Prologue...
Mandratha in daylight was a sore spot to any being's senses. The gray never left the litter strewn streets or the ramshackled buildings in the alleys intertwining through the large port city. The smells from the open air produce stands and fishmonger's markets increased as soon as the shops were open and never wafted away, as if the odors felt at home in the city. The sounds of wooden wheels over cobblestones seemed to create a white noise in its almost ignorable constancy. Voices...bartering and begging both...filled the air during the day, ringing out in monotonous undertones to any who had been in the city for any length of time.
At night, though, those sounds were replaced by the raucous celebration of a city that simply survived through another day of existence. The gray colors remained, accentuated only by the darker black shadows of sharp alley corners produced by the hanging lights on the main thoroughfares. The smells were reduced to only slightly memorable odors stuck on the wood of the buildings and the stone of the streets...a memorial to the time when daylight was dominant and those who dwelled in it had more wholesome thoughts on their minds.
An air of tension always came with the other more easily sensed aspects of a night in Mandratha. Here, crime was a major part of the culture and economy. An underworld existed here and spread its fingers to other cities all over the continent of Amrahly"nn and beyond. Like any culture, crime existed and here, specifically, it flourished.
The people of Mandratha, like most denizens of major cities in Amrahly"nn took care when walking at night...if they ever left their homes and hovels to begin with. Rowdies roamed, just looking to pummel someone for the sheer alcohol-induced pleasure of it; cut purses could make a good living off of a night's take, if given the right victim and murders took place in front of blind eyes the majority of the time. It was understood that no protection was afforded by the constabulary, as those of the law were just as brutal as those they were trying to catch.
Mandratha had gotten a partial reprieve from the chaos of the night in the recent months, though. The guild of assassins that was rumored to have taken up residency in Mandratha had failed to take purchase on the lips of the gossipers and the wise lately. No more sightings of the ghost cathedral that lay at the end of Bleckard Street. No more vague stories about the Black Sabbath and his brother, the Lord of the Jackals or their cadre of followers crossed the lips of the populace. The rumors about their deeds had simply ceased in the latest months. They were gone, most said, or had just moved on to greener pastures.
Those who knew better had their views of the downfall of Sanctuary and used this quiet time to make plans of their own, to rebuild and rethink the courses their lives took. They had a new leader now, a person who sparked some controversy in his seeming return to the realm...and his plans to restore the guild to its former self.
This mistrust was flamed by the fact that he was, inadvertently, the cause of the downfall of the guild to begin with.
Mandratha in daylight was a sore spot to any being's senses. The gray never left the litter strewn streets or the ramshackled buildings in the alleys intertwining through the large port city. The smells from the open air produce stands and fishmonger's markets increased as soon as the shops were open and never wafted away, as if the odors felt at home in the city. The sounds of wooden wheels over cobblestones seemed to create a white noise in its almost ignorable constancy. Voices...bartering and begging both...filled the air during the day, ringing out in monotonous undertones to any who had been in the city for any length of time.
At night, though, those sounds were replaced by the raucous celebration of a city that simply survived through another day of existence. The gray colors remained, accentuated only by the darker black shadows of sharp alley corners produced by the hanging lights on the main thoroughfares. The smells were reduced to only slightly memorable odors stuck on the wood of the buildings and the stone of the streets...a memorial to the time when daylight was dominant and those who dwelled in it had more wholesome thoughts on their minds.
An air of tension always came with the other more easily sensed aspects of a night in Mandratha. Here, crime was a major part of the culture and economy. An underworld existed here and spread its fingers to other cities all over the continent of Amrahly"nn and beyond. Like any culture, crime existed and here, specifically, it flourished.
The people of Mandratha, like most denizens of major cities in Amrahly"nn took care when walking at night...if they ever left their homes and hovels to begin with. Rowdies roamed, just looking to pummel someone for the sheer alcohol-induced pleasure of it; cut purses could make a good living off of a night's take, if given the right victim and murders took place in front of blind eyes the majority of the time. It was understood that no protection was afforded by the constabulary, as those of the law were just as brutal as those they were trying to catch.
Mandratha had gotten a partial reprieve from the chaos of the night in the recent months, though. The guild of assassins that was rumored to have taken up residency in Mandratha had failed to take purchase on the lips of the gossipers and the wise lately. No more sightings of the ghost cathedral that lay at the end of Bleckard Street. No more vague stories about the Black Sabbath and his brother, the Lord of the Jackals or their cadre of followers crossed the lips of the populace. The rumors about their deeds had simply ceased in the latest months. They were gone, most said, or had just moved on to greener pastures.
Those who knew better had their views of the downfall of Sanctuary and used this quiet time to make plans of their own, to rebuild and rethink the courses their lives took. They had a new leader now, a person who sparked some controversy in his seeming return to the realm...and his plans to restore the guild to its former self.
This mistrust was flamed by the fact that he was, inadvertently, the cause of the downfall of the guild to begin with.