Irene

     Irene was amazed, but not in a good way. Before her was a nightmare and she was very disappointed. Alkadharam had been so beautiful when viewed from across the water. On this side however she could see how dirty the city was. and the smell, the smell was even worse. For most of her life Irene had lived in the capitol city of the Grundhorn Empire, Heldal. Grundhorn was a city of canals. Instead of city roads Heldal had canals that criss-crossed the city. There were alleys and such on each of the blocks of buildings. Each block was was joined to the rest by the canals. The building were all stone and built on stone. The placement of each building was actually determined by where the bed rock was rather than the loose soil of the swamps.

     Like all Grundhorn cities and towns Heldal was actually built on reclaimed land. It had started as a marshy swamp long before the Grundhorn empire had been founded. In fact much of the coastal lands in the empire was reclaimed from either swampy marsh land or land that was actually under water before the people that had become empire reclaimed them. In fact the canals were only about ten to twelve feet at their deepest. There was a whole group of people whose only job was to keep the canals from silting up. As well a group that were dedicated to keeping the city clean.

    The first thing that Irene had noticed when she'd first seen Alkadharam was how the colors shone across the water. It had looked like a garden of flowers and had been so beautiful. But now that she was actually in the city all she saw was a riot of colors. All of them clashing with each other. There was no harmony of color or even style to the buildings. It was a hodge-podge of different styles of architecture and colors that didn't harmonize with each other in the slightest. Heldal was just as ornately carved even though there wasn't a straight line to be found anywhere. But nothing was painted or colored in any way. The beauty of the carving and how it harmonized with the building were allowed to speak for themselves. Without any colors to distract from or hide any imperfections.

     The next thing that totally annoyed Irene was how noisy everything was. The cacophony was deafening. It was so loud that she couldn't hear herself think. In Heldal sounds were much more subdued. There was no one shouting or trying to attract people to their stands. Nor was there a lot of animals in Heldal proper either. All around her Irene could hear the sounds of vendors shouting and unhappy animals letting everyone else know just how upset they are. If birds were singing Irene couldn't hear it. And everywhere were people talking as loud as they could to be heard over the sound of everything else. Irene was starting to think that her ears were going to burst from all of the noise.

    The only thing that was worse than both the sights and sounds of Alkadharam was the smell. The smell was so bad it was almost indescribable. It wasn't just the docks that stank, every part of the city had it's own aroma, all of them bad as far as Irene was concerned. Heldal was almost completely aroma free. The residents of the empire went out of their way to avoid aromas wafting out to everyone else. And those that lived in the cities were even more stringent about scents. At least once a day, more during the warmer weather, the streets were washed down by special carts.

     Everything that was even remotely useful was used by someone. Even the dung of both people and animals was useful to someone. Long ago the people of the Grundhorn Empire had learned how to take waste of any living thing and make it almost scentless. All industries used what were considered to be clean practices. Any industries that caused bad smells in any way was located outside of the whatever town or city they were associated with. They all scrubbed bad smells out of the air. Only those whose job it was knew how this was done. But since the knowledge was a guild secret Irene didn't care that she didn't know, it wasn't her guild after all.

     So with the colors, the noise and most of all the stink of Alkadharam Irene was not in a good mood at all. The riot of everything that was coming at her had long since given her a headache. Having to walk and lead her mount was just the cherry on the annoyance cake. When she had finally found her way to the Adventurers guild headquarters she was ready to bit the head off of someone. At least the guild knew that she was coming and would have rooms ready for her. Irene could hardly wait until she got to the guild house, if only so she could rest in a quiet room and get something to eat. Well, a quieter room. Any place had to be quieter than the riotous noise that was happening all around her.

     When Irene eventually got to the Adventurer's guild house she walked in and gave her name to the individual at the front desk. Only to be informed that she didn't have a reservation. Immediately Irene asked to speak to whoever was in charge of the rooms. She didn't like having to do that but she was so tired and annoyed by that point that she was just done with the whole thing.  However she didn't yell at the soul who appeared before her. Instead she slowly and clearly explained what was going on. It didn't take long to figure out what the problem was. The person at the front desk hadn't known what the correct pronunciation of Irene's name was. He had thought that her name was pronounced eye-reen. It was actually pronounced ee-ren-a. 

     By the time this had all been figured out Irene was absolutely exhausted. On top of everything else that had happened since arriving in this stinking, overly loud and brightly pained city. Then she was told that her name was not her name. Irene went to her room before she exploded and took that evenings meal there rather than go back into the main hall to eat and drink. She only hoped that tomorrow would be better than today had been.