"Because we have, and they have not. Because they want what we have got.
The enemy is poverty, and the wall keeps out the enemy, and we build the wall to keep us free.
That's why we build the wall, we build the wall to keep us free."
The enemy is poverty, and the wall keeps out the enemy, and we build the wall to keep us free.
That's why we build the wall, we build the wall to keep us free."
Winter was always the worst.
The humid frost whipped from the winds in tandem with the long, cold nights to turn the winding, decrepit backwater streets into a graveyard for the unprepared and uninitiated. He pulled his own coat a bit tighter as he watched crowds gather around makeshift braziers and barrels lined with whatever metals could be found housed the only warmth the lucky ones could find, if they managed to push and shove their way close enough to it. The tattered few structures that lingered in the abandoned section were filled with either squatters or gangs who controlled them, but the broken boards that composed them made the buildings as a whole fairly useless.
This was Cordor- not the glistening Cordor that is first presented to those who arrive by way of fine ship or trade road, but the Cordor that drives every facet of the rest. This was the Lower District: population two thousand five hundred, the most densely populated single area in the entirety of the Isle.
The men, women, and children who call the Lowers their home are often referred to as "Docklanders," "Slummers," or other equally downtrodden names to associate them with the rather poor socio-economic status that holds them in their place. Much like a homeowner keeping the dogs off the furniture, most every attempt made by these second-class citizens to even leave their region of the City is met with swift rebuttal by the Cordorian Elite Guards, referred to by those denizens as "Shiners" either as a method to identify them due to the the gleam in their plate armor, or as a derogatory term about the actions they perform with regards to the rear-ends of the Nobility.
For these people, the only methods of escape are to either side with the aristocracy and betray their neighbors, be graced by the Gods to become an adventurer like the many who pass through the City, or take the reigns of their lives in hand and then drive it off a roof-top.
Ironically, that is how this tale begins: with one such individual, a Thomas Murphey, falling from the top of the Colosseum's south wall where he had climbed the minutes prior. Mister Murphey was twenty seven and a well respected man. He started work on the docks as a tugboat grappler- an individual responsible for tying knots to incoming ships, in order to tow them in- at the ripe old age of five years and three months (he had said this with pride), and never moved up from that position. There was a single thump on the ground and the crowd of spectators let out a collective sigh of disappointment. He was survived by one child- Mira, 6- and his wife Leah. And now he was a lifeless body on the ground.
Clyde contemplated this as he watched the Guards carry his one-time coworker away toward the docks- the denizens of the lowers, of course, weren't deserving or able to be buried properly, so their burials came in the unceremonious form of being dumped in the ocean. The sight was sobering, which was unfortunate given how much trouble (and coin) he had gone through to get drunk that morning. His one day off this month, no less.
This sort of sight had become commonplace since Rhaeg's Rebellion back some decade prior. At least four or five times a month, someone decided they were fed up. Clyde had seen three such incidents, now four, in his time. These deaths added to the relatively high mortality rate from the perilous work that his people were all but forced into: mining in beast infested caves, working on rickety ships unfit to even be moored in a dry-dock let alone sail, cleaning out sewers infested with monstrosities of all kinds. Perhaps figuring that it was, indeed, going to be "one of those days" the union foreman dragged his tobacco pipe from the pouch on his belt with a defeated sigh.