The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Comprehension Issues

"Well, I, for one, need a bath," Maple announced, self-consciously flicking an ear as the eyes of passers-by began drawing themselves to her muddy form. "And you do too, Starlight."

Starlight bowed her head in agreement, a slight shiver running down her body. They were at a strange altitude where the air was warm, drifting up from the valley below, yet the ground was cold; the cobble-patterned road on which she stood still bore the night's chill, and the facing of the mountain to their side meant the sun wouldn't warm it for several hours more. Against her muddy hooves, it wasn't the worst, but there were many pleasanter surfaces to be had.

Gerardo clicked his beak, staring around the Stone District's entry plaza. The buildings inset into the mountain wall might have been homes, or artisan storage areas, but there were no signs or decorations depicting them as merchants. Down the roads, what appeared to be vendor stalls cropped up, most with their backs to the Earth District... and none of them were remotely big enough to house baths. He turned to his deposited crates and hummed. "Well, we'll need some sort of starting point..."

"We could always ask," Maple offered, slightly louder than need be.

As if on cue, a stallion with a perfectly friendly smile came trotting over, his wings tucked neatly beneath a windbreaker. "Well, someone looks like they just rolled into the better part of town. I reckon you're looking for a nice room and a chance to get freshened up?"

"Anything that will get this mud off," Maple muttered, rubbing at her foreleg and watching dried mud flake away. "Ugh. The closer, the better, too..."

The stallion winked. "Lucky for you, this close to the skyport is where all the good inns and hotels are located! Just head up and..." He rubbed his chin. "Well, up. The further away you get from the entrance, the cheaper stuff gets, but the dirtier, too. And between you and me, you don't want to go around looking like Sosans any longer than you have to! Hah!"

Turning his back on the party, he strolled away. Maple and Gerardo turned to each other, and the griffon raised an eyebrow. "Hotels, he says..."

"Well, we have to have somewhere to stay, don't we?" Starlight asked, looking up at the two. "You don't have a house here, right?"

"I do have money," Maple said with a shrug. "Ironridge money. Everything I owned. I'm not sure how much it's worth here, though. But it could probably get us at least a night, and we do need a way to get clean..." She looked hopefully up the cliff, trying to catch a glimpse of any good destinations, and found her view blocked by the immediate row of buildings. "It would also give us a place to leave those boxes while we tour the city, and I would like a room to try some things in private..."

"Out of the question," Gerardo immediately snapped. "I want my delivery taken care of as soon as possible. We'll have plenty of time for sightseeing after, but every moment we spend sitting in public with these boxes I grow slightly more nervous. I would be much more able to enjoy myself knowing that they were gone and my payment in hand. You do know what they say about things that can go wrong..."

Maple bit her lip. "It's not like anyone will steal them if they don't know what they are. I mean, they're two muddy cargo crates. Everyone here looks way to fancy to bother with those..."

"Our recent experience in the forest suggests otherwise," Gerardo muttered darkly.

"Well..." Maple protested, gritting her teeth. "Fine! Where are we taking them, then?"

"It's in the Sky District," Gerardo answered, "and that's all I can say. In fact, it's nearly all I know. Merely the name of a building I am to deliver them to, where there will presumably be someone ready."

"Well, You-Know-Who said that Ironridge gets more civilized the further up you go, and if we look out of place right now, we definitely will up there, so there." Maple stuck her tongue out. "Getting cleaned off isn't just to feel nice, it's a good idea. If you don't want to draw attention to us, don't make us stick out! We'll probably blend right in!"

In emphasis of her point, Starlight tapped their shoulders and pointed down the street, to where a mare was lugging a large box up an incline and into a building. Not a single pedestrian gave the mare a second glance, though the muddy trio were slightly less inconspicuous.

"...Very well," Gerardo sighed. "They're your funds. I have no intentions of leaving these crates, however, and have been bade not abandon you, either. If the purchase of a hotel room that very well may go unused save for a quick bath seems like the best priority, then let us proceed."

