<div class="floatright">(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/medieval-online/images/d/d3/Fantasy-city-at-night.jpeg/revision/latest?cb=20141025000517)</div>Valline, such a great city it had no peers in the known world, looked almost peaceful in the dusk, with lantern lights coming through millions on windows, globes of magical light illuminating its major roads and torches lighting the smaller ones. The five massive towers that rose above the rest of the city from its center, belonging to the four ministries and the Dragon Emperor respectively, loomed like giants over the common people who lived in the city, either the outlying slums crammed beyond capacity, or closer to the center where the estates of the nobles and and their retinues belonged. It was a reminder that they were in the heart of the Empire and the one ruling over them was impossibly, or at least incomprehensibly more powerful than anything else. The Golden Emperor was a silent ruler as long as his laws and decrees were carried out. He rarely interfered, but when he did there was no denying his will. The four ministries, each named after one of the four elements handled affairs of state, and the Imperial Champion, the Emperor's personal lone enforcer carried out orders given directly by his majesty. At every new year's festival, the Emperor would show his glorious form, flying circles around the city to the awe of his people.<br/><br/>Yet even here, crime was present, if anything it was much better hidden and organized as in other places. Few had the courage and resources to tempt the wrath of the law here, but those who succeeded were among the most powerful and influential, and quite usually among the most corrupt. Even rookie pickpockets and brutes or thugs had to learn to find a way to operate within the system or around the word of the law. Those who couldn't do it on their own, would be rounded up fast, or they would join crime families that could cover for them, offer protection and shelter.<br/><br/>The glory and majesty of the city center and luxuries of the upper class didn't mean the majority of the people didn't live in poverty. On top of it all, women in the outskirts of the empire, at the more lawless regions had no rights whatsoever. Here, it was slightly better as they were full citizens, but many in the slums didn't care much for that and treated them unfairly, limiting what work was available to them and abusing any advantage they could over them. If a woman belonged to the upper class, she was given respect, but was treated as a trophy nonetheless, or a pretty accessory to be carried around or bartered with in arranged political marriages. Still, compared to far away hives of villainy like Anfaigh overseas, the women weren't in constant danger of being assaulted. The only ways a woman could hold any real power was either if she was a noble-born soldier, part of the Emperor's army, or if she became a lady of the night as well as an information broker. Neither were safe occupations.<br/><br/>Mouse, an adult human man in a leather jerkin considered this while waiting on a flat rooftop, dozens of feet above street level on top of a slum home that housed maybe a hundred. The man had short hair, a thin mustache and an angular face, with large upper incisors that gave him the look of a rodent, the cause for the nickname he went by. That, and the fact that he could get in the smallest nook and cranny, which made him quite useful to gather information that certain people would like to keep hidden. One of his clients, the one he was waiting for tonight, was interested in a particular case from some years ago, the death of a certain lady of the night, a well known and expensive beauty known only as "The Butterfly" thanks to a tattoo she wore. Seems like her death meant something to someone, because they were hellbent on finding the culprits, even enclosing a drawing of the masks the killers supposedly wore in the letter.<br/><br/>The agreed upon time was here, and he was looking around, waiting for an approach on the unlit roof. He was eager on negotiating price for the information he obtained, and in case the client didn't want to play, well he had tricks up his sleeve for cases like that.