Six devis should be enough to bring me all the way to Gaesha but I'd like to first get myself informed on the city's exact situation. The 22 Kata don't really matter if I get surprise attacked. Bane leaned against the wall outside the Golden Geri bar. He took a deep breath, there was a particular power in the 22 Katas that he dreaded using for it brought him immense amounts of pain. That power was an extended aspect of Ful.
The Kata known as Ful was actually three Katas mixed into one. Its first Kata was Flame Controlling, its second was Appearance Manipulation, and its third was one Bane really hated thinking about. He found the power much too cruel to use, it was a fate worse than death. That's why he only ever used the Flame Controlling aspect of Ful. It was better for him and everyone involved. But in order to save energy for his journey, one of those abilities needed to be used.
"Ful, Second Aspect, Take my face and grant me another." He whispered. Bane's face wriggled intensely as he felt a searing blade on both his flesh and mind. He fell to his knees and bit down on his hand to stop from screaming. If anyone had seen him in this state, they would not have been able to believe they were looking at the Inhumane Butcher. Sweat rained from his forehead as tears formed in his eyes. Blood was drawn as he dug his teeth deeper into his hand.
Once his transformation was complete, he lost a considerable amount of height, going from 185 centimeters to 167 centimeters. His back had hunched, his skin wrinkled, his ruby eyes were dyed green, and his hair was grey. This was the appearance of the village elder, Elder Femure. Having taken on this appearance Bane walked toward the village office, in which was one of the landships developed by Aramus Selveski a few decades ago.
The ship was a titan of steel and machinery.
Its body was long and segmented, covered in a thick metal armor, while at its head was a simple command center. Looking through the slightly yellow glass Bane could see the two speakers that connected to the carts and the "engine". Horizontally, the landship was again segmented, separating the top floor where the "engine" resided and the bottom floor that was meant to hold almost 5000 people, crew included.
This behemoth was one of the greatest inventions of the modern century. It was a revolution in the way humans traveled and exchanged goods.
Bane did a final check to see if the ship's "feet" properly dug into the specially indented pathway before turning to the desk not far from the metalloid monster, the desk had most likely served as a ticketing station in the past.
Now, it was abandoned with only a few stray pieces of paper indicating its occasional use. On the papers were instructions for using the landships.
Bane couldn't help but sigh upon reading the slightly yellowed paper.
…
It seems that leaving East Meriany is more an embarrassing task than a tedious one. Bane couldn't help but lampoon as he climbed to the top of the tallest building he could find. Seeing as Elder Femure wasn't often seen in town he wasn't very worried that the commotion he was about to cause would have him outed as an imposter.
He inhaled deeply before getting into a low and solid stance. He slammed his fists together, using mysticism to make the sound spread across the village. This was repeated several times before Bane opened his mouth and let out what sounded like a mix between a growl, a shout, and a yodel. The sound was deep and thunderous, causing the ground around to shake lightly.
Once he stopped chanting, Bane noticed that the ground still trembled. Faintly, he could hear a sound like stampeding cattle. Soon, a cloud of skin and muscle came into view. The cloud was made up of several men and women.
All of them of different ethnicities and races. All of them equally as buff.
Even from a distance, Bane could see their clothes straining against their impeccable biceps, triceps, and other ceps. Some were carrying large boulders while others carried whole cows, it was as if they had been caught in the middle of a low-budget workout.
These were the Jolly Men, the "engine" that powered landships all across Athens and the Gelden Continent.
In comparison to its neighbors, Yuellis and the Arctics, the Gelden Continent was rather lacking in energy-producing resources. That's why the ever-prideful King Geldea of the 990th century had commissioned many brilliant inventors to create a way of transport that was entirely self-sufficient, refusing to be outdone by his neighbors.
It was only after two centuries that Selveski was able to complete the late king's wishes, creating the first landship.
The ship ran entirely on manpower and its own mechanical energy. The Jolly Men would repeatedly pull levers in the engine chamber causing the machine's "legs" to detach and reattach themselves from the indents in the railway. This made the landship slowly inch forward like a centipede.
When done quickly enough, a landship could easily overtake a horse-drawn carriage several times over.
Bane reeled in his thoughts seeing the cloud of muscle. He calmed his mind and shouted:
"WHO PULLS THE LAND?!"
The approaching cloud roared with many voices.
"WE DO! WE DO!"
Seeing that it was working, Bane continued.
"WHO PULLS THE WORLD!" He screamed, his voice slowly filling with a sense of muscle-headed brotherhood.
The Jolly Men were now sprinting toward him at full speed.
"WE DO! WE DO!"
Bane felt himself uncontrollably filled with a sense of warmth and camaraderie. Screaming, this time more out of enthusiasm than out of necessity, Bane's voice boomed.
"TO YOUR PLACES. BROTHERS!"
He jumped into the crowd and was caught by several muscular arms
The cloud of brolic individuals flexed and screamed as they ran to the top floor of the landship, tearing a hole through the village office wall in their path.
Once he was finally let down, Bane let out a breath as the sense of camaraderie faded from his body, replaced with his usual dull depression.
That's scary! He thought, taking a seat on a comfortable red couch in the landship's first-class segment. It was as if he had been hexed, forced into the Jolly Men's hivemind.