"Well, I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't this," Hilde said as she scanned about the city they had entered through the gate.
Buildings scaled high around them on every side while the spaces between were cluttered by a variety of colorful stalls, booths, boutique shops, and any of a number of such businesses. People milled about on one errand or another and the entire place was filled with the rampant sound of strange music and raucous chatter.
"All citizens keep in mind the upcoming Idol Competition. Potential competitors, your last chance of signing up as coming up shortly, you'd better get on it."
As they were gawking about guards of some sort came over and started to ask them about their papers. The fact that they'd come out of a gate didn't seem to faze the guards at all and they seemed to grow a bit frustrated on realizing that the travelers were almost completely new to this whole idea of traveling between dimensions.
Hilde let Hayden and Hayley handle the negotiations for the most part while she took in everything she saw. The cultural matters of the place intrigued her, it was a little bit like many places she'd been in the course of her travels so far and a lot like none of them. The overriding influence she was picking up however was the idea of completely unchecked capitalism.
Everything, even the conversation of the guard inquiring about their certifications, seemed to relate somehow to the concept of doing business. This place even went beyond what could be found in The World, despite what anybody thought. She'd heard that the Terra Incognita and other hidden realms seemed very much like they embodied the essence of various concepts and this certainly seemed to support that concept. Though, on another hand the previous world didn't seem to quite follow that same idea, unless she had simply missed the nature of that realm's theme.
Which brought her to something of a surprise as she heard about someone complaining that a computer game of some kind was not operating. Listening a bit further it became clearly obvious that these people had been operating those clockwork robots in the other world as a sort of RTS game. The idea dimmed some of her enthusiasm for the excitement of meeting a new group of people. It sounded as if they were perfectly aware that the other world had been real people and yet they had no problem using the people of that world as a form of entertainment. Some time later, Hayden and Hayley let on that there was a slave market, darkening her interest even further, but that was later.
As she was wandering about, she received a curious message from Solveig that everybody should make an attempt at the Idol conversation. There was something about power over time and space. She wondered if perhaps that might have been something with what Shi's Father must be looking for. Regardless.
"Hey, Taba!"
"I'm getting everything, Hilde. Don't worry about. Nothing is wrong. The camera is working perfectly."
"I'm getting everything, Hilde. Don't worry about. Nothing is wrong. The camera is working perfectly."
"Awesome, but one more thing. This is a place where you aren't yet registered as my agent."
"Ohh!" Taba said, turning to look at Hilde. "That's a great idea."
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