"Wh- where are we going?" I asked as the blood knight pulled the lever of the small box she had shoved us in. The gate closed, the box rocked left and right, the hungering, crimson red eyes pierced through the knight's visor.
"Down." With a mechanical rumble, and the slick sound of draining blood, the box began to lower itself into the dark abyss of the pits.
Bloomenpeak is a city of dreams. It is the size of a large, deep city state, circular tiered in five rings atop three snowy mountains (which it takes its name from) that oversees a long and desolate bogged valley: Munte Tiran, Munte Movilà, and Munte Vijelie. The city has been built over itself ceaselessly, to the point where the deepest recesses are now abandoned, or inhabited solely by the foulest of creatures and the most desperate of people.
At the peaks of the city rests the monarchs of Bloomenpeak, both faceless and immortal, whose power runs in coordination with the five governors. Each governor rules over an active tier of the city, and is elected every 15 years. Bloomenpeak, however, is not a pleasant city. Many governors have bribed, blackmailed or killed their ways into office. Little is done on behalf of the monarchs, as they laze their eternity away.
The higher one goes in Bloomenpeak, the more sophisticated and elaborate the city becomes. The aristocracy and court of the country reside in labyrinthine residences overlooking the vast sprawling streets below. Many artisans and merchants, from locksmiths to woodworkers, live in the 2nd - 4th tiers of the city. Tall towering buildings that are crossed by hanging stone and wooden bridges.
Streets weave like a spider’s web over plummeting dark chasms, wrought by overly ambitious architects. Buildings tilt left and right, towering like gods over the dark Pits below. Streets litter the bottom of the 2nd - 4th tiers, flooded with murky water, vermin and cults. Tight, and sinewy, these streets are remnant echoes of previous eras.
Monstrosities belched by countless hemomancers, and maddened alchemists haunt the Pits. Oftentimes, criminals are merely cast off of bridges to their deaths, to wander hopelessly the frigid depths should they survive the fall. Societies of outcasts, murderers, cultists and the homeless fester in the boggy mire of the Pits.
The 5th tier rims the edges of the city. If the Pits are wet and fetid, the Walls of the city are dark and dry. Giving onto the cold marshlands of the Umberbarrow Valleys, the Walls are where the poor and impoverished reside. Cut away from the advances of the higher tiers, the Walls survive off of the dangerous lands ahead, bringing back what they can from times immemorial.
Corpses for the galvanists, artifacts for the collectors, trees for the bridge makers, and herbs for the drug brewers can all be found in the 5th tier and beyond. Many also join the factories, or the Wall Guard. Though they may be destitute, they are not as desperate as the Pit dwellers further deep.
Though grim, Bloomenpeak remains a city of "hope", where hedonists can thrive alongside the zealots of the Doctrine. The poor hope to have what it takes to scale the social ladder and make their place in the world. Whilst the rich entertain their fantasies at the expense of those below them.