The Living World

Word on the street... Yesterday, Hathian’s streets simmered with rumor and gun smoke. Word on the gutter is that a drunken brawler set a bar ablaze with bullets and bad blood, sending glass and nerves shattering in all directions—some say regret haunted him while others nursed wounds both visible and hidden. Meanwhile, whispers slither from the pawnshop: a grim artifact surfaced with the bloody remains of those long-missing officers, and nobody’s buying the tale of innocent discovery. Elsewhere, a blade flashed in the dawn outside a coffeehouse, vengeance claimed then unraveled as truth proved slippery. In the Crack Den, trust rots and danger lingers, thick as the river fog.

Whispers in the bayou... Another night slid through the rotten teeth of Laveau, and the bayou whispered secrets between the slick brick alleys. Word dripped from the marina that someone snuck illicit cargo off a battered trawler—boxes that glowed faint in the dark, guarded by men who didn’t blink at gunfire. Meanwhile, at the Barracuda, an argument between a wildcard regular and a Syndicate hardcase left a shattered glass and more than one black eye for the floor to clean up. And atop the old jazz bar’s balcony, a shadow broker met with desperate souls, peddling rumors that the Penitentiary’s silence is about to break. Watch your back—Laveau’s hungry.

Rumors on campus... The rain-soaked stones of Columtreal University echoed with secrets long after dusk. Yesterday, whispers slithered through the dorm corridors: rumor has it an enterprising soul was caught on hidden camera, their businesslike composure betrayed by a voyeur’s lens—fuel for the digital underworld’s next blackmail. Meanwhile, the decrepit Twister basement drew fresh scrutiny; talk spread of faculty musing over radical ideologies and plotting barter economies outside the law, fueling speculation of a new, subversive campus underground. And in the lecture halls, tensions simmered as professors tested boundaries, their streetwise lessons weaving ambition with unsavory trades. At Columtreal, even the shadows are never what they seem.