Re: Mistress of the Jungle (xgkf) GMed by thetwo
In the full daylight the city was much as it had been when Ayame had first entered. A few men and women walked out of the brothel across the street from the Blue Man, showing certain signs that they might have spent the night there. Some might even have been working there. The streets grew more crowded as they approached the main roads, until there was a crowd such that they could scarcely move without bumping into people.
The main difference now was that there weren't people shouting at the plant-woman places she might stay the night or find someone to fuck. The people were still clearly about, and even shouting, but the change of garments and the guidance of the girls together was apparently enough that she was no longer immediately identified as new to Acheron.
Things calmed down a bit as April confidently led the group off the main streets. "I live a half dozen streets down that way. Um... it's a bit of a mess at the moment, and we're technically not supposed to have visitors." In the full light of day the area looked a little dingy but not unwholesome. Only a few alleyways, with roofs from adjacent buildings overlapping to provide darkness, hinted that the area might not be so nice after dark. The impromptu tour guide hurried Ayame as much as she could, especially when she noticed shapes moving in one darkened entrance. The buildings here were mostly wooden, and none of them more than a few years old, by the look of them.
As the group continued zig-zagging through the smaller, less crowded streets, the houses gradually grew cleaner, larger, and more likely to be solid stone. They became more orderly, more polished, less apparently random. But they didn't get any older.
Then, suddenly, they were in a large plaza. A dark palace loomed over it to the north, opposite a major street. In the center of the plaza was a wide basin of water. In the center a plume of water shot upward and sprayed back down by some sort of mechanical contrivance. On Ayame's left, facing the palace, was the statue of a nude woman. She was of average height, if she was depicted as life-sized, with straight hair. At first glance she wasn't very impressive, certainly not in beauty, but there was something disquieting about the expression on her face, and closer examination showed that her eyes were of a different stone, blood-red in color.
On the opposite side of the fountain stood statues of four women. In front was a draconian-looking one, holding a sword threateningly. To her left an elf held an arrow ready to fire, to her right a robed su-ku-ta - for some reason depicted with a snake wrapped around her left arm - hurled stylized lightning, and behind a human woman in trousers raised both hands with purpose, her hair lifted from her shoulders as if in a heavy wind.
"The memorial fountain. They say that this is the actual location of the portal the demons came through. The statues apparently represent some mortals who killed a demon queen, though I'm not really sure why the demons would want to memorialize that..."
"Not all demons are the same. Natalie was evil, and forcing all the others to be that way too. If she was still in charge the entire world would have allied to drive Acheron back into Hell. Well, the demons, at least."
"Oh, and that's Lady Xeon's palace. Um... I don't think you can just walk in or anything. Or at least if you want to just walk out. Anyway, the Arena is just to the south. We could have gone straight there, but it's worth a little extra walking to see this at least once."
Indeed, one could make out the round profile of a quite large building a short ways to the South, and even at this distance there seemed to be a sound as of thousands of people all yelling at once.
