116 Faith (1/2)

Li found himself strolling through the docks.

The sun had recently set, leaving a little smattering of natural remaining, but by now, most of the buildings around the docks, mostly taverns for rowdy sailors, had put lit and put up lanterns to fight against the encroaching dark.

Today was an eerily quiet.

Riviera usually had a nice breeze flowing through it that supposedly turned into harsh and whipping winds in winter, but for now, during the golden heights of summer, the breeze was tame, flowing in little lulls that soothed the scorching sun.

But there was absolutely no breeze today, making all the little barges and boats seem to float above the dockside water in suspended animation, their sails completely still. Clouds thronged overhead, dark and heavy, filled to the brim with rain.

Li knew that Riviera had a thriving fishing market as Perle, the name of the lake that bordered Riviera, teemed with fish while having few monsters. As its name indicated, there were also deposits of oysters holding pearls at the bottom of the lake, but many did not venture into these deepest depths as the monsters that dive swim around Perle tended to congregate there.

It would not have been odd to see fishermen drawing in their nets around this time, but they had all retired, likely because they felt the clouds overhead to be signs of an incoming storm. Though, a storm should have heralded stronger winds. Or perhaps its was this unnatural combo of still winds and dark clouds that drove them away even further.

Regardless, Li pushed forwards, rather enjoying this solitude. Like this, with nobody around to drum up an urban clatter, Riviera was far more tolerable, though he figured this thinking was somewhat spoiled considering even the tiniest of cities back in his old world would have blown this tiny little medieval city out of the water with noise and pollution.

Li found that Iona lived at the very end of the docks, isolated from the fishing activity. She lived in a first floor flat, a small housing unit inside a larger building, but he could tell this building was on its last legs. It was a nondescript, rundown old two story building of yellowed plaster, rot-infested wood, and faded brick with holes covered with cloth acting as windows.

Not too surprising, considering where he was.

Riviera was split into three parts, lower, middle, and upper, with increasing verticality generally indicating wealth. The noble estates stood above all three parts and was its own gated and segregated community.

The docks were nestled right between its lower and middle sections. Here, though, Li noted, must have been just as cheap and bad as a lower residence.

Since the city, by virtue of it being built up elevated land, sloped downwards, sewage was dealt with by dumping it into deep gutters that allowed it to flow down into sewers with underground treatment centers existing in lower Riviera to deal with the waste.

However, this was a new innovation on part of the duchess's rule, and Riviera had stood as a city for centuries. Before her rule, sewage flowed directly out into the lake, and this building stood right beside a gutter that funneled accumulated sewage from middle and upper Riviera out into lake Perle nearby.

Li could smell the foul stench of refuse curling up from the ground and into his nose, but he could easily tune it out. Like how he could tune out the sight of bloody and beaten corpses – he could also tune out biological reactions of disgust. He stepped into the building, strolling through a creaking, moldy door.

The inside of the building was musty, and as he closed the door behind him, he could hear the scurrying of scared rats and cockroaches and other vermin. Li walked through a small hallway with flanked by little doors that led into large rooms that people lived in.

According to Alexei, Iona lived in the farthest unit down, and as he made his way there, he noticed just how quiet it was even in here.

A little too quiet. He focused his hearing, and he realized nobody lived here aside from Iona herself, whose footsteps he could hear pattering atop flimsy floorboards.

”And who might you be?” came a croaky voice brimming with caution.

Li stopped in front of a woman standing in front of Iona's door, her arms crossed. She looked the definition of haggard, bone thin with frayed, chin length blonde hair and sunken in black eyes. She looked like she could have been anywhere from twenty to forty, and as he sensed her life force, he did not feel anything off about her.

She was just human.

”I'm here on some business,” said Li, his tone firm, clearly indicating he was in no mood to engage with a random tenant in this building.

”The good lady's not in tonight,” said the woman as she stood over the door, blocking. Her accent was thick, much like Old Thane's. In other words, she was not educated, which was not much of a surprise. ”Yer' gonna have to tell me why a strange foreigner's rearin' his head up in this abandoned place.”

”The lady's my assistant, and I don't really have time for this nonsense, so-,” Li stepped forwards, but the woman would not budge.

Li shrugged, preparing to subdue her with a [Sleep Spore], but the door opened in time, inwards so that it did not hit the woman, and out came a girl not much older than five. By the way she hugged at the woman's legs, it was evident she was her daughter.

Iona poked her head through the door, and when she spotted Li, her eyes widened.

Immediately, Iona waved to the other end of the hallway, motioning the mother daughter duo to leave.