This is the commercial district of Barcelunda. It is a much more lively place than Level One, bustling with activity. Humans are welcome on Level Two. The streets are straighter. Hundreds of buildings line the streets containing shops, cafes, hotels, saloons, and gambling dens. The humans who visit Barcelunda are mostly gangsters and criminals. They wear hooded gray cloaks to hide their identity.
At the main intersections of streets large stalagmites rise up like gigantic termite hills. These are covered in luminous algae providing the main lighting. Many of the side streets, shops, and cafes also have oil lanterns or wall-mounted burning torches to provide extra light. The shops and cafes have an international flavor with curiosities and delights to amuse humans and gomes from all over the world. Large square plazas, like Plaza Bonaventure, are filled with gomes and humans sitting at tables chatting and sampling the international cuisine. In some of these plazas there are stairways leading down to Level Three, but these are heavily guarded. Barcelundan guards and police patrol the streets and prowl on the rooftops to keep order.
Here is the first impression that Hadley had when she first saw Level Two when she emerged form the side alley connecting the city with the Segovia Borehole:
“When she reached the end of the alley she gasped.
“This is like a whole different city, Wullie.”
The street was wide, flat, and swept clean. The cave roof was somewhere in the darkness a hundred feet above them. The walls were perfectly flat, like the sides of buildings. It was less crowded and less smoky than Level One, but much more interesting. Gomes and occasional hooded humans emerged from doorways carrying packages. The humans had to stoop to get through the doors but seemed quite comfortable and confident. The air was filled with interesting smells of salty food, spices, and perfume. There were no hanging stalaglights but pale white light came from near the intersection of main streets. Colored lights also shone through windows of the shops that lined the street.
There were strange and exotic things on display in every window. Crystals and rocks in all colors, shapes and sizes; rows of tiny glass bottles with strange symbols on them; teeth, horns, tusks, and antlers, sorted by size and species. Some stores sold tiny ropes and tools; metal knives, hooks, spears, shovels, and picks. Others offered feathers and cloth fashioned into tiny cloaks or head dresses, leather belts, straps and bags made out of reptile skin. Through one window Hadley saw a shelf of tiny leather books that reminded her of Bluebeard’s little black book that had caused them so much trouble last summer.
Gomes from the business and commercial classes live in neighborhoods off the main streets of Level Two. They tend to stay near gomes of their own class and rock type. So Jade-Tsi-Dong sets up his shop in the Chinatown part of the international district where many other yellow and green jade-based gomes live.