Maple nodded with an exhale of relief. "Same as before, then. I've got one crate, you've got the other. He said to go up... so I hope I'm not as tired as I feel."

---

The group got an idea of just how far up there was to go at the same time they became acquainted with how far they had come. Some thoughtful tourist agency had, at the edge of the road, installed a lengthy plinth with an observation platform at the end. Supported from below with braces and above with sharply-angled cables, it jutted out an entire street-width, providing both the freest view of the Earth District they had had so far, and enough removal from the Stone District's climbing sprawl to see above the nearest tier of buildings. Above that, there was another... and another... and before the count could even reach five, it dissolved entirely due to the mishmash of heights of different buildings, stalls on their edges, breaks in the road for switchbacks, and both the curvature of the rim and the fact that there weren't tiers at all so much as an endless series of interconnecting ramps. But most importantly, there were a lot of them.

"It's so far..." Maple whispered, eyes wide as she shifted her crate to a more comfortable position on her back. "And all that times the width of this entire mountain chain..." She swept her gaze to the side, all the way around the city's curve until she reached the far northern tip. "And that's just for one district. What do they do with all this room? It's so big..."

"Live in it, I presume," Gerardo answered. "Work, play... When an area's population grows, so, too, must the infrastructure of civilization."

A light breeze ruffled Maple's mane as she stared at the city. "I just can't imagine that there could be so many ponies..."

"Tens of thousands," Gerardo said, nodding. "Hundreds, even, more likely. Perhaps even a million, or more."

"One million ponies..." She reached a forehoof out, ancestral knowledge preventing her from even wobbling with the load on her back. "Back home, you could pick out any pony on the street, and odds were, you'd recognize them, especially if you were social like Amber. But here..."

"The world is truly an epic place," Gerardo murmured. "Ironridge is a gem of a city, if the stories are to be believed. Yet, even it is far from the best the world has to offer. Is this what you left to see?"

"I don't know." Maple swallowed. "I can't know; I'm... still not even sure I believe it. How do I even comprehend it? How could I ever get to know one million ponies? How would I remember their names? Who would even name them all? I mean, their families would, but..." She squeezed her eyes shut, having realized she had gone for far too long without blinking and that they were beginning to sting. "So many families, then. So many stories that would never even meet, and that do, I... I can't..."

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to try," Gerardo remarked, stepping back toward solid ground. "Because regardless of our destination, we have a large amount of ground still to cover. Onwards!"

Comments

[alamais]

Country girl be tiltin' at The Big City™.

I wonder what Glimmy thinks? Has she ever been to a real city?

[Spiral_Donut]

"Tens of thousands," Gerardo said, nodding. "Hundreds, even, more likely. Perhaps even a million, or more."

That is a lot of ponies, especially when this is only the first tier.

[Czar_Yoshi]

8409397 To be fair, Gerardo is prone to exaggeration at times.

Using an unreliable narrator is an easy excuse to avoid doing math.

[GMBlackjack]

8409671
Avoid doing the math? HERESY!

HERE'S THE MATH (or, well, more accurately the reasoning, but whatever.)

One million is far too many for even a large city that has minimal contact with other places in the outside world. Sure, they have the Yaks, but I've heard nothing about other places besides Yakyakistan really. It's like their only ally. Rome, during the height of the empire, had one million people, and it was the most well-connected place in existence! A million is right out, ridiculous!

Ironridge appears to have no other cities under its control aside from itself. Big as it is, this means it has to use all its infrastructure itself. It does appear to have some technology, though, so drawing a direct parallel to an ancient city probably won't quite do it. But let's try to get a ballpark anyway. The Aztecs had an empire that wasn't very well connected, and their capitol had 200-400 thousand people in it. Given the minimum population requirements for a proper city being 100,000, this makes sense.

Since Irronridge is big and has some connections, but no infrastructure with other cities, I say we put it at the low end of the estimate at 200 thousand ponies.

-GM, master of MATH.

[Merula]

Mmm, civilization