Had to do a double batch today to catch up. This story is well along its arc, though.
The storm that followed lasted a week. A week of portents. A week of intrigues and dark designs, playing out behind closed doors and in ancient sewers.
A week of terrors.
Normally when a storm like this comes, the Guardian’s life is easier. Folk stay inside, making it easy for us not to notice their crimes. When the rain falls in Seacity, it draws away all the hot blood and anger that builds up in the streets and houses, and takes it to the sea. The sea is always hungry for what the city gives it, and our pain is no exception.
But this time the downpour brought no relief; it was hot rain, almost steaming, and the streets soon became sticky, mud-filled troughs. And it never quite stopped, now slow, now fast, and a few times howling, stinging waves of water. More than one building collapsed when the rain washed away the accumulated dirt and clay that was keeping it together.
And there was a great restlessness in the city, too. The rain was more relentless than any living person could remember, and tempers easily frayed under its oppression. All over the city, brawls broke out in the streets and alleys, with people clawing and biting at each other in blind rage. We soon learned to stop the fights quickly, for if any one was left to continue it would drag more people into its maelstrom, until it subsided on its own back into a bed of burned houses and battered corpses. And where there were no battles, there were wild revels, with people shouting and laughing and doing whatever they cared to. The Guardians soon learned to break up those, too — for the revels could gout crimson at any time, and did.