put his hand to his earbud again.  “Tomorrow, then, your Highness?” he asked.

“Sure.”
“He extends his gratitude and looks forward to meeting you,” the man said, bowing formally and withdrawing to the edge of the rooftop.

Venus sighed.  “Oh well.  At least I get to put my armor on again,” she said wryly.

Freya, lounging in the seat next to her, laughed.  “Hahah!  You really love that thing.”

“I do indeed,” Venus confessed with a guilty grin.  “It’s so badass.”

“The local news is fawning over you,” Freya giggled.  “Have you seen the op-eds?”

“I make a steadfast point of avoiding op-eds,” Venus sighed.  “In my own experience, the people who know least about a situation are the first to voice their opinions on it, nearly all the time.”

“How profound.”  Freya grabbed a bottle of sunscreen from the bag at her side and began applying it, to the rapt and well-concealed attention of every single man and a few women on the rooftop patio.  “So, what do you have planned for us?” she asked.

“Well, today we just relax and get settled.  Tomorrow, the cragfalls, on the ocean side.  Then dinner with the Governor and after that we improvise.  See whatever we want.”

Freya massaged sunscreen into her shoulders.  “Nifty.  Think Alex’s dad will bug us?”

“You’ve met him, I haven’t.  What do you think?” Venus asked.

Freya shrugged, carefully tossing her red braids over the back of her chair so they didn’t drag into the lotion.  “Who knows?  I think he’s just dumb enough to try.”

“Great.”  Venus ruefully shook her head.  “Oh well.  He won’t follow us to Fenris at least,” she said.  She turned sharply to look at Freya.  “Will he?”

“Not if he wants to live,” Freya casually remarked.  “I WILL have the Spirit of Fenris shoot his engines out if he tries.”

“The what now?” Venus asked.

“Fourth Great Company flagship, in drydock at the Fang for upgrades,” Freya said, rubbing lotion into her legs.  “Forget about it.  Trust me, he won’t try.  He’s secretly afraid of me,” she confided in a whisper.

“And he’s not afraid of me?” Venus asked tartly.

“Like you said,” Freya shot back.  “He hasn’t met you.”  She smirked under her shades as she added a coy addendum.  “I’m sure he’s just afraid of strong women.”

“Hmph.”  Venus sipped her drink again and settled back down to enjoy the view.