Sonnet: The Cities of Steam, Brass, and Aether

Chapter Three

Blair suddenly stopped moving within the shadow of a tall oak, signaling behind her for the other children to follow suit. A couple hundred meters in front of her, she could see the entrance to the cave they had been looking for; standing guard in front of the cave on either side of its fifteen foot-wide mouth entrance.

They all stood around four feet tall with a significant hunch to their stance, twisted and warped fingers that clawed inwards towards their palms; greenish-gray boils and warts stretched across their face like the ghastly haunted hills of children's stories. Each of them a shade of green, although, very different shades from each other. One matched the dark green of forest moss, while another was a sickly lime green; on the opposite side of the cave there was one that could match the yellow-green of a toad, and the last one had a pale gray hue to it.

Blair had to stifle a laughter at the comical scene before her. She had never seen a goblin before today and the four gathered around the cave appeared to her like a bunch of the old hags found down in the Sylek district.

The air was thick with billowing, black clouds of smoke that drifted up and down the street; branching down each alleyway, they almost appeared to be the tendrils of some horrific spectre wandering for a victim.

Blair looked across the street, peering down one of the closest alleys to her. She saw a group of four elderly ladies gathered around a pile of cards and some copper coins; they were all hunched together tightly, with an intense tension that hung in the air. After a few minutes passed, one of the ladies threw down her cards with a cackling glee. She scooped up her winnings and slid them down the front end of her shirt, giving a near toothless grin to the others; all of whom were currently spitting at the ground and cursing their luck.

The winner stood up and said a few imperceptible words to the others, before scurrying away from them and passing by Blair on her way down the street; holy hells, she smelled worse than a sewer rat! She turned away from the remaining three women, who had now resumed their game with a new pile of coins between them.

She started strolling down the street while passing by: drunks slumped over and passed out on the side of the street, desperate beggars holding out beaten up tin cans, and dirty orphan children playing tag in the muck. Up and down every street in the district was prostitutes and gigolos, often times with prosthetic legs and arms; either from an encounter with a client or more likely selling off their own flesh to score their next fix.

The streets here in the Sylek district were like a labyrinth, buildings were popping up or being torn down daily; which made it almost impossible to get around, unless you grew up here that was. Which Blair hadn't of course, coming from a prestigious noble family and being a part of the Milzani line. But she did frequent these streets enough as a child, well enough for her to confidently move about at least. Many of the residents that lived in these above ground districts didn't even know she was nobility, often thinking she was just another abandoned street urchin.

A buggy sped past her, coming perilously close to snagging her arm with it; she stepped further away from the road with a small curse towards the driver. She decided to turn down an alley, heading further away from the nobility district; heading south from Sonnet, she went towards the town of tower sesi.

Her mother used to bring her there, claiming she always enjoyed the quiet lifestyle offered by the quaint, little town of nothing. But whenever they went, Blair would always see her mother's face filled with sorrow; even still she has been drawn to it since the passing of her mother.

She enjoyed everything that came with this several miles long walk, finally leaving behind the huge machinery that was constantly causing banging or clattering noises throughout the entire inner cities. You could even hear it from the underground districts where the nobility, the magic school known as Verkins, and the main headquarters for the Visagalice church were housed.