Weaves of Ashes

Chapter 110: Chapter 105: City of Contrasts

Location: Road to Oldstrand → Oldstrand City

Time: Days 522-523 | Telia: Days 13-14

Realm: Telia

They left at dawn, three travelers on a road that had seen too many journeys like theirs—people carrying hope to cities that might crush it.

Elder Ryunzo drove the small cart, his weathered hands steady on the reins. Master Whitestone sat beside him, a carefully wrapped bundle of charcoal samples resting between his feet like precious cargo. Jayde and Reiko rode in the back, watching Tardide shrink behind them.

”Two days to Oldstrand,” Elder Ryunzo said. ”We’ll stay at the Crossroads Inn tonight, reach the city by tomorrow afternoon.”

”Have you been to the city before?” Jayde asked.

”Many times. Used to trade there regularly, back when Tardide had surplus to sell.” His voice carried old bitterness. ”Before the warlords bled us dry.”

Urban center reconnaissance. Population density assessment required. Strategic value evaluation pending.

The road wound through farmland—or what should have been farmland. The fields were there, the soil rich and dark, but so much of it lay fallow. Untended. Wasted.

They passed the first village an hour after sunrise.

It looked like Tardide had looked before Jayde arrived. Small. Poor. Struggling. Women worked the fields with hand tools, their backs bent, movements slow with exhaustion. Children—too young to be working but working anyway—carried water buckets that looked too heavy for their thin arms.

No young men anywhere.

”Conscription,” Elder Ryunzo said quietly, following her gaze. ”Every village is the same. The warlords take the men, leave everyone else to survive however they can.”

Systematic population extraction. Military resource consumption. Civilian infrastructure collapse. Classic failed state indicators.

(Where are all the fathers? The brothers? The sons?)

The second village was worse. Smaller, poorer, with fields that showed clear signs of abandonment. An old woman sat outside a collapsed house, staring at nothing. When they passed, she didn’t even look up.

”Her sons died in the Eastern Campaign,” Elder Ryunzo said. ”All three of them. She has no one left to repair her home.”

Jayde’s hands clenched in her lap.

The third village had children begging at the crossroads. Not begging for coins—begging for food. A girl, maybe six years old, held out trembling hands as their cart passed, her dress hanging off a frame so thin Jayde could count her ribs.

”Please,” the child whispered. ”Please, just a little bread?”

Elder Ryunzo slowed the cart. Pulled out a small bundle wrapped in cloth—yesterday’s bread, saved from his own meal. The girl snatched it with desperate hands and ran, clutching it like treasure.

”There are hundreds like her,” Elder Ryunzo said heavily. ”Thousands. Parents dead in wars or plagues, no one to care for them. They just... survive. Or they don’t.”

Orphan population: high. Social safety net: nonexistent. Mortality rate: estimated severe.

(This is wrong. This is so wrong.)

The fourth village smelled like death.

Literally. The scent of unwashed bodies and untreated sickness hung over it like a fog. They passed quickly, but not before Jayde saw the bodies laid out behind one house—wrapped in cheap cloth, waiting for burial no one could afford.

”Plague,” Master Whitestone said quietly. His first words in hours. ”Summer fever, probably. Kills the weak and the old.”

”Doesn’t the city send medicine?” Jayde asked.

Elder Ryunzo’s laugh was bitter. ”Medicine costs gold. These villages have no gold. The warlords take it all for their wars.” He spat over the side of the cart. ”Cities don’t waste resources on people who can’t pay.”

Medical infrastructure: absent. Public health systems: nonexistent. Preventable mortality: widespread.

Federation Medical Corps would have quarantined the area. Set up treatment centers. Distributed antibiotics. Saved lives.

Here, people just died.

By the fifth village, Jayde had stopped asking questions. Just watched. Documented. Let her Federation tactical mind catalog the atrocities with clinical precision while child Jade’s consciousness screamed inside her skull.

The sixth village was the smallest they’d passed. Maybe forty people total, all women and children, and the elderly. Fields barely scratched, houses crumbling, hopelessness hanging over everything like morning fog.

”This one lost twenty-three men in the last conscription,” Elder Ryunzo said. ”Nearly every able-bodied male. They won’t recover. In five years, this village will be abandoned.”

Population collapse threshold reached. Community dissolution imminent. Systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure.

(How can anyone do this? How can they just take and take until there’s nothing left?)

