Night lay like a moldy shroud, clamped tight over the mouth and nose of Zellheim's Lower District. The damp, cold fog mingled with the stench of sewers and cheap coal smoke, seeping straight into people's bones.
Old Hark carried half a bottle of watered-down cheap rum, stumbling along the muddy cobblestone road. He worked unloading cargo in the Dock District, and right now, aside from the faint dizziness of alcohol, his head held nothing but dread of his nagging old wife back home.
"Fuck the Church... fuck Holy Water..."
Old Hark belched, the sour stink making even him wrinkle his nose. Bracing himself against a wall, he unfastened his trousers and relieved himself against a pile of rubbish at the alley entrance.
The splashing sounded especially harsh in the dead silence of the night.
After a final shake, Old Hark fastened his trousers. He had barely turned around when he caught a dark figure standing at the alley entrance out of the corner of his eye.
It was someone in a hooded robe, or perhaps something else. It stood silently in the shadows at the bend, motionless as a rotten wooden post.
"Hey! Are you blind?" Old Hark cursed, waving his bottle. "Get out of the way! I'm in a foul mood tonight!"
The dark figure said nothing.
There was not even the rise and fall of breathing.
Old Hark narrowed his drunken eyes, trying to make out its face in the pallid moonlight, but the hood hung low, revealing only a lifeless darkness within.
"What, mute?"
Old Hark spat and staggered forward. As he passed the dark figure, he deliberately leaned aside, not wanting any of its bad luck to rub off on him.
They brushed past each other.
A chilling gust suddenly swept through the alley. Old Hark