The air in the Black District, so named due to the layer of soot and grime which coated the exterior spaces, was a foul smelling and dense smog which blotted out any attempt by the feeble sun or stars alike to shine normal, wholesome light upon the industrial streets. Instead that light was always dimmed by the rolling fog, which was pumped out by the rows and rows of brick and mortar factories clustered greedily around the paved roads, railways, and canals of the district, so that gas powered street lamps were always necessary for illumination. This was true during the day as much as it was at night, and if it weren't for the clock towers in major squares or in the center of the factory floors the workers would scarcely know the time of day. Indeed many of them spoke rumors amongst themselves that the clocks had been tampered with; that the workers had in fact been made to work for longer than the mandatory twelve hours each day, that the bosses had conspired among themselves to slow the rate at which the clocks themselves moved so as to squeeze out as much extra productivity as possible.<br/><br/>Airships were at times felt or heard rather than seen, moving low over the factories, and always causing great billows of smog to sweep through the streets on the foul wind they generated. Their noisy engines mixed with the clamor of the trains and the machines and the shouting of those who wished to be heard over the din of industry, but scarcely half an hour after the clocks struck past 6pm the district was left almost utterly silent after work had ceased. The silence hung thickly in the cool air of evening and night, and it was no small wonder that the Black District was rumored to be haunted at such an hour. Out of the rolling fog, which was ever present even after the day's work was finished, only occasional figures could be glimpsed, their outlines made visible by the gas lamps which dotted the district.<br/><br/>Disappearances are not entirely unknown among the Black District, but it was not so much the disappearances as it was the<em>reappearances</em>which was disconcerting. Men and women alike, workers and overseers both, had been known to vanish during the night, and then to be found lost and confused some time later, often upon the rooftops of buildings just outside of the industrial maze. These people seemed to possess no memory or knowledge of how they got there, though often times those who possessed magical aptitude were suspected of dishonesty, as they seemed abnormally reticent to return to the Black District even after professing absolute ignorance of their condition.<br/><br/>Such was the night for the warlock, finding herself in the wandering the rows of factories, perhaps searching for the strange liquid trails said to be left at the moment of disappearing, or perhaps searching for one of the individuals themselves who had been disappeared once before, perhaps acting as conspicuously as possible to draw whatever hidden terror might be behind the disappearances to her in a more bold fashion, or perhaps taking another approach entirely.