O.C. Saar
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General Release | Chapter 6: Enter the Otherworld
🕑 Added 2025-06-02 18:06:00 +0000 UTCThe alarm rang far too soon for my liking, but with a groan, I got up and called Aren’s name a couple of times.
That seemed enough to stir him, and he sat up, blinking at me in confusion.
“Woah, I feel great!”
“Maybe so, but you would have been dead if this had happened during an actual battle. Why in Terra’s name did you drink the entire thing? Didn’t you know your tolerance levels?” I shook my head, disappointed that this had cost us a couple of hours. “Instead of having you go crazy for a few minutes, if you had drunk only half of it, we could have gotten twice as many things done and probably in half the time.”
He got up and crossed his arms at me. “I never had it before. I didn’t know how much I was supposed to drink.”
“You ne- Not even diluted?” That was surprising. Counterfeit Stamina Drinks and diluted [Thesi] were all the rage in almost every gang I knew. “Then why did you drink it without any hesitation? Weren’t you scared it could have been poison?”
“Nah, I know that Novas and their information windows never lie when it comes to which product belongs to which Megacorp down in the Middle Ring. It’s hard-coded into it or something.” He shrugged, seemingly entirely at ease with his choices.
“Well, alright then. So, time for the sharpshooting test.” We had to make up for lost time.
“I told you, don’t bother. No guns.”
What? How was I supposed to bring him to the mission if he couldn’t defend himself? “Well, Kornok certainly chose an interesting person to help me in this mission. How are you his best man if you can’t even shoot a gun? If we get spotted, you are as good as dead.”
It must have been a sore spot because, all of a sudden, he was back to his previous icy self. “I don’t need a gun. Many assumed I was useless without a firearm and paid for it. I have my own skills, so don’t you dare look down on me.”
I raised my hands in the air. I was in no mood to trade barbs as soon as I woke up. “Fine, whatever. We’ll figure it out as we go. If we’re not doing the sharpshooting evaluation, we might as well be on our way.” I got up and stretched, hearing a couple of joints popping.
“Fine.” He made his way to the door.
I sighed and followed him out, walking wordlessly to the front desk with a nice-looking fellow sitting behind it. “Hey, Aren, go ahead to the elevators. I’ll meet you there in a moment.” I whispered to the man, “Tell Thoron I’ll be in touch. And tell him that he should follow the kid’s progress closely. He’ll understand.” The man nodded at me, and I waved to him as I jogged to join Aren.
“So, where to now?”
“Now, we’re gonna go shopping.”
“Shopping? Shopping for what?”
“Equipment, of course. We need to get ready, then scout out the target before coming up with a plan.” Had this kid never been on another mission? I mean, he did say he’d only seen topside, so maybe they had him doing Suit work? “And we’re going to the Otherside for it.”
“The Otherside? Really?” His eyes lit up with the same excitement as when I mentioned the Fourth Ring.
“Really. In fact, technically, we are already in the Otherside, just an isolated, hidden part of it. That's where the Fourth Ring is. But this time, we’re going to the Otherside Market of our quadrant and, from there, somewhere special.” Somewhere that I dreaded going to.
“What are we waiting for then?” The kid sped up and walked into the corridor we were already walking towards. I kept sauntering, taking in the sight of Aren waiting by a door, tapping his foot impatiently. “Come on! We have a deadline?”
Damn it, he was right. I had to put aside what childish pleasure I took from tormenting him. Game-face on, Raziel. You’re about to do the most dangerous thing you’ve ever done. Then you have to pull off a heist on the Priests.
Lovely.
“Alright, alright.” I waved my watch before the lock, and the door slid open, revealing the familiar pitch-black room. We both stepped in, and the door closed behind us. Even Aren was silent the entire trip, but I could hear him bouncing on his heels in anticipation. After a few minutes, my watch buzzed again. “We’re here.”