***

They reached the Crossroads Inn as sunset painted the sky orange and red—colors that reminded Jayde too much of fire and blood.

The inn was modest but clean, catering to merchants and travelers who couldn’t afford the city’s expensive accommodations. The common room buzzed with conversation, dozens of voices blending into white noise.

Elder Ryunzo secured rooms and ordered dinner. They sat at a corner table, picking at stew that was probably the best meal Jayde had eaten since leaving Tardide, but tasted like ash in her mouth.

”First time seeing the countryside?” A merchant at the next table leaned over, his breath heavy with wine. ”You look disturbed, young miss.”

”It’s...” Jayde searched for words. ”The poverty. The suffering. Isn’t anyone doing anything about it?”

The merchant laughed—not cruel, just weary. ”What’s to do? The warlords need soldiers for their wars. The wars need taxes to fund them. The cycle continues.” He took another drink. ”Been this way for fifty years. Will be this way for fifty more.”

”What war?” Master Whitestone asked. ”What are they even fighting about?”

”Currently? Eastern Kingdom versus Southern Kingdom.” The merchant waved his cup vaguely. ”Border dispute. Trade routes. Some insult from ten years ago. Does it matter?” He shrugged. ”Tens of thousands dead already. Both sides claim victory. Both sides conscript more soldiers. The wheel turns.”

Perpetual warfare. Resource depletion justified by manufactured conflicts. Population hemorrhage normalized.

”The common people,” Jayde said carefully, ”they just accept this?”

”What choice do they have?” Another traveler joined the conversation—a woman with tired eyes and calloused hands. ”Warlords have the mages. The armies. The weapons. We have... nothing. We farm. We pay taxes. We send our sons to die. What else can we do?”

”The nobles get richer,” the merchant added, gesturing with his cup. ”Selling supplies to both sides. Buying up land from families who can’t pay taxes. Profiting from the misery.” His voice dropped. ”Wars are very profitable for those who don’t fight them.”

”And the cities?” Jayde asked. ”Don’t they help the villages?”

The woman laughed bitterly. ”Cities help themselves. Oldstrand has fifty thousand people—half living in luxury you can’t imagine, half dying in gutters. The wealthy don’t even see the poor anymore. We’re invisible.”

”Not invisible,” the merchant corrected. ”Just... irrelevant. Can’t pay taxes? Can’t contribute to the war effort? Then you don’t matter.” He drained his cup. ”That’s the truth of it. We’re only worth what we can provide.”

Dehumanization of civilian population. Resource-extraction governance model. Human life valued by economic contribution only.

Silence fell across their corner of the room.

”Tomorrow you’ll see,” the woman said quietly. ”Oldstrand shows you everything wrong with Telia, all in one place. The suffering and the splendor, side by side, pretending the other doesn’t exist.”

***

Jayde didn’t sleep well.

Lay awake in the small room, staring at the ceiling, while her mind replayed the day’s observations. Six villages. Hundreds of suffering people. A system designed to extract everything from those with nothing to give.

Federation Prime Directive: Protect civilian populations. Minimize collateral damage. Maintain humanitarian standards even during conflict.

(But this isn’t a Federation world. These aren’t Federation laws.)

Observation still stands. This violates every principle of ethical governance.

[You’re upset,] Reiko observed from his corner. [More than usual.]

”I’ve seen suffering before. Survived it. But this is...” She struggled for words. ”Systematic. Intentional. The warlords choose this. The nobles choose to profit from it. It’s not war—it’s exploitation dressed up as necessity.”

[What will you do?]

”I don’t know.” Honest answer. ”Tardide is changing. But one village in a world of thousands...” The enormity felt crushing. ”How do you fix something this broken?”

[One village at a time?]

Maybe. But looking at the scope of Telia’s suffering, one village felt like bailing out the ocean with a teaspoon.

She didn’t voice that thought aloud.

***

Oldstrand appeared on the horizon just after midday—a sprawling city of fifty thousand souls, visible from miles away by the smoke that rose from thousands of chimneys and forges.

”Biggest city in the Eastern Kingdom,” Elder Ryunzo said. ”Center of trade for the entire region. Everything flows through Oldstrand—goods, gold, information.” Pause. ”And misery.”

Master Whitestone stared at the massive walls. ”I’ve never seen anything so large.”

”Wait until you see inside.”

