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Bed and Breakfast; [P]EKO! Eko! eko! eko...
Topic Started: Thu Aug 22, 2013 1:51 pm (814 Views)
Bloodknight
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Rurik wandered through the cobblestone streets of the city, attempting to keep to the edges to avoid blocking traffic with his careful, slow plodding. Most people were willing to part for him, anyway, breaking apart and reforming behind him like a stream around a rock. That made his mind drift back to the desert and the odd moniker the nomads there apparently gave him, "The Wandering Mountain." He still wasn't certain how to take that.

His mind had been wandering, too. He shook his head and kept moving forward.

He'd been in the city of Balefire for a while now. Telling exactly how long was impossible. Balefire, and its residents, seemed to move at their own pace, their rhythm completely independent from the sun that never shone here nor the stars that never glowed overhead. He'd noticed a grand clock in what was likely the city's center, but it wasn't visible from everywhere, and he didn't know which numbers on the Imythessian clock matched with which part of the day, besides.

He would keep track through his meals, but he'd only had one since he'd arrived. The rest of his funds, foolishly, he realized, were wasted away on a pair of leather gauntlets. He sighed and his stomach growled at his choice. He thought he had more coin in his pouch, but it was empty when he tried to buy a snack from a street vendor. So now he looked for work, but none was to be had, not to a vagrant in an old poncho, at least.

He blinked and realized, without conscious direction, he'd wandered into an odd maze of backstreets. There were fewer people, at least, balanced out by more garbage, but he didn't quite remember wandering in here. Feeling his eyelids droop, he smacked his face with one gauntlet covered hand to reawaken his mind. He couldn't sleep now! He hadn't even been up that long! It'd been only....

He wasn't certain. Either way, he shouldn't feel tired. He did allow himself to feel a bit lost. He'd taken a few turns in his trance-like walk and wasn't certain which passageway would lead him back into the main streets. He shrugged, readjusted the pack on his back, and trudged forward. He'd just keep moving and turning right. He'd either reemerge into the streets or hit a dead end and need to turn around. Either way, he'd find his way. It wasn't as though there would be anything overly dangerous here.
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Lady Eko
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"You look... down on your luck."

A pair of squid's eyes looked out from an otherwise featureless outline. The man stepped into the light of a nearby street lantern just ahead of Rurik's path. He wore innocuous clothing: a long-sleeved shirt with a grey vest over it, long trousers, and a trilby hat. Other than the eyes, he looked human enough. The two of them were alone on this street except for a half-starved drifter sleeping on the side of the road a ways back, a cloud of gnats circling his head. The mysterious man tipped his hat at Rurik in greeting. "Name's Fortread. Seems like 'luck' is at a premium these days -- but both of us just got a little luckier running into each other." He smiled. "Looking for work?"



They talked over a meal that Fortread mentioned was "lunch." The restaurant was decent considering the neighborhood. The squid-eyed man crunched a salad, stealing the occasional glance at the blonde beauty waiting tables across the room. "It's why I'm lucky to have come across you. I need some big guys who can lift a lot. All you gotta do is move a few boxes in the warehouse at Aune. We'll pay you twenty silvers an hour, plus holding up your lodgings and meals while you're working for us. Not a bad deal at all for just a one-time job. Interested?" If he was, Fortread would scribble out some directions on a scrap piece of parchment. The crude map showed the way from here to the warehouse at Aune and also pointed out the location of his inn nearby. "We're a little strapped for time though, so if you could take it easy for a couple hours and then meet us there by 1600, that'd be great."
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Bloodknight
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Rurik nodded with a tired smile at the man's offer. It did sound good. It wasn't the most skilled labor, but menial work needed to be done as well. Rurik could easily help move their stores, especially for the wages offered. He wasn't certain how much a Imythessian silver was to a copper coin, but he knew it was worth more, and he'd made most of his purchases thus far with just coppers. Twenty silvers would give him quite a bit of breathing room financially speaking, or even fund for a new sword or shield.

Some part of his mind nagged at him, wondering why the pay was so generous for such simple labor, but fatigue and a freshly filled stomach muted it. Rurik tended to look for the best in others, and the fact the man not only bought him a meal but was willing to take a chance on him and give him a job placed him as someone worthy of trusting a least a little.

He thought about taking a nap while he waited for the 1600 time, but he didn't want to oversleep and miss this opportunity. Besides, he convinced himself, he wasn't that tired. A jaunt around the city would be all he needed to keep himself alert and fresh, pausing once in a while to ask passersby what the time was, or at least if it was 1600 yet.

