Lower class district

[JennyDK]

By far the poorest, most dangerous, filthy and saddest part of the capital.
This is where lowlives, beggars, addicts and generally people either down on their luck or in trouble with the law live.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

Arriving at the city after the walk along roads from my village, through the farmlands, I stop at the massive gates. At the city gates, two more guards challenge me - that makes four, I think to myself, counting - and I wonder just how many there might be. As many as ten, I wonder, my eyes wide at the thought.

This time I know how to act though:

"I am Della, from distant but not foreign lands, and I come in search of work to suit my status, and to accept the second job I may be offered."

Through the gates I can see a bustling district: to my peasant eyes it looks a place of wonders, busy and exotic.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Sarah_1964

[JennyDK]

The guards give each a weird look, but shrug and don't really think too much about the words given to them besides that it sounds pretty innocent."Allright. You may enter, as long as you don't stir up trouble. If you need directions, feel free to ask a guard", the guard at the gates reply back, before the port opens up, giving her access to the huge town.

Behind said gate, there is the shambling look of the slums and general poor area of the lower class district. Homeless beggars, shabby clad people and overall dismal lives rummaging the streets.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

He talks as if guards are numerous: the city must be huge to support so many.

Close up, the crowded bustling people seem less ... well, less clean, less healthy ... than in the village: but I suppose there is so much to do here that people may not have so much time for the simpler things.

It feels ... exciting ... alive ... Adventurous. I'm quite hungry, though, and tired - and it is cold in the dark alleys, especially in this rather short skirt. The sword is a nuisance: it's already been tiring just wearing it but now with the crowds people keep treading on it and knocking against it. They don't seem as impressed as I thought.

How am I going to get money for food - and a bed for the night? They said to ask a guard, but which are guards? Those men have swords, maybe they are guards?

"Excuse me, sirs: do you know where I might find a bed, and some way to earn money?"

[JennyDK]

In the lower district there are still guards, but not a whole lot of them as this place is in the state that it is and resources is better spent elsewhere. Thankfully she finds one of them after a bit of looking around. It is slightly chubby and burly looking man in his late 40's it seems. Not exactly the prime of his life and looking rather disinterested in his current task. He is brought out of his own thoughts as he is approached by a young woman who look too clean and proper for this place."Hello there young lady. A bed and a job? Well....jobs in this district will be hard to come by...unless you are a criminal I suppose. A bed is easier...try one of the local inns or taverns. Say...you look like you are from out of town? Is that right?", he answers her back.

[Gardsorm]

"Hrrm... It's so quiet..." A single elf male dressed in rather simple clothes sat upon a bench in the Lower-class District of Karthel. Often he could hear the ceaseless laughter and giggles of kids around him, running about and generally having fun in a place they needed to make their own fun at. Until recently anyway. Children suddenly going missing, and it all started here... Indeed, the District felt a little bit quieter, to the point of unnerving the elf. His ears twitched in annoyance as he blew a strand of hair from the aide of his face. If it was just down here, he doubted the rest of the Grand Capital would have cared much... But it also happened in the Noble-class District, and even the Middle-class recently... So now it was becoming a big problem.

"Children disappearing can be anything... A simple case of Hide-and-Seek gone awry? That would be too easy though, wouldn't it? I'm more worried if it's something more sinister though... Sacrifice, slavery, ransom..." he rattled the outcomes off to himself quietly one-by-one. Ransom was tricky... Taking children from Lower-class wouldn't have been efficient, whereas taking them from Noble-class would have been most... "Let's start with seeing if magic was involved... Man, if this all works out, I can totally start my road to becoming a hero! Come on, Abel, you've got this! Maybe!" he psyched himself up, dusting off his bottom and looking about. His eyes wandered about as he began to move, trying to observe any lingering magical elements... 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Gardsorm
Attempting to truncate for ease of reading.

