It has been a year now since Steven has started observing his mistake. What began as weekly turned to monthly as Steven came to understand how long it would take for his mistake to culminate and thus relaxed his observation. It also didn't help that there was in significant increase in his workload lately. On top of that, Keilia, his new manager, somehow always managed to look in on him when he was observing the child and it led to warnings and reprimands more than once. Were it not for the significance of what could be, Steven would have already just covered it up and left it for the next department like José said.
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Lori, daughter of Tyler, child of Krista, and now the mother of Xavior, was taking a leisurely walk through the town holding her child. She was enjoying her last few days before she returned to being a working citizen. Her two years of parent grace was nearly up.
Lori decided to start doing a light amount of work again as their grace on taxes for initial childcare is coming to a close. Marcus has started taking less work to engage in his "science" more and more, and while she may have inherited the estate of a well-off family, they didn't get that way in her lifetime and she was not going to let it end in her lifetime.
Almost all families who live inside the walls when the walls were built now own a stretch of land outside the city walls. Most use their land as farmland or pastures and hire the children who cannot inherit their family land and thus cannot afford the luxury of living inside the wall, Outsiders as they are known colloquially, to work the land. Others, such as craftsmen, use their land as harvesting grounds for easy materials such as timber, clay, and stone again hiring Outsiders to work the land. The most uncommon way to use land is to treat it as a vacation home and live as Outsiders occasionally though that is a privilege for those who earn more from their work than most earn from their land.
Marcus and Lori's land is used as a pasture where Outsiders raise livestock for the city. They also raise horses for the hunters. Normally this would provide enough to be a wealthy family, but Marcus' hobby requires a lot of time and resources. So much so that they were barely making profit off their land. Were they to account for taxes this year they would be in the red.
Lori has tried to get Marcus to take on more work. As one of the most studied people in the city, he earned most their income just by explaining the way humans use to do things. Sadly, it’s become a rift of sorts between them, so in an effort to maintain the house Lori decided to start tending to Outsiders. Normally people from the city find working with Outsiders as beneath them, but Lori has never felt that way. Why would someone who cannot live inside the walls be lesser people. Granted, most Outsiders were skill-less people that couldn't contribute more than being a servant, but still Lori couldn't see them as lesser.
Lori usually works as an apothecary providing people in the city with medications or physical treatments. Lori was no doctor, she couldn't diagnose an illness outside of the common cold humans always complained about, but she could make medicines for most diagnoses made by doctors. Traveling to Outsiders is very uncommon for people who live in the city. It is almost expected for Outsiders to visit the city if they have a need. No one would expect much payment from Outsiders who couldn't make it to the city. At best they would pay in their harvest, but since most have only enough extra to get themselves by incase of a bad harvest, it was uncommon.
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Luckily for Lori the ingredients for her medicines were cheap and, luckily for the Outsiders, Lori was hoping to be able to do something like this even before Xavior was born. Now that Marcus has started burning any excess funds they had and caring for Xavior would be expensive on top of that, Lori has the perfect excuse to use.
Regardless of any future plans Lori might have, right now she is taking Xavior around the city. She will be walking all day as the city walls cover a perimeter of roughly four leagues, three if you don't count the seafront as a wall. They live right near the port in the middle of the northern edge of the city, as the main research building is nearby the sea, Marcus claims it has been an important building to humans for as far back as we can find records for. Going west of their house they approach the docks and most of the fishing districts before coming to the pier and the citadel then the main wall.
The wall is now more of a physical border than anything defensive though you can see some of the damage it took in combat. It stands roughly ten-foot-tall and about three-foot-wide made of a mishmash of steel, concrete, rebar, stone, and basically anything they could find to build it. The only thing Lori knows for certain about the wall, is that it’s been the defining line of the city for as long as its existed.
Moving from the west corner south, they cross the main residential area with large houses on larger lots. From the middle of the west wall expanding towards the city center houses all the people who can afford live inside the walls off their land alone.
Reaching the southern corner there is a lake fed by rivers that flow across the farmlands to the south. The lake acts as the corner of the wall and is where most the Outsiders fish as the lake is mostly outside the wall. To prevent them from coming into the city untaxed, the counsel started holding daily navel training for the hunters and militia in the relatively calm yet reportedly untamed waters of the lake. It's not uncommon to see a small crowd of children watching the proceedings as there are few chances to see what a hunter does outside of the walls.
Traveling along the southern wall Lori shows Xavior the hunters lodges. The lodges provide Lori with most of her business as hunting is where most injuries and illnesses will come from. Hunters are also odd in the fact that they tend to avoid inheriting land yet don't become Outsides either.
The eastern corner is taken by another lake this one though doesn't hold any fish and isn't fed by anything. People say it’s probably a crater lake, but regardless this is where most city people will come to swim. Whether its children being taught to swim, people relaxing on time off, or people training skills there are always people around. Lori had been walking for nearly three hours at that point, so she decided to sit on the edge of the water and relax. She let Xavior get his feet wet and try to walk around.
After an hour or so she started north along the east wall. The main entrance to the city sits nearly centered on the east wall which is closest to most of the farmland. This is where most Outsiders enter the city to sell good or whatever they are doing in the city. On the other side of the wall are Outsider inns that are mainly used for people who work land more than eight leagues away.
Instead of heading towards the government district in the northern corner Lori goes towards the market in the center of town. Anything people in the city could want is found in the center of the city. If not, the craftsmen live right outside the market and special orders can be made with them.
While in the market Lori decides to pick up what she thinks they will need for dinner tonight and proceeds towards the research district and her house.