Once the time reached 1540, or so someone told him, and Rurik worked out that the time intervals were divided into only sixty minutes, not one hundred, he worked through the simple map, having to stop more people to ask them if he was on a particular street as reading Imythessian Common was something he'd yet to accomplish, and finally arrived at an oddly abandoned part of Balefire, with lantern lights few except for in the windows of the building he thought was the place.

He raised a hand and knocked, the other one still holding the map for reference and potential explanation if he got the address wrong. "Hello?" he called out. "I am here for work?"
Edited by Bloodknight, Tue Aug 27, 2013 2:29 am.
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Lady Eko
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Fortread's wavy pupils appeared as the door opened. "Come in, Rurik."

Rows upon rows of shelves contained wooden crates all the way up to the ceiling of the big single-room building. Fading lanterns made the lighting inadequate and cast inky black shadows over most everything, including the various stamps and labels on the crates. Fortread led Rurik to a pair of large double-doors near the back. This was where a handful of large-bodied men -- mostly humans, foreigners by the looks of it, none as big as Rurik -- waited for some people to break down a large wagon load backed partway inside. They didn't speak to each other. Upon closer inspection, their eyes were tired and unfocused. "On your feet!" Fortread shouted. "We need to get this wagon offloaded, then fill it up with the load from last night's stack! Get moving, get moving!"

The shift was only six hours long in all. They managed to get two wagons loaded up in this fashion, then moved a large portion of the stock to a new location within the warehouse. Their final hour was spent preparing for tomorrow's load. Fortread was a taskmaster in a work environment, using a big voice that reverberated through the room to keep everyone from slacking off. Still, he seemed quite pleased with Rurik's performance at the end of the day. When it was that man's turn to collect his pay, Fortread gave him a pat on the back after plopping a coin purse into his hand. "Pleasure doing business with you, Rurik. Come back anytime."



Outside of Rurik's inn room window, the clock tower burned the hour 0430. There was a knock on his door. Insistently the knock continued until the door was opened, revealing a smiling and well-rested Fortread in a black jacket. "Good morning. How are you?" He rushed through the pleasantries. "I hate to impose, but I'm here to collect the debt from your lunch, dinner, and a night at the inn. Since you've made some coin, you should be able to pay it off, right?" Still smiling, the man flipped through his notes to find the total. "Hmm... 50 for meals, 200 for the inn room. Say, wasn't your shift only six hours long? A pretty short day, sorry about that. You'd likely be able to pay off that debt if you came in for one more shift. Twelve hours, meals included. Sorry, but you know -- mouths to feed, nothing is free in Balefire, you know the drill I'm sure."
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Bloodknight
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"What?" Rurik asked, puzzled and shocked. Sleeping helped revitalize him some, but his mind was still a groggy haze, and his attempts to work out the math from the list of expenses - ones he never knew about - weren't working out. He didn't realize how expensive things like inns were. He'd only camped before now, and was the meal he ate truly that costly? "I...I think not..."

"Of course, if you're unwilling to pay off your debts," Fortread said in a sad, dejected tone. "There's always the option of debtor's prison, though that'll take far more of your time than a measly half day of labor, wouldn't you agree?"

"Ah..." Rurik said, taken aback. The only math he worked out in the meantime was that twenty silver was certainly less than two hundred, and his own sense of duty and obligation wouldn't allow him to skip out on a debt, even without the threat of jailtime. Part of his mind attempted to catch his attention again, but was lost in the hazy whirl of attempted thought. "If...If it is only a day..."
~*~
Though he worked as quickly as he could and his muscles ached from the exertion, at the end of the day Rurik could not earn enough to repay his debts, ones spelled out on a ledger that was shown and explained too quickly for Rurik to grasp more than the fact he needed to work more hours if he hoped to break even.

So after too little sleep, he worked another twelve hours. He took the more "economic" option of bunking in the warehouse instead of the inn, with only a thin bedroll between himself and the stone floor, but he still owed too much. He cut down his meals to only one a day, but the numbers that made up his debt only grew larger. The more he worked, the higher it seemed to grow, and though his sense of unease became stronger, it was outstripped by his inability to figure out what was wrong.

Four days after Fortread's fortuitous offer, muscles aching, belly gnawing with hunger, and tired, eternally tired, Rurik's eyes matched the dead, sunken looks of his fellow workers, following orders without the energy to question why.
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Lady Eko
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Fortread's usual shouting was gone all of a sudden. Had anyone looked up from their work to see what was different, they'd spot him just outside the unloading door, talking to someone with a big grin on his face. Having clients directly visit the warehouse was uncommon, but not the strangest thing. This time, the client was short in stature, hard to tell from this distance if it was a man or woman, wearing both a hooded cloak and a scarf to obscure pretty much all their features. Once they were done speaking, Fortread led them into the warehouse, picking up a crate-opening crowbar on the way. "Break time, everyone!" It wasn't part of their scheduled breaks, but necessary. It carried the unspoken assumption that the workers were to stay out of his and the client's way while they perused the warehouse. Still, it was too quiet to avoid overhearing their conversation at this point.

