Oskar stood in the lobby of what looked like a hotel. Or rather, it was starting to look like a hotel.
The thin maroon carpet had been laid out, leading guests to an empty desk. Underneath it, the stone was paler, but still didn't appear to be a single smooth surface.
It was odd to see such masterful and meticulous crafting, only for there to be simultaneous archaic designs.
When he had asked Red about this. The man had simply responded with the word "nostalgia."
And indeed much of this new place seemed to have older, if not ancient flourishes. Whether it be the lighting being dim orange lanterns or the furniture of dark wood and pale, pliable cushions.
When Oskar saw the wood, he nearly had a heart attack.
Creating synthetic wood was expensive already, but getting wood from the Dream Realm was also rare, since it usually came from forests. And areas like that in the Dream Realm were unbelievably harrowing. Those places abundant life that existed on earth twisted into a malevolent hell in that other world.
"Does the wood come from the Dream Realm, or is it manufactured elsewhere?" Oskar asked.
Red, who was currently using his Aspect to manipulate a foul smelling red liquid as cranes to move these freshly delivered items did not falter when answering.
"Both. The wood was taken in the area around my home in the Dream Realm. I shipped it off to some Government facility and they made me things in return for keeping a surplus for their own uses."
Oskar's mind whirled.
He had been worried that asking question after question would put the Ascended on guard. But the man seemed perfectly happy to reveal everything, even offering a bit of extra information unprompted.
He's talking so much…I'd think he was high, but it feels like it's planned. The details he's dropping are leading me into developing and understanding him. This could be to put me at ease, but it's more likely he's manipulating me into drawing the wrong conclusions…Still, it's hard to refute that he has ties to the Government. The constant shipments made it plenty obvious.
Red was connected, and he was powerful.
Oskar had only seen an Ascended in action once. He did not have a good way to measure their individual power, but this one seemed distinctly harrowing.
So why the hell was he here? Why was the Government not only allowing his antics, but funding them?
He was already in dangerous waters with this guy already. Oskar did not want to probe any further than he had to at the moment.
At the moment, it was better to stop digging into Red's secrets and start buttering him up.
"What kind of people are you looking for to populate this 'New Workshop'? I am currently employed, but I wouldn't be opposed to working here, or even bringing in some of my other coworkers. Of course, that's only if we are up to snuff."
Red walked around the room, looking at the lights for a bit before taking a seat on one of the newly installed couches. Afterward, he gestured for Oskar to do the same. As he moved to take a seat, the Ascended answered.
"There are no qualifications necessary. However it will be impossible to do another job simultaneously with the New Workshop." Seeing Oskar's confused look, he continued to explain. "If you join me here, you will train to become a Workshop Hunter. This can be in the form of a teacher, an engineer, or a killer. 11 hours a day, every day, you will devote yourselves to becoming worthy of the title of Hunter."
Oskar tried to wrap his head around this. It was more extreme than he had expected, but also on a much smaller scale than he had thought.
"So it's like a boarding school? Or a university?" Oskar said.
Red tilted his head and smiled.
"I suppose. But after one becomes sufficiently prepared, they will also work for the New Workshop for a set period of time. Depending on their skill set, they can contribute in a number of ways. It will be a self sustaining cycle. There will be no graduation, only promotions and eventual retirement."
Oskar was still very confused. He was starting to get a picture of what this place would look like, but he wasn't clear on what benefit this could possibly bring to the enigmatic Red Judge. The money he would make off of it would be nothing compared to what he could get for simply trading Memories and Shards like normal Awakened.
So if it wasn't the money that Red was looking for, then what else would he get from building such a place?
Well the obvious answers were a bunch of weapons, engineers, and killers. He had made it abundantly clear that this was a place of burgeoning violence. And not just wrathful violence either, but surgical and trained.
Such a thing was rare in the Outskirts.
There were a few people floating around who had actual training with actual weapons, and even fewer had access to those weapons.
But it wasn't for simply using these new killers to take over the Outskirts, he could do that by himself if he really wanted to.
So he would be selling them. The weapons would be traded with other entities and the killers could be hired out. Everyone else was simply there to keep fresh recruits coming in and helping the Workshop run smoothly.
Oskar decided to word it in a more open way, trying not to give away his suspicions.
"So what kind of clientele are you looking for? Weapons can only go to the military or the Legacy Clans, which one would you prefer working with?"
