[IC] Blight [OOC]

[glibglobb]

Drezlen clung to the side of the mountain like a tick, its mines sinking deep into the stone, its bloated warehouses bulging with precious metals: silver, copper, iron, even mithril. Foundaries digested the ores in smelters whose fires never cooled, belching endless streams of thick smoke and ash which added to the dark haze that daily blanketed the city. At the wharf, a black, tainted lake formed by damming the once white rapids of the Blackwash, barges jostled for room their captains eager to return to the bright, sunny capital to the south. At the center of all Drezlen’s filth, as if it itself was the source, sat the Blight. Situated in a low point, an ancient sinkhole caused by overzealous dwarf miners, the Blight provided the city with cheap labor: sturdy dwarves for mining ore, untiring trolls for transporting it and industrious gnomes for working it. Daily, those fae lucky enough to obtain a job, streamed out of the slums clutching their working papers with paranoid fingers, making sure not to make eye contact with the armored iron police who monitored the crowds.

Klade watched them pass with a tightened jaw - disgusting. He knew some ignorant nobles and their soft, liberal sycophants thought the fae beautiful, innocent even. If they only knew. His eyes turned momentarily from the runty crowd of gnomes and dwarves and to his partner standing resolute on the far side. Iron visor lifted, Klade could see the patch over his left eye. He knew what lay behind it or more to the point what didn't. He'd been there that night, a junior officer who still thought fairies were the cute characters of story books. He could remember ripping that rabid pixie from Jaden’s face like it was yesterday and he still had the scar on his palm to prove it, left by the same needle sharp blade which had gouged Jaden's eye. Not forgetting the lesson he’d learned that fateful night, Klade returned his attention to the crowds. Never trust a faery, not even a pixie... least of all a pixie.

Klade's grip tightened on the pommel of his iron claymore as a massive troll passed above the smaller fae like an ice berg being swept along a river. The head with its sweeping rack of horns turned toward the young officer and Klade expected defiance in the monster’s yellow eyes. Instead he saw only sadness. “Keep moving there,” shouted Jaden from across the street.



Niabell waved rapidly to the crowd as it churned through the greenlight district. Her sister, tall for a wood elf, craned her elegant neck over her shoulder. “You don’t really think he’ll see you?” As if in defiance of her words, a wrench rose to catch the morning light and flashed as it waved in response. Iliana sighed in exasperation as her younger sister clutched her heart in joy. “A gnome….?” The wood elf wandered over to her sister’s dressing table and plucked one of the many tiny brass contraptions off its surface. She held it up as if evidence of the absurdity of it all. “Niabell you’re in love with a gnome.”

The young elf turned about blushing, but quickly rushed to snatch the treasured gift from her sister’s hands. It was a dancer formed entirely from wire artfully wound into a swan figure. She turned the crank on the clockwork and watched it dance with wide eyes. Iliana just shook her head, “you better not let the mistress catch you fraternizing with lowborn.”

“Aignéis isn’t as bad as you think,” her sister protested as she set the toy down amidst a lustrous collection of similar bronze fancies.

“Oh really, let me tell you that Sidhee still thinks of herself as a Seelie queen,” Iliana snorted, “as if that would make her queen of anything but a brothel these days anyway… You mark my words, though, if she finds out you’re seeing a commoner, a gnome no less, and not as a client. You’ll find yourself out on the street serving up two copper quickies for goblins.”



Schlind inched his bloodshot eyes close to the gutter. Green skin crinkled about the narrow sockets as he watched heavy leather work boots and tinker clogs alike shuffle past. The goblin absently picked a mushroom from where it protruded from a crack in the concrete. After gobbling up the blue toadstool he dropped down into the muck. “You see her?” another fetid fae gargled from the shadows.

“Too crowdy,” Schlind whined, hunching his malformed shoulders. “Wait till waist beards go to their mines, then I looks again.”

The other goblin stepped from the shadows, a rotund faery with the both the shape and complexion of an infected pimple. “If we don’t find her Prince'll drain our blood for mana juice.”

“Gretch! You don’t need remind me,” Schlind looked toward the eroding walls of the sewer where a phosphorescent signature still glimmered beneath newly applied green graffiti. The battle between the two gangs, wyldling and Unseelie, left its mark in alleys and on bricks all across the Blight and under it.

“If we don’t get their cook,” his companion snarled, “wyldlings run the underbelly soon. You want that, work for crazy humans who eat magic and trip the dream? You seen what wyld magic do!”

“Might be better than serving mean ol' Princie,” Schlind grumbled.

The other goblin’s eyes flared, “no even be thinkin’ that you mold brain!” His beady eyes drifted up warily, “Prince hear you, Prince hears everything...”

Schlind gripped holt of the slimy rails which lead to the surface, “I… maybe go look again now.”

“You do, I watch out… for basalisks…”

Schlind climbed back toward the surface, his stunted brain squeezing out a rough image of the girl he was tasked to find. Human yet not, a dreamborn with the violet hair to prove it. 'Changelings they was called, children of da chanted, most die, found by goblins floating with the trash, eyes glowing like still live. This one not flushed though, this one get Schlind flushed if Schlind not find her...' Reaching the top of the ladder, the young goblin pressed his eyes to the grate once more, peering through a hundred pair of legs, looking for the girl with the purple hair.



Mayor Brannig watched the chaos unfold from on high, hands spread wide across the stone railing of the palace veranda. High above the soot, he breathed deeply of the relatively fresh alpine air. Casually, he knocked some snow from the granite ledge and watched it tumble down toward the angular roofs of clustered estates which jutted up like the shorn surface of a shingled sea. "Zar?" His grey elf guard's pale eyes swiveled ever so slightly beneath a sharpened brow. The grey preferred monosyballic names, this much Brannig knew... more efficient.

"My Lord?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, Zar." The broad shouldered, broad bellied man straightened his back, "I'm not a Lord, I'm a business man." He looked down, practiced eyes finding the old foundry in seconds. Memories of hellish heat and choking fumes seared his mind. "You think blood bought me this office."

"No sir," the Grey Elf replied evenly, "you were elected." Brannig studied the slim flawless figure of the monochromatic faery but found not the slightest hint of sarcasm.

"Yes... elected." He leaned back out the high window. "What do you think of proposition nine, Zar?"

"An opinion?"

Brannig knew by now that Grey Elves thought of opinions what most people think of the unmentionable black sludge they accidentally track in from the street. "An assessment," he rephrased.

The Grey Elf scanned the room. He was alone with the mayor, a common occurrance for most human Lords trusted their Jarnalfar protectors more so than they did their own wives. "It's a mistake, sir."

"Hmmmph," the Mayor chewed on his next words a moment before spitting them out, "some in my court tell me the fae may revolt if it fails to pass. The last time the dwarves went on strike it cost us four barges worth of silver... a Blight in chaos, now that might shut down production for weeks or more..."

"Will the mayor excuse me for speaking freely?"

Brannig sized up the elf once more. He had the build of an adolescent boy, with the delicate features and pointed ears of one of those green light whores, yet he had seen the elf catch an arrow right out of the air, an arrow aimed for his own heart. "I'd have you speak no other way, my friend, Gods know you're the only one in my whole court who speaks sense."

"There is a jacta among my people, an error in thought, it is called nel dwekar, the slippery slope. Your advisors, those who wrote this proposition, they think with their hearts instead of their brains, they intend to give and they expect thanks, but they step onto the nel dwekar and they will only get more demands. They will give even more and the demands will grow, they will grow until the unthinkable is what is."

Brannig looked at Zar shocked, "but the proposition only lifts the daytime curfew... and only for the lowtown districts."

"It will not stop at that. Nel dwekar. Once you step onto the slope you can not stop until you reach the end and the end is the unthinkable. Fae loose throughout the city, wild magic setting fires in the commons, enchanters peddling their drugs to highborn children."

"By the Gods Zar, I never considered...." Brannig stepped away from the window, suddenly recoiling from the city and the Blight which festered at it's center. "I will accept your counsel, my friend, by Dagon I swear this proposition will never reach the voters." He stopped beside his body guard on the way to the wardrobe. "Do you not feel anything for the fae, Zar. I mean, your people were once..."

The blue eyes stared back untarnished by emotion. "The essence of things is to be found in the present my Lord, not the past."

[Elsa]

The ache had returned, sinking into the muscles of her thighs and sending an itch to the core of her stomach. But there was no time to stretch herself out in the way that she wanted to, because Aignéis was far too busy focusing her attention on the girl who was weeping at her feet.

The scene had begun with a sharp word and a stern look, and the moment the elven girl had realised why she was being spoken to she had thrown herself onto the ground and let the tears flow free. Such tricks did not sway Aignéis, and they never would. She was used to her girls trying tricks like these to escape her ire, and some of them had been taught those tricks by Aignéis in the first place.

“You understand why I am speaking to you about this?” she said, her voice soft and stern. She found that this was the combination that inspired the most fear in her charges.

“I'm sorry, mistress Aignéis,” the girl wept. “I thought that he would be pleased.”

Aignéis reached down and grabbed the girl by the wrist, wrenching her to her feet and baring the palms of the girl's hands and the sharp nails that had torn into the face of her most recent customer. There was still some dark red blood, crusting to brown, and a smattering of hair caught in the nails.

“This is the second time that a customer has complained about you,” said Aignéis. “I am starting to think that you do not wish to hold your employment here.”

The girl let out a wail that would make a baine sidhe proud, though it did not share the properties of one, but Aignéis ignored the apparent remorse that the elven prostitute was showing. She released the girl but immediately pushed her down into a chair and retreated to the door with a long stride.

“For harming your customer you will not be paid,” she said. “And if anyone complains again I will cast you out before thinking twice. Is that understood.”

There was no distinct reply from the girl, but Aignéis knew that she was understood. She was always understood, and she knew that she could close the door and leave the girl to her misery without giving her another thought.

A pair of girls nodded to her respectfully as they passed, and Aignéis returned the gesture in the smallest way possible. Once they were gone, their chattering voices marking the opening distance as they grew quieter, Aignéis carried herself up the stairs of the whore house, skipping every second step to stretch out her legs a little as she walked. By the time she arrived at her private room, the ache had grown to her calves and was threatening to reach up to her arms.

She stretched herself out on the floor, pushing herself until relief took over the ache and the itch and she felt comfortable in her skin again. Part of the pushing involved stretching each of her limbs over her head in turn, enough so that she could see every speck of dirt that coated the base of her feet. Aignéis never wore shoes inside the brothel, and the floors had always been less than clean.

