Tensions continued to rise as fear consumed the city once more, suffocating its denizens just as it had during the first Dark Ages.
The sky blackened with slag and smoke as unrest and anger among the common folk began taking to the streets in the form of riots and mobs armed with fury, fire and whatever sharp implements they could find for themselves. The people demanded food and drink and coin from the bottomless and empty well which was the Baron, of course, their cries fell on deaf ears, instead of the bare necessities begged for, all they were offered were shallow words and assurances that the future would be bright and rich if only they the common folk would be paitent.
But words alone would not fill empty stomachs, and those few who were paitent starved long before the mad ideals of the Baron came to fruition. Once it became clear that the Baron's grand plans for prosperity were specifically for the fortunate few who were riding the coatails of the forefathers that had clawed their way out of poverty, and that the Baron had no intention of delivering all of his empty promises of prosperity to the lesser people; the sea turned red and black as blood and bodies and ash fell into the river as revolution burned through the streets.
But the worst of the Second Dark Ages' degradation came in the form of the Gloom.
A strange sickness which crept upon the city with sinister silence, settling into the muck and grime between the cobbled stone of the streets, finding its way between gaps in the woodwork and into houses before it began to creep. Creep into the already starved pantries of the city, souring what little food remained. Creep into the carefully kept timbers of all households, sinking into the wood, rotting it away or worse, laying dormant within until the cold forced a fire to be lit, which then the Gloom would rise with the smoke and taint the very air.
Creep up the legs of citizens to feast and fester upon whatever it could to sustain itself.
Those unfortunate enough to find themselves caught in the clutches of the Gloom crippled like ambitious blooms growing before the last frost of the cold season. Fine one day, hald dead the next… The symptoms of the Gloom beyond that point were macabre and slow.
There were of course the typical signs of illness, weakness, fatigue, a painfull cough. But where one's best remedy for the common cold would be to drink tea and sleep off the worst, the Gloom's more insidious nature began to rear its ogly head, all beginning with an inability to sleep, an omen so easily overlooked that even those of decent enough fortune to afford a trip to the doctors bothered not to waste their coin. Not that wasting said coin would have done them much good anyhow, the best a doctor would be able to offer was a free handgun and a bullet.
But of course, not many people saw a bad case of sick spurrned insomnia as the immediate cause for concern it truly was, it was the Gloom's following symptom that truly eluded the ill to the far grimmer fate which awaited them.
Winters in the City were always foul, hard, heartless and long, dreadfully long. Winter always arrived to the City early and clung to the streets for far too long. It made for hardy people, and thus, the cold was a common sensation for all citizens of the city. Cold was a frigid wind tearing at sleeves and cheeks. Cold was seeping through cracks in glass and slipping beneath door frames. Cold was dark nights under too thin blankets.
Weakness and illness preyed on the cold, but typical illnesses burned in the cold, igniting the ill with fever and sweat and shivers. The Gloom was somehow different, not needing cold to infest, but rather, infesting those plagued to feel winter in their hearts, of those rich enough to waste their coin on futile attempts at medical salvation described the sensation to be of icy water steadily replacing their blood, running beneath their skin. And try as any doctor may, none could curbe the chill.
The disease had no cure, no ritual or remedy or medicine could save anyone. The Gloom was not a kind death, nor was it swift or pleasent. It was slow and torturous, angonizing and spiteful. Those infected with the disease would begin to wilt and wither, but death would not come for them quickly.
The fortunate would be brave enough to take matters into their own hands, cut their suffering short with a rope or blade. The cowardly however would do all they could to postpone the inevitable, throw coin at whoever they believed had a chance at saving them from their fate.
It was a horrifically bleak time, and a breaking point was fast approaching for all residences of the City. The common folk had it worst of all, but they were many in number and strong together. The nobility were few in comparison, and maybe because of their limited membership the illusion of favor could be maintained, for every noble to fall victim to the Gloom, ten peasents fell before them.
If it were just those residing above the streets dropping like flies there would be little doubt that Orland would maintain his isolationist stance, bar all doors and forbid anyone from leaving or returning to the Haven and hunker down until the Gloom became a thing of nightmares or the whole city lay dead.
But it was not just the peasentry and nobility falling victim to the Gloom.
It was the Keepers, the Scribes and Scholars, the Apprentices and worst of all, the children. An ancient Keeper, once a scholar, then a teacher, was the first to contract the disease, and try as he did to ignore it, First Keeper Orland's denial of that old Keeper's ailment was not enough to starve off the symptoms nor the slow death of Keeper Jathell.
The only shred of twisted grace the Gloom offered the inhabitants of the Haven was the fact that unlike the common man, the Keepers found themselves susceptible to the Glooms influence, however, perhaps due to their relation or their duty to the ebb and flow of the Primordial Sea, the Gloom found the Haven folk far more difficult to inhibit. The weak, old and young were at far more risk of succumbing to the Gloom as many old and young folk were to any disease.
But the fit and healthy fared fare differently than their surface counterparts. Yes they suffered fatigue and weakness, a certain fogging of the mind and exhaustion, but rarely to the point of withering. The Gloom would eventually settle into their hearts as a dreadful chill, but besides tremors and shakes which would plague the hands of the Keepers infected, the Gloom would progress no further.
The Haven could not spare time to celebrate the seeming miracle however, for no one knew if or when, as all plagues inevitably did, the Gloom intended to evolve and drag the Haven and her Keepers to the brink of extinction once more.
There wasn't a single safe place within the city where one could hide from the disease, from the unrest and hunger and the first signs of the creeping cold.
All eyes seemed to turn to the clock, awaiting that final hour.
All because some greedy, greedy mortal decided that fate ought to rest in his own hands…