GlassEye said:
Though Draconis had already left Ymris stands staring at the coin gleaming goldly on her palm. The image of the woman's face, the face from her dream, sends a chill racing down her neck and spine. She flips the coin, looking at both sides, then slowly closes her fingers around it and tucks it into her pouch.
Mind spinning with resurfacing memories of dream she quickly slips her pack onto her shoulders and exits the building to the street. Though she doesn't immediately spot him Ymris senses Ragged Thom and sends him feelings of urgency and possible danger before heading eastward towards the District of Leagues.
Old Thom was the first to dart out into the rain for once, yeowling at nothing in particular and looking miserable as a wet cat could. He bolted ahead down the street ahead of Ymris, the right way for a change, and occasionally waited beside a building for her to catch up before he yeowled again and patted off across the ruined cobblestones once more.
From what Senor Draconis had said, this journey was to be an easy and short one. The District of Leagues was only a few hours away, and as she travelled towards it, the presence of armed guards grew in proportion to the shops that appeared. A commercial district slowly grew around the two as they walked, though the people didn’t get much happier or well off.
The suburb built up around her, and after two solid hours of walking many of the buildings were five stories tall at least. Most were apartment blocks, but some were farms, inns or dozens of shops crammed together in what they called Blockmarkets*.
The markets came and went, offering little for Ymris. Old Thom seemed a little more comfortable here as the vermin ran free, safe from starving desperate people that would eat anything that moved. Crowds ignored him, and shopkeepers did not try to add him to their wares.
Thunder boomed softly in the distance and an unexpected warm breeze blew through the streets for a moment, lifting people’s spirits a little, before being sucked into the cold streets and plunging the suburb into depression once more.
Old signs hung limply on iron posts, pointing the District of Leagues that Ymris sought. Wagons and travellers bustled through the streets back and forth, and eventually the large compounds that comprised the eight universities and schools that was the District was in sight. Hundreds of people, students, merchants, travellers, scholars and sages ran through the streets trying to cover themselves, and their books, as the rain assaulted them.
Old Thom ducked in between Ymris’s legs as she made her way into Adzan Square, the large meeting of streets where the front of all eight school met, looking for cover from the unforgiving feet of running students. It was easy enough for Ymris to stop and question someone to the nature of her target, and a hastily pointed finger showed the way to a large compound surrounded by high stone walls containing at least a dozen small buildings and one large ten storey school that towered over the rest. One the closed iron gates, next to the dozen armed guards that stood in the streets, rested a sign.
The Zimmerman School for Girls
[sblock]*Blockmarkets typically filled with people selling wares that were imported from neighbouring suburbs or retrieved from the sewers. Many of them sold little more than food or trinkets to those that could afford both, but recently entire blockmarkets had converted to water purification businesses to cope with the unending storm that hung over the city.[/sblock]
