In moments of unease like this, you fall back on your old standby: letting nature speak. Try as you might, however, you can’t quite seem to find the right ‘frequency’. What normally comes easily to you in the wilds, and what you could even manage in certain parts of Crossroads, seems outright impossible even on the canal’s rim…

Too much noise, you think as you struggle to drown it out with your own thoughts, just too much noise…

“Alright there, Mor?” Volka asks, breaking from her own wariness for a moment to offer you a reassuring smile! “Constipated?”

You’re fine, you reply, waving her off with your tone of voice, just… keep sharp, okay?

“Righto…”

You’re not fine, actually, but you don’t bother relaying that to your scaly sibling. It’s not the clanks and hisses and groans and chatter that picks away at your head like a miner’s chisel, no… it’s the perpetual feeling of precariousness you can’t shake from your head that’s been following you ever since you arrived in this wretched burg!

It’s like standing on the edge of a vast pit… or showing up uninvited to a funeral. It’s grim and foreboding enough without the sense that you don’t quite belong, and the feeling’s only grown since you arrived.

Continuing along the canal, you silently hope whatever Anton does gets you out of Umberal. The sooner the better!

To your surprise–and concern–the front of the CANALWORKS OFFICE is remarkably quieter than the rest of your stroll–nestled at the back-end of a short alleyway, the office is located in what seems to be a small cul-de-sac along with a Shipping Guild Office and some nondescript warehouse. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Crossroader.

“Tch…” Rezzie grumbles as she samples the air with a few sniffs, “Smells like mold and guts back here.”

… She’s mad about the guts? The demon shrugs.

“Makin’ me hungry…”

“Where’d, uh… where’d you say the stuff would be again, Mor?” Volka hisses as her eyes trace the building rooftops.

Round the back, you mutter as you switch out your city-stepping for your practiced ‘Ranger-Walk.’ Umberal might be kept sunny and clear through magical means, but you still make a point to step heel-first and far away from the many puddles dotting the ground. With each step you take, you take a moment to listen, but try as you might, well…

Yep, too much damned noise. Persistent, too.

Finding the building’s corner with your claw, you pause for a moment just to be safe… and when you hear nothing but the distant clank of a windmill on the roof and the toot of a canal skiff, y-

“AAAAAAUUUUUUUGH!”

For a fraction of a second you feel hot, panicked breath on your face that reeks of booze, meat, and poor dental care! By the time its owner stumbles backwards wide-eyed and mortified, you’ve already got your Slinger trained on where his heart should be!

>CONTD.