Rachel strode through the city, keenly feeling the absence of her skeletal companion. Lord Reud and Lady Lilia had taken Bo on some expedition yesterday, along with two of the mage-skeletons, Kin and Lec, off to investigate something they called a dungeon. Lady Lilia had certainly seemed excited to test out the sword Lord Reud had brought back for her, it had taken all of both Lord Reud’s and Rachel’s powers of persuasion to convince her not to try the blade out on the walls of the city.

However, despite the Lord’s absence, the city went on.

Rachel’s morning had been spent conferring with the other administrators to discuss the development of Srinaber, covering everything from food supplies, to housing developments, to the formation of places of leisure. Boring, yet necessary topics for their new home. Food was tight, but if Jessabelle’s merchant contact had pulled through, then they would be receiving their first delivery in the next few days.

Hopefully then they could begin to offload much of the trade goods that had been building up in the storerooms. Part of the deal when a crafter requested raw materials from the city was to provide a third of the goods produced with those materials back to the city. As a result, they had all manner of pieces of intricate clothing, small trinkets, earthenware, and other miscellanea. Worthless in the storehouse, but hopefully soon to become a sustainable income for the city.

One topic that had particularly attracted Rachel’s attention, was that there was a strange pattern of requests coming from the Farhaven district, a section of the city populated mainly by new arrivals from the surrounding villages. The things they had been asking for were goods for skilled crafters, from polished chimera-bone to fabrics to metals, but not a single item had yet been delivered back to City Hall.

Now, that could be chalked down to incompetence, misunderstanding of the rules, or just plainly an issue with the bookkeeping, but Rachel wanted to investigate nonetheless. If people were stealing from the city, from Lady Lilia, she wanted to find them.

No one disrespected Lady Lilia on her watch.

However, there was no way she could just walk into the district and demand the truth. Even if these people didn’t recognize her by sight, she didn’t look anything like the dejected-yet-hopeful arrivals that had arrived recently, so there was no way they were going to open up to her.

No, she had to go in a disguise.

It was actually kind of exciting, making her feel like one of the heroes in the books her father had bought for her back in Littlestream. She’d blackened her hair with ash, hiding the shimmering blonde. More ash gave her bags under her eyes, and ash mixed with some crushed moss and delicately massaged onto her cheeks gave her face a palid, worn look. Her normally neat clothes had been replaced with a formless, ragged smock. She’d even affected a stooped walk. She was about as far from her normal appearance as she could get.

Hopefully, it would be enough to allow her to blend in.

Turning off Littlestream Road, the name given to the main road from the southern gate of Srinaber, she arrived in the Farhaven district. Crude, blocky buildings lined a square section of roads, constructed from wood and stone in the fashion the undead had become so proficient in doing over the past months. The building fronts, however, were missing the personalized touches that adorned those in the other sectors of the city. Beyond a small amount of paint here or there, the buildings looked identical to how they did when the district was first completed.

Rachel ducked her head and walked along towards the entrance to one of the building blocks, passing groups of people leaning against the walls, chatting to one another in low voices. Entering the large building, she headed up to the second floor, clutching a key to her chest, trying her hardest to look like a new arrival in the city.

She was so engrossed in her act that she walked straight into a middle-aged woman coming out of a door.

“Hey! Watch where you’re walking!” The woman shouted in surprise, flicking her dark hair from her face.

“I’m s-sorry, I wasn’t looking…” Rachel stammered out.

The woman looked her up and down, her expression softening. “New arrival?”

Rachel nodded.

“In that case, I guess I can forgive you.” The woman said. She peered at the key in Rachel’s hands, before a smile lit up her face. “Hey, looks like you’re living beside me!”

Rachel smiled back at her, looking at the door the woman emerged from. On it was carved a number and a letter, one less than the one on Rachel’s key. A simple system put into place by the city to aid with the once-chaotic job of assigning homes. Much easier to simply hand out the next unclaimed room in a list of numbers than to go through the full ledger looking for gaps.

“It’s nice to have a friendly face as a neighbour.” Rachel said.

The woman nodded. “You’re right there. I was worried I’d be placed beside some creep. It’s a little disappointing we don’t get to pick where we live, the city seems to have so much space. But I guess this isn’t so bad. I’m Maria.”

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“Ra-” Rachel began to respond reflexively, before stopping herself. What was the point of going undercover if she was just going to give out her real name?

“Raina, nice to meet you.” She eventually went with, covering her slip-up with a delicate cough.

“Welcome to the neighbourhood, Raina,” Maria said. “Where are you from?”

“A tiny village, Rivenfall.” Rachel said, quickly making up a name. There were enough remote little communities throughout the forest that anything she said would be believable.

“Hmm, I can’t say I know it,” Maria said. “I’m from Eastrest myself.”

“What do you think of Srinaber?” Rachel asked.

