Shadows of Valderia: An Urban Fantasy Detective Noir

“All I’m saying is… you don’t know for certain.”

“I think I do.”

“Do you?”

“Am I certain that there isn’t a plot to breed vampyr with werewolves to create flying bat monsters to terrorise the forests on a full moon in order to increase forest patrol budgets? Yeah, I think so.”

“Come with me to the Deep Forest on full moon and I’ll…”

Before Nairo could go round this particular conversational cul de sac for the twelfth time, there was a thump on the cab roof.

“Here we are sir and miss,” the cabbie shouted.

“Thank everything that is good,” Nairo sighed, leaping from the cab and shaking out her stiff leg and bruised hip.

Ridley jumped out and stretched his back before gobbing on the cobbles and proceeding with his usual routine argument over the cab fare. He was just at the stage where he was threatening to do some absurd physical act with an improbably large item in a small orifice when Nairo cut him off.

“Put it on the PD’s account please,” Nairo said, showing the cabbie her badge number for him to note.

“Thank ya miss.” He tipped his cap to her, gave Ridley a dark scowl, and whipped his horse on.

“Wait! I didn’t know you could do that!? Ridley exclaimed.

“Of course I can,” Nairo said, shaking her legs loose.

“The cheek of it I swear,” Ridley growled, stomping after her. “I can’t wait till I’m done with you.”

Nairo turned to reply and got a mouthful of ash. She gave a wheezing hack as the wind kicked draughts of ash in their faces. That was the typical welcome to the roaring furnace of the city’s economic engine: The Foundries.

The city had begun its life as a humble foundry with a smattering of small hamlets on the edge of civilization and the Elvish Forest. Hundreds of years marched by and the humble little foundry sprouted hungry factories. Voracious industry swallowed thousands of trees and lives while the factories grew inexorably larger, more polluted, and infinitely more profitable. With a constant influx of cheap immigrant labour the industry had survived every manor of downturn, war, pestilence, and disaster. Today, the foundry stood at the edge of the city, spilling into what was left of the forest, still feeding tirelessly on it like a gigantic, fire breathing, metal tic. What had once been just a cluster of small brick kilns, wheat processors, and lumber yards had evolved and metastasized into dozens of colossal factories producing everything from iron, to concrete, to textiles, to fabrics, to wagons, to weapons. The factories loomed like giant smog belching monoliths in the distance. They were so big that Nairo couldn’t even see where they ended or began. They stretched ominously into the shroud of dark clouds behind them.

Built around each factories’ base were a series of shanty towns for the factories’ workers. The workforce was anyone with a pulse and at least three limbs. The factories churned through workers as quickly as any other material. The hours were long, the work was dangerous, and the workers were often desperate. Trolls were the favoured labour. They were strong, compliant, and tended to live longer in the harsh conditions than humans. But it was the Goblins who were the uppercrust of the Foundries. With their natural affinity for metalwork, constant innovation, and iron muscles, they were the only workers in the Foundries who flourished. Everyone knew the Goblins had unionised and therefore were becoming as rich as the factory owners themselves. And anybody really in the know knew the Goblin Unions were controlled by the Kith, making them unseemingly wealthy in a particularly virulent side trade in crossbow bolts, blades, and coffins.

Ridley spat grit on to the gravel chips that constituted pavement. Nairo, with a hand over her mouth, found herself in awe, neck craning to take in all the activity that swarmed around her. It felt like the Hell the Warlocks screamed about in the city square on their mission to save some and condemn most. The factories looked like metal volcanoes, a sheer roiling mass of fire and smoke. Tiny ant-like workers scurried from one mound to the other. Chains were winched, platforms were lowered and raised, horns bellowed, and the wind whipped ash and dust that bit at any exposed flesh or scales. Nairo plodded slowly behind Ridley, agape at the fantastic impudence of the factories as they consumed everything around them and belched back noxious dust clouds.

