"No, I can leave if you're done talking to me, though I guess if you have information about the city you want to give me that would be potentially helpful."

"I don’t know what information you want about it or what you’d use it for but ask a question and maybe someone will answer."

"They don't talk to me much so I don't know even very basic things, like how they're organized politically. Are those sticks they have electrical? How many people live there?"

"Uhh, thousands?"

"What sticks?"

"It's definitely more than thousands - I don't know if it's more than a hundred thousand."

"They have two leaders - Baron Praxis lives in the big tower in the middle and makes them join the Krimzon Guard, the Shadow lives somewhere secret and tries to get them all to work together to murder Baron Praxis. It's because Baron Praxis is awful. I kind of wonder if it'd be nice of us to just hold him down and let one of them be the one to eat him alive."

"They don't eat each other alive."

"- do you know where I could find the Shadow?"

There's a long silence before one of them says, tentatively, "Try the slums. Baron Praxis turned off their water to kill the Shadow."

"Thank you. I think that's all for now."

And he goes back through the teleportation rings that could have been replaced with a bridge, and back into the city, and back to the hospital because he only has the metal head language today and not the "human" one.

The hospital exists. Kaz is relieved to see him.

Blai nods to Kaz, but Kaz can't speak Chelish today. "Should I do my second channel now or can all the current patients hang on in case we accumulate more?" he asks Kriza.

"I think wait and see. There haven't been any more explosions."

He will wait, then. Perhaps playing video games with Kaz.

Kaz is regrettably busy. If only they could make Blai do all the charting.

They can't. He'll make himself chess pieces and play himself.

They have a use for his channel in the middle of the night. Other than that nothing in particular happens.

He's asleep by then but fortunately he's not a wizard. He channels, he goes back to bed, he wakes up at dawn to prepare his spells. He does a morning channel, and then he goes for a walk.

It's a lovely day. The mood in the city is still despairing and terrified.

"...among you, masquerading as a man," the nearest propaganda device is saying as Blai passes it. "He is dangerous and must be destroyed! I offer a reward of eco for his capture! Or, if you have a loved one in prison, I will exchange them for this renegade. I promise."

"I promise"? Not "I swear it on my Law and my honor" or something?

He casts the spell when he's somewhere unobtrusive and aims for the city language, and continues out, looking for the slums.

They're not far at all. They're very gray. The pavement is horrible, like they weren't even trying to get it flat. There are halfassed bridges over the worst of the ditches.

There are still attempts at art and beauty - there are occasional colorful signs; people wear colorful clothes and style their hair. The building exteriors aren't painted and usually aren't decorated and the construction looks sloppy, but it's not that the place is missing all art. Not quite. The thing that's really entirely missing is - near the hospital, in the green zone, there are occasional planter boxes with grasses and flowers. There's a fountain. There is space for art, back there; here all the art that exists is vertical and out of the way of traffic.

There's an air of exhausted desperation here. It stinks. There are leaks. The Krimzon Guard patrols here are more on edge, as though moving through a war zone.

The slums are dotted with propaganda devices. They're the only things consistently in good repair. "...occasional complaints about their over-aggressive policing, wanton destruction of people's property during raids, mass arrest, misplaced loved ones, and whatnot," one of them is saying as Blai walks by. "Hey, we're only human! Running a city can be tougher than it looks."

Is there anything like a rain barrel or a water cistern he could start filling here?

There are a few visible drainpipes coming off of roofs but none of them let out into visible aboveground reservoirs.

If Asmodeus's people were trying to cut off a village from water they'd certainly take the barrels, but it was worth checking.

Are there public establishments here or is it purely residential?

There’s a bar. It’s not a very good bar but it exists.

He doesn't like bars. He will go in anyway if there's nothing else.

None of the people inside have Krimzon Guard tattoos. The woman behind the bar is heavily scarred and watches him suspiciously.

"Hello. I can create water out of thin air. Is there a good place for me to do that?"