[JennyDK]

Of course, with the recent troubles going on, the tension here is even greater than usual and those with families tend to stay indoors more than normal. The guards have, sadly, not been able to find much to go after, which is why there is also now a reward for whoever is responsible for these disappearances, if there indeed is someone behind them. Of course, with a bounty on the other end, Abel is far from the only person trying to solve this and a handful of others regularly search the lower class district for any whereabouts or clues to the children's whereabouts or fates.

Seeking after magical auras out of the blue in a random would most often not yield many results and if there were, it could be due to many things. As expected there are a few places where auras of magical kind can be felt, most of them of various strength.

[Gardsorm]

"Hmm... I suppose it was too much to hope for, huh?" Abel scratched his cheek in mild embarrassment, standing upright. He must have looked silly to others, possibly sniffing out trails of magic like some common canine. With little to go on and very much competition in the way, he had to think harder on this than usual. "Hrm... Cain would have probably found something I'd overlooked like a rookie... Think, Abel, think... Kids from Lower District go missing first, then Noble, then Middle... Something in common?" the elf's pacing is almost comedic as he keeps his arms folded. Following magic traces could potentially lead him anywhere, so relying on that was solely ill-advised... Despite that, he didn't have much else to go on. "The faintest traces, let's try working our way up the ladder." He reasoned that the more faint traces could have had the longest time to dissipate between the earliest disappearances and most current.

[JennyDK]

Whilst talking to himself, everyone else around politely ignore it and leave him to his business, not really paying much attention to the elf to begin with. As he searches around for a faint magical trail, he finds a very diminiutive one near a grate leading into the sewers below. From what he can tell, the school of magic seems to be of the illusionary kind, but due to how weak it is, it could very well be of something else.

[Gardsorm]

"Hello... What have we got here?" Abels' eyes practically lit up as he stopped stalking about and finally picked up something... Arguably a small magical signal, and leading underground? That seemed like the perfect means of taking children... Illusion magic was ingenious, but... Wasn't this a little on the low end? Abel was far and away not someone with immense magical talent, but even he could feel that something felt... Off? 

"Well... Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? If this leads to the kids... It's worth doing it." He nodded sagely, crouching near the grate and poking at it. Just because he could detect magic didn't mean he was good at dealing with it... With any hope, it wouldn't be booby-trapped.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

A man sits on a bench - out f place because he is sitting still, and because he is talking to himself. Not a man, I think - is it an elf? I have heard of them but never seen one. Acting like a dog, though - sniffing at the ground, round a metal grate in the road. I watch cautiously, intrigued, from a distance.

[JennyDK]

23 minutes ago, Gardsorm said:

"Hello... What have we got here?" Abels' eyes practically lit up as he stopped stalking about and finally picked up something... Arguably a small magical signal, and leading underground? That seemed like the perfect means of taking children... Illusion magic was ingenious, but... Wasn't this a little on the low end? Abel was far and away not someone with immense magical talent, but even he could feel that something felt... Off? 

"Well... Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? If this leads to the kids... It's worth doing it." He nodded sagely, crouching near the grate and poking at it. Just because he could detect magic didn't mean he was good at dealing with it... With any hope, it wouldn't be booby-trapped.

Nothing bad appears to happen from the light and cautious poking and the grate is not even properly locked, making access downwards to the darkness of the sewers easy. There is also a ladder leading downwards as well, in case he intends to make his way into the hole. Luckily, the sort of district he is in, makes this a pretty normal occurence and he stands out very little to most who lives here, even if they were to bother keeping an eye on the man discerning the dangers of a standard sewer grate.

[Gardsorm]

"Well, it didn't explode on me... I'll call that a win in my book!" Abel sighed, standing upright and smiling. A cursory glance to the left and right to see if anyone was looking at him was made (little did he know that behavior like this was casual for the Lower-class Districts. Maybe one day he'lllearn otherwise?). Unaware that he was being observed by another, he looked upon the ladder and climbed into the grate. "Past the guardsmen and past the bum, look out sewers, here I come..."

