Bab 98: CHAPTER 98: NAZCA CITY
Over the next couple of weeks, most of Night's time was spent traveling through the desert, organizing his newly acquired treasures and supplies, and planning his next moves. While he had a general idea of what he wanted to achieve on this mission, Night hadn't really spelled out the specifics of his own plan. He had figured that the situation would change so much that he didn't want to waste time planning something that was probably going to fluctuate anyway.
When he raided the Piedra Oasis, his main goal had only been to gather a fortune for the next phase of his plan. Wiping out the Piedra Family, freeing the slaves, gaining some additional Keres, and learning from the experience...were all just added on to that first part of the plan, but they weren't necessary. Of course, he had succeeded in gaining a wealth that was more than adequate to proceed along his originally intended path.
Night now had all sorts of treasures stowed away in his storage rings. Some of his notable finds included a sturdy set of five identical short swords, a few darkness elemental gems, and an assortment of interesting stones that he couldn't identify. One of the mystery stones was of particular interest since it caused him to get very relaxed every time he held it. He lost hours of time in relaxation the first time he held the stone.
Although most of his time was spent on the back of a Khepri, he did have a few interesting encounters along the way. Night had managed to have run-ins with two different caravans.
The first caravan.....was actually a group of demons fleeing their previous oasis dwelling in order to get distance from the Diego Family. Based on Night's conversation with the demons, word had begun to spread about the fall of the City of Southern Wind and the plague that had wiped out almost the entire city's population. Night shared a few resources with them to help them on their journey. All in all....it was a good visit with some good people. Night really enjoyed hanging out with the commoner demons. Out of everyone he met on this planet.....they felt the most like the people he grew up around on Earth.
....as for the second caravan... Night murdered the entire group of around 30 people after finding out that they were on official duty from the Diego Family. The cocky bastards had demanded that Night surrender himself to become their prisoner. Night could tell the whole charade was done to try to steal his mount and supplies. He even played along with them for a bit to ease his boredom. But he eventually decided to use them all as building materials to create his three new Keres.
The Keres' creation process went really well and soon a group of six women stood in front of Night. Misery, Grief, Distress, Gloom, Sorrow, and Despair.....six of Night's seven Keres. The only one that was missing was Famine.....otherwise known as Mere Pazuza. Night had left her back in the City of Setting Sun in order to let her manage the survivors of the City of Southern Wind.
An added benefit going on this trip was that Night had learned that he could actually communicate with Famine through their soul link despite their great distance apart. He had used the link to send updates on his progress back to the Limim Clan leaders.
Night also used the connection to get updates from back in the City of Setting Sun. Apparently, Lili had run off most of her Sources and was struggling to cultivate. From what Famine described, the woman must have picked up too many habits from hanging out with the Keres and was a bit too violent in dreams.....so violent that the men that used to lust after her....now pissed themselves in fear if they saw her in person. Night had felt very relieved that he was away from the City of Setting Sun right now....he hadn't really liked being around Lili since she had started to dabble in the Concept of Fear.
The quiet times traveling on the back of the Khepri had given him time to think over a lot of things about his life. The travel wasn't that much different than the car rides he had taken from his parent's house to the city years ago. An odd thought had started to creep into his mind. If he managed to survive the upcoming war and get his revenge.....what did he plan to do next? Stay in the City of Setting Sun with Lili? He didn't think he could take much more of her shit. Try to find a way to get back to Earth? He would need to get strong enough to beat the restrictions on the transfer portal. Travel the world? He had previously considered trying to travel this world on his own and explore this unknown place....maybe but he could figure out if it worth the risk....no one had ever survived the attempt at traveling between human cities.
On this particular day, Night was steadily thinking about his own future as he traveled along. However, his eyes caught the sight of Nazca City on the horizon. His thoughts were pushed aside and his eagerness to get into the city caused his body to slightly tremble with excitement. He couldn't wait to see if the elaborate plan he developed would actually work.
Since the city was in sight, Night slowed the Khepri down to a stop and stepped off into the sand. After removing the items he needed from the Khepri's harness, Night cut the animal free and smacked it to set it free. The large beetle took a minute to realize what was actually happening, but after a few moments, it realized that it was no longer bound and flew off into the distance. Now, Night was really ready to get started.
Besides dealing with his inner personal turmoil, Night had thought long and hard over how to integrate himself into the City as quickly as possible. As he had passed through the ruined and deserted Manco Oasis on his way to Nazca City, Night had a questionably crazy idea. He would pretend to be one of the demigods from Manco Oasis.
Night was going to pretend to be a survivor of the slave uprising at the Manco Oasis. He would play the part of a Manco family member that was trapped in the mines for months by the slave caused explosion.... but he finally escaped. This story seemed to have a lot of verifiable facts that could be checked by others, so Night felt that it had a realistic chance at succeeding. When they had killed the Manco brothers, Misery had destroyed the bodies of the Manco family Demigods during the battle, so no evidence was left concerning the status of the three brothers. Also, the entire mine system had collapsed to an unpassable state.
Night remembered the appearance of the younger of the demigods and modified his appearance with the Presence Concept to look like one of the Manco demigods. The only issue was that Night didn't really know a whole lot about the Manco family's background or role before their destruction. He figured that he could just play that by ear or act like there were memory issues due to being isolated in the mines for months. As he walked towards the city gates off in the distance, Night honestly felt that he could pull this infiltration off with relatively little effort.
