Làzhú had been waiting for a few hours and eventually, the father fearfully stepped out of his home, lowering his head before the seated woman clad in armour.
His eyes were low and he clutched the rags on his back.
“T-Thank you.” He coughed reflexively even though his lungs were in much better condition.
“It’s alright.” Làzhú smiled warmly.
The father winced before finally raising his eyes to meet Làzhú’s golden gaze, catching a glimpse of the chasm she’d made behind her.
“I’m sorry but I have nothing to offer—”
Làzhú raised her left hand, silencing him gently.
“You owe me nothing.” She assured mimicking the Angel, Yana’s way of speaking but this just made the man fold into himself more and Làzhú knew why.
On Pech, nothing was free, not even kindness.
She knew it would be hard for anyone to just accept her help because whenever someone offered a hand, they wanted something in return.
Even she found it hard to believe when Nozh helped her after she died.
Làzhú wanted to change that for her people but it would take time.
She finally stood, startling the father a little.
Then pointed at the dam.
“In the time to come, I will build a city in that place. I want you to help me.”
“I w-will do what I can but… who are you?”
Làzhú’s hair began to glow a little as she turned to face the father once more.
“My name is Làzhú and I am the fragment of light sent by the Angel, [Nozh] to guide this world to a united future.”
Tears began to well in the father’s eyes as Làzhú uttered the Angel’s name but the young woman had, due to reverence, said the name using a voice that the soul could hear.
This was the first time the father had felt something so deep that it shook him free of his fear, filling him instead with gratitude.
“And what is your name?”
“Nederig.”
“So, Nederig, will you come with me, to a united future?”
The father glanced back at his teary-eyed family who watched from within the container.
He nodded again before facing Làzhú and bowing.
“Yes.”
Làzhú, after ensuring the children were healthy, led the family to the dam.
She and Nederig then spent the rest of the day building the first of many homes that would line the rim.
It was built from slabs of stone, most of which Làzhú moved and carved herself.
She then instructed that they rest while she tried to figure out how to get them oxygen and clean water.
She could have taken some from the bandits but what they had was barely any cleaner than the stuff that flowed in the wasteland waterways.
The best bet was the city of Abell but she’d have to buy it.
Using force was an option but if conflict became more common, she couldn’t guarantee the safety of those she was planning to take care of.
She could’ve asked Nozh for assistance but she couldn’t even imagine how she could ask for more than she had been given.
She’d have to do what she could on her own and so she turned to Abell again.
She knew work was plenty in the sprawling city but she couldn’t just leave Nederig and his family while she was away so she returned to the chasm where she gathered more stone which she used to erect a massive, thirty-meter-tall wall along the rim.
If anyone wanted to access the rim, they’d have to swim through the channels of putrid water and not even the bandits had access to equipment that would allow them to swim into the dam without getting extremely sick.
Làzhú gave Nederig’s family a little more Kilnessence to sustain them while she was away before wrapping herself in a drab cloak to try and be as inconspicuous as possible.
She then set off for the distant city, walking at a fair place and passing countless people and even bandits who were still shaken by the earthquakes she had caused.
After a few hours of walking through the hills of twisted metal, Làzhú eventually arrived at the slums that stood at the foot of Abell’s fifteen-meter-tall walls.
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She towered over all she walked past and the handful of thieves that tried to pickpocket her found that she carried nothing other than her hammer. She also stood out because she wasn’t wearing a mask.
Many people tried, desperately selling their wares, offering everything from scraps to people bound by rope.
This disgusted Làzhú to no end but she also understood that this was all just how her world was.
She also understood that she’d have to work that much harder to change it.
She arrived at the large steel gates that led into the city which were blockaded by a detachment of guards in tactical gear and armed with assault rifles.
All who wanted to enter had to pay a fee and since Làzhú didn’t have any money she turned to one of the many taverns that lined the muddy paths of the slums.
Cutting through air that smelled like the liquid at the bottom of a bin, she eventually entered a bar named Lukav’s where she was met with all manner of unsavoury stares.
She had ignored it for the most part but her superior hearing allowed her to hear all the terrible things were saying about her and what they wanted to do to her.
She steeled her nerves by reminding herself of her mission and with that in mind, she approached the barman and asked if there were any jobs she could do for some quick cash.
The barman, who also happened to be the bar’s owner, said that empty gas canisters were in high demand regardless of the condition although the closer they were to functional, the higher the price they fetched.
With this knowledge, Làzhú left the slums and bolted across the wastes, crashing through hills of scrap and picking up canisters of all sizes.
She made sure to pick up the good ones and after gathering what she estimated to be a ton of canisters; she made her way back to the slums while dragging an abandoned and rusty heavy-duty trailer.
