In Paludan
Disappointed that Alice was temporarily occupied,
Kyle wandered around Paludan a little. He decided that the area that housed the Alchemists Guild consisted of a group of seven buildings. Based off of their layout he decided two of them were dormitories of some sort, one was a mess hall, one housed interactions with the public, and the remaining three were devoted to combinations of classrooms and laboratories. Littering the grounds between these buildings were racks for drying herbs, small gardens for growing herbs that would tolerate this treatment, and areas seemingly devoted to exercise for the novices. These final features seemed to be used infrequently, compared with the bustle around the other two.
Briefly wandering outside of this compound, Kyle found a city that sprawled. There was a fair distance between houses, but the city was by no means small. Out of curiosity Kyle walked from the Alchemists Guild in a single direction, and found that he could walk a fair distance before leaving the city. Eventually the number of houses tapered off, marking the edge of the broad city, but it was clear that Paludan wasn't merely a shanty town. There was rampant poverty however. A number of the fair sized houses he passed were empty, but there were also families living in derelict lean-to's. He resolved to figure out why there seemed to be essentially homeless people alongside empty yet seemingly available houses.
As he returned to the guild cloister he found a large clearing that seemed to hold Paludan's market. It was the only place in the city that he could see clearly up into the sky, giving the disorienting feeling of being in a cave looking out into the upper world. Shaking off the feeling, Kyle looked out into the market. It was slow, and almost appeared to be less occupied than the village market Kyle had so recently attended. The big space seemed to make a mockery of the sparseness of the stands, huge gaps showing the hard times the city had fallen upon. Only essential stands seemed to be up; hunters and bakers sold food but there were no stands with any toys or trinkets, no jewelry, nothing unessential. The customers of these stands seemed to bargain relentlessly over the smallest item, more often than not walking away without purchasing the food they had originally eyed up hungrily. Kyle decided he had seen enough of Paludan, enough to understand how difficult the war had been for them. It seemed that Alice must be done with her preparations, and he could probably return to the compound to find her.
Kyle Jonson:
Look around. -->
Success