Out of Light, Into the Dark

[Proto Man]

If you compared it to Tier Six, Darkshire looked like a beautiful little town. Unfortunately, even the most abysmal places looked like diamonds compared to the almost-basement of Coruscant, and the town of Darkshire was no exception to that rule. Dobson escorted the trio through the main thoroughfare, which bisected one of the worst parts of town as it wound its way toward the district that contained town hall and the other pillars of bureaucracy that supposedly kept the place afloat in the sea of despair that is the Pale Moors.

Along the way, Proto Man noticed a few things that he wouldn’t soon forget. Chief among those was the site of reanimated skeletons patrolling the town’s walls and leering soullessly from various sentry posts and turrets that helped to reinforce Darkshire. In the time he’d been in the Omniverse, Proto Man had seen his fair share of strange and uncomfortable things, so the fact that this failing town used necromancy to guard its walls didn’t seem too unbelievable. The preteen machine had read about Darkshire, and he knew its role as the bulwark against Diablo’s army, but he didn’t expect the place to be in such a miserable state.

“I don’t need to see your eyes to know that you’re not impressed, my little acquaintance.” Dobson, who didn’t seem any older than twenty, smiled himself as he pointed to a large building at the other side of the square. “That’s the City Hall, where the mayor holds office hours and runs the town.”

“Looks very… plain,” Mireya muttered, highlighting the fact that very little set aside the seat of power in Darkshire from the other buildings that lined the sparsely populated square. In fact, the structure looked as if it’d been repaired in about a half dozen locations.

Dobson chuckled. “It used to look nicer, but we had to tear out many of the materials used to construct the original building.”

“Why?” Proto Man asked.

“We melted down the metals to create weapons, and what wasn’t suitable for smithing we used to fuel magic spells that were integral in repulsing the frequent assaults during the war. Since then, the town just doesn’t have enough of an influx of goods to justify such frivolous expenditures.”

It was a depressing story, but once again, Proto Man had seen worse than Darkshire. The people who lived in extreme poverty in the underside of Coruscant often had to live under sheets or inside rusted requisition crates.

“Clear a path,” Dobson told the two guards that stood in front of City Hall’s unimposing doorway. “These primes are here to have an audience with Mayor Boone.” The trio exchanged quick glances before they decided it was better to just pass themselves all off as primes, rather than risk diminishing their status. In front of them, the guards likewise glanced at one another before nodding their heads and stepping off to the sides.

With a smile, Dobson opened the door and ushered the trio from the Tangled Green into Darkshire’s City Hall.