Lukav, the barman, and everyone else in the slums were shocked to see her effortlessly dragging an obscene amount of metal.
Impressed by this, Lukav led her to a buyer in the slums but Làzhú had been robbed and blindsided too many times before and so, when she arrived at the buyer, she told him that it was her who caused the earthquakes.
He laughed at her words and, to quickly demonstrate her strength, she tapped the ground with her hammer, creating a perfectly circular hole in the ground that was one meter deep and one meter wide.
She then told him that she wasn’t going to ask for anything other than the best price.
The buyer then, with eyes that were now soaked with fear, gave her money which was proportionate to her haul, some of which she gave to Lukav as thanks. She also asked the buyer if she’d be able to buy oxygen from him and he nervously said that, for her, he’d get her oxygen at a great price which made her a little happy. She’d be able to bring it back to Nederig’s family and have a good source for all her future people.
She also asked Lukav what the best jobs were and he told her that bounty hunters were in high demand.
Bandits were making life on Pech, which was already incredibly hard, even harder by stealing water, oxygen and food.
Their heads fetched a good price but going after the hundreds of thousands of bandits that called Supercluster Pavo–Indus home by oneself was tantamount to suicide, so bounty hunters often formed hunting parties that numbered from ten to a hundred.
The reason why those who governed the Superclusters didn’t actively pursue the bandits in the far reaches was that It’d leave their cities unguarded.
Lukav explained all this to Làzhú, recommending that she join one of the many hunting parties to go after the two major bandit clans that were terrorizing Pavo–Indus: the Sons of Argo Navis and the Blackened.
The Sons of Argo were just like any other large group of bandits only they coveted gold especially.
The Blackened were a cult that believed that man’s true place was on the surface of Pech and that by going underground, man had since devolved into a lesser form.
They often sent their own to the surface to be anointed by the smog above, the chemical burns leaving their exposed bodies severely discoloured.
Armed with this knowledge and after thanking Lukav again, Làzhú made her way to the gate again but was stopped by some people who had spied over her dealings with Lukav, people who knew she had money now.
They threatened her with guns and knives but she had no time to waste so she incapacitated them by releasing some of her blessed fire, burning their eyes a little.
She recalled her flames and made her way to the gate proper where she paid the fee and entered the city, although her hammer came into question with the guards asking where she had gotten it from only to be confused when she said she got it from an Angel.
Làzhú then made her way to the hunter’s guild where she got registered. She asked for all the bounties near the city and was given seven cards which had the names, faces and bounties of their respective bandits, high-ranking killers and thieves that terrorized the Supercluster.
She accepted the bounties and promptly left the city with a bag of fresh food, oxygen masks and a forty-five-kilogram canister of oxygen which she carried all the way back to the dam, where she left the stuff she’d gotten with Nederig before leaving for her targets.
What followed was a series of raids where Làzhú gathered information on her targets, bribing and threatening those she had to before making her way to her target and wiping out everything in sight.
The bounties stated that the targets were to be killed and so she did so along with the others because the bandits were like a hydra, it wasn’t enough to chop off just one head.
She wanted to remove them completely and so when she visited a bandit encampment, she would make sure to leave none of them alive.
She grappled with the possibility that not all of them were violent killers or even willing members but if she had to complete her mission with hands that were soaked in their blood, then that’s what she would do.
She collected the heads of her targets and made her way back to Abell where she handed them to the guild receptionist who was dumbfounded that she had managed to kill so many people in just one day.
But Làzhú knew that they were simply among the first.
She collected her reward money and made her way to Lukav who she thanked yer again for having helped her.
The barman shook his head and thanked her instead for making life in Pavo–Indus exciting.
He also warned her that her rapid rise to power wouldn’t come uncontested but in the same breath assured her that he would have her back when the time came. This earned him some more thanks from Làzhú who went on to buy some more food and oxygen which she took to the dam.
However, as she arrived at the wall that only she could jump over, she saw a small crowd of people gathered by it.
They, like most who called the wastes home, we malnourished and filthy.
Upon seeing her, they fell to their knees and begged that she help them and while Làzhú wanted to, she knew it wasn’t as simple as letting everyone who asked in.
She would need to develop a rigid system for all to follow and adhere to in the name of Unity.
She temporarily ignored them, jumping over the wall in a single motion and dropping down to Nederig’s new home where the now clean and fed family kept each other company.
Làzhú set the stuff she’d brought aside and called Nederig outside.
She had already told him of her plans and her mission but, in order to go out and do what she needed to without worry, she needed to be able to entrust Nederig with the dam.
And so, she asked him two questions.
“Will you be my Sentry and will you accept Kiln as your creator?”