A start chapter of another Zootopia storyline that I have, at the moment, no real idea where it is going to go.

Raiders from a universe that magic works invade a Zootopia skyscraper to take captives and whatever booty they can find.


Raid and Respect


“Goddess and Spirits!” I growl as the smell of something burning comes to my nose. “I cannot believe these idiots are wasting time trying to set this place afire! They know we are on limited time to get this raid done!”

Really, I should know better, most raiders will try to destroy stuff that they regard as being of little to no value to them and in this place that is close to everything. The only thing of real worth is the mammals.

“And if they weren’t in such demand at home most of them wouldn’t be worth the trouble to backhand, let alone kill!”

Some of that has, and is, happening. As I stride towards where the smoke is coming from I see a couple of dead bodies lying on the floor; one male and one female.

“One a coward, the other too old to be of use,” I muse.

The…castle (they call it a “multi-floor building”, here) that we are in is of a height that few in my homeworld could match. And it is a small thing compared to others in this city that are twice to ten times taller. In its way, this world is a place of wonders; carriages and wagons that move without animals or slaves pulling them, ships that set so high in the water that one can strain their neck looking up at them, and things that fly through the air at astonishing speeds that can carry a small village of people in just one of them!

“So many marvelous things here, so…common that the mammals here are barely aware of their wonder!” I think.

When I get to the room the smoke is coming from, my eyes are greeted with the sight of several ferret warriors who are spraying one another with some small cylindrical things that are a little over a hand* in height/length. The spray doesn't last long, a few heartbeats at best. Then they grab another out of some kind of tall box (some 15 to 16 hands in height and about 9 hands across), shake it vigorously, and then point it at someone whereupon they use a claw tip to pull on a ring in the middle of the top. There is a kind of "snap!" sound and the liquid gushes forth. One of them places a depleted cylinder on the floor and then slams his foot down on it and it collapses down to a height of less than a finger width. At most other times I would be willing to watch and be amused, but, the sand is running through the glass...I wade into them and, swearing loudly, lay about cuffing them.

"This is a raid, not tavern play time! You're docked half of your pay! Get going and do something useful before I talk Glinda into taking the rest!"

With the agility and speed of their species, they dash away.

"Damned ferrets, too easily distracted!" I grumble to myself as I pick up one of the empty uncollapsed containers.

It's made of some kind of light weight metal. It is so thin that a small squeeze on it indents the metal and with a little more effort it caves in. The look and feel of it trigger a memory and I bring the item up to my nose and sniff at it a few times and the scent brings forth another memory.

"By the Great Maker! Can it be, is it...allaame**?"

There are some five to six hands of these things on the floor, most of them crushed. I collapse the others and then stuff all of them into my personal booty bag. There are seven more in that holding box (these are cold to the touch) and I tuck them (still filled) away as well. Does it seem to be colder in that box? The sounds of booted feet and weeping claim my attention and I move towards the noise. A procession of raiders force guides a number of females towards the magic portal. Many of them sob and weep while the rest have the look of unbelief on their faces. All look to be of child baring age. Then, one woman, a deer doe, catches my eye. She is mid to late in her third decade of life and there are no tears on her face. Instead, her expression is grim and, as I watch, she shakes her bound arms then her body about in quick motions to try to break the hold a raccoon warrior has on her. She doesn't but her show of spirit earns a notch of respect from me. Then, I see...

"Warrior!"

"Yes?"

"Is that blood on your nose?"

"Aye, it is!" he states in high spirit.

I look to his prize.

"Did she...."

"Aye, she did! Kept moving about and throwing anything she could lay her hands on at me! Hit me in the head, and nose, with some kind of hard heavy block thing! Very nearly got away from me while the lights of Odin flashed in my eyes! Even when I had her she went on struggling."

He looks to the glowering woman.

"And still does!" he says with grudging admiration.

The woman looks down to me, taking my measure as I take hers. There is some fear and a touch of anger in her eyes but she keeps them in her control. I reach into a small pouch on my belt and pull out a length of green cloth and then tie it about one of the warrior's wrists. His eyes widen at the symbol of great value.

"Take care with this one, warrior; she may well be the greatest prize of the raid!"

"Aye, milady!"

I twitch at the address but say nothing about it as he moves on. Others come by with captives, all females. I find myself wondering...then a pack of warriors, a mix of three foxes and one wolf, appears and they have a captive, one captive, in their midst, a male red fox. His hands are bound in front of him (a sign of respect!) and his clothing is torn and ripped in a number of places. There is more than a little blood on his face. I see that the leather armor of the raiders looks a bit the worse for wear and that they do, as well, and go to them.

