The Old City

0.32: The Blackalley

The Blackalley. One of the shittier slums in Soran, sequestered away into the first level of the Underground. A quarter mile of aged tenements were crumbling yet crowded with undesirables, those poor souls even the First Ring didn't want.

Sunlight never reached this place, but water did. Corrosion from the Bay of Soran dripped in from the ceiling and the walls and beat against the buildings below. Centuries of saltwater pooled atop their roofs and transformed them into sagging globs of concrete. The rickety apartments had no windows, not that there was ever a view.

The Blackalley was the densest community in the Underground, hosting between twenty and fifty thousand people alone. Nobody cared to try finding out the true number. Even with the nearby shelter, many homeless littered the streets, living and dead. They were bent like the trees along the northern cliffs, constantly berated by the wind so they leaned at an angle. What clothing they owned, if they could be said to own anything, was raggedy and torn.

A man's tenure in the Blackalley was betrayed by his pallor. The newest ones still had a little color in their faces, though they'd lost their hope long ago. The old ones, the ones who had spent decades in this repugnant cavern, were white and translucent like ghosts, all the life bleached out of them. Some were even possessed of greenish skin that hung from their bones. True corpses were strewn about at various levels of decomposition. Some people occasionally tried pushing the corpses to side streets, away from the buildings, but there were too many to move.

The stench was overwhelming. 

Mostly they were old cripples, addicts, or the dying. Yes, the Blackalley was the place for people to come and pass on. There were no hospitals, nor were there doctors, but centuries of death clung to this place and made its inhabitants uniquely accepting of her. One couldn't walk ten paces without hearing someone's final gasps. 

Seneca and Mika walked down these morose subterranean roads by the dim glow of crystal. He provided a minute, steady stream of aura to keep the light. A soft breeze swept over the cavern, which harbored the sick stench of decay.

"Where is Wheelock?" Mika whispered. 

Seneca nodded to one of the buildings. It was more of a shack, its walls made of ripped up boards and torn canvas that looked like it had been salvaged of wrecked vessels off the Jaws.

It's amazing how much shit ends up down here...

"Have you spent a lot of time down here?" Mika asked.

"I haven't spent much time anywhere. It's been years since I was in the Blackalley, but it has a way of stickin' with you: it's the only place in the Underground where I don't need a map. My mother ended up here when I was young, but I stayed topside. She didn't think it was a place for kids."

"I'm sorry. She was right though. I couldn't imagine raisin' Fagin here."

"Plenty of kids are trapped here. People have a way of stickin' around."

He cut the conversation off and moved toward the shelter. There was no door - privacy hardly existed or was sought in the Underground - so they walked in, their steps crunching softly over random debris that had accumulated over the centuries. The apartment was on the second floor, a mercy for the man who had such trouble moving.

For a broken man, Wheelock Nemo had surprising life in his eyes. His left arm had been severed at the wrist - and not cleanly. Jagged scars marked his stub, betraying the unsteady or brutal hand of whoever had done it. He walked with a limp, a wound from a war he'd fought before Seneca had been born. His hair was now just the final whispers of grey; he would have looked marginally better if he shaved it all.