To his surprise (again) the Ascended shook his head.
"Neither. It will all remain 'in house' so to speak."
Oskar's forehead scrunched.
"Then what will the Hunters be hunting?"
Red gave him a long look. Though Oskar had started to become more accustomed to his presence, and had even been able to look him in the eye more, but the glance that was weighing down on him now was so oppressive he felt he might kneel right then and there.
And then, it disappeared. In a tone of uncanny brevity he replied.
"We will hunt Nightmare Creatures, of course. What else is there to hunt?"
Though he said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, Oskar had not even considered this.
"Huh?" his mouth hung open dumbly. "...you said anyone can become hunters…but only Awakened can kill Nightmare Creatures, are you trying to make those super advanced mech-suits that the Government has been producing? Even those feats of technology only allow normal humans to kill Dormant or maybe an Awakened creature. It simply isn't feasible to train and arm the people of the Outskirts."
Red's pupils slid slowly to the side and he looked around the lobby. It was almost as if he was searching for something. It wasn't until he spoke that Oskar understood what he was really doing. He had been lost in thought, reminiscing about another time.
"Might I tell you a story, Oskar?"
This was something he was very keen on hearing. A personal account would give him a good idea of the Red Judge's past, and it could lead to new insights into his purpose and character.
"By all means," he said.
The Ascended leaned back into his chair and leveled his gaze straight forward.
"A little while ago, I was doing quite well for myself. I was content to work by myself, hunt by myself, and eat by myself. I lived by a city full of people. There was trouble brewing there, conflict became more common and tension became suffocating. But all the while I kept to myself. I figured I would leave them to their own devices. The result was a bloody battle and hundreds of lives lost. Even then, I remained an outside observer,"
He paused. And suddenly, there was a wave of anger coming off of him.
"But on one of my hunts, a couple of those city folk took it into their head to kill me. And since I had just had a battle with a terrible creature I was unable to properly defend myself…one of them put a hatchet into my skull."
Oskar couldn't help but shake as the Ascended's presence became more morbid and frightening. Fortunately, the Red Judge noticed this, and calmed himself.
"After I got better, I realized a couple of things. The first, was that I was not strong enough to live while removed from everyone else. The second, was that humans could become Nightmare Creatures, or at least something similar. Foul beasts that had succumbed totally to base instinct and desire. The third and most important thing I learned was something I couldn't put into words for a long time. Only now do I feel confident in expressing what truly troubled me about that day."
His arms, which had been resting at his side, suddenly flipped and his palms faced the ceiling. He looked up at it, or rather, looking at something beyond it.
"Among the new discoveries that came with the Nightmare Spell, the most enigmatic and dreadful one is the phenomena known as Fate. Seers and certain Awakened can sense or even view the tapestry of the Universe. The story that has long been written that we must follow."
A grim expression covered his face.
"That night I could feel it. The chains of Fate pulling me toward death. I had done something, or could have done something that would have gone against its grand design. So it tried to get rid of me…that's my theory anyway. It has bothered me for so long, but in my pondering I noticed something odd. And from that oddity I believe I have come across something that will prove to be perhaps the most important thing in my existence."
A wide and mad smile crossed his face, and the Ascended said something that seemed so reality shattering that Oskar found it hard to fathom.
"Fate encompasses all of reality. As far as I know, the things described in it can not be changed or avoided, not unless something truly drastic happened…however, between those major events it describes, there is a lot of empty space," he said. "If you think about it as a novel, there are many events happening in the world that do not affect the plot, and so they are never acknowledged. I believe there are certain things that Fate itself does not acknowledge. Certain lives and certain deaths are inevitable, but the vast majority are unimportant to the grand design. That is what this Workshop aims to exploit. The unimportant people of the Outskirts will be used to save the lives of more unimportant people, who will in turn help more. Ideally, it will snowball into the saving of millions, if not tens of millions of lives."
At that moment, sparks appeared on Red's chest. The dark red vest he wore disappeared into his Soul Sea. That specific garment appeared to be a Memory. And with its disappearance, Oskar felt like he could move again.
In a moment of extreme humanity, the two men exchanged glances with each other. Neither one was feeling pressured, and both were pondering deeply.
The scene had become something out of an ancient film of philosophers. And in that scene the Red Judge leaned forward slightly and spoke in a gentler voice.
"What do you think about this, Oskar?"