Slums

How do they live this way? The luckiest among them lay claim to a burnt out shell of a house, destroyed by some long-forgotten fire. Most of them relied on flaps of canvas, old boxes, or just stayed victims of the open sky. There was not a clean face among them. The smell... well, I suppose one would get used to it over time. I wasn't planning to stay around that long.

The man I was meeting wasn't one of the natives. I'm sure he'd look like one, dress like one, maybe even put on their accent and slang. There was no way he could have the information I was seeking if he was a slum-dweller. The nobility wouldn't have let him within a hundred yards of them.

There was always the possibility he was lying, of course. I tried not to think about that. After all, I was only here as a last resort. If there'd been an option that hadn't involved mucking my boots through mud mixed with raw sewage, I wouldn't be here. My contact claimed he knew the name of the man I had sought, and so here I was. With the luck I was due, vengeance would not have much longer to wait.