Sparing a moment to snort at his own joke, he made his way down the ladder into the sewers below. Definitely not the first place he wanted to be, but if there was a lead down here, he would sniff it out... Hopefully before his nose decided to flee his face in disgust. "Do people come down here often? Which way to go..." 

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

It is more of a gate than a  grate, and I think I see a ladder leading down it: who makes holes in a road with a gate and a ladder? I've never seen such a thing, this city is more strange than I could ever have imagined.

[JennyDK]

1 minute ago, Gardsorm said:

"Well, it didn't explode on me... I'll call that a win in my book!" Abel sighed, standing upright and smiling. A cursory glance to the left and right to see if anyone was looking at him was made (little did he know that behavior like this was casual for the Lower-class Districts. Maybe one day he'lllearn otherwise?). Unaware that he was being observed by another, he looked upon the ladder and climbed into the grate. "Past the guardsmen and past the bum, look out sewers, here I come..."

Sparing a moment to snort at his own joke, he made his way down the ladder into the sewers below. Definitely not the first place he wanted to be, but if there was a lead down here, he would sniff it out... Hopefully before his nose decided to flee his face in disgust. "Do people come down here often? Which way to go..." 

The illuminating rays of the midday sun reaches into the hole, but gradually gives into the darkness that envelops the elf more and more the deeper he goes. Whilst one would expect a foul stench, it is still in a moderate intensity, the place taken into consideration. The ladder does still hold, but the metal creaks and whines slightly as weight is applied to it. Noises of dripping water, a few scurrying rodents and slightly stream of the sewer make up for most noise here, besides the ones generated by Abel. The sounds of footsteps on metal lightly echoes down the pipe further down.

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

The elf - if elf it is - climbs down into the hole. A strange city this, with holes in its roads and ladders down which to climb: perhaps there is a whole city under the ground?

I am jostled from my astonished reverie by passing men - heavily armed and armoured, hurryiing by. And I hear the words "Adventurers' Guild": so that must be were one finds Adventures? With a last glance at the hole in the road, I hurry after them.

[Gardsorm]

20 minutes ago, JennyDK said:

The illuminating rays of the midday sun reaches into the hole, but gradually gives into the darkness that envelops the elf more and more the deeper he goes. Whilst one would expect a foul stench, it is still in a moderate intensity, the place taken into consideration. The ladder does still hold, but the metal creaks and whines slightly as weight is applied to it. Noises of dripping water, a few scurrying rodents and slightly stream of the sewer make up for most noise here, besides the ones generated by Abel. The sounds of footsteps on metal lightly echoes down the pipe further down.

There is already a good deal of worry as the elf is halfway down the ladder when it begins to creak and whine. He couldn't have been that heavy, could he? Maybe he had too many of those pastries the other day. Uttering silent prayers to whatever gods might have been listening at that moment, he slowly makes his way down, observing the echoing drops of water and light scratches of nails on stone when his footfalls didn't drown out the noise. He wasn't sure how far down he was, but the moment the light from above dimmed and warped as if someone passed over, he looked up to see if anyone was looking down... Unfortunately, his hand slipped-

"CRAP!" came the singular curse from his mouth as he lost his grip on the ladder and fell off into the darkness below, hoping that whoever had been above did not see his face as he fell down.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Gardsorm
Correcting!

[JennyDK]

22 minutes ago, Sarah_1964 said:

The elf - if elf it is - climbs down into the hole. A strange city this, with holes in its roads and ladders down which to climb: perhaps there is a whole city under the ground?

I am jostled from my astonished reverie by passing men - heavily armed and armoured, hurryiing by. And I hear the words "Adventurers' Guild": so that must be were one finds Adventures? With a last glance at the hole in the road, I hurry after them.