She was forced to tear her eyes from the awe-inspiring factories and focus on not walking into one of the hundreds of creatures monopolising the few rough gravel paths. Evidently, the workers themselves, without oversight, had built the worker’s shantytown. The structures, usually single story boxes, were cobbled together from any warped cut off of sheet metal they could sneak or scavenge. Built strong and materially efficient, there was little foresight in planning, however. Houses were built squashed together, at odd angles. It all looked as if a child had spilled their blocks haphazardly and never bothered to pick them up. Here in the shadow of hellfire, a small, rugged, ash faced community had, at first eked out a living, and more recently flourished. Children ran and played in their bare feet. Everything seemed to be made of scrap metal, even the children’s toys, and parts of their clothes. The community of the Foundries was made up of every waif, stray, and mongrel cast out from the surrounding cities, yet it was one of the few areas of the city that had no reports of sectarian violence. Whether this was because it didn’t happen, or more likely, justice was carried out internally in the Foundries, was unknown. Although, Nairo was starting to think that it might be because no one could tell the difference between races under the inches thick layer of grime and ash. Who knew filth was the ultimate equaliser?

“I can’t believe people choose to live here,” Nairo said, regretting it when she got a mouthful of ash.

“Where better for people on the fringes of society… than the fringe of society?” Ridley replied, a hand clamped firmly over his mouth. Ridley reached out and grabbed hold of a small child that was flitting by him. “You know where BilBil is?”

“The tinker man?” The little ball of grub and ash replied.

“Yeah.”

“In the Third quadrant market. Down Eighth road and on the corner of Fourth square.” The child pointed over his or her shoulder. “Just follow the signs.”

Ridley nodded and sent the child on its way before dipping down a side alley as if he had lived here his whole life. Nairo followed him, careful not to touch the narrow sheet metal wall. They were covered in thick ingrained layers of grease and ash raining down from the towering chimney stacks that reached even higher than the Jurassic king blackwoods far into the canopy. Ridley weaved his way deeper into the haphazard metal favela stopping every now and again to stare at signs bolted into the sides of buildings. Nairo noticed the further they went into the shanty town, the cheaper and flimsier the construction became. She judged from looking around that they were in the copper district,the misshapen buildings around them wobbling in the breeze. It said something that there was even a hierarchy amongst scavengers.

The denizens of the Foundries were almost as bizarre as their and cobbled together as their homes. Every creature wore the wounds of the place on their bodies. Scars, ruined limbs, and missing body parts were the norm. Every creature shared the same haunting red eyes, a side effect of the constant smog and ash. As Nairo and Ridley made their way down Second street, they walked past three men sitting and drinking tea. Combined, they may have had enough bits to make one whole person. One of the men had a missing hand, the other one had nothing below his knees and the third was a Gnome who was missing all the limbs on the left side of his body. Burn marks and scars were as common as tattoos were in the city. Some creatures had burns so bad their skin looked like melted wax. Even the children were not exempt. She saw one little redheaded girl run past her with a vicious burn on the left side of her face. She was playing a game with a little boy on a crutch and another boy who had a gnarled hand that bent backwards over itself. Just like the buildings, the creatures had been patched up and put back together with any piece of scrap that was laying about. Steel pipes replaced limbs. Patches of scrap metal held ruined, burned skin together. Even eye patches were made of tin and scrap metal. The whole place was a tapestry of the mangled and macabre.

They finally came to a stop outside a walled market whose walls were constructed of giant sheets of metal and thick planks of timber, all haphazardly bolted and screwed together.

“This looks like the place,” Ridley said.

Nairo looked around for an entrance and spotted two heavy doors. Outside stood two equally heavy looking Trolls. She nodded to Ridley and they walked towards them only to be stopped by a shrill whistle to their left. They turned to see a shiny headed Gnome sitting on an up turned bin. He was dressed in the strange assortment of cloth and metal as the rest of the inhabitants of the Foundries. Unlike most of the Gnomes in the city, this one had a slightly red tinge to his skin, his features more angular, than his city cousins. Nairo didn’t know much about the Gnomes but she did know there were several types and that they didn’t get along.

“You Conway’s people?” he asked them.

“You Depry?” Nairo asked.

“Aye that’s me, Coilus Depry, at yer service.” He hopped off the bin and gave a little mock bow. He looked up at them and grinned with a mouth as red as blood. He chewed on a plug of Red Bettle Tobacco and spat a thick string of pink saliva.

“You Conway’s people?” Depry repeated.

