Chapter 5: Misery
Being done with the day after having sold all his inventory in the shop, Mordyn was already closing up by flipping a switch that disengaged every electric flow through the building.
After also closing the entrance door behind him and turning the keys to lock it up, he stared for a short moment at the plate that showed the status of said building.
The crisp red letters stamped on the metal spelled the word closed. Just for that short moment, it made Mordyn slightly happy to be done. Who else would not enjoy the end of a day of work?
Sighing softly, he turned on his heels and started walking away along the street with the still somewhat bustling city of Piltover.
The crowd gathered here at the marketplace sure didn't diminish at all from the time when he opened up. Well, not that he spent all that long here anyway.
Looking around while walking and carrying a bag over his shoulder he noticed that some people did give him curious stares of bewilderment.
Normally most people that are daily here would already know Mordyn, but there are of course those that are not aware of him.
So seeing a rather shabby clothed 12-year-old boy in the streets so high up in the richer districts could garner some gazes for sure.
If you ask why he was dressed like that? That was quite simple. He was already returning to the other side of the Fissure - that means to Zaun.
Of course, he was not working with the current clothes he wore. Inside his shop, he had a few sets of different working clothes that consisted of a few small suits and gentleman overalls that he washed daily to keep appearances in Piltover.
Some sacrifices just had to be made.
But as soon as he finished up he mostly wore his rather more comfortable looser clothes that would also fit better into the image of the current undercity.
And that is also basically the sole reason why he is wearing what he is wearing. He would otherwise only attract too much attention when going back with some fancy pants.
Screaming to everyone that you had a lot of money was just a dumb idea. Well, at least more than the average joe.
Even with Vander keeping a close eye on his safety, there are still some people that would get the wrong ideas. He knew Zaun well enough by now.
But, for whatever it may be worth, Piltover does actually have that specific advantage of people being safer with the Enforcers around...
Speaking of the devil. There was an Enforcer and his partner close by that seemed to interrogate another man that seemed to look rather poor like himself, cloth-wise that is.
Yes, it was easy to discern people if you did not actually put some effort into your dress code.
Especially in these parts of the city close to the merchant square where the marketplace was stationed.
This situation. That right there was the flipside. When the Enforcers did not know you or even whiff the slightest stench of 'poor' on you, they start to become undisciplined swine.
Mordyn was also looked over at for a short moment when he passed them both.
But unlike the man, he was not stopped since they already knew about the brat that ran -Tweak N' Brew-.
Ignoring the enforcers, Mordyn kept on walking.
And the man that was stopped, he suddenly also started to complain with a raised voice after seeing the injustice in his eyes for treating him one way and a child another.
'Seriously, can you even hear your own words right now? What a hypocrite.', thought Mordyn about his behavior trying to convince the two patrollers to keep it at least fair when they check people.
- How can it be that such a child is freely running around but an adult like me has to go through this farce? -
His words exactly and they oozed with hypocrisy. He would throw a child under accusations just so he could feel better and be done with his check.
But such people were not only gathered here. The further one went to the bridges that were like walls between Piltover and Zaun, the more such events appeared.
Not that it actually bothered Mordyn at all. He just went on kept walking steadily until he reached said bridges.
There he was stopped by an automaton telling him to halt and wait until the raised bridge was lowered back down after a ship had passed underneath it.
These tin cans were amazingly crafted technology worth every attention one could put to them. Especially if the person is someone that loves robots or mecha.
Also, just as a sidenote, Mordyn was surprised to see them the first time. These guys were constructed very similarly to Blitzcrank. Strong and robust. So they were either the same model, or his predecessors.
Since there was no Hextech yet, it was very unlikely that these guys were Blitzcrank's.
At least Mordyn didn't see any Hextech while living in the origin of said technology till now. So there could be no Blitzcrank in existence when there is no Hextech. Some of those automatons even looked completely different anyway.
So he assumed these were simply the invention of some piltovan professor.
And with meeting a certain Jayce Talis today, who looked rather plain and young, Mordyn could put two and two together that this technology was not yet invented.
But Mordyn did make a side note to keep his eyes open for any automaton puppets that were to his liking or woke up some interest in him.
After all, they would make the perfect cash registry slaves that one could exploit infinitely. Meaning he could easily automate his whole business. Well, everything but the alchemy itself, of course.
But for now, he kept his money rather tightly under budget and would not think about buying expensive automaton puppets.
---
Then, after he waited long enough and crossed the bridge, the scenery started to change drastically.
From the clean streets getting dirtier to the rows of houses getting shabbier by each step, there also increased the number of shady people that seemed to linger around and glare at most people passing by.
Now, this is how home feels. Always some kind of thorn right at the side of your neck pricking you into anger and irritation.
Well, for now, most of the thugs only averted their gaze when he looked back at them, but there were of course those that would actively seek trouble.
And the further in you walked to the center of the city and away from the bridges, the closer you came to the actual undercity.
The undercity was literally built on a fissure between two whole continental plates. It was not just some petty talk because of the denser air and some mines being close by.
The minerals down in that fissure are exactly what Piltover is aiming at. And the constant exploitation with chem tech is what makes the air as dense as being inside a sauna. Nonstop that is and with its certain toxicity as well.
So while Mordyn leaned at one side of the elevator he soon could see the real undercity after going down a few levels. And as his gaze went over Zaun, he wondered for a split second if change could really help this city that is in literal misery.
Reaching the floor he wanted, the first thing that greeted him was streets way worse than the ones at the top.
Granted Mordyn was already pretty used to it. And not even the heavy and rather unbreathable air concerned him much by now. But the sight of this place really was always somewhat pushing your mood lower.
Walking along the sewer-stained streets of the undercity he bumped into more than one drunk or unpleasant thug that didn't care atall when annoying people.
Some even did it on purpose to get some change with their pickpocketing but since the order in this precise district he was in was still somewhat managed by Vander, it didn't go out of hand. Meaning those that knew him had kept their hands were they were.
Mordyn himself was no novice in that regard as well.
Reaching the bar -The Last Drop- he was close to entering it from a side entrance.
But suddenly something sticky and wet hit the side of his head and his movements stopped abruptly in their track.
Letting go of his motion to open the door with his hand, he shifted his head and looked over to the reason for this occurance.
What he could see was a dark-skinned boy and a blue-haired girl staring back at him.
"Oh no...", the boy exclaimed while looking at Mordyns now two-colored hair of red and blue.
Yep, he got a paintball straight into his hair that was a stray bullet from Powder. Ekko seemed to have dodged somehow and it went past him and straight onto Mordyn's head.
Mordyn breathed in and out.
The door to the bar then opened up with Vi looking surprised when she got startled by Mordyn standing right in front of it.
Looking him up and seeing his hair, she started to snicker a little.
"Hey, what is..." But before she could even finish her sentence Mordyn pushed his bag into her embrace.
"Take this to Vander...", he said and then the next thing Mordyn did was turn to the two culprits that were still looking at him and started approaching them.
Rummaging in his pockets and pouch at his waist he took out some balloon-shaped object that he started to fill with a certain liquid from another vial he grabbed from his holster dangling near his pouch.
When he started spinning the filled balloon in his hand and a small smirk appeared on his face that was aimed at Ekko and Powder, the two younger kids started to realize what was going to happen.
They immediately started to run from him but Mordyn was not going to let them get away that easily.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
MiracleWorm
MiracleWorm Okay, hopefully, this time the chap is alright and mostly fixed from minor mistakes.
Weekly Power Status
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Ranking 
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stone