The doors opened, and the sound hit us like a train. Thousands of people talking, shopping, and browsing every stall and storefront, with merchants trying to scream above the din. The result was cacophonous, unpleasant, and annoying. Terra, it was good to be back. I stepped out and took a deep breath. The smell of sweat, metal, alcohol, and food was as common as on the Topside and Underside. Still, it had an entirely different feel here.
Aren stepped out, looking around in awe, letting out a quiet. "Woooaaah!"
Then, he fell on his hands and knees and started throwing up.
People sitting outside a bar on the opposite side of the street from where our elevator opened cheered loudly. At this point, greeting first-timers puking their guts out had become a tradition, with people purposefully going to bars opposite elevator exits, hoping to cheer for a new visitor. Or looking out for possible threats or potential opportunities. Aren’s horrific-sounding retch broke my reverie.
Right. Maybe I should have warned him about this. “Hey, Aren, you good?”
Aren took a shuddering breath and nodded, keeping his eyes firmly on the pavement. “I knew about the rotating insides, but imagining it and living it are two entirely different prospects.”
I nodded understandingly and knelt next to the kid. My first time here was just as bad. The Otherside was the interior of the ring, a series of rings perpendicular to the outside ring, rotating around the central axis holding everything together. We were standing on the inner side of one of those rings. Various components and machines of colossal sizes passed above our heads, barely avoiding scraping the roofs of the buildings as the ring’s components all moved and interacted in ways we never really understood. It was quite a lot to take in!
I handed him a handkerchief. “Here, let me show you the trick to not getting dizzy.” Aren took the cloth, wiped his mouth, and blew his nose before offering it back to me. “Uh, it's okay. You keep it. You know, just in case.” I said. He shrugged and stuffed it in his pocket. The squishing sound the poor handkerchief made as it got shoved in Aren’s pockets made me shudder.
“Alright, let me show you what you have to do. I stood up and motioned for him to do the same. “You have to stare straight up at the blue cube rotating in the center of the Otherside axle above us. Stare at it for a good 10 seconds. It will flash a little patch in your corneal implants that will let it compensate so you don’t feel dizzy anymore. You're good to go once you see a small green flash in the center of your vision.”
To my surprise, Aren did as he was instructed. I had expected at least some hesitation or a question. But nope, he looked straight up at the cube. After a few heartbeats, he looked down and nodded gratefully. “Thanks. Why does nobody talk about this part?”
“What, do you expect hardened criminals who want to be seen as intimidating to talk to you about how they lost their lunch on the first time in the Otherside? Besides, nobody wants to deprive the newbie-watchers of their sport, so we leave it as a surprise.” I waved back at a few vaguely familiar people enthusiastically waving at me from inside the bar.
“You’d think someone would have thought of a solution by now.” Aren groaned and rinsed his mouth with a water bottle from a nearby vending machine.
“Why would anyone want to do that? The effect is intentional!” I looked at Aren in confusion.
“It’s by design? Why?”
I walked down the main street towards the market and waved at him to follow me. “Well, when the Otherside rings of each ring quadrant were discovered a few hundred years ago, they wanted to come up with a way to protect it from the priests, so it's said that they found a way to add a micro-stutter to the Otherside ring without interrupting its operations. Apparently, those micro-stutters make all humans feel violently sick and dizzy unless they have the patch you just got.”
“How would that protect the Otherside from the priests?” Aren asked, his face once again pensive.
“Well, it's simple. The patch you got can only be flashed into a Nova, so...” I let the sentence trail off, hoping Aren would come up with his own conclusion. The kid didn’t disappoint.
“Huh, the Priests have no eyes, so no NovaSights to patch.” Clever lad.
“That’s right. Any Priests that tried to come in here collapsed into a heap within a minute and were promptly disposed of. Some still try from time to time, but it's not really a concern. Some even treat it as an opportunity to train a little. That’s why they have the Cardinals, anyway. For places like these that rebuke their direct influence. Now hop on.” I jumped into a tram passing by us and held out my hand for Aren. He leaped at it, and I pulled him up, walking inside the car and finding comfortable seats. We both settled into a comfortable silence, Aren staring out the window at the passing cityscape in fascination.
