V

The capital city of Xanara is a motley place, with something for every kind and creed. The architecture is of the Old kind-spires and towers and garish facades on most buildings, and with a few more modest huts sprinkled around the edges. The Royal Family's Palace is situated on the south end of the city, facing the water. The area immediately surrounding the Palace is called Old Xanara, and this was the first district through which Rane and Koram wandered.

It was clean-shockingly clean, with gleaming glass and stone and wood. They passed a family of dwarves so obviously wealthy it was almost amusing. They were dressed in fine silk drapery, imitative of the fashions up in the palace, and they spoke in a refined dialect. The shops were almost exclusively speciality ones for rich patrons: one for tea cups, another for tea trays; one for silver spoons, another for golden.

Rane and Koram said nothing as they passed through this opulence. Glancing over at Koram's face, Rane noted for the first time a break in his neutral expression. There was a trace of revulsion there, very faint, and very much apparent. They wound through a labrynth of backstreets and alleyways.

It was garishly evident where Old Xanara ended and New Xanara began. Upon cresting a little  hill, one could see the cleanliness flee, the high fashions fall, and the wages freeze. There were beggar-elves and pickpocket children and sham witches on pratically every corner, and the shops-dingy-were anything but specialty.

"Why is it so much poorer here?" Rane asked, turning to face Koram.

But Koram was not there.