The Player looks at you dubiously. "Well," she says after a moment, "it's your purse on the line, not mine. Beware pickpockets, would you? And try not to aggravate the locals..."
With that, she starts forward at an easy pace. The Kimrilaan road cuts straight through the Merchant's District like an arrow aimed at the heart of a great beast. As you draw closer to your destination, you can see faint swirls and eddies in the dark clouds that hover over the Labyrinth.
The gate here is a megalith of metal, with a smaller ironbound door cut into its steely face. Armored guards stand to either side of it, and up above you can just barely see the helmets of patrolling soldiers over the jags of the crenellations. It seems a little strange, since there were no patrols on the outer wall...
The gate guards look at you strangely as you ask to be let through. The one on your right takes down your name, then calls up to a soldier on the wall. After a moment, the door is opened for you.
You step through into pitch darkness as the door seals shut behind you. The sound of grinding machinery echoes through the narrow space. Before you get too edgy, another door opens ahead, raising up like a portcullis to let you out. It drops back down with a heavy clash as you step out. There are no gate guards on this side.
You take a breath of Labyrinth air and immediately choke. The stuff is foul, like the air in a sewer, and the smell is not much better! The Player waves for your attention, holding out a thin piece of cloth; she holds a matching one over her own nose and mouth. "You get used to it after a while," she says, "but that doesn't mean you have to like it. Now remember, this is what you asked for."
Holding the cloth over your face greatly eases your breathing, enough so that you can actually look around. The silence is the first thing that strikes you, and after that the emptiness. There are no buildings at all for a good hundred yards, and the ground between buildings and wall is littered with scraps, burnt timbers and scattered ash. You look to the Player for some sort of an explanation, and she sighs, shaking her head. "I'm not the one to ask about this, sorry."
Beyond the burnt-out zone, the houses rise in chaotic tangles. The Kimrilaan road keeps going, but it narrows and starts to wind, and buildings begin to overhang it. The whole place has an aura of gloom to it, a dark dinginess, and above you the sky is roiling clouds from inner wall to Great Outer Wall. And still there are no people, but you can feel eyes on you despite that.
The Player grimaces behind her cloth. "One more choice to make." She points north. "Hill Heights." Southwest. "Tercer." Southeast. "Riverway." Straight ahead. "Canen. Any are as bad as the others, just in different ways."
To Hill Heights To Tercer To Riverway To Canen
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