Once the ache was entirely gone she lifted herself up, fixed the braids and beads in her hair, and sedately took the stairs down to the ground floor to wait for her next customer.

[cthulu]

Delphi had been hatched and raised in the darkened forests that no 'domestic' fae would ever dare to tread. With many of the plants poisonous if not sentient and the trees with their twisted sharp branches and exposed roots which often one would swear moved when no one was looking across the jagged and dangerous rocky slopes that provided caves for many kinds of fomori and other predators alike. Where the dark waters ran fast with dangerous cross currents that would suck the unwary in and drag them under until all that was left was a tattered corpse fed upon by the local aquatic fauna. There were stretches of mire that looked perfectly safe but once you fell in you never got out and if you survived all this there were still things from the air and the treetops a person needed to watch for and the night was so deep and black that it felt as if it were a living being that hunted for the unwary fomori and lead them to their demise. A living nightmare to most creatures which only ever was visited in stories and nightmares of small fae and humans alike.

To the young Fomori though what she lay her gaze upon now was more a nightmare than her forest home, great metal spires and stone pillars punctured the land from a gaping, festering wound which spewed black smog clouding the air and blocking out the sun. There were small fires in small cages that dotted either side of a dirt encrusted bridge that people, both fae and human seemed to cross without really bothering to look up. There was a sense of utter despair unlike any she had felt in her life time and it seemed to gnaw at everyone regardless of species. The brood queen had told tales about these places, to invoke fear into her clutch, the stench of rot and meat, the noises like bones striking metal, the over whelming darkness in the hearts of the people who would use any means to claw their way from the dank depths of their own forced misery. It had always amused Behlia, their queen, how the other kind, the fair and beautiful, considered them the monsters.

Delphi swallowed hard, readjusting the satchel beneath the pale grey cloak she had been given by a kindly stranger -who quickly forget ever having seen her- before she'd made her way towards the city. Pulling the large hood further forward to make sure her snakes were well concealed she glanced from the dirt road on which she still stood to the strange 'tamed' stone that marked the pavement she had to step upon to join the flow of traffic. She was scared, she had always had the brood to keep her safe and hidden, the worst that she'd had to worry about there were other fomori who, for the most part in that area, were slower if not more dimwitted than the Gorgon's leaving them, mostly, at the top of the food chain.

Here though there was so much to be scared of, their caged fire and their metals, their strange tamed stone which rolled flat and their jutting stone carvings, the people on the street and those she couldn't see and most of all the people who had taken her sister. Those metal clad monsters who'd used sticks and tools to destroy one of her sisters and drag the other away to Gaia knew where, here she hoped. She had followed the carts trail after she had grabbed a few supplies, she was no expert tracker but a cart that heavy had left obvious marks in the soft mud all the way here to this stone where the mud marked a path but quickly disappeared.

Clutching her bag in one hand and her hood lightly in the other she took a deep steadying breath and screwing her eyes shut carefully put a toe to the tamed stone, the brood queen said new things were not to be trusted, especially by her since she was so much more...delicate, than her other children. The stone was cold but it seemed to be stable and carefully putting the rest of her foot down it seemed capable of holding her weight. Slowly and carefully she began to make her way into the town, mimicking those around her by keeping her head down and her hood firmly pulled down close to her eyes. She wasn't even sure where she ought to begin looking so she resolved that she needed to find someone, someone who could tell her things about this strange and dangerous place, though full of deceitful murderous fae and barbaric animalistic humans she wasn't sure just where she would find someone she could consider trustworthy.

[glibglobb]

Greesh rolled his short body beneath the bent legs of the mechapod. While the gnome fiddled in the mechanical guts of the steam automoton, he caught sight of a rat scurrying through the shadow cast by the machine. A very human thought crossed his mind, smash the creature with your wrench, but the gnome shook the evil impulse from his head. Around him, human pilots and engineers milled sharing gossip over steaming cups of morning coffee. None knew enough about a mechapod to change a leg hinge sprocket without nicking the femoral hydraulic line. That's why they needed the gnomes. Gnomish mechanics to fix gnomish machines designed by gnomish inventors and all for the glory of the round-ears. It sickened Greesh when he thought to much about it, so he didn't. Instead he focused on his work, unscrewing the central compartment to get at the cardiac grease zerts. While he pumped each steel nipple full of lubricant, he began to feel the ache creep in. Centuries of life in human factories had made his kind among the most resisant to iron and its foul sister steel, but not immune. Being hemmed in on all sides by the gray metal made Greesh's skin crawl and he made sure to wear thick leather gloves before getting close to it. Handling the plates and screws, even with the gloves, was like palming incandescent ingots fresh off the forge. Out of the corner of his google rimmed eye, the gnome saw movement and his fuzzy ears detected a faint squeek. Turning his head slightly he saw his rodent friend, but something was wrong, the rat was floating?

Greesh blinked, suddenly unsure if he was awake or dreaming. Then two eyes materialized, yellow and laughing overtop the levitating corpse. A sleek feline body of violet and black patterned stripes followed, condensing out of the air like furry dew drops on a cool morning. A ceilican, a fae cat. Greesh had never seen one so far outside the Blight and he knew if the humans found a magical creature, they'd slay it instantly. "Shooo," Greesh whispered waving his grease stained gloves at the kitty, "back to the Blight with you." But the cat seemed unconcerned by the little gnome's warnings and instead stood silently, prey between its fangs, looking with wide curious eyes. Only the hard tack of an officers dress shoes on the machine shop floor managed to spook the cat. Greesh sighed in relief watching it run off but quickly inhaled the breath when he saw the ceilican dart right under Major Jenson's dress slacks.

"What was that lieutenant?" the major asked, following the purple flash as best he could across the chaotic floor of the motor pool.

"Oh probably just a stray, sir," explained the straight laced junior officer, "we let them hunt on the grounds, keeps the pest population down."

"I see, well that's good thinking I suppose Darrick. Now about this new schedule..."

"Yes sir, I looked it over and, speaking freely, I'm pleased. Daily drills were never enough."

"Hrrrmmm," the major grumbled, "can't say I agree. Putting our boys through three combat drills a day is only going to make them exhausted and I don't like exhausted men," his eyes lofted up to a massive mechapod, standing on six stout legs the width of tree trunks and shadowing an area the size of a ball field, "at the controls of leviathons."

"You make an excellent point, Major," the lieutenant backpeddled, "but if the new schedule is not to your liking why not...."

"Orders come down from the brass, this new propositions got them more startled than a fat rat at a goblin supper...." The general took in the crowded floor with it's numerous faery workers, gnomes tuning up engines and dwarves hauling ordinance. "And, I can't say I don't understand their concern." He tossed his cigar onto the concrete and ground it out harshly against the stone. "We should just keep all these fae on collars until that law is voted down."

[K-97]

Silence permeated Kalan's room as he sat cross-legged on the floor of his dingy motel room. His eyes were closed and his breathing light as he meditated within his room, blocking out his environment and turning his attention inwards. It had only been a fortnight since he had ran but he tried his best to avoid mentally dealing with it. For now he was simply concerned with survival and feelings were only getting in the way.

Mother won't approve

He silenced the stray thought in his clear mind and returned to the emptiness he craved.

It was called it Jarnsana, or Iron Mind and it was something the Grey Elves back on at the Fortress had recommended to him, ''It is to hold off the Nel dwekar ,'' they had said. At the time he had taken it to be an insult and simply ignored it but upon his deserting it had become almost a daily occurrence, a way to cope with the world. He wasn't sure exactly what that meant but he tried not to think too deeply into it, all he cared about was it gave him the rationale to survive.

Kalan's blue eyes slowly opened as he came out of his trance, satisfied with his technique, and proceed to get himself dressed in his Leather Armour. As he did so he noted the lingering effects of Jarnsana, his emotions had begun to exert themselves again but they felt distant, almost blunted, although it wasn't like he was in any position to care.
Once he had dressed he began to approach the door when he turned to face his room deciding to take it in. It was a single room containing only a shabby mattress he hadn't used although he has suspected it had been used for a variety of reason other than sleeping, the plaster on the walls had long since torn off exposing the bare grey wall beneath and the old molding floorboards creaked with his every movement. In reflection he should probably have been willing to spend more on a room but it's amazing how many painful things you'll convince yourself to do while maintaining the Jarnsana. If there's one thing about the Iron Mind it's one cheap son of a bitch.

''They're back,'' he noticed as he placed his hooded cloak o his shoulders, picking up on his sarcastic thoughts and the physical disgust he felt observing his room. Once again he sighed deciding to leave before he collapsed and went out of his room into the outside world. As he passed the motel foyer, he heard what he swore was a voice and turned around to find a small pixie barely managing to keep itself afloat.

His heart ached at the sight of her, she almost seemed childlike due to how sickly and thin she appeared, her clothes were dirty and in tatters. Her long unkempt brown hair swept over her face, two dimly glowing purple eyes poking through the clumps of hair. This wasn't a pixie who had any say in her conditions. This was an enslaved pixie. As he pitied her, she looked angrily at him with as she realized just who she was addressing but nevertheless delivered her message.

''One Hour. The Bogart's Hole''.

Kalan nodded once he realized what she was referring to. As an ex-cop, many in the criminal underworld wanted his services, but an Iron Police who happens to be half Grey Elf is a catch indeed. It had taken him a while to get used to the constant offers, especially considering how recently it had been since he had ran, but after talking to a particularly talkative wisp messenger, he got the jist.

''Ya see my nieve Grey, most people are double crossing bastards. Why the hell do ya think we're in this situation? But the worst of these bastards are the criminals, no one, not even the filthy Humans like them. Now as much as our friendly neighborhood criminal would like to screw the rules and get to the top of this piece of shit we call the Blight, he can't do that without connections, connections with those same untrustworthy criminals he hails from. Now he knows if he wants to keep his skin, he needs to look tough. That's where you come in, you stand there and scare the shit out of everyone and our criminal gets what the hell he wants,''.

''Any recommendations, you seem like a knowledgeable guy''.

''Well if I was to give you my personal advise I would wait it out a bit. All these offers are from small fish, low lives, criminals trying to get a leg up in the world. If you really want to reap the rewards you wait until someone a bit better comes along. They're just watching the commotion, waiting to see what you do and what you'll be willing to sell out for. They'll only care if your smart, someone worth spending money on. Only when you wait do the big fish come along, just listen out at the bars and you'll figure out who are the movers and shakers down here,''.

''Whose offering?'' Kalan responded.

