I woke up with the taste of sleep still caught in my throat, head pressed deep into my pillow. The sun was already bleeding in through the slits in the blinds, cutting lines across my face and the blanket I hadn't even bothered to pull over myself. I was drooling again. Whatever.
I sat up slow, let my eyes adjust. My body still felt heavy, but my mind was clearer than it had any right to be, yet I remained a bit confused.
I thought I already woke up.
Shrugging my shoulders, I let the thought go over my head.
Halrigg was gone, hopefully far away from this city we call Morren. Word like that spreads fast, even if the city tries to bury it and the blind loyalty of Halriggs men. This meant the smugglers had probably already sniffed out the lie that I wasn't one of his. That put me on the clock, and also limited my options a bit.
I could've capatilized on the opportunity last night, but sleep was too alluring.
There was a place the smuggler had mentioned, just once, when he got a little too comfortable. An old church, long-abandoned, closer to the North side of the Outer Rim, where they had seen all those anomalies. The church was near the Valga River, where they mentioned they bring the weapons from.
I had no doubt there was an entrance to the drainage system hidden somewhere in the church. Rats always make tunnels. Not to mention, if I was lucky, the main culprits of the anomalies would be there.
I remembered the church. Everyone from the orphanage did, where I had my brief stay. A kid got possessed there once while being punished by one of the sisters - lit the whole place up. Half the building was gone after the fire, the nuns of the orphanage called it cursed. Said it should've been razed to the ground and destroyed, but no one ever did. Too much trouble, probably.
Didn't matter to me. After everything I'd seen, I was running low on things to be afraid of, and I was itching to see the kind of power I was capable of. I knew I was still only at the beginning sequence of my pathway, but I still had no clue on my full capabilities.
I live on the Eastern side of the Inner Rim. To get where I needed to go, I had to cross straight through it, then move out toward the North of the Outer Rim. I took a carriage this time, as the journey would have taken me close to an hour on foot.
Albeit, I'll still have to walk the last twenty minutes of the journey, as the carriages don't go that far.
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The Outer Rim's always busy in the morning - the district's veins waking up, pumping people into every alley and corridor. You start noticing patterns if you walk it enough: the same woman dragging her son by the wrist past the bakery, the same old man sweeping the stoop of a shop that's never open. A lot of tired eyes.
The further I went to the edge of the city, the more it started to peel back. Buildings lost their polish. Paint flaked off in sheets. Kids got bolder, too - I passed under one of the high steel train lines cutting above the rooftops, and spotted a group of boys scaling the side of an old housing complex. Two guards were already yelling at them from the street, one of them waving a baton like it meant something.
At least the kids are lively here.
One of the kids spit down at the soldiers below them. The bomb missed by a foot, but still got the reaction he wanted, as all the kids started to dart away from the rooftop.
The guards gave chase, boots slamming on the stone, cursing loud enough for half the block to hear. The kids laughed and vanished over the rooftop. Like ghosts, if ghosts wore torn shirts and knew how to climb.
The train lines stretched above me, suspended above the houses like ribs across the city. They rumbled occasionally, even this early - big, rust-colored beasts carrying freight or whoever could afford the fare. I stayed below them. Not because I liked the shade, but because the guards patrolled heavier here. If someone was tailing me, this route made it harder, and gave peace of mind.
By the time I crossed into the North Outer Rim, the stink of the Valga River hit me. Sharp, chemical, with a rot that clung to your clothes. This part of the district was worse - houses stacked on top of each other, narrow walkways, broken windows patched with rags. It didn't feel haunted. It felt abandoned. Like even the city had stopped pretending it cared.
I found the church tucked between two crumbling brick tenements. Most of the roof was gone, eaten by fire years ago. The front doors sagged under their own weight. The back half of the building had collapsed in completely. Wooden frame, no stone, built cheap and fast. Didn't matter to anyone now.
The gate was still locked, but rusted enough to laugh at. I climbed over the spikes, careful not to catch the hem of my coat, and dropped down into the overgrown yard. Weeds cracked through the stones underfoot, and every step made something crunch.
I stood in front of the church for a moment. It looked smaller than I remembered. Memory has a way of dressing things up. The real thing was just bones.
Still, I could feel something watching.
I stepped forward anyway. My boots echoed against the path, glass crunching beneath them, and the doors moaned as I pushed them open.
Time to see if the rats left the tunnel open.