The Lower City Slums

Red Ribbon Road

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Description in Progress

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The Red Ribbon Road, which precludes the Mage Market, is one of the most popular and well known streets in the lower city. The rows of houses on the right and left go from the humblest hovel to manors rare outside of the upper city. Across the street, long lengths of wire and rope have been strung from house to house, and on it hang thousands of red pieces of cloth. These red ribbons originally meant to point out brothels and pleasure houses to Majai and Daguerrian alike, and now covered the Red Ribbon Road. Each house on it deals with pleasure, from the Majai dancers at the lavish Khurzai House, to the wild women of the Candlelight Inn. From the richest to the poorest can find something to buy at the Red Ribbon Road. Being deeper underground, it is much hotter here than in the upper city, the very air feels hot and moist and smells of sex, perfume, roses, spices and incense. The combination is intoxicating as hundreds of people dot the street. Engineers, peddlers, back alley prostitutes and classy Majai courtesans, majai and Shah, broad shoulders Kkala seeking to spend blood money on a good time, whole families of Amiri living at a storefront. This was probably the place where a Daguerrian man would be less of an oddity than anywhere else in the Lower city.

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Upon entering this region, beads of sweat almost immediately began dotting Paki's features. This was largely due to the fact that his time on the train and at the station had let him grow accustomed to cooler air--some of it downright cold! Of course, since he had spent most of his life in the underground city, the heat did not bother him nearly as much as it would a newcomer. The occasional whiff of a particularly strong incense, however, did cause some sneezing. "Aah... This one-" he motioned to a nearby building "-is always bothering my nose. Whatever they use, though, is rare enough to make Chionesu a rich man!" Once his explanation to Brant was complete, he sneezed again. Maybe he should have moved a bit farther away from the building instead of stopping right in front of it...

Brant too felt perspiration form on his brow and body from the increase in temperature, but his blood was also fired by the various forms displaying their 'wares'. Some time spent here would be well worth it, he thought, spying an especially lithe Majai prostitute. The adult adventures he had here would be tales to bring back to Ordon. But he had a companion, and a destination to reach first. "Some of this incense would be good to pick up on my way back through," he said in conversation to the Kkala at his side. Still, his eyes were drawn to the various whorehouses that dotted the street sides.

Daiyu emerged into the road and glanced around. Her head was held stiffly correct as her accusing eyes swept over the sights in front of her. This was what they had done to her people. She thought bitterly as she saw Shah girl's who were obviously whores. She forced herself to drop her eyes and continue on her way to the Mage's Market by going through WoW - Malak's Hand.

"Ah! Of course!" Paki grinned in response. "If Chionesu is half the man I remember of him, then he will welcome you to his shop with open arms! His is among the most renowned stores for incenses and herbs. He knows mixtures better than anyone!" With that, he continued leading Brant towards WoW - Malak's Hand.

With a final lingering look at some of the bodies on display, Brant followed Paki through to WoW - Malak's Hand.

Ferah came on to the road and continued along it without looking round much. The prostitutes and peddlers didn't bother, not even the Amiri ones - some of her people found selling their bodies dishonourable, but Ferah knew that it was the customers who were getting the short end of the straw. "Have you ever been down this way before, Ranger?" she asked Rill.

Rill loosened his clothing a little since he was dressed more for the outside than the temperature around these parts. "Yeah, once or twice I guess. I go to places when I don't have anything to do." Evidently he was a ranger both outside and inside cities. He even planned his trip within cities often enough but didn't much care if he went off his intended route. Now, outside the cities he was much more careful to stay on the route as much as it was possible. "Did you grow up here?" he asked, wondering whether the place was suitable for teenagers.

"I did," Ferah said solemnly, continuing along the street. "Although our home was on Stonebend, these streets were my schooling." The memories of dealing with other street children came to her and she smirked. "The Red Ribbon Road, though, this was the kind of place our parents frowned upon."

Suddenly, Rill stopped and stared at one of the houses and a woman at its door. He quickly turned at Ferah. "Um... Wait a moment. There's a, um... I need to go check." He made his way to the pleasure house. If his earlier staring had been awkward, this was even more so since he kept his eyes at the brooch the Majai woman was wearing and didn't come up with anything to say too soon. When he did, it wasn't exactly a nice greeting. "Where... where did you get that?" he asked and pointed at the brooch.

As Rill suddenly stepped away from Ferah, she noticed him make a beeline for one of the nearby pleasure houses, and more specifically, an unremarkable Majai prostitute standing outside of a particular brothel. "Up for some fun, stranger?" she asked with a seductive smirk tugging at her lips. She looked up, noticing Rill had just pulled away from Ferah and rushed over to her and added, "That dry old woman can't be very fun. I'll make you a special d-" she began to say when Rill suddenly asked about her brooch. The woman's smile quickly vanished into thin air and she crossed her arms in front of her rather ample chest. "What is it to you, engineer? T'is my business, my brooch, not yours. Now if you want what I have to offer, I'll happily deal."

"Huh? I'm not an engineer," said Rill as a side comment. "It's just... well, I'm sorry, I have other things to do right now – but maybe later? I just, well, that brooch, I gave it to a special person about two years ago. How come you have it?" He managed to lift his eyes from the brooch to look at the Majai's face.