"I can assure you that our product is unparalleled in quality," he explained. "Though I can't help but ask why you'd request such a large order. Do you intend to outfit an army? Anticipating casualties?"

"That's none of your concern," the small, feminine voice replied.

Fortread chuckled nervously. "My apologies. Best not to ask questions in this line of work." They stopped midway down Shelf B. "Here we are. Shall I open one for you, to ease your concerns?"

The client nodded, prompting the squid-eyed man to do actual physical labor. He propped his foot against the big crate, then used the heavy crowbar to pry open the special nails on the top of it. Removing one of the panels revealed a much heavier, much more suspicious-looking metal container within, and it exuded vapor from its sheer coldness. Fortread was having trouble opening the special switches on this second container, so his client offered to hold his crowbar for him; he handed it off without thinking much of it. Hands free, he twisted switches and got the panel open quickly. The inside of this cold box was packed tight with lungs preserved in cold liquid.

"Conserving space, are we?" the client teased.

"Reduces shipping costs, and the product certainly isn't damaged. We aren't some back-alley chop shop, after all. We know what we're doing." This time Fortread's answer was tinged with a little bit of indignation rather than a manic 'the customer is always right' mentality. Her dig must have gotten a bit of a rise out of him.

"Show me your eyes, then. Those are delicate. I want to see how tightly those are packed."

He got a little twitch in his eye, but he obliged. "Someone come put the top back on this one!" he shouted over his shoulder as the two of them had to walk over to a completely different part of the warehouse. It was easy to guess what the man was thinking: 'this defacing had better turn up a huge sale.'

This crate was much smaller, and stashed on the bottom of the shelf. Fortread knelt down, went to open the crate, and realized that he'd made his client carry the crowbar this whole time. "Ah, my greatest apologies! I had forgotten you were even carrying that. May I--"

The client casually adjusted her grip on the crowbar by tossing it slightly up, letting it slide in her hand, and already pulling it back into a two-handed swing by the time he turned to look over his shoulder. He cut himself off moments before dense iron hammered into his face. The noise of impact was sickening: simultaneously a thud and a crack. Fortread collapsed onto his back, half his face caved in. Somehow still alive, he spat teeth and blood. His "client" ripped off her confining cloak and scarf. A pair of light green eyes, so light that they looked more silver than green, burned into him.

"This barbaric enterprise is now over," the client, Eko, said.

"Help!" Fortread screamed. "Intruders! Protect the pro--" He couldn't finish his warning. Harsh impacts echoed through the building. Then there was a gap of silence.

Eko held her bloody crowbar low at her side as she stepped over Fortread's body. She stalked back down the rows toward the warehouse's shipping entrance. Her eyes scanned the low light for signs of movement among the workers at break. It was her who broke this moment of calm. Once she was close enough to the exit, she spoke slightly louder than usual. "Leave no trace."

People began pouring in through the entry. Eko tossed her crowbar to a blond young man passing by, who caught it and whipped it in an arc. The hook struck the nearest crate, hard. He ripped a hole in it, spilling preservative liquid and fragments of body parts. The others had hammers, more crowbars, tools that were good for breaking. At least a dozen people rolled into the room and got to work, roaring battle cries.

"Ketta, get this graveyard rigged to blow within the next ten minutes!" Eko shouted into the darkness over the chorus of ripping wood, puncturing metal, and collapsing shelving units.
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Bloodknight
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"Break time, everyone!"

Rurik let the latest crate back down, ensuring it didn't simply drop onto the floor. They'd all been yelled at enough about that already. He lumbered toward the front of the warehouse as Fortread simpered among the rows with a stranger. Rurik's own curiosity sat too drained to listen in or care much about the stranger's visit. He gratefully took the unexpected break, wondering if it'd be long enough for him to fetch his poncho. It became so cold in the warehouse when they weren't working, but far too hot and sweaty for him to wear it while they labored, so he kept it on his bedroll. His other things were...they were somewhere, he felt certain. For now, his head hanging, his shoulders drooped, and his arms slack, working that out managed to be far too much work.

"Someone come put the top back on this one!" Fortread's voice echoed. The break ended already? Telling time was so difficult, and breaks never seemed long enough either way. Quiet glances went through the warehouse workers and Rurik found himself volunteered to carry out the order. He wandered back to where Fortread's shouting originated, picking up a small wooden mallet along the way, and found the crate in question.

