Tower Deck 6
From Flight From Darkness
The air here is hazy, with a slightly yellowed tinge to it, and it smells faintly of something gone sour. The metal walls vibrate slightly with the distant and deep THRUM! THRUM! THRUM! of the Primary Pumping Station, which sends yellow fog rolling through the Deck as a byproduct of its function as the heart of the ship. Sound carries for quite a ways on Deck Six, but the twisting passageways and the odd layout (which include numerous and often cramped blocks of personal quarters or individual accommodations sandwiched between pipes the size of houses) makes it hard to tell which direction a noise comes from. Deck Six is a bit of a labyrinth, and in four years here even those who lived on the deck haven't fully mapped its sprawling corridors and networks of claustrophobic ventilation tunnels. It is an ideal place to be if you didn't want to be found.
The inhabitants of Deck Six are mostly people who were grabbed en-masse when the Dream swung by to grab some fated individual from their community, or people who aren't welcome in other sections of the ship. There are villagers here from all over the Northeast. A Haltan here, a Linowan there, a Gradafian or a Carnish or a Nexus drug addict there. Since hatred of the Wyld is common to most of the cultures occupying the decks above, Deck 6 is where those mutated by exposure to the Wyld tend to dwell, in a place that won't judge them for appearances or ask too many questions. Consequently, there are a number of active and retired External Defense Corps, Sanitation Corps, and Engineering Corps members living in these slums or working in the Primary Pumping Station.
The sour air here doesn't cause black lung (which means most of the former Nexus-dwellers find the place a step up), but long-term exposure can lead to migraines and a slow transformation of skin tone and eye color towards a ruddy copper. Nobody's been here long enough to turn into a gleaming metal-skinned person, but headache medicine's at a premium down here and many regulars have a metallic tint to their sweat.
