(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

can ye learn more from me."
"Thanks, Korur. I wish you the best."
~~~~~
The Mortuary squatted in the middle of the Hive like a necrotic boil... bleak,
festering, unwanted. The Dustmen's whispers ate away at the edges of the
Hive, consumed the denizens and reanimated their bodies as the faction's
own. The Gatehouse clutched the vagrants of Sigil against its breast, doling
out whatever pity the Bleak Cabal could afford to spoon out. They were the
cathedral to what inevitably will come to pass, and the sepulchre to regrets
of what might've been.
The Great Foundry was a different matter.
I showed the message to be delivered to the gatekeeper and with a stern
nod he let me through with a gesture. Past the iron gate Godsman guards
jogged in formation like ants scurrying around a hill. The high smokestacks
of the Great Foundry dominated this region of the Ward: the weight of it
pressed away the surrounding buildings and seemed to leave them squat
and cowering at its might. Open windows blazed with the inner light of the
forges and howled with the rhythmic clang of metal on metal, and the
guards circling the court swung their weapons in tandem. It was the sound
of iron tortured and fired until it was reborn, the chorus of what could be, if
one has the will to act.
The din of metalwork was greater within the Foundry itself. Deafening
clangs reverberated off the walls, and the Godsmen in charge had to bellow
their orders over that and the roar of the furnaces. I stood in awe at the
radiance of the great crucible, which portioned out rivers of molten steel
like soup. The heat of the inferno blazed against my skin, the fire had me
mesmerized. It felt good.
For a while I found myself contemplating the rumble of the gears, each
turning rapidly with perfect smoothness and a steady song of clacking metal
teeth. Like a child I reached out and touched one gear with a finger as it
spun. The metal grazed against my fingertip until it went numb with the
warmth of friction.
The Godsmen themselves were tall, well-muscled, and their skin bronzed
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