Spiral of Light

Chapter 38: "Yrek-Meck-Tuzk-Tuzk-Kreezumpizh!"

"Level One; Surface City!" The bionic level lift mind announced as the doors opened. Moloch and Krasus began to walk forward with the rest of the legionnaires, pushing the hovercart between them. The crowd craned their necks to get a glimpse of the glass gallery beyond the gate, smiling at the sunlight from the sky that shone through the open lift doors. Surface city was a restricted level, one had to be granted a free travel pass, be property owner on the level, or be an employee of a corporation headquartered on the level to disembark the lift. This was the closest an average citizen would ever get to it.

Since Moloch and Krasus were legion, such restrictions didn't apply to them and they pushed the hovercart with the unconscious Salazaar on it forward. The surface city Constables waved them through without giving them a second glance and then dutifully checked the identification of anyone else who followed them off the lift, making sure they had permission to enter the topmost level of Zerzura.

They emerged from the central lift gate tunnel into an immense glass gallery, blinking owlishly as their eyes adjusted to the bright orange light of the setting sun. In stark contrast to Drydellia, the lift lobby for surface city was quiet, and sparsely populated with well dressed travelers who waited in luxurious plush leather seats. Lift gallery attendants in red round hats and vests attentively waited on them, scurrying across the gleaming polished floor with trays of snacks and refreshments. The Lobby was also of an old world style construction, but updated to the clean modern design aesthetic that the wealthy citizens of this level preferred. Swirling gleaming stone, was met with glass and inlaid with precious metal filigree. Surface City was the topmost level of the pillar, but to even visit it was something most of the other citizens beneath their feet could only dream of.

This level was the ancestral seat of the Emperor of their civilization, the location of the first Legion Ziggurat and the grand palaces and villas of the wealthiest and most important citizens in the Republic. Surface city was a melting pot of the most successful Anoekians their race produced at any given time and it was a level reserved for the best of the best. Corporate merchants, Politicians, the Emperor and his staff, the members of the twelve temples, and esteemed guests and envoys from all over Maja, flocked to conduct business and find pleasure on the grandest level on the top of the biggest pillar city in the Republic. Moloch didn't think it was right to gate off the level from the other citizens of the pillar, but his opinion meant nothing for those decisions weren't up to him.

The sight of Moloch and Krasus and the rest of the legionnaires pushing the hovercart drew looks from the affluent citizens in the central gallery, but even their dirty blood-soaked armor was not enough to warrant more than a passing glance. After walking straight through the grand lobby doors that were designed with swirling metal motifs they were out in the cool fresh open air.

Long paved immaculate streets stretched to either side, with artistically placed beds of flowering ornamental plants and trees with soft white accent lighting lining either side of them. Beside the planting, and lit from below, were the grand stone towers of the thousands of palaces that had been built across surface city. Their swirling spires stretched off and up reaching far into the star studded night sky. The three moons of Maja were already rising, hanging fat and heavy in the sky and they were only just starting to crest over the silhouette of the distant mountain range on the horizon. The Emperor's palace called the Citadel sat between it all, a wide imposing building of tremendous size, like a jewel nested in a crown of architectural splendor.

"By the Light, it's good to be home." Krasus mused, taking a moment to lean against the hovercart after initiating the brake and inhaling the fresh pure air of the outside world. "You really forget how wretched some of the places in the pillar are, until you just take a moment to take all this in." He looked up as two new skycars sped across in the express lane above them.