Kacie
One Thousand Club
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The Sun traces its last steps across the sky, sinking beyond the few, high, graceful towers lost from another age. Inside, the high accountants of the Guild stopper their ink, waft dry the last contracts of the day; the Merchant Princes have left already to conduct the evening's wining and dining of Creation's most powerful beings. In the next tower over, across the district, the flapping of robes is the only sound to mark the Emissary's passing.
The waning light plays across the carved surfaces, caressing them, a last lingering gaze before slipping under the festering muck of the Yanaze, recipient of the wash of two great rivers and everything Nexus cares to toss away.
And in Nexus, anything that doesn't make two silver to rub together is refuse and rubbish.
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In the sultry, sweltering air of Fire, it's six of one and half dozen whether one is smelling or drinking the reek of the Great Rivers of sewage, tailings, flotsom, and rotting flesh. And tar. That tar is on the air means the wind is from the south, from the dry-dock shipyard - Nexus is more known for trade and industry, but what good is trade without transport?
"Sunset" was hours ago, here in the crack between districts - the steep hills upon which the best Nexus preens effectively puts the flood-prone flats into shadow excepting high noon. And if the buildings didn't cast direct shadows, the wilting ash and withering soot, the hanging particulates sifting down from where they are thrown high from the furnaces of Nighthammer - distort and distend the Sun's visage into a throbbing, angry, reddened thing, while Luna is a wavering sickly orange fruit, unnaturally rotted in prime.
In the wet heat, one can practically see the air one breathes, and the air seems to stick to flesh, cling in the lungs.
And yet, commerce thrives, as do the rats, the cockroaches - and people.
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The streets have a moment of lull, between the last whistle, and the lighting of the meager lamps signaling the night shift, and all that entails.
In any other city, in any other district, this would be that last quiet of Happy Hour, before the wretches flood in to drown their sorrows.
Here - it's simply Opening Hours, and the discount is slight, because the prices haven't much lower they can dive.
The man who pushes open the flimsy swinging doors of the Mud-Lark's Nest is not a dock-worker, nor a bellows pump-man, and seems a tad too openly armed to be a member of local "insurance" men. The few locals take a slow, half-eyed look, then get back to the serious business of forgetting.
A mercenary, perhaps? From some company that's new and doesn't know the districts, or hard luck to be in this neighborhood - and yet, a subtle uneasiness slowly washes through; the fellow is...too self-assured. Best to drink harder. That's the solution to most things, after all.
What catches the man's attention is a fellow who seemed not to glance round at all - and on a closer look, sports robes a tad too clean, too well-made, to belong. This fellow sits at the edge of where the door's feeble light extends, just where the grimy lamp-lights fail - and watches what must be the proprietress, sitting on the edge of a tawdry stage, interviewing a hopeful prospect of uncertain gender.
"Beggin' your kindness, m'lady," the wretch says. "Anything yous wants me ta do, I'm willin'!"
The madam, a portly woman of the ripe age (for these parts) of forty, eyes the skeletal figure. "Yew ain't got but scraps and tendons holdin' ya together! 'ho's gonna fancy yew?"
"Anything, anything," the figure says, wringing hands. "Anything t'all!"
"Turn 'bout," the madam says, waving a hand with gaudy paste jewel'd rings, dubious expression as she speaks. "T'ain't no charity here, got ta see if anyone'd find ya 'ppealing."
From the hips, from the jaw-line, judges a female specimen. Hands on fatty hips, "Well. Maybes. More stick'n spit than flesh, but,"
A slight stench of rot and pus wafts past.
"Ah! Wha' yew hidin'!" A swift pull by the madam, and the woman - strike that, a girl on the cusp of puberty, cries out, limps. The madam deftly lifts the rags with a cane, and grimaces; a open sore leaks down the girl's leg, the flesh cracked and blackening.
"Please!" the girl cries. "Anything! Anything at all!"
[/media]
The Sun traces its last steps across the sky, sinking beyond the few, high, graceful towers lost from another age. Inside, the high accountants of the Guild stopper their ink, waft dry the last contracts of the day; the Merchant Princes have left already to conduct the evening's wining and dining of Creation's most powerful beings. In the next tower over, across the district, the flapping of robes is the only sound to mark the Emissary's passing.
The waning light plays across the carved surfaces, caressing them, a last lingering gaze before slipping under the festering muck of the Yanaze, recipient of the wash of two great rivers and everything Nexus cares to toss away.
And in Nexus, anything that doesn't make two silver to rub together is refuse and rubbish.
