[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/zp4Lnjc.png[/img][/center]
[b]//O11 - Deserted Backstreets[/b]
The three thieves traversed through town without much more in terms of fortunate or unfortunate encounters, keeping to themselves as they sought out a proper hideout among the shacks and alleys, the shoddily-made buildings of the Outer Layer. And while the potential hideouts they found couldn’t be considered anywhere fit for one to live in, they certainly could be fit for storing ill-gotten gains or hiding away from angry mobs.

A derelict warehouse, the home of rats the size of one’s hand, offered plentiful boxes for storage, rotten as those boxes were. The rats themselves, so long as one had a long stick, could be temporarily scared off, but there had to be an understanding built here, mutual respect built between mankind and the rats. It would take only one bite to end a life.

The sewers, filled with a nightmarishly sludgy stench, offered another avenue for long-term storage. While entrances were few, the labyrinthian sewers served as a perfect hideout if one wasn’t afraid of getting lost. Of course, hiding spots in sewers didn’t exactly take a genius thief to figure out. Just because the trio didn’t encounter any others within the sewers beneath the Royal Road during their first venture did not mean that they or their loot wouldn’t be discovered by another sewer-venturer down the line.

Other avenues could be found in an abandoned watchtower off to one corner of the district. The structure was a groaning, creaking thing, even on a day with no wind, and it was difficult to gauge just how much longer it would last for. The interior took some actual climbing skill to navigate, and if it collapsed, it would no doubtedly take everything in their hideout with it…but for that same reason, Talia couldn’t imagine anyone else thinking there was anything of value in here. Sometimes, it took a gamble.

But why take a gamble, when you could take a sure thing instead? Local gangs certainly offered such services, and one of the slumlords even offered a small suite in one of their properties free of charge, if only Talia and her men would do him an occasional favor every once in a while. It was certainly more secure than a random hiding spot, and it had the added benefit of serving as a place for them to sleep without worry too.

It was, of course, also a choice that may be naive. How much upwards mobility could she expect, if she were to align herself with an existing gang, while she herself was a total outsider?

The options were before Talia, nonetheless. With her numbers, it’d be difficult to renovate and maintain more than one of these potential hideouts.
[sub][@OwO][/sub]
[hr][b]//A14 - Slaughterhouse No. 4[/b]
The dwarven woman let out a low whistle as the chains suspending the sandbag creaked rhythmically. The genetics of a dragonkin was nothing to scoff at, certainly, when even a shrimp like Frederika could generate that much force.

[b]“You can hit hard, sure, but plenty o’ hard hitters round these parts. Like yer gusto tho, kid.”[/b] She nodded, then turned her attention back to Almagest. [b]“If yer not giving her up permanently, guessin' ya don't know our deal in the Slaughterhouse. We usually take ‘em in, make sure they know their ropes. Then work ‘em up an audience n build a story up to get folks riled up.”[/b]

She did some calculations in her head quickly.

[b]“Could bring her into one of the battle royales tonight, but just need ta know, old man. You’re rentin’ her out then? Kid’s not plannin’ on being one o’ my own?”[/b]
[sub][@Izurich][/sub]
[hr][b]//O7 - Public Square[/b]
The wagoner was a man in his fifties, thickly built with a head that reminded one of a fish: bald and oval in shape, with bugged-out eyes and an overbite. He looked down at Lethe upon the Ichor-Blessed’s approach, blinking twice in the way that someone unaccustomed to people speaking to him did. A flick of his wrists, and the reins on the draft horse snapped, the beast itself slowing to a stop.