''Donovon,'' she growled, as if the word itself was poison to her.

As he heard the name he smiled, taking the Pixie aback at the show of emotion. A Big Fish. Finally.

[Ichthys]

The dark of the sewers was always a calming sight. Here, under the Blight, the pangs from the evil twins steel and iron were not as powerful. One could think with only a minor headache, and only on occasion would a headache happen. Yes, the sewers were a sanctuary, a haven from the humans and their foul metal. The sewers were not perfect however; what it lacked in metal's wrath it made up for in other problems. For example, it was always quite dirty in the filthy waterways of garbage, and the sewers were the only place considered more deadly than the Blight, in terms of natural threats like sickness and disease. Below the Blight, it was also very dark and foul smelling. No doubt from the the lack of maintenance as well. Besides, it was mainly the goblins and certain syndicates that called the stone cave system, of the metal Drezlen, home. Lior just called it a refuge, not a home.

Then again, Lior never really called any place a home. Perhaps he did, long ago, back when he had a family - if he had a family - and when things were better - if things had ever been better. Maybe when the vile waste of the sewers was not as sickening, and when the Iron Police were not as heartless, and when the grass was green and the world was filled with magic and wonderment and joy, then perhaps Lior had a place he called home. Or maybe Lior had never had a home. Perhaps the detritus was always flourishing below the surface like a never ending harvest, and perhaps the Iron Police never had a heart in the first place and were purely creatures of metal and stone, and perhaps the grass was always dead and colored awful shades of brown and yellow and death. Perhaps the world was never filled with magic and wonderment and joy, and instead these treasured things were an elaborate illusion. A misled dream gone astray. A false hope. A lie.

Lior summoned his mind out of such darkness and blinked himself back into consciousness. For a moment he forgot where he was. His eyes slowly examined the bleak environment of grays and greens and browns and blacks, with splashes of red that stained it all. His ears listened to the melancholy music of dripping sewage and of dead currents of garbage, of the scurrying of animals just as dark as the surroundings, and of the footsteps of other creatures wandering the place. His nose breathed in the stench of desolation and despondence accompanied by the ever present smell of the murky water that flowed throughout the place. His hands and feet felt the the damp and rough stone, and he felt the thick atmosphere of oppression that permeated from the Blight above. He remembered where he was. This was his refuge.

The dark wisp took steps forward, turning a corner. Suddenly, those bright eyes perked up. In the distance was a faint glimmer of purple and blue that stood tall against the concrete. The young wisp made his way over to it, with a posture of excitement and joy. That same good feeling rose in his heart as when one is given a gift, for this was a gift. A gift from the unnatural nature of Drezlen. Food. A mushroom! Lior stared at the obscurely colored fungus. Obviously, it wasn't of the human variety, which meant it was edible. Plus, it was only a little bit smaller than him. The benefits of being so small would be how large and filling food was. Lior reached out his hungry hands and tugged off pieces of the hat. It was a bit of a struggle and a lot of muscle had to be used, but with some persistence, the scraps of food were freed and immediately encased in Lior's mouth. Eating was always a miraculous occasion. Sure that food wasn't as good as those stories of luxurious feasts prepared by the Fae in the times before the War of Lost Names, but sustenance was sustenance, and it bought Lior a little more time in the world.

Lior enjoyed himself in the dark, content on the small, insignificant feast that he just had himself and allowed himself to sit down next to the remnants of the mushroom. It was amazing how full he could be, yet how much of the mushroom was left. If only food was always available as this, but it hardly ever was. Most Fae food was gobbled up by the first one to spot it, and the multitude of Fae caused a shortage on the food. It was especially difficult for small creatures like Wisps, as they could easily be overpowered by any challengers. Lior decided it would be smart to take more of the fungus and store it into his sack, which he immediately did. Then, he set out meandering the sewers again, enjoying the dark and quiet and peace. He knew that it was not actually peaceful or quiet in the sewers as he liked to believe, but it was peace from the metal and quiet from the sound of Iron Police. It was dark though, as only the occasional gutter, or crack, or torch provided minor illumination. Lior appreciated the darkness though; it provided ample cover for the dark Fae.

After a few minutes, Lior decided it was time to leave his sanctum of concrete and garbage; he needed to continue his usual mission of obtaining more information on the past, as well as more planning and dreaming of the future. Lior found a medium-sized hole in the wall, where light flooded in. He could already hear the mass of people in the Blight. Most of them poor, dying and disheartened. Carefully, Lior made his way out, making sure to hug tight against the concrete, and trying to stay under shadow. He didn't want to be spotted. After a minute of caution and precise movement, Lior was out in the Blight again, and almost as if on cue, the headache made its way back into Lior's head clouding his mind. An odd sensation also filled his body, like when ingesting a hot soup, only without the flavor and of a different heat, of a different burning. It wasn't as bad as it used to be. By now, he had learned to tolerate and ignore some of the uncomfortable sensations. Usually he could do fine, but there were times when he would need to take a break and permit all of the suppressed feelings to overwhelm him, as constant resistance was fatiguing. For now he was okay, and Lior made his wary way to the chaotic and messy alleys of the Blight, where he could travel with less fear of being spotted, though the threat and chance of danger never lessened. It occurred to Lior that the Blight was darker than the unlighted sewers, in a metaphorical sense.

As he walked, Lior did his best to dodge the eye contact of any Fae he ran into. Despite knowing that they were broken and abused like he, he also knew that some were not friendly and understanding because they were treated the same. Most were selfish and wanting only to preserve themselves, as in nature. Lior knew firsthand the atrocious evils one would commit against his own kind, if it meant suffering with the living in the metal tomb of Drezlen a little longer. Even though he did his best to keep his eyes away from other Fae, Lior was still a curious character and his eyes fluttered to and fro searching for something. Exactly what he was looking for he never really knew, until he found it that is. As his search continued, Lior thought about the Gods, especially of Dagda. He was sure that she hadn't left them and that her heart broke to see her children suffering, but wondered why she hadn't acted. Or perhaps she had acted. Maybe the occasional scrap of food, that one solitary mushroom, was Dagda's provision. Maybe when the Iron Police fail to spot a powerless faery and that faery has another day of 'freedom', it was really Dagda protecting the Fae. Perhaps she did act, indeed, and perhaps she did care. Possibly, the Gods were testing the discipline, persistence and commitment of the Fae, or the Gods trusted the Fae so much and had faith that they could dethrone man themselves. Maybe they were watching, cheering and jeering for the success of all faerys. When another elf escaped the foul ring of prostitution, when the satyr no longer played a melody of defeat but refrains of joy, and hope, and victory. Perhaps they were filled with indescribable glee. Lior smiled. This assumption was both conceivable and unbelievable. Still, Lior had confidence that as each day passed, the sun was closer to shining the world with peace and lighting even the darkest part of the Blight.

[Mischief]

Fallon stood at the small, dirty window in her room, squinting to try to make out the forms marching wearily beneath it. The view never changed, but still she stood at the window every day, as if one day she would be surprised at what was happening in the world outside. What she hoped to see, however, she could never be certain. With a resigned sigh, knowing that today was just as every other day, she lifted her eyes to try to see beyond the filth of the Blight, perhaps even beyond the edges of Drezlen. Sadly, however, Fallon's room was not very high off of the ground to begin with and Drezlen was a vast and complicated city. She doubted she would ever see life outside of this dreadful place.

"Someday I will at least be able to see a tree. Or a clean river! Like the Blackwash, but I would be able to dip my toes in it ... and not have them fall off." Fallon backed away from the window that threatened to kill her dreams. She sat on her stiff bed, plucking the limp fabric doll off of her itchy sheets. It had been stuffed once, but that was many years ago. "Maybe one day the mayor himself will request some ... company. And while I'm there, I will gaze out his windows way up there and see forests, and blue skies, and sparkling waters. Maybe one day I will even be able to leave Drezlen ... Of course, I'll be taking you with me, Mallaidh," she said to the doll, squeezing it gently with her hands as though to hug it. She wasn't sure why she still loved the doll so much. The memories tied to it weren't necessarily pleasant. But, at the same time, they were the only ones she had.

Fallon sighed and stood up, walking gently across the room in her slippers to put Mallaidh away in her drawer. She stepped just the way she'd been taught most of her life. Feet soft and delicate, making no noise. 'Swing those hips you don't got, girl' she used to hear often. Since those days she'd grown into womanhood, but her face was still childlike and innocent in appearance. Most of her customers came back as regulars for that purpose. There were a surprising number of men with some interesting -- and sometimes twisted -- fantasies and desires. Some of the things they'd asked Fallon to do she would never admit to a soul, not even under torture. Except for Aignéis, of course. It was important to inform Aignéis of customer's preferences and 'do not evers' to ensure they return, coins in hand.

Glancing over at the window once more, the elven girl let the quiet dreams die away once again. She couldn't let them interfere with her, not today. Aignéis would not be in a pleasant mood, and if a whore wanted her pay, Aignéis had to be pleased. Fallon had seen what the other escort had done to her customer's face. She had never bothered to learn the poor wench's name. She knew the girl wouldn't last long. "She'd be just fine if she just did her job. It isn't a difficult task," Fallon muttered to herself, refusing to pity the other girl. "It's no matter, she'll be gone soon enough." She had seen her type come and go many times in her years as a prostitute and escort.

After so many years of living in places just like this one, it was easy to tune out the regular sounds you could hear throughout the day. Even though floods of fairly strong emotions came at Fallon from every which direction, this was something else she'd become accustomed to. Most often she could feel the guilt, the lust, even the fire of anger that came with sleeping with a fae prostitute. There were one or two times she'd caught on to a customer becoming a little too involved, which she discovered often led to putting the subject of his obsession in danger. Now she always informed Aignéis and her brothel sister of those.

Lifting her hand mirror to her face, Fallon double checked to ensure that she looked presentable, then left the room to descend the stairs. On days like these, life in the brothel could be a bore. She'd only had one customer today, to no fault of her own. Business today was just moving terribly slow.

[Rata Tat Tat]

“Open your fucking eyes and look at me!”

The veridian alchemist's light that swung above the table sent long green shadows across the room, guttering and flickering like candlelight. It shivered and shook, blotted out here and there as the swam swung from it, crawled on it, gnawed on it, watched from it. The rest of the room was dark as ink, but the sound of fluttering wings, tiny teeth, scratching fingernails the size of pinheads made it anything but peaceful. When he finally did open his eyes, trembling, at first he thought there was nothing to see.