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As he entered the City gates, the guards looked at the haggard looking young man slightly funny and asked, "You! Who are you? What is your name?"
The men had come up to him and appeared to be ready to attack. They seemed to be on high alert for outsiders as expected by Night.
"I am Mateo Manco.....from the Manco Oasis....I finally made it out of the mines and need some help," Night said pretending to be an injured, dehydrated and malnourished.
Night stared into the guard's eyes and said, "Help me....please." Then, he collapsed on the ground unconscious and with fading life signs. Night could easily pull this off by fluctuating his Death Concept to make him seem like he was on the verge of death.
The next few hours proceeded just like Night had expected. Night's collapsed body was immediately taken to an infirmary where his identity was verified. Just like he expected, some scientific looking men came and performed a quick blood test to confirm that he was human. After it was confirmed that he was human, the medical caregivers relaxed and proceeded to give Night first aid for the treatment of his injuries. Of course, Night was actually conscious the entire time and was using his Presence Concept to manipulate everyone in the situation.
After waiting a whole day in a hospital bed, Night finally decided to become conscious again....he needed to be awake if he were to get anything done.....and his patience at laying in a hospital bed playing a sick patient was very, very low.
After he had awoken, a few investigators from the City came by to ask him questions. Night told them of a story of the uprising of slaves in Manco Oasis. A powerful slave had actually killed his two brothers. He had chased after the fleeing slaves into the mines out of anger and then some unexpected attack happened....and the mines collapsed on top of him.
Luckily, he wasn't crushed in the collapse and the possessions in his space ring were adequate enough for him to survive the months it took him to dig out of the mines. Instead of seeming weak and afraid, Night played it up that Mateo Manco was pissed that no one had come to look for him after the incident. With his apparent lack of some memories due to his injuries and aggressive attitude, the investigators soon left without any doubts that the man in front of them was Mateo Manco. Night even verified this assumption by using his perception to listen in on several conversations between the inspectors after they had left his hospital room. With that out of the way, Night felt that he had successfully infiltrated Nazca City.
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After a few days, Night left the hospital as a vengeful Mateo Manco. From everyone's view of the man, he was a young, cocky survivor from a dead family. However, the incident gave the man drive and he was trying to resurrect his family by rebuilding a destroyed oasis town. Most of the merchants had welcomed Mateo into their businesses. They knew that as the only surviving member of a family, that Mateo must hold all the wealth of the family. Sure enough, Night flexed some of his financial might to wrangle up everything he needed in accordance with his plans.
Under the guise of rebuilding the Manco Oasis, Night gathered tons of trade route maps and information, war information, and lists of important people to do business within the city.
Although his actions seemed ordinary for someone in his position, he did draw in interest from a few of the higher powers of Nazca City. However, these higher powers were much more concerned about fleecing Mateo of the Manco family fortune than what his actual motives were. They actually introduced themselves to him and offered their services as needed. Through these new connections, Night managed to arrange for around 100 slaves to be bought for Manco Oasis. If he was going to reopen the mines, then he would need many slaves to restore production.
The other order of business was recruiting Diego family people to repopulate the Town. Flaunting a few incentives, Night quickly had around 500 followers willing to travel to Manco Oasis to restart the community. Most of these 500 were troubled soldiers and weary guards looking to get out of Nazca City. Night gladly accepted the group and made arrangements to head back to Manco Oasis in the upcoming weeks.
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Several weeks passed while Night integrated into the high society scenes of Nazca City. After pushing his abilities to the limit in gathering information, Night finally decided to lead the group of people back to Manco Oasis for cleanup. The second phase of his plan had been quite successful. However, he was still missing several key items that he had wanted. He had no information on the powers of the Gods of Nazca City and he had no information on the poison used against the City of Southern Wind. If he could have found those two bits of information, then his future plans could have been carried out much easier. Now he was going to need to find other ways to get good information.
One thing that he did realize was that if an attack occurred inside of Nazca City then the Diego Family couldn't use the poison without killing all of its own people. So if a surprise attack could be sprung from inside the city, then the chances of success would be much higher. It had a lot of potential to help if he ever managed to attack this place.
Regardless, his time for spying was coming to an end and he didn't think that anyone else could do a better job then himself at getting information out of the City. With his head held high, he marched Mateo Manco's group of around 600 members out of Nazca City. The trek across the desert in the caravan took around a day and a half before the very large caravan reached Manco Oasis. The oasis was one of the closest oasis to Nazca City.
Night quickly took charge and dished out responsibilities to those that he had brought with him. He had managed to learn a few things while dealing with the large group of freed slaves in the Piedra Oasis. In order to set up his plan, he treated everyone like a normal town owner would. He did give the guards and soldiers in order to not take the lives of slaves. He made it seem like he didn't want to waste money and that slaves were scarce. In reality, he just didn't want any of the slaves killed because his whole purpose was to save some of those slaves...they would be very helpful for the third phase of his plan.
PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA 
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Personally, I like to try to make the story move rapidly, so these chapters work for me.
Feedback is always appreciated.
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