The southern gate was massive—carved stone arches twenty feet high, guarded by soldiers in polished armor who barely glanced at their travel papers. The contrast with the villages was immediate. Clean uniforms. Well-fed faces. Weapons that gleamed with maintenance and care.

These soldiers weren’t dying in gutters. Weren’t abandoned when they got hurt. They served the city, and the city took care of them.

Or at least, took care of some of them.

Beyond the gate, the slum district began.

Jayde had thought she was prepared.

She wasn’t.

The transition was instant and brutal. One step past the gate’s protection, and the world changed. Narrow streets choked with refuse. Buildings that looked one strong wind from collapse. The smell of human waste and rot so thick it made her eyes water.

And the people.

So many people. Living in conditions that made the villages look prosperous by comparison. Families crammed into single rooms. Multiple families sharing buildings that should have been condemned. Children sleeping on bare stone because there wasn’t space inside.

”The slums house about twenty-five thousand people,” Elder Ryunzo said quietly. ”Half the city’s population. War refugees, displaced farmers, orphans, veterans who couldn’t fight anymore.” He gestured at the sprawling poverty. ”This is where Telia puts people who can’t contribute.”

Population density: extreme. Sanitation: nonexistent. Disease risk: severe. Mortality rate: estimated catastrophic.

(These are people. Just people who needed help and got abandoned instead.)

Children were everywhere—sitting in doorways, curled in corners, wandering with hollow eyes. Most wore rags. All were thin. Some had visible sores, untreated wounds, signs of disease that should have killed them already, but somehow hadn’t.

Beggars lined the streets. Some called out, hands extended. Others just sat silently, too weak or too hopeless to beg anymore. Many were elderly. Many were veterans—missing limbs, scarred faces, bodies broken by wars they’d survived but couldn’t recover from.

A woman nursed an infant in a doorway, her own ribs showing through torn clothing. The baby’s cries were weak, exhausted. Not enough milk. Not enough food. The slow death of starvation playing out in real-time.

Master Whitestone made a sound like he’d been punched.

”How...” His voice cracked. ”How can this many people live like this?”

”They don’t live,” Elder Ryunzo said grimly. ”They exist. They survive day by day, until they don’t.” He glanced at Jayde, whose hands were clenched white-knuckled in her lap. ”The city carts away bodies every morning. Hundreds per week in winter. Disease. Starvation. Cold. Violence. The slums kill more people than the wars do.”

Preventable mortality: extreme. Social infrastructure: absent. Government response: nonexistent. Humanitarian crisis: severe.

Jayde forced herself to breathe. To observe. To document with her Federation tactical mind while child Jade screamed inside her skull.

Veterans. So many veterans. Men who’d given years—decades—to the kingdom’s wars. Who’d lost limbs, lost health, lost everything in service. And their reward was abandonment. Left to beg in gutters while the kingdom they’d bled for continued grinding more young men into meat.

(The Federation took care of its soldiers. Even corrupted, even broken, it never did THIS.)

”The Merchants’ Guild is on the far side,” Elder Ryunzo said. ”We need to pass through the slums to reach it.”

”We’re just... passing through?” Master Whitestone’s voice held horror. ”Just walking past all this?”

”What would you have us do?” Elder Ryunzo’s voice was tired. ”Stop and help each person? We’d never reach the Guild. And tomorrow, there’d be a thousand more in their places.” He guided the cart forward. ”This is the reality of Telia. This is what the warlords have built with their endless wars.”

The cart rolled on.

Past children too weak to beg. Past veterans dying of infected wounds. Past families huddled together, sharing body heat against the cold that would kill them when winter came.

Jayde’s essence was leaking. She could feel it—heat radiating from her skin, air shimmering slightly around her hands. The rage building wasn’t just emotional. It was physical. Literal fire burning inside her chest, demanding release.

Emotional control compromised. Essence leakage detected. Exposure risk: moderate. Recommend immediate suppression.

(I want to burn something. Want to burn everything. Want to burn the system that created this.)

”Jayde.” Elder Ryunzo’s voice, sharp with warning. ”Control yourself.”

She forced the Inferno essence down. Contained it. Buried it beneath layers of Federation discipline and desperate restraint.

But it didn’t disappear. Just compressed. Waiting.

They moved deeper into the slums, toward the Merchants’ Guild that represented everything these people would never have—wealth, security, power, hope.

And Jayde’s rage burned hotter with every step.