Regal |Fantasy Ryden AU| DISCONTINUED

-22-

A bustling marketplace greeted them the moment they stepped foot inside the city.  Decrepit stalls selling goods of all sorts--food, fur clothing, jewelry, anything imaginable--littered the small courtyard just beyond the gate, and past them were levels upon levels of old stone buildings.  Some resided on the same plane as the marketplace.  A set of stairs going upwards led to a level of buildings above the courtyard; they seemed to stare down at the passersby in condescending silence.  There was also a staircase spiraling downwards, leading to yet another level of dilapidated buildings below the surface.  Ampleforth was an interestingly laid out city, but one glance at the different sectors was enough to be overwhelming for any newcomer.

Jon, being at the front of their disjointed group, didn't know where to go.  People milled about the marketplace without a care in the world, not seeming to notice the group at all as they strolled from stall to stall.  The deafening sound of nonchalant, merged chatter echoed in the chilly air.  It was like the group was invisible, like the gravely injured Spencer and the feeble Ryan were not nearly as important as the citizens' shopping, and without directions, Jon was at a loss in the convoluted city.

He was just about to brave the crowd and ask a stallholder for help when someone lightly tugged on the hem of his shirt.  Startled, he whipped his head around and met a young boy's wide-eyed gaze.  He couldn't have been older than ten, his frightened hazel eyes staring up at Jon like a baby deer.

"You look like you need help, mister,"  the boy murmured, barely moving his chapped lips and not once breaking his stare with the mage.  "Go down those stairs and look for the place with the broken sign.  It has a flower on it.  He can help you."

Without another word, the young boy took off and disappeared into the hectic marketplace, leaving Jon and Brendon just as perplexed and bewildered as ever before.

"What is it with this journey and receiving help from mysterious strangers?"  Brendon wondered aloud as he stared at the spot in which the boy had vanished.  Though he was genuinely curious about the answer to his question, he couldn't ignore his heart as it nervously pounded against his ribs.

First the woman with the glowing blue eyes--if that even happened--and now the young boy who was there to point them in the right direction?  Something didn't seem quite right, but it was impossible to tell for sure.  All Brendon knew was that his stomach churned just thinking about the endless, terrifying possibilities.

There was nothing else for them to do other than trust the strange boy's guidance.  Jon led the way through the marketplace and toward the stairs going down.  Brendon followed suit, his hand still hovering between Ryan's shoulder blades as they carefully descended the crumbling stairs, down into the shadowy depths of the lower level of Ampleforth.

It was like an entirely different city below the surface.  The pale sunlight disappeared behind the buildings of the upper levels, and the temperature plummeted as they entered the dark, shaded alleyway.  Water dripped off the ramshackle gutters and into murky puddles in droning, monotonous rhythms.  The stone buildings looked cold and unwelcoming.  There was hardly a soul to be found, bar from a few people clustered outside what appeared to be an old tavern, their voices hushed and their backs turned to the group.  It was safe to say the lower level of Ampleforth was rather disquieting and perhaps even ominous, but if the young boy was telling the truth, what they needed was somewhere in the bowels of the dark, musty alley.

They needed to keep going, no matter how afraid they were.

Soon enough, the group stumbled across a broken wooden sign, like the young boy had mentioned.  It was difficult to see properly in the shadows of the lower level, but it looked like there was a faint outline of a flower on the sign, too.  The building it was attached to was, quite possibly, the most forbidding building in the whole alleyway, its stone walls cracking and its door practically falling off its hinges, but it was definitely the place the boy had told them to go to.