The Lower City Slums
The Clay Stairs
Image in progress
The Clay Stairs is a rather cruel euphemism for what the entrance to the mines truly is. In reality, the area is little more than a gigantic spiraling borehole into absolute, stiffing hot darkness. Very few people truly "live" on the Stairs, as they are little more tham 'open air' mines where clay and other construction materials are extracted from the rock face that surrounds the western side of the lower city slums. Safety is not a big concern and people die daily, plummeting down into the dark, richer mines below, hacking off important body parts with faulty equipment, or simply crushed under the commons mud and rockslides. It remains the Royal City's main source of construction material, however, which is necessary for the labyrinthine and massive lower city to be maintained. As the very bottom of the Clay Stairs are dozens of box lifts which lead into the under-city. The under-city is where much of the food for the Royal City is produced, whatever is not imported from Ordon, and coal and metals are extracted. The undercity also offers more dangerous day jobs for those with great needs and few opportunities, though the survival rate can be as bad as 50%, the others just see it less people to split their wages with. Before the elevators there is a large, Majai caravansary style building, with several stalls where one can do anything from buying ore, materials, food, to looking for jobs, both menial and insane.
Dakai hated it here, he could mess up at any moment. But he needed the money in a hurry to finish his projects, this was about his only option for fast cash. He needed to be on his toes. He stepped onto one of the lifts and pushed a bottom to lower it onto the worst part of the city, the undercity.
Dakai pushed the button to the lift, but it the massive structure refused to move, suddenly, the engineer was distracted by a voice coming from the caravansary right next to the lifts. "Oi! YOU!" said the voice, belonging to a fat, Daguerrian foreman making his way from the stalls. "What ARE you doin' you daft bloke?!" he added. The lifts were used to transport goods up and down from the undercity, so they were not for personal use. You had to go down with a group and you needed to have the right authorization to do it. Foremans and surveyors signed people up for jobs in the caravansary and then operate the lifts to send them down. "Get off'a there. If you wan' go down there you line up like th' rest of these sorry sods n' get a temp job!" he said as he opened the door to the massive lift and ordered Dakai out. There were several lines for jobs, some were more crowded than others, loaders and porters were there by the hundreds, crowding the stalls and getting job assignments in the shape of these little red slips the foremen handed out. It meant a position working the mines for the day. Among the other dozen stalls and positions, Miners were also crowded, scouting parties had far less people, and finally 'cleaners' had an almost empty line.
There was one thing the former noble hated that was still instilled in his blood, being talked down to. But he held his tongue and didn't say any quips in response as he examined the line. The best paying was obviously the most dangerous. "Well i have my wrench, wish i had some of the gloves but that's why I'm here, damn paradox."
Dakai sighed as he approached the cleaners line hesitantly. "Maybe it wont be so bad in all honesty." He psyched himself up.
"Ah! Good!" said a little old man whose face seemed to be composed almost entirely of a thick pair of goggles, a large, beakish, red nose and a massive mustache, as Dakai approached. He seemed to be the foreman in charge of the cleaner crews, as he sat in the little booth as the very end of the nearly non-existent cleaner line. "It seems we finally got a team together!" he added, reaching out and taking a quill and pen, before looking up at Dakai. "And Daguerrian, too. Maybe that means you have a bit more wits to you than these mongrels, kid. Who knows! You might be the team that comes back!" he smiled warmly, turning to the only two people who had been standing there before him. One of them was a medium height skinny Majai girl with sharp features and honey colored eyes. She had ear length, ratty black hair and a nasty scar over her left eye, running from the middle of her forehead, outwards towards her cheek. The girl could not have been older than 17 or 18 and was wearing old and worn Majai garb with knee length pants and a vest over a tight fitting, sleeveless shirt, a most traditional outfit among the people who worked the stiffing heat of the lower city. The other was a rather tall and powerfully built man with a vacant expression, his skin was lighter than the girl's and had his spiky hair cut very short, close to his scalp. The man had deep set eyes and a rather wide, square nose and jaw, wearing nothing but a pair of light, baggy pants, sandals and a sash that crossed over his chest and then wrapped around his waist. "So, you want to go down and do some cleaning, boy?" asked the little old daguerrian man, looking back at Dakai. "Pays 30 guerrmarks a person, teams of 3 people, no more, no less, if one dies the others don't get his wage, but can help themselves to his stuff."
"Im interested and in need of work sir."
Dakai greeted the man warmly knowing it was easier to get information and possibly better rates from someone who has a decent impression of you(charm). The tinkerer adjusted his belt for a moment his eyes straying to the other two, both seemed worn and battle experienced from her scars and his build, better chances of survival. "What are the recent reports sir? Any idea what the job will entail as of right now?" He asked, hoping to speak with the other two workers depending on what the foreman had to say about the job.