Then he looked down to his chest, tilting his head as much as he could with the tight cord wound around his neck, and he started stammering.

“I don't know, I swear I don't know, I'd tell you if I did, I swear I don't fucking know—”

“I want your eyes.”

The words stopped him for a moment as he tried to swallow past his bindings, tried to pull his hands free but couldn't. He finally managed it as the pixie astride his chest started walking up to his face, riding the bob of his adam's apple like a wave. The tiny points on it's little black shoes felt like pins on his skin. He opened his mouth to say something before there was a buzz of wings and a sharp pain on the bottom of his chin, a tiny piercing that forced his head back nonetheless and pushed his eyes to the dark ceiling above. Behind the light, he could see the fluttering of chitinous wings, the crawling bodies of tiny men and pinprick eyes that burned in the dark. A moment later the pain disappeared only to trace it's way up his face, dimpling it as footsteps made their way over his quivering skin with more surety than the should have had.

When the faery finally came into view, the man shivered again and stayed very, very still, afraid of what his minute captor might do if he tried to get him off. A little wasted form of a man—was it a man?—no larger than his hand, walked up his face with spider-leg footsteps until it loomed over him, astride the bridge of his nose. A white smock—dress?—hung down from its shoulders low enough to expose it's flat chest, tiny nipples, taut sternum. It ended mid-thigh where little black boots took up, scraps of leather laced with thread. Red hair hung lank to it's ball-bearing shoulders, surrounding a surprisingly pretty face, but the needle in it's hand drew his attention more even than the minute trail around it's eyes that bobbed as he breathed. The problem was he knew that face, and it didn't spell anything good.

“Did you know that changeling eyes still glow when you put them out?” It spoke lazily, almost bored, tracing the needle over the man's cheekbone to tap the bottom of his socket with the tip, a quiet smack as it tilted it's head to the side. Examining. He could see the cuts on it's shoulders and arms, dribbles of dried blood. “I've put out a lot of eyes in my day—comes with the territory, darling—but changeling eyes are my favorite. Sometimes I collect them, when I'm bored. I've pulled them out of babies, bitches and bodies, but yours are awfully damn pretty.”

He whimpered, blinking and leaving his eyes closed just a little too long before tiny lips screamed.

“I said fucking look at me!”

The pain was instant, minute, but he felt a tiny knee hit his cheekbone and sharp little fingernails hook under his eyelid to drag it, quivering, down. Surprisingly strong, for a bitty thing it's size, it's voice dropped much lower than he thought it could. The game was over, apparently—no more 'darlings'. His eyes focused on the tiny figure as it loomed over him, watched it's little fingers switch grip and raise the needle high. A normal sewing needle, like you'd find anywhere, it held it like a sword.

“If you've got nothing else for me,” it started, it's voice a vicious undercurrent, “I might as well get what I can out of--”

“She's in the Blight!”

It came out before he could stop himself, burst from his lips like the spit that dripped onto his grime-spattered face. He was shaking, eyes running circles around the tip of that needle—he couldn't even focus on it, but he spoke quickly. Anything to keep it away. “She's in the fucking Blight, I swear! We couldn't keep her anywhere else, we had to--”

“I know she's--”

“But she's on the move, don't you get it?! The goblins, man, we heard the fucking goblins were looking so we told her to head somewhere they wouldn't find her! The Boggart's Hole, that brothel up on King's and Wallace, I swear, I don't know if she's there or not but I swear--”

“And earlier you swore you didn't know where she was.”

The needle came down as Needle stood up. The junkie's howl was cut short by the rope around his neck, three tittering pixies on either side of it tugging with all their might as they hung from the table below to choke off the sound. Even while his lips turned blue, his hands scrabbled at the leather straps down the table and his body bucked trying to force his way free, his eye shined a ring of bright blue around the swiveling bobbing metal shaft.

By the time it was over—it took longer than most pixies thought to choke out a man, they had such big lungs—Needle was laughing in the air above his face, it's tiny body floating like a balloon as it's wings fluttered idly for direction.

“Stupid motherfucker!” It howled as the other pixies descended, the air in the room suddenly full of teeth and wings and clawing little hands, battering aside the weightless little crimelord in their haste to get to whatever magic-filled morsels they could scavenge out of the choking wyldling. He wriggled in the air in his mirth, the tension and effort it took to hold out for the answer releasing in a torrent even as his own kind shoved him out of way for the goodies. “Who the fuck collects eyes!”

---

Ten minutes later, crawling up through drain spout—mercifully it wasn't raining—Needle's filthy little form pulled itself free and stretched on the edge of a gutter, looking out over the town.

King and Wallace. He had a ways to go.

[TaliPaendrag]

Wondering again, though briefly, what the boss had been thinking to send her out to pick up the materials needed to replenish their stock of glam, Claire kept an eye out for the Iron Police. Unlike her, they stood out in the bustle of the crowd, especially with the wide space that usually surrounded them in their ferrous armor. Whether or not that was just the Fae trying to distance themselves from the metal Claire didn’t know. All she knew was that they were easy to spot, which allowed her plenty of time to busy herself with a button on her shirt or a ragged strap on her shoe so that her hair wouldn’t be seen. And that was, quite frankly, enough for her.

Of course, being inconspicuous had its own disadvantages as well. For one, being smaller than just about everyone in the crowd meant that getting bumped into was usually painful and resulted in her being knocked down in some manner. As if on cue, a man dressed in garish clothing with bells on his feet ran into her, sending her to her knees as he continued skipping through the crowd, most people avoiding him rather nervously. Grumbling under her breath as she got back to her feet, Claire brushed herself off and resumed walking. Just another day living in the Blight, she thought rather glumly as she narrowly avoided the slightly swaying arm of a massive troll.

“My dear, Preicampere!” a familiar voice suddenly said from behind, a firm hand clapping down on her shoulder in a gentle, friendly way. “Off on a shopping spree this fine morning?” The speaker appeared like a splash of color against a sea of gray, his clothing of red and gold contrasting sharply with those around him, including Claire. Despite the gaiety of his appearance in such a bleak and downtrodden area, no one else seemed to pay him any heed.

Shaking her head a little to clear away the remnants of the surprise his appearance had given her, Claire crumpled up the list in her hand and turned down the alley she needed. Not surprisingly, the man followed with a hurt expression on his face at her cold attitude towards him. “Get lost, Lucius,” she replied, giving him a glare over her shoulder to drive the point home. It was more a ritual gesture than anything, however, as Claire knew that that wouldn’t dissuade him from sticking around and continuing to be a nuisance for a little while longer.

“You wound me!” he replied with his hand held to his heart as if he had been struck by a projectile from one of the firearms the Iron Police carried on them, which only elicited a rolling of the eyes from Claire. “Why don’t you ever want to talk to me? Having one-sided conversations all the time is a rather boring way to pass the time.”
Turning around to let him know that she would be more than willing to chat if he would show up when they were alone, the words died on her lips as she realized that he was gone. Muttering a curse under her breath about his rudeness, she continued down the alley towards her destination, avoiding the puddles of muck and piles of filth as best she could.

After a couple of turns and traveling down alleys that were more or less the same as the first one, Claire arrived at a small little tent-like structure constructed of ragged black cloth as the alley opened up just a little bit more on either side. While the place was certainly out of the way, it was good for finding suspicious goods due to the fact that the Iron Police rarely came down those alleys unless they had a specific reason to.

Giving it no more thought, Claire walked up to the entrance of the structure and stomped her left foot three times: one short, two long. “Come in,” came the instruction after a brief pause, the voice rough and high. Without hesitation, Claire walked up to the flap covering the entrance and ducked inside. A dim, flickering alchemist lamp swung gently over a table, behind which was an older gnome woman wearing a tattered cap of brown wool over her head and a black shawl of similar quality around her shoulders.
Upon seeing Claire, she squinted behind the cracked glasses that sat on her nose, appearing a bit shocked to see the former. Unsure of what to do, Claire awkwardly shuffled her feet at the entrance until the woman motioned for her to sit down, apparently satisfied with what she saw. “What can I help you with?” the woman asked, grabbing a cup of… something and taking a loud sip of it while she waited for an answer.

“Well, uh, I’m here to pick up some supplies,” Claire replied, handing the list to the woman over the small table between them. “Normally Adin sends someone else, but they were ‘tied up’ today and so he sent me.” The woman’s eyes lit up when she heard the name of Claire’s boss, nodding in understanding. Holding a finger up, the woman slipped out the back for a few minutes and returned with everything that was on the list. Carefully, the woman put the containers into a woven sack, though she didn’t hand it over immediately. It took Claire a little while to realize that the woman was holding her hand out and moving it rather emphatically. Apologizing, Claire gave the money her boss had given her for the purchase to the woman and was given her bag in return, allowing her to leave and begin making her way to her last destination: a bar of some sort that Adin had told her to stay at for a few days; something about needing her to help him seal a deal or something.

Once outside, Claire pulled out a little bottle of blue-green liquid and opened it, the sweetly sour aroma of glam filling the air. With a deep breath, she put the bottle to her lips and downed it all, the rich taste filling her mouth like cotton while warmth seemed to settle in her stomach. The dose would take a few minutes to fully enter her system, which is why she took it at least a half hour before she absolutely needed to. It was much safer that way. Giving the feeling no more thought, she began the trek towards the bar, once again making sure to avoid the muck and filth of the Blight.

[glibglobb]

The Blight: Miner's Street

After the last of the wretched working fae departed the Blight, Klade and Jaden met at the center of the deserted street. The Iron Police looked like a pair of golems in their heavy metal armor. Klade stood at ease, but his partner still eyed the creeping dark of the tight alleyways with his remaining eye. Perhaps, Klade considered, it was the thought of that pixie, still out there somewhere that kept him alert. Maybe it was out there somewhere, waiting for its chance to 'collect' his other eye. Silently, Klade cursed himself for letting the little monster squirm out from his gauntlets. He should have crushed it to paste that night.

“Quiet morning,” commented the senior officer skeptically.

“It won’t be quiet for long if the proposition doesn’t pass.”

