>>5419802>>5419881>>5419900>"Very good."Satisfied, you take in the sights and sounds around you. People mill around your palanquin, going up and down the street. You spy slaves leading wagons of goods, women returning home from the market, children chasing each other through alleys. To your left, under the shade of the temple complex walls, smaller salesmen sell their wares spread out over cloths or carpets. Pottery, tools, usually clay or stone. Perhaps the metalworkers prefer less ramshackle establishments?
There are scribes too, though you somehow expected more of them. This may not be their chosen gathering-place, however, and you choose not to judge or draw conclusions from what little you have seen for now. Snippets of conversations reach your ears as you pass:
"'Please tell Lu-Dingira...'"
"How much for a pot?"
"... back here! How many times must I tell you..."
Some of the citizenry bow as you pass, but it seems not to be enforced, and more depends on who is not currently busying themselves with labour or talk. You notice that those who do are usually dressed more richly, or are priests and scribes, learned men and merchants. The working slaves do not tarry for formalities, having the work of their masters to do. No-one has dared to speak to you yet, however.
Your attention is caught by a young scribe under the wall in the distance, who has laid out clay tablets on a sheet, and sits behind them cross-legged. He seems engrossed in his work, carefully writing something on a blank one.
>Stop the procession and approach him.>The barracks are more important. Continue on your way.>WRITE-IN 