“Aye,” Ridley said, eyeing the little Gnome cautiously.

“Well then follow me.” Depry limped ahead of them towards the gate.

Nairo noticed one of his legs looked like it had been badly broken and set even worse. His right foot seemed to always point at a right angle and it dragged behind him. He wore a heavy, metal cage around the knee for support. The rest of his body had criss-cross scars and wounds enough to tell Nairo he had either lived a very bad life or a very tough one.

“You’ve come to find the tinker?” Depry asked them.

“Yeah,” Ridley said.

“Then Depry’s your Gnome,” he said, flashing Ridley another red stained smile.

“I didn’t think there were Gnomes out in the Foundries,” Ridley replied. “Thought this sort of manual labour was beneath your lot.”

Depry eyed Ridley with sudden hostility.

“I’m a Suwa Gnome!” he said hotly, jabbing his thumb at himself. “Don’t confuse me for one of them stuck up Neela Gnomes you got in the city. We do real work and we’re honest hard working creatures. We don’t steal land and get rich from taxes like them lot.” He spat on the ground and glared at Ridley.

“Relax,” Ridley said, holding up his hands. “I didn’t realise it was such a touchy subject.”

“Four hundred years of slavery and oppression would be touchy, wouldn’t it?”

“Forgive him,” Nairo said. “My partner has about as much cultural awareness as a slug.”

Ridley frowned at her and shrugged.

“Forget about it,” Depry said with a haughty sniff. “Come on, let’s get you in.”

Depry limped up to the front of the gate and looked up at the two Trolls. They were almost comically Trollish. In fact, Nairo was sure she had seen at least one of them on the Anti-Troll propaganda that floated around the city from time to time. They were ugly, even for Trolls, one had an eye missing and two of his tombstone like teeth jutted from his bottom lip even when his mouth was closed. The other had a tattered ear and a stump with a rusted hook for a hand. Both of them were half naked, with just a few rags around their waists to preserve their modesty. They had thick scars and cuts all over their faces, arms, chests and backs, and a considerable amount of burns all over their bodies.

“Depry,” said their guide, pointing a thumb at himself. “Fifth shift supervisor of the metal works, floor 18.” He produced a battered little wallet from around his neck and passed it to the one eyed Troll.

“Give us dat! Yew can’t read!” The metal hooked Troll growled as he snatched the wallet from his partner.

“Yes I can!”

“No you can’t! Your fick as these walls is.”

“I’m not! I just like to take me time.”

“Well take your time sumwhere else, thicko.” The Troll snarled before focusing his eyes on the little wallet in his giant hand.

He peered carefully at it. His thick lips moved as he read the card inside the wallet.

“Derpy,” he read slowly.

“Depry!”

“Yoo sure?”

“About my own name?”

“Yeah… alright.” The Troll nodded, passed back the wallet and scratched himself with his hook. “‘Oo they?” The guard pointed at Nairo and Ridley.

“They’re with me,” Depry said as he looped the wallet back over his neck.

“They carded?”

“No. They’re from the city.”

“We don’t like outsiders,” the one eyed Troll growled.

“Why they so clean?” The second Troll asked suspiciously.

“They’re potential buyers from the city,” Depry lied. “They wanna look at what we got.”

“Do they?” The metal hooked Troll grunted.

“Well it is a market, ain’t it?” Depry said exasperatedly.

“Yeah, so what? Don’t mean outsiders can just come and buy all our stuffs.”

“It means exactly that!”

“Does it?” The one eyed Troll said in astonishment.

“I dunno.” The second Troll answered.

The two Trolls stared at each other and then down at Depry.

“I mean it sounds right.” The one eyed Troll said.

“It does dunnit,” the other replied.

“Should we ask someone?”

“I s’pose…”

“Listen, I don’t have time to waste!” Depry snapped. “I’ve gotta get back on third shift and if I’m late I’m giving the floor supervisor your names!”

“Why you gonna do that!” The one eyed Troll howled.

“I can’t get anovva citation,” the metal hooked Troll moaned. “They’ll have me out on what’s left of me ear.”

“Go on then, go!” The first Troll pushed open the door and hurriedly waved them in.