"Good!" said the tiny old man with what seemed to be a grin under his large, bushy mustache. "Put your mark here, boy." he added as he opened a huge ledger he kept on his desk. Dakai could see a long list of names, all of them Majai-sounding. At least half of the names had been crossed out with a single red line through them. "The job is easy, we give you a map, give you ol' Betsy there". He said as he pointed to an ancient clockwork Pulverizer, sitting behind him in the stall. "..And a map. You go down there, find the areas on the map, which is newly breached ground, and make sure it's all safe and sound for our boys to go and start extracting. Once everything is safe, you come back up here, turn in Betsy and get your pay."
"Well it sounds straight forward enough sir."
Dakai leaned forward to sign his name in handwriting in what most would recognize as that of an educated higher class even though he was here in the slums. He paused o n his last name, always unwilling to mention it since he was long disowned from his fathers estate but regretfully signed it anyway in case the government looked into anything. "Well i guess we are a team." He turned and smiled at the other two(charm).
"K..Kanta." replied the Majai girl with a light tinge of pink on her cheeks, though she was still frowning and had her arms crossed in front of her chest. "Kanta Bachchan." she added, before nodding towards the large man next to her. The difference in height and build between the slender, scrawny girl and the giant next to her was almost comical. "This here's Harun. He don't talk much." she continued. "He comes from th'outside. They's weird like that." she added. "I guess we are, what' yer name 'ngineer?" she asked.
"
Dakai." The engineer offered his hand to the two cheerfully. "Its a pleasure to work with you." He kept up his demeanor to earn their trust, if worse comes to worse, some sort of appeal would benefit him in a pinch. "So any specialties that you have?" He asked wanting to know more about his comrades in order to pre formulate some sort of strategies.
"Spe-sheltees?" asked Kanta as she cocked her head a bit, her black hair falling a bit over her tan skin and chocolate eyes. "You mean stuff we'z good at?" she added, leaning back against the rock wall behind her. "I'm fast. I can move all quiet like, cut a purse like nobody's business." she added, smirking a little bit with a glint of self confidence. "Harun is slow, but tough. He also knows a couple of spells. It's the only time you's gonna hear him talkin', too."
Well, they certainly are not the brightest of the bunch but then again I was raised around ego inflated intellectuals. "Great well then I have some knowledge about swinging a few punches and can take a decent blow but weapon wise i don't have much experience. Shall we start on our way?"
Dakai walked over to the pulverizer and gave it a lift. It was surprisingly unwieldy even with his decent build from hefting engineering parts around all day. He carried it back to the group thinking along the way. "Hey big guy, Harun was it? Think you would be better off swinging this thing than me?" He asked. "A nod or shake will do."
"You'll need somethin' down there though." said Kanta with a grin, as if pointing out Dakai had no idea what was waiting for them. Harun, in the meantime, nodded as he reached out and grabbed the Pulverizer. He seemed to have more ease than Dakai carrying the large pneumatic hammer, but didn't seem like he knew how to handle the controls any more than Dakai did.
"Well i would like to have some sort of weapon but that's kind of why i here. Im short on cash."
Dakai gave a bit of an embarrassed smile with a shrug. He hefted his large rusty wrench from his pouch with a lift swing. "Its not much but it will work as a club. If we keep Harun at our sides im sure most things would be intimidated." He turned back to the big guy. "Do you know how to get it to work?"
"Jus' go smashin' things n' pushing buttons Harun." said Kanta, patting the large man on the back as she did so. The girl almost had to get on the tips of her toes to reach, though. "'ell probably figure it out, if not, it's still a hammer, right?" she said as Harun nodded. "I got my dagger, so I guess we leave when you say w' leave, 'ngineer." she concluded as she nodded in the lift's direction. "Foreman 'll punch us down when we're in th' levator."
"Ok well lets head out."
Dakai approached the lift with that. "Cute accent(charm)." He added over his shoulder as they neared it.
Kanta went bright red as Dakai complimented her accent, simply glaring at him and letting out a short, "S-shut up!" before climbing on the lift. In the meantime, Harun let out a very short, deep chuckle as he too got on. Once Dakai was on as well, Harun lifted his hand and waved it in the direction of the tiny old Foreman. A few seconds earlier, the lift rattled like it was going to fall apart before taking a small, couple feet free-fall drop. Luckily for Dakai and the others, the drop was only some two or three feet before the lift set itself on the cradle that began slowly taking it down into the dark depths under the royal city, to WoW - Lift 110
Post here
Accessible areas:
Turn back and climb up to
WoW-Stonebend
Back to:
WoW - Lower City Slums
| Winter of Wolves | WoW - History | WoW - Characters | WoW - The Sea of Snow |
| WoW - Character Creation | WoW - Rules | WoW - Traits | WoW - Proficiencies | WoW - Equipment | WoW - Skills | WoW - Magic | WoW - Engineering | WoW - Schemes |
Stumble!