>>6338203The bus has crawled through the city for an hour when you reach the station closest to your final destination. You were immersed in the handbook, and then in your thoughts, for almost the duration of the trip. You lightly regretted not looking out the window and taking in the sights of Chaotzakka, but there'd be plenty of time for that later, anyway.
By the time you get to Saturn Apartments it's well past 4 p.m. and the sun's beginning to acquire that "golden hour" tone. The residential complex is an imposing collection of apartment blocs with unvarnished concrete exteriors left exposed to the elements, but there is some uneven foliage to disguise the decay. The central courtyard, surrounded by deciduous trees, creates the illusion of being in an enclosed park away from the bustle of the city. But well, it isn't pretty.
And it isn't quiet, either. By moments you feel like you're back at the station as people who move with seemingly great intention dart past you. You realize that the ground floor of the complex has been converted into a sort of shopping arcade, with laundry services, tailors, corner stores, what looked like a combination gym-and-video-arcade, a bath house, and other ammenities. Then there were the more bounty hunter-ish things: the blacksmith, the artifact appraiser, the discarded and badly-treated sparring equipment in the middle of the courtyard, as if this were a prison or something, and... all the fucking nonhumans. You remind yourself to phrase this more delicately out loud, but you have never seen so many nonhumans in one place... not like there's anything wrong with that, of course...
