#obsianopen

Dáithí had a very extensive vocabulary, even if they said so themself. Elves were naturally verbose, and even if, as people were so fond of pointing out, Dáithí was only a half-elf, they had been raised by elves. They had read, if not every book in the Lathlaeril family’s library, then most of them. They spoke three languages, including Draconic. Draconic!

Even so, they had no words for how horrific this entire situation was. They had a good dozen questions, at least half of them rhetoric and/or accusatory, but the little human hadn’t given them a single chance to ask anything before ushering them out into the city and slamming the door. And they were supposed to just... go with it? Be alright with being told ‘hard luck, you live here now’?

At least they’d gotten their things back. They could probably quite easily live without the daggers or their quarterstaff, but there were some really quite expensive things in their component bag, and they would have raised this entire hellhole of a city to the ground if any of the strange jailers had attempted to steal their ring.

They scowled down at the letter they’d been given, tapping a finger against the quarterstaff thoughtfully. For once, they had absolutely no desire to investigate their apparent lodgings, but the rest of the city was another matter entirely. A mysterious, apparently sentient city? Not part of the Underdark, or at least very, very far down. Lit, so it wasn’t likely this was a drow or duregar city, especially considering the guards had looked human. They’d never been comfortable with letting a mystery lie, and they certainly weren’t going to start now.

It was... probably too risky to try casting any spells, especially in an apparently populated area, so they’d fall back on their favourite alternative. The map they’d been given didn’t point anything out, so...

     “I thought it’d be the end of me...”

Tsuzuramaru sighed long and tiredly, fastening his sword along his belt as he was finally released from the ‘prison’ place he had been thrown to.

He could swore he had just been buying dango when everything blacked out, just to awaken inside a lonely and cold cell. He’d done nothing wrong! Well, maybe he had ate some of the dango for the jizo statues in his way to Edo, but that was totally understandable! He haven’t ate a thing in the way there and Buddha was always kind to those who suffer of hunger.

It was a relief when he was allowed to finally, leave the tiny room, the money from his bodyguard job, his sword and even his loyal pigeon being handed back to him. Well, at least he wasn’t completely alone.

Now, he hadn’t really managed to read much of the paper in his hands so he wasn’t completely sure of what was going on. Or what should he do. The sight of completely unfamiliar houses all around making a knot form on his throat.

     “Whither shall we go, Hayato?”

This place was vile. A step up from Sanctuary, perhaps, but vile nonetheless. At least in Sanctuary she hadn’t been snatched away in the night and thrown into some nasty little cell, or had some horrid little man talk at her for, frankly, altogether too long. He’d reminded her of Alistair, too, which certainly wasn’t helping matters.

She had barely listened to his explanation of what was going on, impatiently tapping a foot until he had finally handed over her things. If the little toe-rag had laid one filthy finger on her frost diadem, she was absolutely going to shoot him right between the eyes. She was probably going to do that anyway. It was severely disappointing the letter didn’t leave any clue as to who had dared inflict this place upon her, but no matter. She’d happily slaughter the whole place if anybody dared try to keep her from leaving. She was almost tempted not to leave, and have a little fun instead, but the tattooed redhead was probably already hiring assassins to murder her for running away.

C’est la vie. Time to go back to Sanctuary, then. A pity the letter she’d had forced on her didn’t point out any fast travel points, and her ECHO device seemed to be on the blink. She could just walk and hope for the best, but…

Zeerith prided himself on, at the very least, being able to pretend he was doing alright in any situation. A calm head, that was him. Waking up behind bars in what was unmistakably an underground city, though, with no memory of how he’d found himself there? That had caused a deep, all-encompassing panic. In Zee’s experience, the only cities below ground belonged to the duregar, or the drow. Either way, it was bad for him. Illdath had a lot of contacts.

If the little human hadn’t have come along to let him out when he did, Zeerith would have forced his way out of the barred window, and to the hells with his belongings.

The panic hadn’t quite passed. He had his hood up, ponytail tucked carefully away to prevent it swinging forward. He’d felt the face scarf was a little too much, and left it off, though he’d kept the tinted glasses on. A little suspicious in the gloom, maybe, but they hid his eyes. The casual observer probably wouldn’t suspect he was an elf at all, let alone guess who he was, which was the point. He’d needed a minute to gather himself.

He was pretty certain now, at least, this wasn’t a drow city. Not enough spider motifs, or people being gutted in the street. Or drow, if you wanted to get technical. Which didn’t explain what this city was, or why he was here. Or why he felt... not like himself. He hadn’t listened to the human’s explanation in the prison, too busy expecting a knife in his back.

Trying to read the letter he’d been given while he was still walking seemed like a recipe for disaster, which hadn’t stopped him trying. He didn’t want to stay still. It made trying to read very difficult too, especially with his glasses also in the way, but there hadn’t been any serious disasters. At least, until somebody’s outstretched foot caught his, sending him flying. And dropping the letter square in a puddle, along with his hand and half his sleeve.

To be perfectly honest, Ashara wasn’t all that distressed at her new predicament. She hadn’t had anywhere she needed to be, anything she needed to do or anyone to miss her really. She’d had only two aims on her journey; be somewhere that wasn’t home, and try to be of help to whoever she could. As far she was concerned, Ashara could accomplish both those things quiet easily right where she was.

Of course, a place that stole people from different planes and trapped them with no way out did sound just a tad ominous, but Ashara was reserving judgement. She knew what it was like to have well, extenuating circumstances surrounding your actions. 

First things first though, she needed to figure out where her lodgings where. Whilst Ashara certainly wasn’t opposed to roughing it in the outdoors, she didn’t see the point of going without a bed when one was freely offered. Hitching a smile onto her face, she jogged over to the nearest person with a hand raised in greeting.

