The home of the Forsaken, former Scourge, former human, had burrowed downwards from its former glory, which existed once above ground with towers and markets and stone reaching to infinity. But after their King fell to his son, after that son turned into something horrible and evil on levels no one could comprehend yet, after he turned on his people and made them undead, there was nothing to admire from the ruins that existed above ground. Instead, when that man - that man who twisted his people into undead to stock his armies - had his power over his soldiers shorn from him by the Dark Lady, those once citizens returned home and built downstairs.
One could question if She, the Dark Lady, had anything to do with the very design of the building, but in all honesty, the Forsaken probably created the whole thing themselves as some strange collective agreement that likely went mainly unspoken.
The son, now known as the Lich King, had expanded the dungeons and catacombs while lording over the Scourge, but the Forsaken's claws and tools made the Undercity their own. In the very center, the heart, of the city sits the bank, one of its tellers a ghost flitting open vaults and boxes by request. From here, walkways go up and down: down one can venture out into the other quarters, so long as he avoids staring too long at the green liquid moat standing stagnant in the center circle of Undercity. Up, he can witness the cold character of Forsaken as they chat on the topmost ring of the city, even though barber services, a flying bat travels dealer, and a chilly innkeeper all exist here, just waiting for business. This is known as the Trade Quarter, and here there is trade in gold, in body parts, in cockroaches the size of an orc leg, in cloth, in herbs, in anything one could cross in his travels.
All around the center stretch out huge enclaves carved into rock and boulder, chiseled into dreary stone. The War Quarter, the Magic Quarter, the Apothecarium, the Rogue's Quarter.
Southeast sits the Rogue's Quarter, where the living and undead alike may found their pockets more empty and their throats more slit. Thieves train here, as do assassins. Poison is sold openly beside a storefront dedicated to selling bandages for all stages of training. All day, all night, Forsaken sulk here, offering their trade of leatherworking, skinning beasts, and engineering dangerous things to passerbys most determined.
Southwest reeks the Apothecarium. The Forsaken that come here may linger, but few living do. Of all the places in Undercity, this is perhaps the most unwelcoming to outsiders, as this dark quarter is where the Royal Apothecary Society makes its ugly, unethical home. As they seek to eradicate all existence of the living from the world, they do so here first in the Apothecarium. Underneath the top level amounts to a torture chamber meshed with a complex laboratory, a place of unbelievable disturbance that radiates an evil not unlike the Lich King's. The comparison is not unreasonable: here the Apothecaries control things, shape things, break things, and it worries not just a few to linger here, even when turning in reports. Potions gurgle and explode along side the wanton destruction and compression of equipment into their basic parts, like breaking something down to its soul. In a mockery of life, a Forsaken here can teach you to pick flowers and herbs - and then use those things to inscribe runes into skin or discover elixirs that can boost morale or kill a man right out.
The War Quarter stems directly north of the Apothecarium and can be walked through with a different sort of worry. Here the Forsaken military trains, and only a few moments of study can easily show why one would not want to start a war with these people. Warriors slam and cleave and break training dummies while priests expertly spin the Light to heal their wounds, all in a weird dance of their former selves, their time as humans that happened not too long ago. A Forsaken blacksmith works here, as does one able to direct trainees in how to mine and where to go to find ore, all looking like emaciated versions of a world uneasily found in memory.
Across from the military burns the magic men of the Forsaken, in the aptly titled Magic Quarter. Cloth rules here, not plate or mail armor. Whether it be explosions of flame or ice or the complicated control of fel and Shadow magic, the Forsaken here take their skills seriously, though the consequences are less considered. If one fears crossing paths with demons or death, he should not strike through the Magic Quarter, he will see or be visited by either or both. In the midst of it all, a master tailor spins out robes and other gear for the nude, wasted Forsaken still asleep in the crypts far off in Death Knell.
Back towards the Apothecarium... there is one hall that anyone can venture down but only should with a mission in mind. It is the Royal Quarter, where the Dark Lady herself stands, sometimes bored, sometimes full of a passion that could destroy kingdoms. Her deathguards protect her, dangerous Forsaken, the most elite of their people. She is ringed by battlemasters, who direct forces to specific battlefields across the world to assist the Forsaken and the Horde.
One can admire and worship the Dark Lady here all he wants. He just needs to know he will occasionally be pushed down by her and may be killed by her deathguards.
But even this adds to the beauty of the Undercity. Moving corpses, the Forsaken, and motionless corpses, the living they have dragged here dead, among all the construction and work put into creating the city. Explosions of magic and might decorating as far as the eye can see. The shouts and cries and murmurs and roars of the Forsaken echoing the stone, crescendoing to denote their return to this world.
Sometimes, floating beside dead rats and scattered body parts, in the moat of Undercity, one will notice something else.
Delicate paper ravens tirelessly built from handmade materials dance on the green death river. Pink things with blue flowers etched into them, crimson birds with orange suns and black stars, midnight blue crows with silver walls and towers touching up their wings... flying softly, sweetly, by, through Undercity, darting past ambitious Forsaken freshly returned to existence, dust from the grave still thick on their shoulders.