[b]“Out the city,”[/b] was the response. [b]“Found something you want?”[/b]

Around the other side of the wagon, his partner stepped out, more curiosity rather than suspicion in his own gaze. No one had reason to rob the corpse-collectors, after all. [b]“Who’re you to ask anyhow? Don’t look like you’re around these parts.”[/b]

An assertion that came, no doubt, from the fact that Lethe had approached them to begin with.
[sub][@Thayr][/sub]
[hr][b]//A3 - The Entrance into the Abyss[/b]
As their path continued through the Adventurer’s District, quietude began to descend. It wasn’t due to the decreasing amount of people, no, for there were still plenty of adventurers present. But outside of those who were bold and inexperienced, less of them saw it fit to make merry. They had to get into the headspace for adventure now, after all. An adventure not through the vast lands, but through the forbidden depths, where death and glory was divided by a borderline the width of one’s blade-edge. Grand walls loomed before Theodore and the mining crew, and rather than entering through any ground-level gate, they were marched up the staircases instead, trudging up higher and higher until they joined many other adventurers upon the tops of the walls.

It afforded a view that was at once beautiful and terrifying.

Behind them laid the entirety of Oratorio and the lands they had traversed to enter this city, a sprawling of terrains and the cloud-dappled heavens. Before them was a sheer drop into the depths of the Abyss, the hole bored into the planet when the Thousand-Faced God was slain by a foreign entity that pierced through the firmament. This was the cradle of the monsters, that accursed labyrinth from which corrupted creations spawned out of. Standing on the edge, Theodore could not help but entertain the idea of simply stepping off the wall, of plummeting into his destiny.

A drive towards death. It would come for him either way. Why delay it? Why not return as fast as gravity would allow, into darkness so deep that he could make out no details of what laid at the bottom, even when the sun was shining bright overhead?

But the Ichor-Blessed did not step off. Shepherded by a gruff-voiced man, he was instead lead upon a rudimentary elevator system, crammed upon a single platform that no doubt was overtaxed by the presence of everyone aboard. The chain was a lifeline for all these miserable, unprepared, undersupplied part-time labourers, but that chain looked so fragile, so [i]slender[/i].

It slinked away nonetheless; his ‘employee’ would be taking the next elevator down, no doubt with much more space inside the wooden cage than was afforded to the twenty-odd that Theodore and his followers were stuck with.

What could be done though?

Without power, all he could do was plot and bear with it, the abyssal descent a snail’s pace rather than a freefall.
[sub][@Silverpaw][/sub]
[hr][b]//O7 - A Shanty Between Buildings[/b]
The girl was still for a moment. As if in disbelief. Being ignored for so long had paralyzed her to what she would do if someone actually heard her story and sought to help her in a way that exceeded a coin or two dropped in pity.

It was the movement of others in the Underpass though, that forced her into action. Other beggars, hearing of medicine being offered, shifting and preparing to approach. Other children, for there were too many children, who saw the possibility of a soft heart, a charitable soul. The girl nodded, then turned, guiding Ananta out of the Underpass and into the Outer Layer once more.

For one Ichor-Blessed, it seemed, the Abyss could wait.

Thirty five minutes and twenty nine seconds later, the dark-haired adventurer found herself in the space between two larger buildings, nothing more than a nook made due to inefficient spacing. The remnants of a wooden fence and rough canvas wrested from an old carriage formed a roof for the pathetic shanty, where an older woman laid. Her hair, a dull red, seemed to have wasted away with the rest of her body, her clothes hanging off her bones. Upon their approach, she opened one eye, the shifting of the blankets indicative of her grasping something hidden.

But it was her daughter, with a stranger who didn’t look completely a scoundrel. The woman relaxed, if only enough so that she could sink into the fatigue of sickness once more.

[b]“Thank you.”[/b]

Words, rasped out from a leaded tongue. Her child scrambled to her side, helping her sit upright as she beheld Ananta properly. There was gratitude, but resignation too.

[b]“You got hurt again, Sasha.”[/b] She nudged the girl’s cheek. The bruise was forming. [b]“I told you. Watch out for yourself first.”[/b]

[b]“But ma, she says she can help.”[/b]

[b]“And I told you.”[/b] A dry cough sounded, the movement causing the blankets to shift once more, revealing bare flesh and the very edges of a strange, pulsating mark. The woman moved her blankets once more, covered it up once more. [b]“It’s not something that can be helped.”[/b]
[sub][@Kero][/sub]