#i was thinking of writing about how people in zuzu react to monsters

[reallyghostlypost]

Joja AU - a few notes on Zuzu City

And by a few, I mean three pages of Word ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm starting to gather ideas for my Joja AU but first I needed to settle a few background details. And since the Joja facility Thad worked at is in Zuzu I decided to start there.

the Ferngill Republic was first established 150 years ago (according to Demetrius);

when the Ferngill Republic was established, one of the priorities was to ban any magic from the biggest city of the country;

any existing magical research center or magical institution was moved to other parts of the country and businesses catering to magic were paid to leave the city;

even magic users were encouraged to leave and those who chose to stay had to restrict their magical activities almost completely (those who were caught doing magic were punished severely);

the law was an agreement between the Ferngill's government and the Ministry of Magic, who wanted to remain as independent as possible from the rest of the government;

the point of the law was to give normal people a way to avoid magic so they won't complain too much about its dangers - if they are fed up with wizards and magical accidents, they can move to Zuzu City to get away from it all;

Zuzu City quickly became the main hub for any business or activity that wasn't working around magic or was too important or fragile to risk in some magical catastrophe (most institutions also moved their headquarters here, including the Order of the Knights of Pythagoras);

without magic, Zuzu was free to focus on technological advancements and ended up as the technological center of the Ferngill Republic;

all this led to Zuzu becoming the capital city of the Republic;

magic is only allowed in rare cases, and it's strictly controlled (mages from the Ministry might attend meetings here with other officials, rare events where magic or monsters are showcased, a few mages working as doctors in big hospitals and a few university professors working in domains that intersect with magic);

in these cases, mages are asked to either refrain from using magic (like the Ministry members) or use it only when strictly necessarily (doctors and professors);

the only ones allowed to use magic freely are the emergency teams sent to deal with the occasional monster sighting, unruly mages or unapproved magic sources, or those sent to maintain the protective magical wards surrounding the city;

as a result, life in Zuzu is very different than life in other parts of the Ferngill Republic, to the point where it feels like an entirely different country altogether;

most people living here are completely detached from the problems and events happening around the rest of the country;

for example, people here barely think about monsters or magic even if they are a daily occurrence in other parts of the country;

most ferngillians believe monsters don't exist within the city's limits, and there are reasons for this belief;

monsters seem to naturally avoid places with a huge human population and lots of technology and Zuzu is also lacking any magical sources so there are generally no reasons for monsters to try and enter the city;

there are also strong wards placed around the city to prevent any unusually curious monster from entering;

Zuzu is so safe from monster attacks that there's no reason for adventurers to settle here and despite its huge size there are no Adventurer Guilds active in Zuzu;

the closest thing to an Adventurer Guild is the Order's headquarters but they would never respond to monster calls, instead the responsibility to keep Zuzu safe from monsters is shared by all guilds within the Republic;

generally, any adventurers having business within the city would also have to deal with the rare monster sighting, if none are present guilds are picked and called through rotation;

but while Zuzu is so safe from monster attacks that people here could spend their entire life without encountering any, it's naive to think that monsters don't live in isolated corners within the city;

at some point, Joja has realized it would be really profitable to enter the magical business - lots of new business opportunities, new ways to ease up the cost of already existing business, discovering new ways to control what's going on within its walls, plus new ways to blackmail and coerce those standing in their way;

but this law was one of the most enforced one within Ferngill and even Joja struggled for years to be able to work around it;

they were adamant that their magical research and production should happen within Zuzu, since they had most of their main facilities there and after years of bribery, political manipulation, blackmail and gathering favors they finally reached their goal;

only in recent years did they managed to convince the government to close its eyes at their activities and that happened only because of the most recent war with the Gotoro Empire;

part of the reason why Joja struggles with so many monsters in their facilities is because of their inexperience when it comes to magic and their wish to keep the problems hidden so they won't lose access to it again;

but they convinced some of the Ministry's mages to extend their wards around some Joja facilities and as long as monsters don't break out of these territories both the government and the Ministry are willing to ignore them;

So, when the news of monsters being sighted in the busy metro tunnels beneath the city broke out, tunnels traveled by thousands of people daily, Zuzu was in an uproar. It was in the news as the main subject for weeks and caused lots of fear and panic. It all started innocent enough. A blackout cut the power to a big portion of the city and due to some error, the underground railway's backup generators didn't start, leaving multiple trains stranded mid-transit for less than an hour.

A passenger, wanting to take advantage of this opportunity, filmed the dark tunnel through the window and posted it on the internet. At first, this got people's attention because it's rare to see the inside of the tunnels due to the train moving too fast. But then a few people noticed that some odd noises could be heard in the clip. There were lots of horror movies jokes after this until someone tried to enhance the video to better see the tunnel, and it's the picture he posted that truly started the panic.

In the pic there could be seen multiple side tunnels branching out from the one the passenger was in, all boarded up. Inside one of them, there was a shadow brute staring straight at the passenger. Later on, it would be discovered that the side tunnels were leading to the old catacombs beneath the city. Since they have been abandoned for a long time, monsters started nesting in them. They were stopped from leaving the catacombs by the wards placed throughout the city.

This was the first monster 'encounter' for many people in Zuzu City and the first time most of them had to think about the dangers monsters bring or about safety measures.