Trying to find work in Obsian was much harder than it looked. Despite being a dark, desolate, and disturbing place, Obsian didn’t have a lot of openings. The pubs needed no waitstaff or dishwashers. Emily had no experience in cooking. An unfortunate consequence of having grown up in privilege. Working in the markets was only profitable if she had her own shop. Of course, that’s why she’d been working with Jack–Emily had no desire to run a business.

This is how she’d come to work at the docks. It was actually very comforting. Dunwall–and all of the islands–relied on the sea for livelihood. Emily knew more than a bit about the sea, having studied how to govern sea-locked lands entire life, so the dock manager took pity on her. There was no possible way she could load and unload cargo like the other dockers. Tying knots and securing cargo was no problem. Lifting? Emily had lots of talents but being exceptionally strong was not one of them.

The manager, Hadrick, liked her well enough. Maybe. It was a bit difficult to tell because she wasn’t sure he was human and his face was strange. But he gave her a job working in a small office as a quality control manager. At least, that’s how Hadrick had described he position.

He’d wrapped a strong arm around her shoulder and squeeze. “Ah! S’always goodta see the newcomers! Haven’ta seena person accustomeda the waters in a bit of time!” He then squeezed harder. “Buta lady like yous? Nix!”

So, into the office she went. Well, “office” was a bit generous. Stacks of yellowed crumpled papers that dwarfed her sat everywhere but in the area where a dirty desk sat. One window looked out on the dark sea. Not quite what she’d been training for all her life, but at least she was familiar with mundane bureaucracy. And it paid a glimmer and a half a day. Honestly, a bit horrible considering every day she was expected to visit all the docks and draw up daily inventory reports.

Hadrick often asked her, “S’how yous get by’fore this?”

Well, I’m an empress who was stolen by Obsian and I placed a large amount of trust in the first man I met. After a few small odd jobs, I started working for this man. But then this man and I grew close. Very close. If I didn’t know certain things about him and had I not put him through a large amount of pain, I probably wouldn’t be avoiding him. Or the other way around. I’d like to avoid any more… I don’t know what. But, I had to stop working for him. I just didn’t tell him I stopped working for him. Also, I’d like him to not know about what I was planning on doing but I’m afraid that if he asked, I’d tell him because I trust him. But, I also don’t trust him.

”...shit, balls, shit, crap, arse… give you comfortable, you arse-faced… Shit!“

It probably wasn’t hard to tell Sera was having a terrible time of it. She swore with every step she took, clutching her bow so tight her knuckles were white, jumping at every noise.

This was a nightmare. Had to be, right? Cities that stole you? Nightmare crap. Getting snatched from safe places? Nightmare crap! Weird tricky little magic horsecrap marks she didn’t want? Definitely nightmare crap!

So it was a bad dream, and not happening. She’d wake up any second to Creepy staring at her again all worried and weird, and she’d chase him off and then go pinch a load of fancy cakes meant for the big-hats and eat them till she felt better.

Any second.

“I need glass jars,” Emily explained. “Lots of them. Know any vendors who are stable?”

Giraud considered her. For someone she once threatened, he treated her well enough. Although, for all she knew, he was slowly collecting information on her habits and would sell her out at a moment’s notice. Oh, well. Wouldn’t be the first time. Thick piles of bright purple cloth that smelled like sewer lifted up and a withered, crooked finger pointed south. “You’ll be wantin’ Jomy down near the southr’n end. Usually has glassware.”

And then he held out his hand expectantly.

Emily didn’t even ask. Nothing was free here. She dropped two slivers into the dry well of his palm and made her way south. Asking specifically how to get there would be useless.

She felt incredibly unsafe in the market. Always something watching her. Mostly the shopkeepers but there were animals too. Crows and ravens often stayed near the food vendors, hoping to make away with scraps. The place was lousy with cats, most of who could be found sleeping. She’d almost gotten the hang of the way some alleys disappeared or shifted. That didn’t mean she still understood the rules. But maybe there were none and her silly idea of tracking types of changes was ridiculous.

Maybe she was just trying to do something to make her feel like wasn’t completely helpless down here.

Right now it was too loud and too crowded.

But she eventually found the place Giraud had described--a little hard to miss it actually. Dusty glass of all varieties sat right next to spectacularly clean items. What light there was to be found here bounced off brilliantly from the clean goblets and wine glasses only to be caught by the dusty bottles and bowls. If it could be made of glass, it was here.

Tending to all of these items was a too-tall person with too-long arms and a too slender neck. They smiled at her and a row of too-sharp teeth greeted her. “Hullo! Heer ta sull ur bai?”

At least that’s what it sound like to Emily. Between the accent and the teeth, she wasn’t sure she heard them correctly.

“Looking to buy some bottles and jars.” Emily pulled out a hefty purse of shards from her inside coat pocket and explained, “Need something that will hold the glowing insects and moths in this place.”

Jomy grinned from ear to ear, literally. Emily’s eyes went wide out how far out the mouth could stretch. “Wunt ta sturt sulling lit duwn heer?

It took Emily a moment to understand what Jomy was saying. “Yes. Catching toadrats isn’t quite the profit I’d hoped it’d be. Light is much more valuable in this place.” She was speaking from experience of course; the incident in the library was enough to spook her for life.

“Hu!” Jomy started reaching around with long, thin arms and sprawling hands. “Toderuts ur uh splintah in schite.”

Emily supposed that meant toadrats were a poor source of income.

And so, she waited while Jomy collected some stock for her to look at. But while she waited, she heard her name from a direction she couldn’t determine.