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[h3]⛼ A7 - Where They Handle Death ⛼[/h3][/center]
The journey through the Underpass was uncomfortable as can be for the small group, tugged every which way by the sense of encroaching death until every string to the dying was tangled to the others. He couldn’t tell who was close to death, there was so many, and even then it ignored those who would die far before their time. Worse than the outer layers of the sprawl, the effects of such chaotic death, such unstable life, played a even more pronounced effect on the gravekeep's followers. They paused at a few points for one or another to vomit on the side of the path, so tumultuous was the road in the Underpass. Little wonder why the collectors did not venture to pick up the dead when there was so, so many.

Such people couldn't even afford to move out into the slums of the sprawl, the gravekeep soon recognized,  couldn’t even afford to move out past the sprawl for their own sliver of land to build a shack on. What drove them to stay in such poor conditions, what shackled them that they could not walk to the sprawl? Reasons, however bad, were able to be seen here, there. Eyes glazed over from a concoction of some poisoned well, their life growing thinner by the hour, or the stumbles of one too overtaken by drink to crawl from a bottle, poor men dead enough by debt that you could see where fingers had been taken…each the gravekeep saw the markings of shackles. A shiver ran up his spine, though the man could make no comment of the poor souls. His followers were likewise mute, though the gravekeep could hear one mumbling a prayer.

Eventually the trappings of death fell away to the sights of churches and crematoriums, business of all kinds associated with mourning and consolations. The sense of death was still present, he knew he could feel it here and there in old priests, but there was so many other things compared to the suffocating miasma in the Underpass.

“I see no graves,” said one to the others in the group, “They don't bury at all here.”

“The men before said they didn't. Burning them and giving such to their companions…it's better than the others. At least there is still something.”

The gravekeep's gaze passed over each and every one of the buildings as his faithful conversed. Some were predatory, the man with a glass of strong ale for those who wanted to drown away, and some were benign, the priest who offered prayers, with many walking the line between. His eyes settled on a church, one of many, and he stared briefly at the tall doors. A sigh finally passed, that long exhale and deflation.

Lethe cautioned his faithful, turning slightly to address them before setting off to the church, intent to open those doors and speak to whichever priest ventured there. “Be respectful. Our mission is a holy one, but theirs may yet be as well.”