The Chained Maiden_Bound by Fate by Ian Rodgers

Author:Ian Rodgers [Rodgers, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-08-30T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10: Den of rats and thieves

The next several hours were frantic ones for Dora and her friends. To evade the law, they had to go through numerous side alleys, cut across decrepit slums, and at one point squeeze their way through a – mercifully empty – sewage tunnel. The whole escape was unpleasant, not to mention nerve-wracking, as almost the entire time, the group could hear shouting, clanking, and swearing aimed their way.

But at last, after ascending three whole levels and avoiding the grim-faced, brown and grey armored figures that were Down’s guard forces, they made it to an area of the ever-growing city that was seemingly abandoned.

The group emerged from the attic of an old building that had been designed in the Varian kingdom’s old Gothic style, into the cellar of a mansion that had one point had no doubt been a stunning sight to see with its impressive carved stonework. But now, age and looting had reduced the proud manor to a sagging ruin.

As for the rest of area, as far as the eye could see, there was little that wasn’t dusty, tumbled down, or in some way broken. The street lights that had helped the lower levels of Down stay lit were non-functioning, many broken into in an effort to get at the magic tools within. A heavy darkness that reminded Dora of the tunnels she’d wandered through earlier in Gaeum lay across everything.

“I think we’ve shaken ‘em off,” Dora said as she leaned against a rusty old drain pipe that was near the stone mansion’s entrance. The thought occurred to her that it was an odd addition for a house that was in a place that never experienced rain.

She looked around at the crumbling remains of countless buildings. “Where are we, anyways?”

“Floor Nine,” Long-Tail-Shadow informed her, the young Rakkar woman looking around furtively. “One Floor below the absolute limit-end of habitability in Down.”

“How do you mean?” Enrai asked from where he sat on the mansion’s worn and moss-covered porch.

“Down is ever expanding, so the numbers shift constantly. But there are some things that stay the same. Floor Zero is the level where construction-building takes place. Floor One is where the nobility-masters and rich-lords live,” Long-Tail-Shadow explained, drawing a small diagram in the dirt for them.

“Floor Six is where the flesh-market was, and it’s considered the end of ‘civilized’ space for Down. Floors Seven to Nine are the slums. The actual, genuine, ones. These are the regions-domains not even the law will venture, as it’s too deadly-risky.”

“What’s on Floor Ten and above?” Ain inquired, wearing a worried frown.

“Monsters,” the Rakkar replied. “Monsters and all the things in Gaeum you do not want to meet-greet. When Down finishes building Floor Zero, it turns into the new Floor One. And everything shifts downwards. In a few centuries, this floor will become the new Floor Ten, and the one below will be Floor Nine. And when that happens, the monsters enter-invade. Some are nasty-cruel and territorial. Others just plain evil-mean.

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