[media]
[/media]
In the sultry, sweltering air of Fire, it's six of one and half dozen whether one is smelling or drinking the reek of the Great Rivers of sewage, tailings, flotsom, and rotting flesh. And tar. That tar is on the air means the wind is from the south, from the dry-dock shipyard - Nexus is more known for trade and industry, but what good is trade without transport?
"Sunset" was hours ago, here in the crack between districts - the steep hills upon which the best Nexus preens effectively puts the flood-prone flats into shadow excepting high noon. And if the buildings didn't cast direct shadows, the wilting ash and withering soot, the hanging particulates sifting down from where they are thrown high from the furnaces of Nighthammer - distort and distend the Sun's visage into a throbbing, angry, reddened thing, while Luna is a wavering sickly orange fruit, unnaturally rotted in prime.
In the wet heat, one can practically see the air one breathes, and the air seems to stick to flesh, cling in the lungs.
And yet, commerce thrives, as do the rats, the cockroaches - and people.
[media]
[/media]
The streets have a moment of lull, between the last whistle, and the lighting of the meager lamps signaling the night shift, and all that entails.
In any other city, in any other district, this would be that last quiet of Happy Hour, before the wretches flood in to drown their sorrows.
Here - it's simply Opening Hours, and the discount is slight, because the prices haven't much lower they can dive.
The man who pushes open the flimsy swinging doors of the Mud-Lark's Nest is not a dock-worker, nor a bellows pump-man, and seems a tad too openly armed to be a member of local "insurance" men. The few locals take a slow, half-eyed look, then get back to the serious business of forgetting.
A mercenary, perhaps? From some company that's new and doesn't know the districts, or hard luck to be in this neighborhood - and yet, a subtle uneasiness slowly washes through; the fellow is...too self-assured. Best to drink harder. That's the solution to most things, after all.
What catches the man's attention is a fellow who seemed not to glance round at all - and on a closer look, sports robes a tad too clean, too well-made, to belong. This fellow sits at the edge of where the door's feeble light extends, just where the grimy lamp-lights fail - and watches what must be the proprietress, sitting on the edge of a tawdry stage, interviewing a hopeful prospect of uncertain gender.
"Beggin' your kindness, m'lady," the wretch says. "Anything yous wants me ta do, I'm willin'!"
The madam, a portly woman of the ripe age (for these parts) of forty, eyes the skeletal figure. "Yew ain't got but scraps and tendons holdin' ya together! 'ho's gonna fancy yew?"
"Anything, anything," the figure says, wringing hands. "Anything t'all!"
"Turn 'bout," the madam says, waving a hand with gaudy paste jewel'd rings, dubious expression as she speaks. "T'ain't no charity here, got ta see if anyone'd find ya 'ppealing."
From the hips, from the jaw-line, judges a female specimen. Hands on fatty hips, "Well. Maybes. More stick'n spit than flesh, but,"
A slight stench of rot and pus wafts past.
"Ah! Wha' yew hidin'!" A swift pull by the madam, and the woman - strike that, a girl on the cusp of puberty, cries out, limps. The madam deftly lifts the rags with a cane, and grimaces; a open sore leaks down the girl's leg, the flesh cracked and blackening.
"Please!" the girl cries. "Anything! Anything at all!"
Misuro, you've just entered. Sol, you're sitting watching. You're both crazy in Awareness and Perception, and thus are so badass you pick all this up from each other right away. (And neither of you is stealthy or larcenous-like.)
Why are you here?
There are rumors of the lady in silver dress, of the Wolf. Of plagues. And the Mud-Lark's Nest is rumored to be a place where one can find those willing to hide, smuggle, or otherwise transport those "too well known".
Misuro is borderline "too well known". Sol is as well, but from inside Nexus, as opposed to Misuro who's troubles stem from outside Nexus.
Feel free to have some other reason you're in one of the worst neighborhoods of Nexus, in a madam's house.
Where is the Wolf? Only Crazy Ivan knows -- place yourself as you like in the scene, Crazy Ivan.
Why are you here?
There are rumors of the lady in silver dress, of the Wolf. Of plagues. And the Mud-Lark's Nest is rumored to be a place where one can find those willing to hide, smuggle, or otherwise transport those "too well known".
Misuro is borderline "too well known". Sol is as well, but from inside Nexus, as opposed to Misuro who's troubles stem from outside Nexus.
Feel free to have some other reason you're in one of the worst neighborhoods of Nexus, in a madam's house.
Where is the Wolf? Only Crazy Ivan knows -- place yourself as you like in the scene, Crazy Ivan.
