A smog layer slowly clouding over the city, gray blanketing the reinforced brick skyscrapers of South.

From the streets the entire city pumps its lifeblood; the souls of an entire civilization busting through clogged sidewalks. From crosswalks do citizens intersect as they move onto work, on commercial stores is the exchange of coinage completed, the dirty overalls of the factory worker mix with the well tailored suits of financiers, the monopolies of distant corporations against the simplicity of newspaper stands, and between it all the life of society pushes against stone and mortar.

To the north, past the districts of Tideson and into Upper Coast, do the ancient arcanist towers of South stand. Bristled like needles in cushions, the central eight come together at the centrality of the weave. The University of South; an intersection of studious magics and the more applicable subjects of economics, engineering, and arts. Students in uniform stroll between arcanely manicured gardens, a study of mental practice done in a defense against forces long forgotten, today a slow decline to the farmed continent beyond.

Midtown is the heart of it all. Still contained within Old City, the ancient walls of the now growing metropolis cuts through both street and politics. Forty acres of fountains, lawns, and hedges fenced away from the bustle of civilization; a microcosm of the Alliance held within its own world. Federal Guard posted at each entrance, arcane runes projecting an invisible wall between wide gates protecting the distant, pale marble buildings of the Alliance’s Capital grasping its place in the carnage of an ungovernable realm.

Residential districts are crammed between the industrial factories of Cortail and Midtown, the near western space of the city packing workers into corporate subsidized tenements. Nearly three million souls living in the throes of daily life, a workday bringing itself to bear in the post-lunch hour.

Great ships travel across the Azure Sea to the south, the crystalline green ocean now turned to brown sludge from processed sewage and industrial runoff. Bulk cargo carriers spew smoke into an already ashen sky, fog horns sounding in the repetition of an an orchestra of trade and tariff. Cutting through the visual ranges, the Bared Torch of Salvation upon the western cliffs performs its secondary duty in the undulation of its glowing light: a guidepost into the great city of South.

A coastline dotted with the towering cranes and surging dockyards, warehouses filled to the brim with the traded bounty of an entire planet. A wealth not translated to the slums of its surroundings.

South is alive.

A collective soul of four million disparate pieces, pressed together into a transcendental mind beyond comprehension. A flesh of brick and concrete, arteries of grand streets, a mind of judiciary and governing, and each cell unique: the superorganism created of chimeric flesh and corrupted thoughts.

Screaming for mercy.

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From the inner streets of Landing one can almost forget the district’s proximity to the Ocean. The ordered cries of ship workers alongside the squawking of gulls distanced from fenced off industrial centers, the scent of grime and sea salt carried across squat tenements and through stacks of chimneys.

Claustrophobic streets are relatively cleared as the workday reaches its apex, coal covered children playing in the dirty, feces covered streets. A youthful demographic nearly comprehensive of the local workforce; a smattering of human ethnicities, orcish bloodlines, halfing families, dwarven clans, and even a single red scaled dragonborn child.

A worn leather ball tossed between two evenly split teams, a semi-organized game played in the casualness of life.

Possession as a primary objective, the number of successful passes counted against interceptions by opposing teams. Full-contact sport at the professional level utter insanity, simplified version dulled down to the simple workings of touch in comparison to its original, more armed counterpart.

Diving between a teammate and in between two opponents one of the children makes a break for it. An open hand reaching skyward, a last stand for this round.

From across the designated playing field the current thrower chucks the ball towards the spotted teammate, a velocity miscalculated as the round shape roars overhead and out of bounds.

Across an unlit lamp post and across the curb, the small palm sized item rolls to a stop at the base of a motorized carriage.

Upon four metal spoked wheels the tall, boxy shape tapers towards a single engine block at the rear end of the vehicle. A framed metallic skin painted in a nondescript gray gloss, and upon the roof a singular arcane rune lies unactivated in idleness.

On its two currently shut doors; a single unbroken livery designates ownership. Nearly a thousand years for the City of South, the new, barely five month old machine holding upon its soulless back a service record stretching into the avenues of ancient history.

An eagle in the midst of flight, glory upon wings moving up from distant lands, comes to nest on the cliff sides of a new world. Clutching a shield, the eight pointed star mounted atop it grasps a sole defense against a fragile ruin. A final lettering surrounding the icon is written in ancient draconic, listed out a motto left untranslated.

Insul’a, sav’atoria, do’sin.

The single figure leaning on the carriage pulls himself up at the fallen projectile, a tall, lanky form standing to its full height. Dark blue uniform covering an entire body, leather armor plates hidden beneath thick, treated fabric. The Officer’s thin shape betrays an elven heritage, long ears drawn underneath a well fitted patrol cap emblazoned with a shielded eagle.

A short composite bow drawn across his back, two shortswords sheathed on both sides of his form alongside an array of small packs across his belt. An armory of materials for both conflict and utility, an afterthought as he strolls over towards the fallen ball.

The children watch in silence as the Officer stands above the round item, amber eyes making instinctual calculations before action.

One well angled kick is enough, sending the ball on a parabolic trajectory high into the cramped streets.

Eclipsing the thin rays of sunlight, eyes are drawn skyward as bodies move to calculate a drop zone. Some too short, some too far; one of the taller children, a half-orc, manages to make the catch.

“Thank you sirrr!” The young girl yells with a wave.

A dismissive nod from the Officer alongside a raised hand, the children once again returning to their game.