Dellix Herdhandler hurried through the narrow and crowded streets of Undertown, dodging burly cloddertrogs and scurrying woodtrolls. The filthy mist from the foundries hung over Undertown and blocked out the sun. He passed beggars in dark corners, gabtroll apothecaries and wiry leaguesmen clutching barkscrolls and scurrying this way and that. Dellix reached the marketplace and breathed in the mouth-watering aroma of tilder sausages and Hammelhorn steaks. All around him individuals were rushing about and trying to get from a to b as quickly as possible. Stalls lined either side of the paved road and the air was filled with raised voices and shouts. Stall owners called out their unmissable deals and buyers haggled and bartered, trying to get the best price and undercut their competition. He smiled as he reached his own stall, a shaded one that sold tilderskin breaches and cloaks, to Hammelhornskin waist coats and caps. He had owned the stall with his slaughterer mother ever since his fourthling father had died in a skyship crash and left them on their own. Now, they scratched a living selling their different assortments of clothes from the deepwoods. From Tilder and Hammelhorn to Quarm and lap muffler skin clothes you could find it at their stall. He pulled up his tilderskin jacket and skimpy canvas leggings and joined his mother at the stall. Moll Herdhandler was her name, a beautiful slaughterer woman who had travelled to Undertown from the Deepwoods with her brothers in the hope of finding the city with streets paved with gold. She had arrived there to find out that the reality was quite the opposite. She had met the fourthling merchant Dantius Flux and they had fallen in love and got married soon. They had born a son Dellix and had lived in a relatively cheap house in the western quays for three years. What happy days they had been thought Dellix, though they hadn't lasted. His father had been coming back from the deepwoods with a contingent of ironwood timber for the league of stokers and smelters when his ship was hit by a storm and destroyed, taking him and his crew with it. Without the money to pay Dellix and his mother had been kicked out of their house and onto the streets of Undertown. They had used what money they had to buy a stall and product and barley scratched by. Over the years they had come back to stability but they couldn't afford the comfort they had once enjoyed in the Western quays. Moll Herdhandler looked up and smiled at the site of her son. He had his father's blond hair and blue eyes, but his mothers' features and kindness. She reached forward and kissed her son on the forehead. "Finally your back Dellix! Have you been wandering about again? Forever wandering what's around the next corner" She exclaimed. "No Ma-Herdhandler" replied Dellix "Just collecting the quarm fur scarf's you ordered". He handed her the soft scarfs and she smiled once again. "Thank you my beautiful boy, now you get to work and no dawdling do you understand?" she asked. "Yes Ma-Herdhandler" Answered Dellix and walked away. Moll gazed after him and sighed. He deserved better than that her little boy.
