There was a loose plank in the fence, where someone as petite as Nua could fit. She hid behind a wooden crate not that far away, waited for the right moment, and started sneaking. In the red light of the second sun that blurred the edges and deepened the shadows, she hadn’t noticed a wicker basket that creaked under her feet. She froze. In the very same moment, a beech marten, who must have watched her just like she watched the entrance, sprung from the bushes and scurried past the guards. Glad for the distraction, Nua sighed with relief, then darted for the fence.
She was in.
For a while, she sat in front of the garbage mounds.
“Sweet smell of victory,” she whispered.
Actually, she could smell the junkyard’s stench well before, just like everybody else. Nua, however, liked to savor the fine moments in life. Or at least that’s what she would say if her vocabulary was more elaborate. Right now, she was happy as a kitten and ready to explore her surroundings.
She was not alone in here. Just a few steps away, two silhouettes toiled, hunched over the garbage. The territory here was split between local gangs, and fresh mounds yielded the best findings with the least effort. They paid the guards, obviously. Nua didn’t know if they belonged to the Daggers or Mekhet’s Sons, but they were already giving her suspicious looks. She walked along the alley between the heaps of trash, not giving them any reason to think she might enter their turf. Going deeper was for anyone who dared.
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Overlord’s Mercy was one of the greatest cities of the Azurite province, teeming with over thirty thousand souls. It might have been even greater in the past, judging from the Forsaken ruins that remained here and there, blank spots on the map where no one entered – even in its fourth, uppermost circle. Several centuries ago, one of the sovereigns decided that instead of allowing trash to pile up in the alleys, it would be collected in a dedicated place in the lowermost circle behind the outer wall, commonly called the Bottoms. He wouldn’t have to resettle people – the area was already there, littered with metal corpses of goliaths, carriages, and ancient war machines. It was vital that it remained uninhabited. Underneath the clutter, ruins slumbered. Staying there could cause flesh rot or unnatural changes in living creatures, awaken curses, or bring a Forsaken atrocity upon the unaware populace. It didn’t help that the Bottoms were full of the Unsagga, their unholy spawn. Creating the junkyard would dissuade people from coming in there, digging up who knows what, and endangering the upper circles. Rich people liked their sleep uninterrupted.
Like all great ideas with social engineering in mind, the plan backfired. After all, one man’s trash is another’s treasure, and that was especially true for the Unsagga, as poor as they were. City guards were introduced. City guards were not paid well enough to remain alert, resistant to bribes, or motivated when it came to fending off monsters. As a result, there was not a week in the Bottoms without giant spider sightings. Or an itinerant ghoul devouring a family of seven. Or cursed artifacts cropping up on the marketplace. Some people made their living exploring forbidden areas – scrap collectors or explorers, as they called themselves. Nua considered herself one of them. Well, at least that’s what she liked to think. Real explorers were impressive people, carried weapons, and exuded competence and authority. There were stories, Nua didn’t know if true, that some of them had ether.