The group of men do indeed wander through the various streets and even venturing beyond the lower class district and into the one with all of the schools, academies and guilds. There are about 3 guys in total who seems to know each other as they softly speak to one another as they walk closer towards their joined destination. They carry large weapons as well, indicating they are some heavy hitters and in generally must be pretty well built, strong and in their prime.

GM: Please proceeed to the "Adventurers guild" topic.

21 minutes ago, Gardsorm said:

There is already a good deal of worry as the elf is halfway down the ladder when it begins to creak and whine. He couldn't have been that heavy, could he? Maybe he had too many of those pastries the other day. Uttering silent prayers to whatever gods might have been listening at that moment, he slowly makes his way down, observing the echoing drops of water and light scratches of nails on stone when his footfalls didn't drown out the noise. He wasn't sure how far down he was, but the moment the light from above dimmed and warped as if someone passed over, he looked up to see if anyone was looking down... Unfortunately, his hand slipped-

"CRAP!" came the singular curse from his mouth as he lost his grip on the ladder and fell off into the darkness below, hoping that whoever had been above did not see his face as he fell down.

There wasn't too far down, making his fall not hurt very much, but mostly cause some temporary pain and discomfort. He was lucky to land on the edge that travels along one side of the wall and he did not land in the rather pungent part of the sewer. A few rats are spooked by this turmoil and noises, so they scatter around in the complete darkness that envelops everything. The light from above can be spotted still, but the hole is about 30 meters upwards from where he landed. The magical trail can still be felt, but without a light source, traversing here would be quite impossible and probably dangerous too.

[Gardsorm]

"Ugh, only way this could be worse is if I landed in the water..." Abel groaned, rolling over slightly until he could face upward. The sound of scurrying moved away from him, so at the least it didn't sound like the Rats were going to come and check on him. It was probably for the best, he'd just gotten used to sharing his home with a little mouse, he hadn't been ready to handle being surrounded by rats. Pushing himself up, he can see what light shining from above was enough to illuminate him, but not much beyond that...

"Just my luck... Why did Cain have to be the one who got the fire power?" he mumbled quietly, rubbing his bottom. His ice magic would avail him little down here, and though he could detect traces of magic further in. Could he take a chance moving further inside? He fumbled with what little light he had to find the wall, and then began to follow it in the direction that he could sense the lingering magic. This was a bad idea... A very bad idea. 

[JennyDK]

With no sources of light for him to make use, the darkness soon makes moving about almost completely impossible. Thankfully there is a wall to lean towards, giving some sort of point to follow. Whilst this may be an overall decent strategy, it does not make up for any irregularities in the wall or anything that might make him stumble on the thin ledge he is walking on below. A few times he likely manages to react just in time and can keep his footing, but it is just a matter of before a large object blocks his next step and he falls face first into the vile, putrid and smelly sewage water below, making a splash that is easily heard far down the hallway.

[Gardsorm]

Okay... This was good! Thankfully the pathway didn't feel too treacherous. At first each step was slow, planned, waiting several seconds before he took another, but once he felt confident in the path, his steps were quicker and more careless. He thought he had the whole path figured out, even with the occasional irregularity he believed he could find his way through the dark, labyrinthine sewers of the Lower-class District... Until he heard an audible thud as his foot collided with something.

"... Ah? AH!? N-no... NOOOOOO-!" his shout resounded throughout the sewer before the splash happened. It was every bit as vile and disgusting as he imagined it feeling, and for a blessing he kept his mouth closed the way down... But it wouldn't help the smell at all. Once he rose up from the water, he threw his head from side to side to cast off the foul liquid from his features before he finally breathed. The putrid scent was everywhere... "Oh gods above, I'm going to live in the shower for the next day, cold or not." mumbled, swimming to find solid ground and pull himself back up. He wasn't ready to lose the trail just yet, but... He needed a moment to rest.