Jaden’s single eye smoldered, “if that law passes it’ll be worse than just a riot, faeries crawling all over the Commons, goblins roving the Merchant Quarter, wyldings selling their enchanted junk to children, elf sluts…” His voice trailed off, as his eyes hooked onto something wandering drunkenly up the street. “Is that… by Dagon it is.” Jaden ran surprisingly fast in his armor, iron heels digging into the gritty thoroughfare. He gripped the unsuspecting drunk by the shoulders and turned him around. Klade expected to see just another pitiful enchanted wandering home after spending all his coin on glam. Instead he saw a fellow officer, his familiar face torn and still freshly bleeding. “Garret, what in the hell are you doing in the Blight on off hours?” The veteran officer inhaled deeply before wrinkling his nose in disgust. “You smell like cheap perfume and fairies, you’ve been in the brothels haven’t you!!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Garret stammered. Klade recalled the young man from his cadet training. A natural swordsman, but weak on discipline…

“You disgrace,” Jaden growled, “you know regulation. No fraternizing with fae.” He pushed back the man’s matted hair roughly with his ironclad fingers exposing the fresh scratches. “You’ve been doing more than fraternizing, it looks like.”

“Elf bitch attacked me, sir, we need to raid that brothel, those fae bitches think they can give a man orders...”

Jaden’s anger only burned hotter, “the Iron Brigade does not exist to serve your personal vendettas! Now here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to get your worthless ass back home and clean yourself up. You'll spend the rest of the day coming up with a funny story about how you spooked a fae cat. Then when you report for duty tomorrow, you’re going to tell that story, and everyone’s going to laugh and forget this ever happened. Is that understood?”

“...yes… I mean, yes sir.”

Jaden shoved the young policeman so hard in the direction of the commons that his shoes practically left the grimy cobblestones. “And, Garret,” he called, stopping the man in his tracks, “if I ever catch you fucking elf whores again, I’ll treat your dick like a glam addict and toss it in the dungeons, after cutting it off.”

Klade just barely reined in his laughter while he watched the disgraced officer stumble/sprint away. The look of deadly seriousness on Jaden’s scarred face, however, stole the humor from his breath. He followed the older man’s one eye to its target, the glowing green lanterns of the vice district, visible through the dark corridor of a nearby alley. “You know what we have to do, don’t you?”

“Sir?”

“If word gets out that a common elf whore attacked an Iron Policeman and got away with it, we all lose respect, the fae grow bolder and we all face more daggers from the shadows.” He pounded his gauntlets together in frustration with a sharp metallic clank. “Gods knows that piece of trash asked for it, but that doesn’t matter.” He locked eyes with his partner. “Remember when I told you the Greenlight District was off limits?” Klayde nodded, suddenly disliking where this was going. “Well it isn’t today. We need to make sure they know attacking an officer, any officer, carries serious consequences… We have to kill that elf.”

[glibglobb]

The Boggart's Hole

Within the whole of the Blight's barren expanse, one plant not classifiable as a weed or a man-eating abomination of magic, still grew. The gnarled oak, more ancient then the most wrinkled elven dame of the Greenlight, twisted up out of the dark confines of the slum, leafy boughs cresting just above the eroding brick tenements which flanked it on either side. Of course, the tainted magic which leached up through her roots did not leave her untouched. Granny Oak, as she was called affectionately by Blighters, did in fact bud the lobed foliage expected of her and dropped typical acorns which pixies and wisps both fought like squirrels to gather. However, occasionally an acorn would hatch a dove rather than a seedling and sometimes her leaves moved to catch the dim smog-filtered sunlight even when the air was still. Her eccentricities, however, only made the Blight fae love her more. She was one of them. She was a mess. She was Granny Oak.

Although Granny's boughs and trunk boasted their own cacophony of life, wisps lighting her canopy like solstice lights and pixies assembled like bees in her rotted hollows, most fae knew her for what lied under, cradled by her roots like a precious possession. The Bogart's Hole, the watering hole of the Blight. Although the ghetto boasted dozens of bars where fae could loose themselves in the green depths of pixie sap, the bluish haze of elf wine and the hearty foam of dwarven ale, many of those bars stood in the Greenlight where they catered to human wretches as well as fae. Most of the others were court affiliated, Unseelie pubs where a Seelie would soon find an iron dagger in their back or Seelie saloons where snobbish bouncers stopped 'riff-raff' at the door. Only the Boggart's Hole remained neutral, serving forgetfulness to noble alfar and lowly goblins alike.

To reach the Hole, one did not pass bulging troll bouncers or submit to searches. The Hole was under Granny. It was part of her, the massive roots twisting to form its roof and everyone respected Granny. Fighting in the Hole would be akin to breaking an oath sworn upon a true name. In fact, there wasn't even a door. The Boggart's Hole never closed so it didn't need one. Instead, an earthen hole opened up like a rabbit's den in the cracked sidewalk beneath the tree's shadow. Following the rough tunnel through a couple erratic twists and turns, patrons eventually exited through the arching expanse of a great root and into a domed warren. Soft purple light from burning mana lamps plus the glow of the occasional floating wisp lit the dark interior of the hole, flashing upon the countless bottles lining the shelf behind the bar. Practically always in a state of pandemonium, the customers formed a tumultuous motley of every faery race imprisoned in the hell of the Blight, from noble elves to common gnomes and even more common pixies. Attempting to impose order on this riotous crowd were the Hole's pixie staff. Mostly denizens of the colony in Granny's trunk far above, they buzzed here and there carrying trays of food and mugs above their blurred wings. At the center of all this chaos stood (or sprinted) the old girl herself. Mostly they just called her Auntie or sometimes Auntie Boggart. Truth was no one knew her common name, not to speak of her true name. A breed of gnome, sometimes called a Dirt Gnome or Boggart, her people had once dug vast, complex warrens beneath the regions forest floors. Few remained for they'd not adapted well to the concrete ground of the Blight. One of the last of her kind, Aunty's work kept her too busy for melancholy. Employing her wyrding glamer, a gift of all gnomes but a particular talent in her case, she flitted here and there along the bar and across the floor like a pudgy, wrinkled bolt of lightning, serving her famous mixed drinks practically before their imbibers could order them.

As mentioned, all considered the Boggart's Hole neutral ground, but oaths could be broken, even unspoken ones. Auntie, well aware of the imperfections of man and faery, made sure to keep a deterrent close at hand. This deterrent came in the form of Grodgar. Grodgar was a troll, Grodgar was a very large troll. Usually seen hulking over an ale large enough to serve as a pixie swimming pool, Grogar looked out through a face scarred and bent by a life of violence. Filling up an entire corner of the tavern from floor to roof, he monitored the clientele with lazy eyes, knowing that a faery had to be double the fool to break the unspoken oath under his watch and few fools of such a magnitude existed. If Grogdar's mass wasn't intimidating enough, his horns spoke of his own notorious history. The right one broke during his final official bout, the last fight of an undefeated career in the Ogre Pen, most brutal of the underground cage matches. In truth, though, no one knew much about Grogdar apart than his talent for ripping things in half, his love of dwarven mead, and his fondness for pixies. The massive fae was often covered with swarms of them, dancing along his horns and splashing in his mug all without eliciting the faintest hint of annoyance from the mountainous creature. Sometimes patrons even caught sight of the troll using his huge thumb to mock waltz with pixie maids upon his ale stained table. No one mentioned it.

For decades the Boggart's Hole had remained a place of peace (albeit an occasionally rowdy peace), keeping its distance from the Iron Police, both courts and the wyldings, but even Auntie wondered sometimes, between washing glasses, mopping floors and mixing liquors whether it could remain so forever; whether the crime and violence rampant in the slums beyond would eventually worm their way into the Blight's last true sanctum.

[glibglobb]

Torbil

The jester pranced down the moldy streets in an outfit reminiscent of the rainbow vomit of drunken wyldlings. Armed with nothing but the bells on his shoes and his atrocious color scheme, the man none the less elicited terror in the small denizens of the Blight. Ceilicans vanished at his approach leaving only floating fangs to hiss at the jester while pixies flew to the safety of open windows and exposed rafters. Some feared the jester, it is true, for Torbil was a wyldling and wyldings were a danger to anyone, themselves included, but what they feared more was the Prince. Zemum Donovon, the self proclaimed Prince of the Unseelie Court, most feared of all the Blight's crimelords. In this sense (along with many others), Torbil was unique for the Prince's gang appealed mainly to faery criminals and freedom fighters yet in the crazed wyldling's distorted mind Donovon was a royal lord and he a humble, loyal servant. Streetwise inhabitants of the Blight knew that Donovon used his human jester primarily for two purposes, one to entertain his 'court' such as it was and two to act as his eyes both within and outside the slums. Freed by his humanity to leave the Blight boundaries, Torbil offered the Prince a priceless view on the affairs of the city proper and its human rulers.

Torbil, though always pleased with himself, was particularly exuberant today. He'd found that changeling bitch and he knew where she was headed... or he would know. Still grinning madly over his success, Lucius bent over and picked up a child's ball. Likely the casualty of a game cut short from by his approach. He tossed the ball into the air and soon others, coming perhaps from the jester's sleeves joined it. He juggled them for a few moments in a flawless arc until the yap of a stray startled him. He dropped all three to the ground where they cracked releasing yellow oozing yoke onto the stones, all except the last one which produced a fluffy live chick instead. Lucius laughed at his unintentional wyld magic and scampered toward the city proper. Iron police guarding a checkpoint that bristled with spears and rifle barrels reluctantly let him pass. They knew who he was and some even knew who he worked for, but what choice did they have? He was human... after a fact anyway.

Torbil's wild eyes and bright clothes kept him from blending into the orderly streets of the Commons, but none dwelt on the presence of a simple street performer. Instead most looked the other way lest they be guilt tripped into giving a coin for a moment's unsolicited entertainment. The jester on the other hand watched everyone and his mad eyes saw what others overlooked, like the foreign girl hiding her hair beneath a hood, hair that moved... Torbil followed it until he was sure. He clapped giddily at his discovery and considered putting his stiletto to its back, taking her as a prize to his beloved Prince. Even a madman knew caution, however, and this thing was new... new and strange. Instead, he opted for the same strategy he'd used with the changeling, 'accidentally' bumping into her and smearing a finger's worth of alchemical resin onto her clothes. A signal, a scent to be followed later by the trackers. "Oh we'll find you, my slithery little pretty," the madman spoke to himself after she'd passed, "just like the dreamborn, we'll find you both. Hooohooo! and you'll make our Prince so happy, so very very happeee."

[cthulu]

On every side the rotten structures towered over like looming predators eager and awaiting their chance to strike. Each one was slightly different but they all seemed to have somethings in common, a gaping face in their front, like a mouth wide in shock and eyes that had seen the horror of a 'true' gorgon's stare. Each one looked frightened their eye like holes crossed and some flickering with an inner light like a hollowed out tree when filled with those nasty little pixies, giving the old tree a haunted look. These things looked haunted too, whatever they were and broken from time and disrepair. Judging by the way fae seemed to enter or leave these faces they provided a form of shelter and protection though she couldn't fathom quite what they would want in return, watching one for a few moments she noticed the fire went out and she assumed the haunted faces allowed the fae inside so they could smite the wicked pixies that were setting fire to their insides.

