As the men below began to debate on whether they should admit defeat and go gather reinforcements and archers, or to continue and try to regain their honor by climbing the precarious building, Amal tossed the rope down to the men to dangle in front of them. Up at the top, he took out his dagger and cut the rope's outer weaves, making it dangerously thin. "No, you fool!" Amal cried, feigning an argument with Emmaline. "You cannot give yourself up! They'll simply sell you into slavery!" 

Motioning her to follow him as the men below began to bumble over one another, trying to grab the rope that would certainly break from their weight halfway up the climb, Amal opened a raggedly cut curtain that led into a small entryway, cutting through the edge of the ruined building to reach a thick scaffold that lay across this structure and the next. "Do not thank me yet, Imraah" he said, using the polite Arabyan nomenclature for woman. He held a hand out for her to take. "We'll celebrate once we make it back to the den."

The two traversed the scaffolding, Amal stalking over it as if he were born to the heights. The blonde woman seemed competent and dangerous, but those not used to such things glanced to the ground nervously. He heard her sigh audibly once they made it to the next building. With that, Amal unsheathed his curved blade once again and stuck it into a lock, immaculately carved into a stone with a flower at its base. With two simple twists, he opened the door that led into darkness. 

Their journey went downwards until they were where Emmaline would be certain were the sewers, passing within catacombs where the moonlight shined only sparingly through the strange Arabyan archwindows, passiong pillars that led to even further below into unknown bodies of water. Even as barefoot as they were, the stones were smooth and soon she would see lit torches and huddled men. Some actively stared at them both, curled up within rags inside of strange chambers below ground. There were makeshift shanty houses within abandoned scaffolding and men who played strange games with finger bones. A large thug was pulling a body toward the sewer line, tossing the cadaver into the muck to sink within. 

It seemed to last eternity, before Amal led the woman up rougher carved steps past the insence smoke, winding and winding until they were on a sudden plateau. A broken roof and a ladder lead upwards into an opening that brought them in a small, comfortable room with surprisingly expensive pillows and red curtains, though both were very aged and ragged after constant use over what was probably decades. The roof was only tangentially there, leaving nearly two quarters of the room exposed to the elements if not for the tarps Amal had likely placed above. The chamber looked attached to an abandoned building, and as Emmaline strode through, Amal tied up what looked to be a stone interwoven within a trip wire, smiling as if he relished what would happen if someone were foolish enough to trip whatever hidden trap he had laid. 

Outside, Lashiek shone in the moonlight. It was a prison, but it was a gilded prison, the sloping towers and outset architecture pleasing to any eye. "Welcome to the Kawmat Alsamad," Amal said wryly. Emmaline would be able to translate that as "dung heap." Looking straight below the curtain, she could see why. The streets were covered in sand and muck, and there was even two corpses and a living man rifling through their belongings in the starlight. Every building looked in disrepair in some way. 

"Impressive, I know," he said, falling atop a cushion with confidences, as if he was ruler of all of Araby. The scoundrel reached into his pack, taking out a grapefruit to toss to her. Along the cracks in the walls, Emmaline would see he used them as shelves, with dried beef, thieving tools, rope, and various fruits and nuts arrayed within easy reach. "What is more impressive was how you handled the Goldsmith and the guards. I thought all northerners had skulls thicker than an Ogre. It seems only the Satrap did, going after the wrong thief." Amal produced the gold he had stolen, letting the realization sink in to Emmaline. He tossed the bag onto one of the jutting wall cracks as he had a thousand times before. He retrieved another grapefruit for himself, cutting it open with his dagger and biting into it. 

He had a devilishly handsome look to him, but he lacked manners and spoke as he ate. "I did not save you for that, however. I will not lie, I enjoy ruining the high-born's nights, but you also piqued my curiosity. You are running from something, and not because my doing. You may sleep here tonight, but before you do, tell me what a foreigner such as yourself is doing in stolen clothes in the City of Corsairs?" He watched her with eyes that glinted in the moonlight, and though he made no threatening moves toward her, nor seemed unfriendly, he said nothing as he measured what she would say next, his dagger still in his off-hand. 

"You may have forgotten, but your Hammer-God does not live here."
[@Penny]