[JennyDK]

Thankfully, there did not appear to be anything that heard Abel making a ruckus in the dark sewer. One good part about the darkess being that anyone else down here would likely not be able to see him either. The foul smell would make it impossible for dogs to properly catch the scent and especially now as he reeked of sewage himself, so in a way this was camouflage. Horrible, stinky and nasty camouflage. There are no new noises either, which further indicates no trouble so far. Of course, any large animal down here would be a great pain to deal with as they are likely accustomed to the environment.

[Gardsorm]

"*Sniff sniff* I wish I couldn't breathe right now... Eugh." Abel groused, slowly pushing himself to a stand. His vision still hadn't improved in the slightest, and now he reeked for his ignorance. Part of him wished he'd paid more attention during his studies at the academies in the Academy District. "Maybe there's a positive side to this. Maybe I'll stink so badly no one and nothing will want to come near me... Wait, if no one will want to come near me..." The sad realization dawned upon him that for the rest of the day, he was probably not going to have any positive relations with a lady. If the smell didn't make him want to die already, this thought sure did.

With a heavy sigh, he went to fumble for the wall once more, but... He became aware of an illuminating force within the darkness of the tunnel. His ears went up for a moment, finding it... Suspicious, but at this point he had no other means of navigation down here. Keeping himself quiet, he slowly crept through the now dimly-lit sewer in pursuit of the light, trying to follow both it and the lingering traces of magic he'd felt from outside. He hoped this paid off somehow...

[Gangsta Moll Deactivated]

Returning along the route by which I entered, I note the grate to the hole in the road still stands open: and an eerie, al.ost imperceptible, glow seems visible from it.

The heavycsword is an awkward encumbrance but I descend the ladder without mishap. The elf is nowhere in sight but the subtle glow draws me onward. There is a hint of stench but far less than the maturing if the village fields: in this strange city perhaps they cultivate and manure fields under the ground?

I follow the faint light.

[JennyDK]

47 minutes ago, Sarah_1964 said:

Returning along the route by which I entered, I note the grate to the hole in the road still stands open: and an eerie, al.ost imperceptible, glow seems visible from it.

The heavycsword is an awkward encumbrance but I descend the ladder without mishap. The elf is nowhere in sight but the subtle glow draws me onward. There is a hint of stench but far less than the maturing if the village fields: in this strange city perhaps they cultivate and manure fields under the ground?

I follow the faint light.

GM: That is just an extreme amount of metagaming right there and I am not allowing it, sorry. You had the chance to follow him. The faint lights are nowhere to be seen after descending and there is zero in the sewers for quite a while. She has no idea if he went to one side or another. I recommend that you try and return to the guild hall and heavily turn down "airheaded" dial in order to have an actual conversation with someone who can help her on her way to become an adventurer.

3 hours ago, Gardsorm said:

"*Sniff sniff* I wish I couldn't breathe right now... Eugh." Abel groused, slowly pushing himself to a stand. His vision still hadn't improved in the slightest, and now he reeked for his ignorance. Part of him wished he'd paid more attention during his studies at the academies in the Academy District. "Maybe there's a positive side to this. Maybe I'll stink so badly no one and nothing will want to come near me... Wait, if no one will want to come near me..." The sad realization dawned upon him that for the rest of the day, he was probably not going to have any positive relations with a lady. If the smell didn't make him want to die already, this thought sure did.

With a heavy sigh, he went to fumble for the wall once more, but... He became aware of an illuminating force within the darkness of the tunnel. His ears went up for a moment, finding it... Suspicious, but at this point he had no other means of navigation down here. Keeping himself quiet, he slowly crept through the now dimly-lit sewer in pursuit of the light, trying to follow both it and the lingering traces of magic he'd felt from outside. He hoped this paid off somehow...

Once he comes closer, the faint light are a bit easier to see, albeit still very small in size and glow. It appears to tiny flickering lights that flow in free air, almost dancing. They are fairly wide apart, but still manage to form a sort of chain with each other. If he is to follow this series of lights Abel eventually arrives at what appears to be a thick, heavy iron door with a slit around eye height which is currently closed.