A young man living in the slums has an opportunity to become an alchemist. His Dyslexia (seriously who decided to spell a word with that definition this way!?) causes issues and the Master Alchemist wants him gone. This means a short, harsh, life on the streets and an all-but-guaranteed early death. Forces outside mortal control result in in deadly weather followed by plague and lack of food. Many die, and those that survive often do so by taking from others and leaving them to die. Unable to save the children in the orphanage where he was raised our MC does what he can for the children he finds within the dying city. During a time when the people of the Slums should come together there is division and death. Small battles rage through the middle city and richer areas are protected by high walls, crossbow bolts, and magic. This will be a November 2023 Writathon Submission. That being said I will do what I can to edit and arrange the story for publication. I will be making a pass to edit before publishing each chapter / section but mistakes will get thorough (see what I did there.) I have no idea on size of chapters and will likely write until the scene / section is done and then publish. This can result in larger works as I've noticed I write 5k, then need to break that up into smaller chapters. Please comment if you find spelling / grammar mistakes, or plot holes / sections you don't understand. I'm working a full time job (Mark V Combustion Turbine outage with 10-14 hour days) and writing when I get the chance so I expect there to be a lot of mistakes I miss in my quick edit paths. I don't foresee massive "go-back-and-fix edits" but if so I'll try to add the edit to the next chapter and what it is editing in a spoiler tag, as well as where I did the edit in the past. (e.g. you should be able to just start reading and not have to revisit chapters even if in my mistakes I have to ret-con something.)