"What have we here?" I ask.

"The bloodiest tough fighter I've ever seen!" growls one fox. "All he had was a short club and his hands and footpaws and he damned near beat us all to death!"

At first I am alarmed at all the blood on the tod’s face but, upon closer inspection, I see that it's not that bad. Eyes emerald green in color look into my own amethyst ones; eyes that measure, evaluate, calculate. If he’s afraid, he isn’t showing any of it. My respect for him goes up another notch. He is about 12 hands tall and has the body of a hard fighter. I guess that he is half way to late into his third decade of life.

"Show me his hands!"

They bring his arms up some so I can look them over. I'm surprised to see that the flesh of his knuckles are unbroken.

"You said he fought you with bare hands?" I ask.

"Aye, in a strange manner. He used them like this..."

One of the foxes’ chops through the air with the heel side of his open paw.

"...and like this!"

This time his paw is clinched in a fist but the hitting motion is the same as with the open hand.

"He blocked a doorway so we couldn't get to the mammals past it. By the time we took him down the others had escaped!" declares one of the other foxes.

There is no anger in the voices or eyes of the warriors. Even as a captive, they see this tod as a brother. There is no need for me to tell them to treat him well and I wave them on towards the portal. I'm reminded of something and look at the sand glass standing to one side of the portal.

"Time."

Bringing up a pipe whistle to my lips, I blow "Retire" several times. Other raiders come, some with additional captives (one sheep ewe is making angry demands as she is herded along), others carrying what they think is worthwhile booty.

"That is all of them," the skunk woman standing by the portal says as she checks her bead count.

"Good, let's go home," I say.

Before going through, I cast a detection spell and confirm that there are no others from my world here. I pick up the sand glass and follow the woman's plush tail through the portal. Once on the other side, I close it up.

* * * * * * *

"Not a bad haul," says the rabbit woman, Glinda. "Most of the captives look to be of good quality with one or two prizes."

"I take it, then, that you should have little trouble in finding buyers for them," is my reply.

"Very little..."

Just then, that ewe making demands, and she still is, comes by.

"...though a few are in need of some discipline!"

I grunt in response.

Glinda looks to me.

"I would think you might have a bit of respect for that one," she says.

"Ha, the silent fighting one gets that!" I snort, looking to the deer doe being led away. "That one..."

A nod towards the noisy woman.

"...thinks she deserves respect just because she's female! The one who fought and still remained in control of her wits rates more respect than that one ever will! As to the one male...well, speak to the warriors that fought with him, you'll find you have quite a prize in that tod."

The lapine woman gives me a crafty look.

"Thinking about buying him for yourself, mayhap?"

I quash a desire to give her a hard look, it would be wasted on her as she fears few things, myself not among them.

"As I doubt there's a noble Lady anywhere worthy of him, I just might!"

And with that, I walk away. When I get to my room I dump out the bag with the soft metal containers in it. Pulling a money scale out of a cabinet, I weigh each container (making sure the liquid is completely drained from the open ones). On average, they weigh 234 grains a piece; I'm amazed at the precision of whatever process they use to make them. In total, there are 39 empty ones plus the seven that are still filled. I decide to call upon a detection spell; one to identify metals. This one takes several minutes to ready as I wish to identify a specific material. When cast it confirms my suspicion; it is allaame, the rarest metal on this world! There are those who will pay several thousands of times their weight in gold for just one of these! And, in the magic trade, there are those who would give me the gold plus other things for just a piece of this stuff to make into powerful, very powerful, magic items.

"And these...mammals use it to hold some kind of drink; drink that can be accessed by anyone who goes to that...cooling cabinet!" I say to myself. "That means that they have to have a way to find and...process the ore to extract allaame on a huge scale!"

Another wonder to marvel over. I need to do some more vision research on this world before another raid is done. Right now, I need to figure out what to do with this massive treasure. Just the knowledge of the existence of merely two or three of these items would cause more hazards and dangers than I really want to think about. Another look at the one I have in paw.

“Glinda would pay Divines knows how much for just a half finger’s length strip of this,” I muse.

For some reason, I ‘see’ emerald eyes in my mind.

"’Thinking about buying him for yourself, mayhap?’" her words echo through my head.

“I just might!” I say aloud.




* Hand=four inches in length
** allaame=aluminum