Even in the worst of times, it was hard for Hayes to imagine that there was such a wasteland under the hive. It was like a battlefield that had experienced the end of the world.
The ground here is as hard as bones. It can’t be said that they are trees or other metals. They are bare on the ground. They stand upright under the gray sky - the sky here seems to be the huge nest in the lower nest. The bottom of the steel structure.
Everyone wrapped themselves up tightly to resist the cold. Even the streets that looked relatively neat were silent, with only the screams of unknown creatures echoing in the air.
In the dim twilight, narrow houses were tightly clustered together, rising in jagged rows from the twisting streets. Some of them were metal structures, but most of them were It seems to be made of mud or stone. The most exquisite building is a church with a uniform slate roof and metal frame, while the others are the poorest and look weathered and dilapidated.
But having a house is even a luxury here, more like tents or open shacks. Those weak, dirty, and thin people huddled around the weak fire, wary of the swaying fire. shadow.
The air is always filled with stench, the stench of excrement, the stench of burning things, and what Hayes has been most familiar with over the years, the stench of dead people.
The empire basically has no management organization in the bottom nest. The law enforcement officers of the Ministry of Justice would rather spend most of the year in their legal fortress looking at surveillance equipment than to come to this barren land. Only when there is a "big trouble", they will drive an armored vehicle here to solve the trouble. Therefore, generally speaking, the bottom nest is under the responsibility of the peace officer appointed by them.
On the contrary, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the governors will not care about this place. On the contrary, the state religion has shown unusual tenacity and patience and can maintain it in such a harsh and terrible environment. Therefore, the bottom nest really has something to say. As for "administrative units", then only the state religion and the various associations or mutual aid societies organized by them are left.
So even in the bottom nest where supplies are extremely scarce, differences still exist. Bishops or high priests live in relatively luxurious churches, ensuring that they are isolated from the filthiest believers. Those who can People who could afford the high land prices would build their own homes as close to the church as possible and isolate them with tall walls and guards. Of course, the vast majority of people could only live in dilapidated houses.
This also gave birth to a common feature of Dichao towns, that is, most settlements are built around churches.
The three Hayes came to a settlement called Linhu Town. You can tell the location of the town by its name. It is located near a huge wastewater outlet in the nest city. A large amount of wastewater formed in the low-lying land. A huge lake.
As the saying goes, if you rely on the mountains and the mountains, you must rely on the water. Even wastewater is a huge treasure house in the extreme poverty and lack of materials. A large number of salvagers first gathered here to salvage garbage from the wastewater. Making a living, they formed the earliest residents of Linhu Town. In the following thousands of years, more and more people came to settle here. When the Mechanicus established a resource recycling station here, Linhu Town achieved real development. , priests carried the eagle emblem to build churches here, gangs and clans gradually grew, and more industries appeared, including fishing -
Although the quality and health of the organisms bred in wastewater are really worrying, for For bottom nest residents who eat soil all year round, even the poorest quality protein is still the highest quality food. As for heavy metal pollution or bacterial disease, people must be alive before they can consider it.
Fitz grew up in such a place. His clan is called the Buoyan clan. As a group of people who have made a living by fishing in Linhu Town for a long time, they all have obvious signs of pollution due to pollution. Deformed and mutated, he was rejected by most of the townspeople.
However, there are quite a few people who know about them. After a little inquiry, Hayes found out where they are. It is on the west side of the town, in a place called Mud Bay.
It is a shallow beach, and it is also a relatively safe area on the lakeside of Linhu Town. After all, in the unfathomable wastewater lake, there are not only all kinds of small fish and shrimps, but also terrifying predators with a length of more than ten meters. There are many The creatures that rushed down from above, those alien pets that the nobles were tired of playing with, after generations of mutations, became a nightmare for fishermen.
As a major food source in Linhu Town, Lanni Bay is not remote. There is even a special road leading there. Hayes hired a simple car and it took ten minutes to reach the destination. .
As soon as he got out of the car, he was hit by a smell that was hard for Hayes to adapt to. The air here was also very humid, and his two wives had already put on the prepared breathing masks and gave Hayes Wear one too.
Looking around, the huge black lake looks like an endless sea. Rows of shacks are dotted on the soft ground by the lake. In order to support the houses, the locals inserted pipes one after another. Get into the mud and build the structure of the house. Walking onto the paved road, or bridge, Hayes could feel the rotten, damp wooden boards bending beneath his feet, as if they might break at any moment.
Occasionally, dead shellfish can be seen in the gray-brown mud. Most of them are as big as a human palm and emit bursts of stench. In addition, various forms of garbage and filth can also be seen in the mud. They are absorbed by the lake water. It washed ashore and piled up into pieces of colorful "coral reefs", but they were not beautiful. At first glance, you could see glass bottles, cans, and even newspapers and magazines of unknown date.
Even Hayes, who grew up in the lower nest, could not imagine that humans could survive in such an environment until he saw it with his own eyes. (The differences in the world are not limited to Warhammer. Lagos, the capital of Africa's "new star" Nigeria, has the world's largest and dirtiest floating slum. If you are interested, you can search it)
And most of the residents here are Wearing a wet cloak and a stooped figure, when he saw Hayes and the others, a man only as high as his waist limped over, holding a basket that was still dripping.
"Sir, the fish is delicious. Do you want it? It's cheap."
The other party's Gothic accent is very strong and very vague, as if he is talking in the water. If you don't listen carefully, you can't hear it at all. Understand.
Hayes looked at the opponent's basket. The "fish" inside made him feel a little nauseous. It was very different from the fish he knew. It was more like some kind of worm, with a light brown carapace and nausea on the head and tail. The tentacles and many appendages crawling on both sides of the body, crowded together are very disgusting.
"Uh, thank you. It's not needed for now. Do you know where Fitz's house is?"
"Fitz. Brother Fitz?"
The man raised his head, In an instant, both Hayes' wives took a step back in fright.
At this time, there is a face that makes people instinctively disgusted. There is almost no hair, and there are only a few sparse hairs. The skin is light gray with ugly fish-scale white spots, and the eyes are small and protruding. The mouth is large and deformed, and the nose is almost sunken into the face. If the other person could not speak, he would not look like a human being at all.
It's more like Hayes has destroyed many monsters on the battlefield.
"It's okay."
Hayes turned to comfort the two of them, then bent down and asked kindly:
"Do you know Fitz? I am his comrade-in-arms. . ”
But the other party did not answer him, but suddenly turned around and shouted.
"Fitz is back! Fitz is back!!!"