At first Ferah thought the ranger was looking for some 'service' but when she heard his enquiry she joined him in front of the prostitute. From what it sounded like, the woman had stolen the particular piece of jewelry from someone Rill knew. She merely stood there, her arms crossed.

The woman appeared to doubt for a second when Rill continued to inquire about her brooch. She moved her arms from over her chest and placed her on her hip, smirking lightly. "All of you Daguerrians are engineers down here, sweetie." she said, seductively switching out the foot which was supporting her weight. "Tell you what, you make it worth my while and I might just tell you where this brooch came from."

The engineer note didn't make much of an impression on Rill – he'd probably forget it within an hour. He frowned a bit but didn't get stuck. "Okay," he said, dug two coins out of his backpack and gave them to the woman.

Ferah tried to avoid her frown growing any further. The whore could easily give them false information in return for the money. Still, Rill had helped her - it was only right she helped him in return. And her family member hopefully wouldn't be moving away from the Mage Market in the next few minutes.

The woman looked at Ferah with distrust for a second, Majai were somehow always able to tell she'd been marked, but it seemed that since the woman was not an Amiri like Ferah was, it didn't bother her TOO much. "A bit dry, love, but it'll do for a couple of minutes of my time." said the woman with a smirk. "I got this beauty off a customer a few weeks ago." she said, completely unabashed, after all, there was no established law or rights in the lower city other than those you could claim with your own hands. "Now he didn't give it willingly, I'll 'fess to that. But the sick bastard had it coming."

Rill frowned at the idea that he'd have to go looking for some dubious type person to find where HE had gotten the brooch, not to mention that it might've been too long ago. He wasn't going to leave it yet, still. "I don't care about that," commented Rill to the mention about the man not parting with the brooch willingly. He took out another guerrmark from his backpack and handed it over. "Can you describe him or tell me where I could find him or anything else?" (Sense motive or something to that effect)

The woman almost stepped back for a second as Rill replied, declaring he did not care about the circumstances by which the brooch had come into her possession. However, the extra coin seemed to persuade her not to walk away quite yet. "Engineer, like ye. About your height. You all look alike. He had a small, trim beard and blonde hair.... don't remember much else. It was dark." she said, there was a clear fear in her voice as she spoke, which Rill picked up. "He picked me up a few blocks off of here, on a side street, right off of Stonebend, close to the entrance to red ribbon road. They call it Dead End Street. One can always get work there, but it's dangerous work." she concluded, the slight flirtatiousness she had originally displayed was all but gone now. "Is that it?" she asked, seemingly ready to leave.

"This Dead End Street might be worth a look," Ferah said to Rill. She'd been surprised at how much information the woman had given for such a small fee. A sudden thought came to her. "One last thing. Do you hear any tales from the surface? About monsters in the snow?" It was a long shot, but there was no harm in seeing if the prostitute knew about the wolf creatures.

Rill had a mild frown as he listened to the description. "Thanks." He was about to say he didn't have anything more to ask, but didn't when Ferah stepped forth to ask more. Instead, he started writing down the description.

The prostitute looked like she wanted to leave by then, probably not used to being hounded by questions, let alone being asked such strange things. When Ferah stepped forward, she almost scoffed. "You're costing me my time, lady. I've never even been to the surface and most of my customers haven't either. Rangers and Lords with tales of the surface seldom hire girls on the street." she added before she turned around and walked off, trying to get lost in the crowd before they asked her more things.

Ferah turned to Rill and shook her head. "Worth a shot," she muttered. "Now, where did you want to head? There might still be some sign of evidence in the location the... Woman talked about." Mentioning her trade out loud was a little too much for the Amiri. "Or, if you want rest, we can find my family member. I leave the decision to you - helping you in this endeavour would go some way towards me repaying you for saving my life."

Rill frowned a bit as he listened to what Ferah had to say. "I didn't plan on doing this but... well, I guess I should check that place out, just in case. If we can't find anything soon enough, let's look for that relative of yours, I can go there back later." Rill started heading toward the place that the prostitute had described. "If you want stories about the surface, it's better to ask rangers. I can tell you a few but I don't think they can shed any light on what happened to us."

"That sounds agreeable to me," Ferah said with a nod before heading in the direction the prostitute had indicated. "Have you ever heard of these creatures before, or encountered them before? I mean those wolf-man things we fought." A small shudder took her by surprise - the howls they'd let out had been one of the first things to cause her fear. "And did you mention them to the guards who took is in on arrival? Perhaps a Ranger's testimony may go some way towards..." She hesitated. "... towards delaying my execution."

"Not... those specifically, and I've never, never encountered anything like that. They were like corpses, I've seen enough of those to know one, but they weren't... they moved," answered Rill as he walked. "But, wait, there was this one story about people made of ice who want to eat humans. But did they want to eat us?" Rill went back to WoW - Stonebend.

A worried frown creased Ferah's brow as she followed Rill to WoW - Stonebend.

Post here

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Accessible areas:
Go forth to WoW - Malak's Hand
Go back to WoW - Stonebend

Back to:
WoW - Lower City Slums

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