She remembered when she was yearling, a mere slither of the serpent she was now, she'd been taken hunting and while her clutch sisters easily took down their prey she had struggled. Eventually she had spotted and captured a pixie. She'd always been enchanted by them and they were considered such easy prey, however this one bit her! In her surprise she opened her hands and the tiny, beautiful woman stamped her feet on Delphi's hand even as the small snake began to tear up, yelling at Delphi the little thing fluttered off leaving Delphi deeply untrusting of the beautiful mini people.

As she progressed into the city her stomach began to hurt, it was not such an unusual thing for her, it usually hurt and she'd grown quite accustomed to pain in that region so she largely ignored it. When though it began seeping into her head, causing several of her snakes to fall limp and curl up against her shoulders or scalp to save themselves from falling she became more aware that something was wrong. Taking a moment to grab her breath, it was likely as she moved a hand to her brow that she was bumped into by a colourful stranger, with a momentary stagger to her stride the fomori returned to her hunt for someone she could trust.

She knew, despite herself, she would have to speak to one of the evil treacherous fae or the monstrous human beings but she was tired from her journey. With a sigh she stopped at a street corner and reached into the darkness of her satchel beneath her cloak. When her hand appeared again it clutched a lily white and golden veined petal which she placed between her lips and neatly chewed upon. With a deep breath she turned her attention to the creatures around her once again and scanned for what could be considered the weakest and easiest to hunt. Isolating a particularly drunk looking elf she quietly followed him into a side alley until the shadows hand engulfed them completely.

"Excuse me, sir." Her voice was as gentle as a nightingales song, it held a distant ethereal echo not unlike a creature not dissimilar to the tales of her gorgons, the elf looked around, staggered into a pile of trash and fell on his rear. Delphi merely tilted her head, her plucked brows furrowing in confusion, was he sick? Perhaps he was broken? It didn't matter, she had no intention of eating this one. "I'm looking for a place, somewhere where there might be someone who can give me some information?"
"What the...go back to your whore house little girl!" The elf uttered through slurred words and hiccups. Delphi's brows dipped lower, what was a whore? Was it some kind of fae she hadn't heard about? Perhaps it was a new kind. Though the way the man had said it it didn't seem likely, with a sigh Delphi glanced first behind, then in front and then above them for any little tell tale signs of eyes in the darkness, then with a deep breath she leaned closer to the elf whose eyes grew wide as he spotted the movement in her hood. "Please, it is important." The elf stood up and pointed at her,
"You...you're a fucking monster your one of those fomori! I should end you here! Might even get a reward for it." The elf made to reach behind him which caused Delphi's eyes to drop briefly to the ground, her shoulders lumping slightly. Quick as lightening one hand shot forward, her claw like nails digging in to the elves throat pinning him to the wall, it was really hardly any effort considering how intoxicated he was. There was a loud hissing now emanating from her hood. "Information, where would I get it?"
"Eat me!"
"Oh...bad choice of words." A pale streak of lightening shot out from underneath her hood and its sharp fangs left a deep gouge in the mans flesh, the burst skin erupting with deep red. Now he blubbered and whimpered, now he seemed to realise what position he was in,
"B-boggarts hole." Delphi smiled a sickly innocent smile and released the man. "Thank you very much." She said in a tone genuinely filled with gratitude. "Now look at me please." She whispered.

The man was incapable of not looking and with her hood pulled up the Fomori left the alley in hoped to find this 'Boggarts hole', she didn't' even know what a boggart was and she certainly couldn't read the crude scribblings that littered the walls but perhaps it would be obvious? Several long moments after she had left the elf came stumbling out of the alley, disorientated and confused, having forgotten how he'd gotten there and even what he'd had that morning from breakfast. Delphi felt sleepy again, she always felt tired after she exercised her power but now it was a different kind of fatigue. She ignored it for the most part and instead concentrated on the boggart, was it a fae? It had to be a fae right? All this thinking made her head hurt more, she wanted to be singing, at home in her comfortable cave with her sisters but that was the whole reason she was here wasn't it? Something bad had happened and her sister was taken by the iron monsters.

Without having paid much attention she'd followed the only sign of real life in this place, an old and twisted tree, it didn't look like the ones where she was from, it looked sickly, sicker still than those by the dying waters and it made her feel sad to look upon it. While her home was hardly a paradise like those spoken about in the stories of the first Elven kingdoms the tree's seemed happier than this one did. As she drew closer to it she ran her fingers across the bark of one of it's long roots "Hello sister." There were lights around it and above it she guessed it was pixies, were they making the tree sad? In the old times she might have been able to ask the tree and get a reply but so many of the trees had grown silent now, the death and torture of their brethren forcing them to forget how to move and how to speak. Was she like them now? Unable to think like anything but a tree, unable to move from this horrid place to a nicer patch where the dirty light might find her leaves. Tree's and the gorgons had never really had any reason to be enemies -as far as she knew- Gorgon's didn't eat trees and tree's didn't get in the gorgon's way.

As she circled the roots she found an opening, from it came fae and others that were entering it, swept along she found herself thrust into the dark of the twisting burrow, her eyes quick to adjust in the dirt filled hole. Briefly she attempted to turn around but the jostling of fae forced her to hurry along the path and emerge into the wide room filled with a strange purple light. She wondered idly what it was before the sight of a behemoth in the corner all but made her jump in fright. Grabbing her hood instead to assure herself it was straight she glanced around the rest of the room. If one took away everything this hole was much like her cave, darker and deeper perhaps and made of soil like the hatching chamber but it was almost homely.

When the little woman darted practically in front of her she did gasp, covering her lips with her hands as she watched the little person hand another fae some kind of liquid in a strange looking receptacle. Inching carefully away from the door she paused to try and gather her thoughts and plan her next move.

[februari]

The dry, metallic screech of hinges sent chills along the length of Brodin's spine, a hideous sound to the ears under any circumstances, but especially so now, when he prayed his coming and going would go wholly unnoticed. Setting a booted foot lightly across the threshold, then carefully shifting weight to the ball of his foot, the young elf grimaced as an aged floorboard let out a deep moan that resounded throughout the lobby of what had once been a watchmaker's shop. The harsh economic realities of the Blight made honest businesses such as this had once been difficult enough to maintain, let alone the oppression of fae gangs extorting from them the remainder of their meager profits. This particular shop had its doors shut years ago, its owner driven into financial ruin by the very individual who now called it home and whom Brodin had been summoned to meet. The young elf's nerves wrenched at his intestines, twisting them into a quivering, cramped mass, for an audience with the Prince under circumstances such as this seldom ended well. He paused for a moment, straining his ears against the pounding of his heart, hoping against hope that he'd caught Donovon's crew away on other business, for then, just maybe his matter of the missing aether would be forgotten. All was silent ... or was it? Brodin stood frozen, the silence calming his heart such that a faint sobbing became audible from somewhere above. Better judgment suggested a quiet departure, but his elfin ears told him the source was a young woman and that stirred his machismo, not yet checked by the scars of bravado's consequences.

Brodin padded cautiously past a dusty display case, no longer filled with anything but cobwebs and rotted fragments of wood, toward a narrow stairwell that led to a set of apartments above the shop. Perhaps he'd entered the wrong building? The directions had been specific, leaving little chance of such a mistake, but there was literally no sign of inhabitants save for the sobbing, which grew louder as he ascended to a dim landing at the second floor. A sliver of light peeking through a cracked door served as the only light, so he gave his eyes a moment to adjust before continuing onward toward the distressed maiden. After a moment, he caught sight of a shadow dancing in the thin ray of light from something just behind the door. His heart froze as the door shot open and a blur of purplish fur shot past him down the stairs - a cellican. Brodin let out a nervous sigh and wiped his clammy palms against his trousers. "Just a bloody cat," he grinned nervously, continuing upward.

If the shop's main room left doubt as to whether the building was inhabited, the top floor left none, as the stairs arrived at a luxuriously appointed, at least by Blight standards, landing. A thick scarlet rug, lined with gold tassels and patterned with golden leaves, covered much of the floor, with heavy drapes of similar design drawn back at either side of the door leading from the small foyer. A pair of ornate brass torchiere lamps with stained glass shades illuminated the space, the multi-colored shards casting a kaleidoscope pattern across the otherwise plain walls. The sobbing, much clearer now, urged him toward a heavy, crystal-knobbed door left ajar. Cautiously, he nudged it slightly to afford himself a better view of what lay beyond. The lavishly-decorated chamber was impressive, for he'd hardly imagined that any corner of the Blight contained such wealth, but his attention turned almost instantly toward the window or, more correctly, what lay beneath it. Much of the top floor had been converted into a single-room loft, at one end of which stood an open armoire filled with fine lace garments, a cluttered make-up table topped with an array of jars and brushes, and a large copper basin filled nearly to its brim. Within it sat a slender young woman, arms crossed along the metal edge and her head resting atop them, whose body shuddered gently in time with her sobs.

Brodin pushed through the doorway and closed half the distance between them before stopping. Dark sheets of hair clung to her shoulders and back, and with her head resting on one side, a delicate ear peeked through. A modest upward slant near the top suggested that she was neither human nor elf, but perhaps a half-breed or something else entirely. Whatever she was stole the breath from his lungs. He watched as tiny droplets of moisture held to her smooth, flawless skin for a moment before sliding down to the water below.

"You're the elf who stole the aether." The sobbing stopped, replaced by a soft, melodic voice. Lost in the subtle lines of her form, Brodin was uncertain how long she'd been watching him, much less aware of his presence. He took a step back, nearly turning in flight, until his eyes met hers, a vibrant aqua that seemed to glow from within, and calm filled him. "It's ok, he won't be back for hours." Her encouragement drew him forward when rational thought told him he should turn and flee that instant but, by the gods, she was just so beautiful. Just a couple feet from the basin's edge, he could see her form plainly, gentle ripples across the water's surface giving the illusion of motion as if her slender form were dancing in a hypnotic rhythm. Making no attempt at modesty, she shifted forward and rose to her feet, a soft scent filling the air, light and sweet, as she slipped her wet fingers around his neck.

"I-I should go. If he ..." Brodin's voice was unsteady and cut short by a finger touched lightly against his lips.

