"I thank you." The man nods slowly, the greyness in his eyes failing to do his gratitude justice. You follow the Dustman outside.
Outside, the first patter rain begins to fall. The sky is dim, antipeak quickly approaching, the air a mixture of damp, smog and the faint glint of lights in the distance of the ring. The glistening streets have emptied since you last saw them, most honest-working cutters heading inside their cases for the night. Drifting through the still air, you can just about make out the distant sound of merriment coming form some unseen tavern. Rarely during the day does the Cage get this quiet, and seeing the streets at this time of day certainly paints a different picture of the place, lending it an ‘unearthly’ quality, like dark dream, somehow soothing, somehow familiar.
That vision will not last, and you get closer to the Hive, things begin to change. The Lower Ward (your home for most of the night so far), while far from being the Jewel in the Lady’s crown, is a decent enough place to kip… but as you put more distance between yourselves and the ‘Wayfarer’ , and The Hive looms ever closer, things begin to take on different appearances. The sounds of the night life gradually give way to a malignant silence, pregnant with the menace of what may lie hidden in ambush in the darkness that is rapidly increasing around you.
Buildings that were until moments ago only slightly out of sync soon loose all sense of purpose and design, becoming sinister structures more akin to something from a Bleaker’s nightmare than anything else. ‘Proper’ structures – those with purpose and true tenants become sparser, giving way to more irregular plots; some no more than abandoned shells, others refuges to those who retain enough sanity to know that banding together is best chance of surviving the night. Stinking pits, homes to the destitute, the Lost, the Barmy are what this place seems to be made of. The streets are littered with rubbish, dead strays and all manner of rotten refuse. As the rain gets a grip on the darkening night sky, water begins to trickle into large puddles in the roads, creating a foul combination of mud and slimy dust.
Sinister noises, low grunts, distant howls and a pervasive grumbling that seems to come from the buildings themselves fill the air as you finally leave the Lower Ward Behind, heralding you into the Hive
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