They stepped through the gates into the teeming marketplace. There were makeshift stools set up in uniform squares with every manor of metal work, ceramic, wood carving, and weaponry you could imagine. The sellers sat under awnings, warding off the constant downpour of ash with heavy scarves wrapped around their faces and their bloodshot eyes gleaming. The newcomers’ presence was noted instantly throughout the market. Nairo felt suspicious gazes following them as they made their way through. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw beady crimson eyes swivelling towards them with every step they took.

“Guests ain’t too popular here, are they?” Ridley muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

“Don’t take it personally,” Depry said over his shoulder. “The Foundry people are naturally distrusting of anyone too clean.”

Nairo peered through the smog, noting the hulking figures that kept to the shadows of the stalls. They didn’t look like merchants. She could just see the silhouette of curved tusks and shoulders twice as broad as a mans. Goblins. They had taken as much interest in her as she had of them. She could feel their intense curiosity follow them through the market. It seemed like behind every stool was a shadowy Goblin lurking.

“You two certainly attract the wrong kind of attention,” Depry muttered out of the side of his mouth.

“Kith?” Nairo whispered to Ridley, making Depry falter in his step.

“More than likely,” Ridley muttered back.

“Shhh!” Depry hissed, looking nervously around.

His limp quickened, his bent foot leaving trails in the ash covered ground, as he led them through the textile portion of the market. Gorgeous fabrics or every colour glimmered from heavy sacks. Obviously concerned about the effect of the smog on their colours, there were only scraps and fragments of garments on display but these caught the eye like an oasis of colour in the ash grey desert around them. The stool owners had thrown up awnings across the narrow lane to further protect their wares from the smog. Now they were out of the whirl of ash, Nairo noticed how itchy her eyes felt.

“Don’t rub ‘em,” Depry said over his shoulder as Nairo raised two balled fists to her eyes. “Only makes it worse.”

Nairo sighed and settled for rubbing her face and tousling her hair. She took this opportunity to cast a quick look left and right. She still felt like they were being watched.

“How far to the tinker?” Nairo asked.

“Just a little bit further in the metallurgy square,” Depry limped away and they followed.

Ridley buried himself deeper into his coat collars. Not the first time, Nairo found herself envious of his coat. They were back out from under the awnings and into a noisy flame and spark filled quarter of the market. This was the burly, sweltering, noisy domain of the blacksmiths. They slammed their hammers, smote their steels, and quenched their metal in a raucous cacophony. Metal skeletons lay upturned in the middle of the square as pieces of it were repaired or swapped out. Even from here, Nairo could feel the blistering heat of their furnaces as they belched out flames. The majority of the blacksmiths were muscular Goblins, who themselves were shaped like anvils. Unlike the Goblin shadows in the market, these Goblins couldn’t care less about Ridley and Nairo. They worked with ceaseless focus and power. Sweat beaded down their thick brows as they raised their heavy iron hammers and brought them down with rhythmic fury. They wore heavy leather aprons and thick metal bands around their tusks. Each band signified their level of mastery at their craft. The bands ranged but she noticed but she noticed one particularly thick set Goblin sat on on a metal chair. His scales had started to dim, and his wispy hair was as white as ash, but his tusk gleamed with polished gold bands. He surveyed the workers in front of him with a meticulous eye. Every now and again he would grunt and summon a blacksmith to his chair. A few words would exchange, the younger blacksmith’s head would bow as he listened. He would then trundle back to his forge, one eye on his work the other on his master’s approval. Nairo could have stood there for hours watching the highly sophisticated metal work of the Goblin blacksmiths but Depry was eager to keep moving. They were led into the heart of the market to a large rectangle of metal.

“He’s in there,” Depry said to them, spitting another mouthful of pink phlegm.

“Lead the way,” Ridley said but Depry shook his head.

“I won’t go any further.”

“Why not?”

“Because… I don’t want to be seen with you two going into there. It would raise too many questions. I owed Conway but this is as far as that chit gets him.”

Ridley and Nairo exchanged looks.

“Fine,” Nairo said. “Thank you so much for your help Mr Depry.”

“No problem.” The little Gnome saluted. “And you tell Conway me and him’s even.”

Ridley walked up to the door, looked over his shoulder at Nairo, then knocked.