I almost fell back asleep, but a small bell and a female robotic voice saying, “Next Stop: Ring 3 - Quadrant 2 - Otherside Market” snapped me out of it.
“Right, that’s our stop.” I got up and waved for Aren to come along. “From the moment we step off the tram to the moment we see a bright red door, you need to stay entirely silent, okay?”
He looked at me as if I were speaking a different language. “Uh, why?”
I almost snapped at him again, but I held it in. “Because this is how this works. If we want access to what we need, you need to be entirely silent. One wrong sound, and we’ll likely lose our opportunity and, with it, the mission. I lose everything I care about, and you fail on your first mission. We all lose. Or if we’re lucky, we both get shot.” Okay, I did snap at him a little.
“Alright, I get it. I’ll be quiet.” He didn’t sound too pleased about it, but I hoped he’d stick to it. I couldn’t afford to lose that opportunity. The doors slid open, and I nodded to him. He wordlessly nodded back.
As soon as my foot stepped on the pavement of the market, I began humming a familiar melody. All around me, I could see the stalls of the Otherside Market, where people were selling all sorts of wares, from weapons to snacks. Their voices rang through the market, trying to outshout each other to sell their wares to passersby.
I stopped at the booth of a kindly old lady I thought I recognized. She winked at me and pointed at some cases of ammunition she was selling. I smirked at her and nodded, handing over a green coin to her. She talked about her wares, examining the token I gave her. In particular points of her bullet-related rant, she flashed me some signs that, to the untrained eye, would be seen as mere twitches.
Aren looked stunned, his head whipping around constantly, trying to see everything the market offered. Couldn’t blame him, really. This place was magical. Nowhere other than the Otherside Markets could you see someone selling a stack of off-brand Matrix Breaker model 290-Vs, fried-dough balls soaked in syrup, high-yield explosive charges, and little rubber bouncy balls, all in the same stall. Actually, I think those little rubber bouncy balls were high-yield explosive charges, too. Huh.
I made a mental note to check that particular stall out on our way back. Those dough balls looked delicious, and those bouncy explosives could be helpful.
The old lady knocked on her table twice and handed over the coin. I nodded again, sliding her a golden coin. She looked shocked momentarily before grabbing it and stuffing it in her polka-dot dress. “It’s good to have you back.” She gave me a bright, warm smile with affection in her voice.
I couldn’t speak as I was still humming, the melody changing according to the signals she gave me, but I placed my hand on hers and gave it a quick squeeze before moving on.
Aren, naturally, stared at the whole ordeal as if we were both escapees from an asylum, talking about what kind of glue tastes the best. His eyes snapped to the glint of the golden coin and then up to my face when the old lady spoke. He gave me a surprised look tinged with the expected disbelief.
We walked on, visiting two more stalls and repeating the same procedure, minus the gold coins. I wasn’t made of money. Aren looked increasingly bored and exasperated. With the melody of the last stall on my lips, we walked to a nearby elevator door, where I tapped a code combination and brought my watch to my lips so that it could hear my quiet humming.
With a “ding,” a window opened in front of me.
[ACCESS AUTHORIZED]
The elevator doors opened, and we walked in. Same darkness, same stillness. I missed the regular, well-lit elevators. Aren walked in with no complaint. When the doors closed, they started glowing a faint red, brightening until they could lightly illuminate the entire room and the retracting silhouettes of 8 rifle barrels, one coming out of each corner.
I let out a sigh and relaxed. “You can talk now. Don’t worry, we’re safe.” As was predictable, he exploded.
“What was all that? Is everyone in this place out of their minds?”
I’d had it with this kid.“It was a password, dumbass. Each person gave me the password to the next one until we got the final one. We are going to one of this ring's hardest-to-access and well-guarded places. A place that not a single Otherlord or Gang has ever so much as disrespected in passing mention.”
“Where the fuck are we going? The place where all the Otherlords store their money?” he sounded incredulous.
“No. We’re going to the Orphanage.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