"The aether. Please tell me you have it."

"I don't know what you're talking about." His protest was feeble, for not only were his insides filled with an unfamiliar warmth and his head clouded with lust, but he knew precisely what she was asking.

A single tear rolled down her cheek, then she turned her head to the side. "You have no idea what he's like, the things he makes me do. Nobody disobeys him, but I thought ... I prayed ... someone had." She played her fingertip delicately across his earlobe as her sobbing resumed, eyes downcast.

Something in Brodin was stirred, compelling the truth forth for her sake. "I had it. It was a big score, we just needed something. They wanted us to put some skin in the game, so that was it. But wyldings just ... it had to be a setup." Emotions tugged at his heart as another tear, then another, and still another rolled across her tender cheek. He pulled her in close to offer comfort, feeling the warmth of her body as her bare skin pressed against him. The woman turned back to meet his gaze, drawing him into the azure depths of her eyes, then nuzzled against his neck with a flurry of kisses, like little butterflies fluttering against him in a surreal bliss. His vision dimmed as he swooned, momentarily breaking their embrace. As he looked down, straining to regain his footing, crimson droplets stained the wood at his feet and spread into inky scarlet clouds in the water around the maiden's legs. Falling to his knees, he gasped sharply, clutching at his throat only to find it wet and stained the same shade of crimson. Then all went dark.

"And they say I'm bloodthirsty." A broad-shouldered young elf stood at the doorway, finely attired in an immaculately tailored charcoal jacket and slacks that might have appeared dull were they not offset by a crisp white shirt and scarlet silk vest, patterned with gold paisley. His golden hair was drawn back neatly into a pony tail, revealing his pointed ears adorned with several jeweled studs and rings. He watched with intelligent amber eyes as the young woman dabbed daintily at her lips, drawing Brodin's blood onto her fingertip before sucking it clean suggestively.

"I can taste his fear. That instant when he realized I'd slit his throat. It's intoxicating." She stepped from the tub, leaving pink-stained puddles behind each footstep as she approached the gentleman, who extended his arms and wrapped her in a plush towel. "Wyldings got the aether."

"I know, love. I heard." Taking a handkerchief from his vest pocket, he wiped free the last remnants of blood from her chin. "Pity, but we've got much more important things ahead." He paused a moment, casting an appraising glance at his nymph. "Belle, those things I make you do ..." His voice trailed off as her lips curled into an impish grin and she let the towel fall as a wrinkled mass at her feet.

"They're terrible, shameful things." She pushed him gently, slipping his jacket free as she backed him toward the center of the loft. "We still have a while before we're expected at The Boggart's Hole." His feet left him as she shoved him back across the plush mattress, landing on top of him. "Make me do them now, Zemum."

[Elsa]

There was some sounds that permeated closed doors without fail. Certain customers who could not keep the sound of their satisfaction inside, and certain girls who specialised in raising their voices as their clientele rode them. Aignéis had been working in the brothel for so long that she could identify most of them within a matter of seconds, and she named four of them in her mind as she took the stairs from her fine room on the top floor down to the entrance with the door that led out onto King's and Wallace where the denizens of the Blight swarmed on a daily basis.

It was getting easier and easier for Aignéis to hide her disgust when she saw it.

The usual girl was beside the door, a tall fair kind of person, she bore sharply colourful tattoos on her face and her breasts and wore onto a skirt when the weather was fine. When Aignéis arrived she found her lying back on the table where they kept the ledgers with her legs spread open for a grubby human male who had his mouth pressed against the inside of her thigh.

“Make sure that he pays before he leaves, Myla,” said Aignéis with the sigh that she gave every time she found the girl in such a position. “Are there any messages for me?”

Myla shifted a little for the customer, and leaned over to where a small envelope was sitting on the end of the table. She tossed it up into the air and Aignéis caught it easily, the weight of it driving the sharp corner into the palm of her hand. It would have bothered her if she had been softer and warmer, but soft and warm were two words that had never been used to describe Aignéis and it was likely that they never would.

She tore the corner of the envelope with sharp teeth, and spat the paper onto the ground, pushing Myla's foot out of the way with her free hand. It only took her a moment to read the contents, as they were short and succinct, then she tossed it into the closest fire and untangled her cloak from the hook by the door. Such an item of clothing was unnecessary inside the house, and it was not completely adept at keeping her warm, but it covered her chest and shoulders enough to make her presentable.

“Fallon!” she called. Raising her voice so that it would carry through the first two floors of the brothel clearly and theoretically catch the girl easily. “Come here, I need you.”

“Did I hear that you were scolding Isi for her wicked hands?” Myla asked through gasps, as though she did not have a customer with their face between her legs. The tip of her tongue was hanging out of the corner of her mouth, taking nothing away from the leering grin that she seemed to be so fond of wearing. “I think that she should be applauded.”

“And that is why I am in charge and you are not,” said Aignéis as Fallon came into view. “Oh good, you're here. You and I need to take a trip to see Granny.”

“You should take Isi,” said Myla.

“Isi has a customer,” said Aignéis. “And so do you. Make sure that he pays.”

Myla raised a hand to acknowledge the order, and then slid off the table, dragging the man into one of the first floor rooms by gripping the front of his shirt with her hand. By the time the door had slammed behind them Aignéis had given them both what would be her final thought on the matter for the day. Myla had been in the business for long enough that she knew what she was doing.

So instead, Aignéis turned her attention to the girl that she had so recently called to her side, and she crooked a finger to indicate that Fallon follow her out the door so that they could walk the path to visit Granny at the Boggart's Hole.

[K-97]

As he reached the end of the winding cobble road of King and Wallace, Kalan decided to briefly observe the ancient oak known to most as Granny. Granny's twisted arms stretched towards the sky, as if they yearned to escape the torturous reality that was the Blight. Like spots on a man's arm, the ethereal lights of wisps emanated from her bark almost making her seem even more alive. Few living leaves were left on her branches. Was it a sign of the dark times we live in? Or was it simply a sign of her age? Either way it's implications were grave indeed.

He looked down at the nest of Granny's gnarly roots in front of him and observed a warm orange glow in between them, this was indeed the famed Boggart's Hole. He felt an involuntary sigh escape him as he recalled the many tales told back at the Fortress of this place, most of them revolving around the myriad of ways Grogdar the Troll had ''disposed'' of the occasional plucky (or perhaps a better word would be retarded) Iron Brigadesman who tried to arrest someone within it's boundaries, he knew he couldn't be that stupid and composed himself.

After taking a couple of deep breaths, attempting to dull his emotions once more, he put up his hood and entered the winding tunnels leading up to the Boggart's Hole. ''I need to be careful,'' Kalan thought to himself as he descended the rotting tunnels, passing by many fae who clearly had not paced themselves well. He wasn't exactly the most unforgettable person, a muscular Grey Elf with ''all too human'' blue eyes was quite unique even among the fae and considering the fact there were many who would wish to ''have a word'' with him despite his change of heart it was perhaps best, in Kalan's opinion, to obscure his features some what.

Kalan arrived in the main bar and felt almost like he was back in the Mess Halls of the Fortress, it was a chaos in there as more fae than he had ever seen in one room congregated to revel, Auntie and her pixies trying to keep the crazed party goers under control. Without the watchful eyes of man, the fae were free to act and do as they wished, it was like they had become a whole new set of people. This was a special place. It felt like home.

However as he stood there taking it all in, he felt a bit disoriented. A light ringing appeared in his ears drowning out the sounds of singing and an aura appeared within his vision distorting the appearance of the bar, it was as if the straight lines of the world lost their rigidity. Kalan began to feel the calm he had achieved outside breaking and emotions flooding uncontrollably to the surface. He forced himself to focus exerting some effort, returning the world to the state it should be and his mind reestablished a tenuous calm, and then remembered the lessons of his mother long ago:

''There was a price to be paid for the Ritual as we willing chose to become like Iron. Magic became anathema to us and we lost any sign of our Glamer, our very biology having morphed because of the ritual. And in it's presence we deteriorate, our minds weaken, our souls groan and our bodies sag. In other words...we are helpless. In some ways your half blood spares you, you do not suffer like us. But nevertheless you too remain bound by the Ritual,''.

As he withdrew from his mind, he realized just how dangerous this place was for him to operate due to the high amounts of Pixie Glamer. ''Perhaps that's why the Prince chose this place,'' he thought to himself as he took a seat at an abandoned bench, ensuring it gave him the best strategic position. And while it was difficult for him to concentrate, he tried his best to he access his situation in the way his Mother would have taught him as he waited for Donovan to arrive.

[glibglobb]

The Blight: Greenlight District

Normally the sight of two iron police striding in full armor down the street would be a cause for alarm, but most of the vagrants in the the Greenlight were too drunk, too high or too enchanted to notice. Only a satyr musician practicing his show tunes for the benefit of the layabouts had the presence of mind to pack up his fiddle and gallop for the shadows. "Are you sure there's no other way, sir?" Jaden asked once more, his palms sweating at the thought of what must be done.

Klayde ran his one good eye along the gaudy line of brothels, bars and glam houses, each marked by the standard green lantern or, in some cases, a phosphorescent scrawl of a pixie, wings unfurled, the greenfairy, patron God of hopeless magic addicts from Drezlen to Nyssa on the coast to the Western frontier and beyond. "No," Klayde returned, still as inflexible as his iron breastplate, "we kill this one whore, we save the lives of countless cadets and citizens." He reached the door and pulled down his visor with a heavy clank; Jaden mimicked him. "Don't underestimate them, these elf witches carry daggers that can fit through the joints of your armor." Klayde checked his grizzly studded cudgel, finding it loose in it's sheathe. Jaden, realizing his claymore would only hobble him in such close confines, pulled a serrated short blade from his waist. He gripped it tight, still fighting his conscience as he watched his partner's gauntlet rise and pound heavily at the door. The spiked knuckles tore gouges in the soft wood and the hollow boom resounded through the late morning haze of the Greenlight. Then they waited.

[TaliPaendrag]

After what felt like hours of walking through the muck and grime of the city’s back alleys to avoid the patrols of the Iron Police, Claire could see the gnarled roots of Granny’s Oak across the street. Even though she had seen it numerous times before, the sight still took her breath away. It was a beautiful thing that was made even more beautiful in the midst of the bleak and depressing urban environment they called home. Really, the effect was magnificent.

