“Beware those who walk in the dark of the night. They rarely mean well.” - Old folk saying.

“It’s been a while since we took a walk together like this,” noted Eilonwy as she lightly tiptoed over the tiles of a roof without making even the slightest sound, as she trained to in the Death’s Hand. “Last time we did something like this together was when we were still training with instructor Yliz, wasn’t it? We had been pretty open when traveling with Aunt Aideen.”

“We did, didn’t we?” replied Kino from where she was doing the same one house away. Levain was built in an orderly manner, the houses gathered to form city blocks, so there were long stretches of continuous rooftops for people like them to run on. “You’re right, though. That was the last time we ran along the rooftops with a crowd like this.”

The whole group was present that night, taking a little “walk” to look over the city’s situation during the dark of night. Since all of them had some training, it was easy enough for them to traverse the rooftops without alerting others, made easier by how Levain’s buildings had roofs that were lines with tiles made out of baked, hardened clay for the most part.

Such tiles were sturdy and did not make much noise when stepped on, as long as one took care to avoid compromised tiles which might break under their weight. It was still far easier to traverse silently compared to other things they were made to traverse in training, like mud hovels or thatched huts. The worst was perhaps training to traverse over the fabric top of large tents without leaving tracks on it, as that required extra care.

Some of the roofs – presumably the houses belonged to richer people – were even covered in slabs or tiles of slate, which was even easier to walk over quietly due to its even higher durability. With the six of them dressed in dark clothing – so as to avoid being visible when silhouetted against the night sky – none were the wiser of their passage.

“It’s pretty much like we expected down there,” noted Aideen from the head of the group. With her experience, she naturally moved even more gracefully over the roof tiles than even the elven siblings, as she had to resort to moving around that way more than a few times in her centuries of life so far. “Pretty active nightlife, all considered.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“Not sure I’d call that a positive, Aunt,” noted Rhys as he followed behind his sisters, both of whom were faster and more graceful than he was in activities like this. “Seems to me like there’s a lot of illicit trade going around where the eyes can’t see at night. Some of those places where the poor seem to congregate also reminds me a bit too much of the drug dens we’ve seen before.”

“They are drug dens, Rhys, just a bit less blatant than usual about themselves,” said Áine after she took a glance at where Rhys was looking. “This place probably still has enough order that they can’t afford to operate things like those openly, even if the underworld elements in the city seem well-established. Probably some recent changes?”

“I did recall overhearing that the Emperor before this one’s father had a very hard stance against drugs that affect the mind. I guess whatever rulings they made didn’t survive their son or grandson taking over,” replied Eilonwy with a shrug. “I’d bet on the grandson, personally. These joints look too haphazardly put together for them to have been around for long, so it’s definitely some very recent changes that let them sprout again.”

“The drugs themselves are not to blame,” countered Aideen. “Many of them have uses in treatments and medicine, especially for when you have no healer around. The problem is that people misuse them in ways they are decidedly not intended to be used, and that ends up with everything being seen as bad as a result. Folly like these just ends up setting back progress more often than not.”

“I don’t know if you kids remember it or not, since it happened when you were all still studying, I think Kino had just joined up for less than a decade or so at the time, but around a century ago several of the jarldoms banned and tried to eradicate a herb that people were using to intoxicate themselves,” she added. “Indeed, if that herb was dried, then roasted and steeped in ale, it made for a blend that was both mind-altering and highly addictive.”

“I don’t recall hearing about this, but we were probably too young back then,” noted Áine. “What happened next?”

“They forgot that the herb was also a crucial part for the cure of an illness endemic to the region. The illness was mostly eradicated by then, with barely any cases showing up over the past century or so, so people got complacent and mostly forgot about it,” replied Aideen. “Take a guess what happened shortly after those Jarldoms successfully wiped out most of the herbs that grew in their territory?”

“The illness came back with a vengeance?” guessed Kino.

“Got it in one. It took them some digging through old texts to even recognize the illness for what it was, and more digging to realize that the herb they had been eradicating was a key component to its cure. If not for the fact that the herb was pretty widespread and still thrived in other Jarldoms that were willing to export them, things would have gotten far uglier,” explained Aideen. “As it was, though, those Jarldoms still paid a price for the decision they made in ignorance.”

“How bad was it?”

“Nearly one in seven dead or permanently crippled without magical aid. I heard the news since I was also keeping track of any major movements amongst the healer community back then. Goes to show that people tend to forget their past far too soon.”