“A big step up from Eastrest, that’s for sure.” Maria said, smiling. “I even have my own room. I don’t have to share it with anyone, and it doesn’t cost me a thing. Isn’t that amazing?”

Rachel tried to look amazed.

“You also get food and clothing, and almost anything else you desire. It just requires a little bit of waiting, as the lines can get quite long.” Maria patted Rachel on the shoulder. “You’ll quickly get used to it, it’s a pretty great place to live.”

“Wow.” Rachel said, not really knowing what to say to the woman’s onslaught of words.

Maria let out a little laugh. “Oh, sorry. I’m talking your head off. I’m sure you’re dying to get a look in your new room, so I’ll leave you alone for now. Just grab me if you want to know anything, I’ve been here for nearly a month, so I know how everything works.”

With that, Maria locked her door behind her, then walked off down the corridor. Rachel watched her go, before unlocking her own room and stepping inside. The room within was dominated by a bed, with a wooden chest beside it.

Simple and functional.

Sitting herself down on the thin sheet covering the packed-straw mattress, Rachel stretched. So far, it seemed the infiltration had been a success. Now, with her cover as one of the residents, she could start to find out what was going on around the place.

—

Well, it seemed that spying was a more complex process than her books had let on. The sky overhead was a deep red as evening fell, and so far she’d come no closer to finding out where the goods were.

The people in the district seemed to be living frugally, none of them sporting the small decorations that adorned the clothing and hair of people in other districts of the city. Beyond Maria, no one else seemed all that interested in talking to her, glowering at her when she tried to strike up a conversation with them. The only sense of community she’d felt had been when the building she was staying in had communally cooked a pottage, pooling their oats and beans into a single shared meal.

Dejected, Rachel walked along the road again, ears open for anything of interest. If she found nothing, then tomorrow she’d likely have to give up on the whole enterprise. It wouldn’t do to be absent from her duties for too long.

Then, a familiar voice drifted to her ears. It was coming from an alley between the buildings, its depths shrouded in shadow. Rachel glanced around, but beyond her, the street was empty. Slipping across the road, Rachel pressed herself against the wall, ducking into the shadow thrown by the roof overhead. Carefully, she peeked around the corner.

Three bulky men surrounded a cringing fourth. Their arms were covered in spiralling tattoos, depicting a coiling serpent. Instantly, Rachel recognized them. It was Aldsville’s ‘Beast Slaying Band’, the group of thugs who claimed to be the village's monster-slaying experts. In practice, however, they acted as Farlin and his father’s muscle.

Speaking of Farlin, she hadn’t heard from him in a while. She’d have expected him to hassle her before now. What was that creep up to?

“... You know the rules.” One of the band was saying to the cringing man. “Everyone here has to pay their dues, no exceptions.”

“B-but, I d-don’t think it’s right to-” The man stammered.

One of the band slammed his fist against the wall, making the cringing man jump. “We said no exceptions. People who won’t do their part can some to all sorts of nasty little accidents around here.”

“B-but L-lord Reud said…”

One of the band placed his hand on the cringing man’s shoulder, pulling his head in close. “Look, friend. Around here, we’re the law, not him. You ever seen any of them ‘toffs come over here?”

The cringing man shook his head.

The man gripping his shoulder smiled - a wide, toothy affair. “Exactly. They don’t care about you. We, on the other hand, do care. You do right by us, and we’ll do right by you.”

Releasing him, the man stepped back. “You have till the end of the week. If you still haven’t got it by then, then we will have to assume you don’t want to be our friend any more. After that, who can say what’ll happen to you?”

Rachel ducked back from the alley as the group turned towards her. Hurrying off, she turned over what she’d just seen in her head. If the Beast Slaying Band were here, shaking down people for the craftsman goods the city were distributing, then they were likely spiriting it off back to Aldsville somehow.

Clenching her fists in anger, she headed back towards her actual home, her disguise forgotten. She was disgusted with the people here. Why weren’t any of them doing a thing about these thugs! All they’d have to do is say a single word about this to the administration, and Lord Reud would have his skeletons clear out the thugs in moments. Was there really not a single person willing to speak up?

But no, that was unfair. What the man had said was correct, the city administration really didn’t have a presence here. Ever since the district had been completed, there was no reason for them to return. Not even the undead had any reason to pass through the district.

It was no wonder the people felt abandoned.

In any large city, the guard would perform the task of cracking down on operations like this, along with giving people a feeling of protection. Srinaber had yet to establish anything like that, leaving it vulnerable to being exploited. The best they currently had was the volunteer organization of the watch, the group of men and women who patrolled the walls and watched for anyone approaching the city, and they barely had the numbers to watch the outside of the walls. There was no way they had the manpower to also monitor the interior.

An idea started to form in Rachel’s mind. It would take some work, but with any luck, they’d be able to crush any problems like this in the future before they grew.

All she needed was some undead.