Having marveled at the sight long enough, Claire shook her head and began crossing the street to the hole that was essentially the entrance to the Boggart’s Hole, a bar beneath the massive tree and her destination. With no hesitation, Claire slipped down the hole, vanishing from sight on the street. Anyone who happened to be unaware of the entrance would have been pretty surprised, but most of the people merely continued on their way without reacting.

Stepping off the ladder that lead back to the surface, Claire breathed in the earthy aroma that filled the tunnel that suddenly turned left a few feet a head. Remembering that Adin had advised her to be inconspicuous even in the Hole, Claire kept her hood up as she began following the tunnel through its myriad twists and turns to arrive at the main room, the path laid out with luminescent fungi and the noise of its occupants, which grew louder as she grew closer. Within a couple of minutes, she was passing beneath the massive root that formed a partial archway over the door. A few curious eyes drifted over to her as she entered, but they turned away when their owners found nothing interesting.

Wasting no time, Claire approached the bar on the other side of the room and sat down on one of the dingy, but surprisingly comfortable, stools. While she waited to be serviced, she observed the other patrons in the violet-tinted light of the mana lamps hanging from the roof, strategically placed to provide ample lighting with minimal disturbance to Granny’s roots. This lighting arrangement was only helped by the numerous Wisps fluttering around here and there, their own bodies producing a light glow whenever they used their magic, quite different from Claire’s own chaotic magic.

Prominent among those in the common room of the Boggart’s Hole were a strange woman with a hood, not all that unlike Claire’s own, by one of the doors and a man, also wearing a hood to obscure his features, sitting on a bench by himself across the room. The thought that they could both be Changelings like her crossed her mind, but the more logical part assured her that the chances of that being the case were about the same as an Iron Policeman stopping in for a drink with the Fae. It would be much better not to get her hopes up.

“Excuse me, miss. What can I get you?” the bartender, a young elfin man, said, drawing Claire’s attention away from the other patrons. He had his long blonde hair tied in a braid and was dressed very modestly in a black vest over a white shirt that was tinted purple by the nearby mana lamps. While he waited for a response, he was polishing a glass with a dingy gray rag, though his amber eyes were locked onto Claire.

“Actually, I’m here to get a key to my room,” she replied, a small smile on her face in response to his civility. “My name is Claire. I was told by my boss that the room would be ready by now.” The elf nodded as if he remembered a room being booked in her name before disappearing through a small door behind the bar. In a few moments, he returned with a small key that had obviously seen better days. He handed it to her with a nod and a smile before another patron caught his eye at the other end of the bar. Without hesitation, he went to service the customer, allowing Claire to stand up and make her way towards her room, crossing through another, smaller, doorway to where the guest rooms were located.

Once safely inside the room, Claire threw back her hood and shook her hair out before sitting down on the straw-filled mattress, heaving a sigh of relief at the fact that she only had to wait until Adin came by for the deal. Until then, she was free to relax, which was especially nice considering she had been on her feet all day. As she looked around the room from the bed, the distinct shape of a cook-stove was what drew her eye. Adin had clearly not been lying when he had told her that everything she would need would be in the room. Wondering again how he managed to seemingly take care of every detail, Claire began cooking some more glam to refill the little bottles she carried with her, each one a dose that sustained her. While she had a couple doses left, she had learned fairly early on that it was rarely a bad idea to make more. Figuring it was a good way to kill a little time until Adin arrived, Claire hummed as she lit the stove and went to work, absently hoping that she wouldn’t be disturbed until she was done.

[Ichthys]

Lior didn't remember ending up in the presence of Granny Oak. He must've gotten lost in his thoughts again, for one moment he was meandering the alleys with no clear directive; the next moment he stood in the presence of the only sanctuary better than the sewers, and in the presence of the only thing that stood strong against the dark of the Blight and that never betrayed him like other Fae. It was Granny, the closest thing to family he had, which Lior was aware was a very pitiful fact. In her leafy arms, which swayed with an otherworldly life, other wisps spent their time, lighting up Granny with their Luminen. To Lior, Granny would always be his second home, where he felt secure and safe. Perhaps that's why he had made his way over to her; subconsciously, he longed to be back in her wooden arms, cradled from the decay of the world of Man. As he made his way closer to Granny, Lior reminisced on the times he had spent with her. He remembered the first time he had found about her.

It had been because of one of the few kindly Fae that Lior had become attached to - this was back when Lior was very quick to attach himself to someone, when he was codependent, when he was oft abused and manipulated. The Fae was a female goblin of very old age. Her name was hag and witch and ugly, to the masses, but to Lior, he knew her as Urania. She was already sickly when they first met, and though her body was scarred and hardened by the long struggle of the life she endured. Her heart and her eyes had remained resolute and soft, and she accepted Lior's presence when the wisp first began following her and taking whatever she left behind. One day, she led him to the tree, and introduced him to the wonders of Granny Oak. She encouraged Lior to float into her branches and spend some time there. As Lior departed, Urania said her goodbyes to the faery, thanking him for his company. She told him how she would be moving on to a better place, and that when Lior would come down from the branches, she would be gone. And her words remained true, for when Lior finally came back to realm of Man, Urania was gone to spend her last hours of life. It was a bittersweet moment, but since then, Lior has treasured Granny, if only just to honor Urania.

Lior walked over to the entrance of the Boggart's Hole, and he stared down the sprawling tunnel for a moment, entranced. The wisp always enjoyed going down into the Boggart's Hole. The loose lips of the Fae that spent their time down there always provided ample gossip. Some of the gossip was meaningless, but there was the occasional sliver of hearsay that was of interest to Lior - those whispers of the past or the discussions of another piece of literature that Lior should set out to find.

Lior began his way down into the Hole, staying tight against the wooden walls. He always feared he would be trampled by any of those entering and exiting, so he hugged the sides of the tunnel. Lior also took this time to brush his hands along the roots of Granny, gaining comfort from the wood. Lior thanked Dagda for Granny, and he wished blessings upon the tree. He was saddened a bit, while he wished a long life for Granny Oak, for he knew that she had already lived a long life. Her last days could be approaching soon, but at least her days already numbered many and they were all filled with joy from the Fae within her roots. After a journey that took a wisp much longer than other Fae, Lior finally wandered his way to Boggart's Hole, where the dim, purple lighting made the small one harder to spot than usual.

Immediately, Lior was surrounded by the sounds of the multitude of people talking, and almost trampled by the Fae who hustle-and-bustled their way around the watering hole. Not wanting to danger himself to the larger people that populated the Hole, Lior let himself free of the restraints of the physical realm. A white light began to pour out of the black wisp, as Lior flew upwards, above the masses and towards one of the hanging mana lamps. As he hovered inches above the lamp, he returned to the restraints of the universe and landed softly onto it. Lior was breathing heavily now and his hair was a bit more disheveled. A single sweat droplet made it's way down his forehead. In the confines of the Blight, transcending was very exhausting, although under the body of Granny, it wasn't as bad as normal. Her presence numbed the weakening effects of the Blight.

Lior sat down and took in his environment. He was a quiet observer, listening in on bits-and-pieces of the conversations below. He also left his eyes wander aimlessly, bouncing from person to person. His eyes halted for a moment on two separate individuals, when they arrived to them. One was a hooded figure in armor; his features were obscured and his face was down. The light also made him harder to distinguish. The other person was also hooded, although Lior could tell by the physique that it was a woman of some sort. Lior made the assumption that they were not the usual Elf or Satyr, which were the only Fae large enough to be of the two strangers' sizes. Lior paid extra attention to them, although he also kept switching his attention around to other groups, in order to pick up those pieces of information that he sought for.

[Mischief]

It just so happened as Fallon's foot dropped to the ground floor that she heard Aignéis' voice. Although the boss' voice always demanded attention, there were times she could somehow add that extra edge, making it clear that she expected a prompt response. Fallon was thankful she wasn't busy for the moment, as her current position on Aignéis' 'good side' was by no means a permanent one. But the young elf woman was very confident. After all, it wasn't difficult to please the brothel's head elf. All you had to do was do your job, learn what was expected of you, and most importantly of all: not fail to earn your pay.

It wasn't just Aignéis who would throw a girl out for not earning their stay. Too many times had Fallon seen customers run out without paying, leaving the girls they'd laid with to deal with the consequences. And any girl who thought giving out a free treat was a good idea would be much worse off. Usually Fallon demanded to be paid up front, which often solved the problem. She'd learned to do this about two years after living in her first brothel. Her customer at the time was somewhat regular, coming in once or twice a month trying out different girls. Fallon had learned from the others that he always tried to bargain a price, but he was desperate enough to pay the proper fee. When the time came that he ended up with Fallon, he thought he would take advantage of her young and delicate age and tried to take off without paying. That was also when Fallon learned the lesson that you could defend pushing a man down the stairs if he stole from you. Thankfully, she'd been able to avoid that situation since she started taking their coin first.

Fallon shook the memories from her head as she navigated through the dusty rooms of the building, her ears twitching in response to the voices she was following. Aignéis and Myla were conversing about the girl who was hanging from a thread at the brothel. They'd mentioned the girl's name, but Fallon still didn't bother paying attention to it. When she'd reached the two, she hardly raised an eyebrow at Myla on the table. It wasn't an unusual sight. "You should take Isi," Myla said to Aignéis, ignoring Fallon's presence. Fallon didn't mind. Although they were never on bad terms, they had an unspoken agreement that they simply existed around each other and not much more.

When Myla left with her 'date,' Aignéis too did not speak a word, simply gestured for Fallon to follow. Fallon dipped her head in response, though she wished she'd worn a more modest dress today. But there was no time to change now as they were quickly breezing out the door. Obviously there was business to attend to. On the way through, Fallon unhooked a thin shawl from beside the door. As an escort, she was often required to leave the brothel, and the Blight was not a safe place for a whore in revealing cloth. Thus, the girls all made sure to cover their chests, shoulders, and arms before leaving to go anywhere. Nobody complained if one wore another's clothing.

Outside, life was bustling as always: urchins ducked in and out of shadowy alleyways, gnomes and elves alike pulling covered carts for delivery to market stalls, pixies flitting about here and there as though they couldn't decided where to go or what to do. One could almost look at the scene and feel cheerful, if it weren't for the sounds of angry shouts and loud sobs in the distance, and the scent of excrement, trash, and smog in the air.

"May I ask where we are headed?" said Fallon, quickly draping the shawl around her as she matched Aignéis' pace. She was curious as to why she'd been specifically requested, but didn't dare question it. She assured herself it couldn't be a bad thing, and that she would find out soon enough. It was obviously for business, and if Aignéis wanted Fallon's presence for it, it could only be a good sign.