Aethelburg's Unlit Quarter

The flickering gaslight cast dancing shadows across the cobblestone alley, illuminating the slick dampness clinging to every surface. Rain, or something worse, had recently visited this forgotten corner of Aethelburg, and the air hung heavy with the stench of decay and secrets. You take a hesitant step, your boots sinking slightly into the grime. You shouldn't be here. No one should. But desperation, like a relentless tide, has pulled you into its undertow. You are Elara, a lamplighter, more comfortable with the rhythmic clang of your ladder against iron than the hushed whispers that now fill your ears. For generations, your family has been tasked with maintaining the delicate network of gas lamps that snake through Aethelburg, chasing back the encroaching darkness. But the darkness is winning. The lamps are sputtering, failing, and the city is descending into a chaos fueled by fear and paranoia. Your younger brother, Finn, one of the few sparks of light in your increasingly bleak existence, has vanished. Gone without a trace. The city guard offers platitudes and empty promises, too busy hunting shadows of their own to care about a missing boy. So, you've taken matters into your own hands. Your only clue, a crumpled piece of parchment clutched in Finn's trembling hand the day he disappeared, led you here, to this forsaken alleyway, to the edge of the Unlit Quarter. The Unlit Quarter. Whispered about in hushed tones, a place where the law holds no sway, and monstrous things are said to lurk in the perpetual gloom. A place where the gas lamps refuse to burn, leaving the inhabitants shrouded in a darkness both literal and figurative. Tonight, you cross the invisible boundary, leaving the flickering gaslight behind and stepping into the suffocating black. The parchment in your pocket feels heavier than lead. Your hand instinctively tightens around the wick lighter, the only weapon you possess besides your wits and a desperate hope that you're not too late. The game begins now. The darkness is listening. What will you do?