Location 14 – Bridge

You make your way toward the noble quarter to meet Lord Rhiner. Inevitably, you come to one of the old stone bridges that spans the river Sine, or at least what's left of it. Many years ago the Deepwood sucked dry the river and now the 'Gutters' take its place. Thousands of Verum's poorest huddle there in shacks clustered in the mud of the riverbed, in the shadow of once great ships, forever moored in the mire.

"Smoke from flesh, you saw it," snaps a man as he leaps from a spot by the bridge. He is wearing a selection of rags and rats that would make a ratcatcher jealous. Doomsayers aren't uncommon in Verum, it's fairly easy to be right regarding predictions of death and destruction with the Deepwood at the gates. You try to dismiss the man, but then he pipes up, "And running from the maw… it chased you through the walls until over your shoulders a city falls." That part of your tale was not common knowledge.

"Who are you?" you ask.

Unevenly, the crazed man scampers up to you. His face a mask of grime and wiry beard, his age unknowable under the muck of the gutter. He makes a sign of Pot's Peace and bites his thumb.

"Herald."

"Herald, of what?"

"I prefer the young and old,

The wet, the dry, the hot, the cold.

Rarely sought, though often found.

I visit all above the ground."

There is something about the look behind his eyes, he knows more than he should about you, and he knows something else he seems to want to tell you.