June 30, 2014 in 750 Words

This morning's 750 brought to you by the Epic Heroic Playlist on Spotify.

Well, today's the last day of the month, which means NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow... I don't know if I'm ready yet but I'm going to do my best.

Had a dream last night, a really good one to include. I don't know if it's going t have anything to do with this story -- the setting would really fit into the world I'm building, hell, it'd work with the city I'm building, but I think the story itself is for another novel / novella / short story. It was originally going to be a Leverage fanfic, but I think it'd work better in my original work and whatnot.

The setting -- Sanctuary. In the turmoil and trouble of the gangs and the like, there's one place that's completely off limits. No one's really all that sure where Sanctuary is, the only people who do know are part of the staff and don't reveal the location on pain of death, but its job is to help, no matter what your affiliation is. When your group joins with Sanctuary, you're given a phone number. If you get injured, you call the number (most people have it on speed dial), state your name, answer a couple questions (where are you, how bad is the injury, how many people need picking up?) and they send out a van. You get picked up, brought into the compound and taken care of. in order to pay for Sanctuary's services, gangs and groups are forced to give Sanctuary a cut of their profits.

A huge thing with Sanctuary is that -all- fighting is off limits. You're not allowed, at all, to attack or harm anyone who are in Sanctuary with you. You can be placed in a bed next to a soldier in your biggest enemy's group, and you're not allowed to lay a hand on them. If you do break the sacred peace, then you, and your entire group, are not allowed in Sanctuary any longer, and you don't have the ability to call on them to aid you. It's such a huge thing, being allowed into Sanctuary for healing and succor. It's not just healing that they do. Say you have someone big coming to town, and you don't trust your own lodging, or don't trust the person or your underlings. Sanctuary has housing, everything from family apartments for those families that are being put out or endangered by the enemy, to plush one room apartments for visiting dignitaries.

Sanctuary was started by one of the doctors from the High City. After seeing what happened with people in the Lower City, how they're breaking off in gangs and killing each other... and how the fighting would ooze its way into the hospitals, (Hospitals are sometimes the most dangerous places there is, with the in fighting and the like), he decided something was to be done. He started working part-time as a mob doctor, opening up a clinic inside of the Lower City where anyone could pop in and get their injuries healed. After a few knife-fights and a few shootouts that endangered the people to either side of the clinic, he got the idea to move the place underground. Literally and figuratively. Starting with one group, he slowly spread the idea to all of the underprivileged in the Lower City, using whispers and cell phones to spread the information.

Faced with the knowledge that their acting up would jeopardize their ability to be included in the festivities and the like, people were on their best behavior. When winter comes and the whores and street people don't have much more than a tiny hollow to sleep in with a thin blanket, those who are affiliated with a group have the option of moving to Sanctuary, with the understanding that they will be housed and fed and the like, in exchange for them working at Sanctuary, be it as a chamber maid, cook, or one of a thousand other jobs. They're also mostly not allowed to go in and out of Sanctuary. The shopping and everything else that has to be done on the outside is done by a select group of individuals who have access to not only the Lower city, but the Inner City and the Upper city. (not sure why these people have access to all three cities, will have to figure that out.)

The story: Allie and her twin brother are the only heirs to the doctor who created Sanctuary, and both want to what's "best" for Sanctuary and the whole system as a whole. Unfortunately, they disagree on what is considered best. Her brother accuses Allie of being a spy and a liar, a sneak thief, and a person who would break the sacred peace. He wants the power for himself and will do anything for it. Allie wants to hold on to her father's memory by keeping the organization working the way it has all along, if not improving it.