He raised the mallet as Fortread and the stranger's voices echoed in another part of the warehouse, but paused, a small ember of curiosity glowing. Fortread never explained what they were hauling day in and day out. At one point Rurik thought them simply miscellaneous shipments, then it was less important than loading and unloading them. If, however, one sat already pried open, it'd take mere seconds to lift the corner of the lid and see what laid inside. Glancing about in worry, Rurik reached out and lifted the crate's top. Within an insulating layer and a fluid so cold he could feel the chill seeping out, layer upon layers of something were submerged. He lifted it further, and his anatomy lessons came in useful for all the worst reasons.

The crate was layered, from top to bottom, with lungs, human lungs. He released the lid, stumbling backward into another aisle, and pulled away from those. For the first time in days, the exhaustion was gone, replaced entirely by adrenaline. Caught on the edge between collapsing and immediate action, Rurik could swear he could see inside each and everyone one of those crates and witness their gristly contents. The entire time? Were they moving this the entire time?

A sudden wet thwack replaced the hushed echoes of voices, and Fortread cried out in panicked pain about intruders. There was another wet thud, and Fortread fell silent at last. Rurik stood stock still, his weariness mixing with his fear and his instincts, all them screaming at him to flee, to find a shield, to fall asleep for a week. He couldn't work out what happened around him, and there were still those human parts all around him. He swore he could smell their rot, though the warehouse smelled as empty and sterile as always. More cracking and destruction thundered through the building, punctuated by a moist slaps of meat against stone. His grip on the mallet tightened until his knuckles felt ready to tear.

Movement caught his eye. A woman rounded the corner and raised a heavy hammer. She aimed nowhere near him. She was several yards away, in fact, but his mind at last came through with a definite thought.

A weapon. A threat. Stop it.

In three wide, running steps, Rurik closed the distance between them, and the mallet lashed out, aimed for the threat's face.
Edited by Bloodknight, Thu Aug 22, 2013 10:11 pm.
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Lady Eko
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Dead tissue squelched under Eko's boots. The preservative liquid covering the ground was viscous in some places and runny in others. Within seconds the whole warehouse smelled sickly clean, the kind of clean that burned her nostrils a little and left her light-headed. Some of her employees on the other side of the warehouse shouted, "Coming down!" She saw another tall shelving unit falling like a tree in the forest, heard the ear-splitting impact. Crates shattered, fluid spilled, and nearby shelves groaned under the weight of it, threatening to domino themselves. The employees that weren't focused on property damage were doing their best to round up the small group of haulers. They had no fight left in them. The only life in their eyes registered fear, and though they looked strong they huddled with their arms over their heads, protecting themselves from falling hazards. Something small and fast scrabbled along the rafters, sticking glowing metal canisters to every part of the building that was essential to keeping its structure.

A crossing of weapons caught Eko's attention. She realized that every employee of Fortread's was utterly compliant... except one.

The one wielding a mallet had gone totally berserk. Eko was several yards behind the huge man when he bullrushed one of her employees. The only thing keeping Charmaine from getting her face caved in was the fact she saw him coming. The woman ducked at the same time that she scrambled backwards. Nearby employees rushed to Charmaine's aid, shouting at the man to stand down, to put down his weapon lest he get hurt. They had all been ordered beforehand not to kill any of the entry-level employees, as Eko had explained that they likely had no idea what kind of business they were working for.

Eko herself couldn't help but look at this guy and think about how big of a threat he was. She sunk into a low stance, creeping forward on cat's feet as her hands worked to free a coiled whip from her hip. Every bit of low light seemed to find its way to, and blanket, Eko during her hurried yet restrained sneak-approach. Once the whip was free, she carefully slid it in her hands to uncoil it.

Now within striking range, she made her move. The whip flew in a horizontal arc, aiming for the towering man's wrist, the one that kept a firm hold on the mallet. If it hit, the enchanted weapon would form a tight hold around the limb -- and Eko would wrench it back with all her strength, which hopefully was enough to at least keep him from striking out.
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Bloodknight
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Where there was one stranger, there were now half a score. The warehouse stank of antiseptic and rotten flesh. He was surrounded by boxes and boxes of separated bodies. Attackers shouted at him from all sides, their words just a roaring scream. He watched them all, wide eyed and teeth bared, not wasting air on sound. After all the stress and the hunger and the exhaustion, his mind collapsed into the simplest urges to fight or flee, and he saw nowhere to flee even if he wished to.

He swung the mallet around, aiming for heads and hands, his right arm raised so his own forearm functioned as a shield, blocking what blows he could and ignoring the rest. Pain didn't register anymore. There was just the fear that transcended panic back into the calm that came with a clear purpose. What he'd do after the fight didn't matter, only getting through it.

Something tugged at his left hand, pulling it backwards, squeezing tight enough to force him to drop the mallet. He still gave no sound, and barely spared a glance. He ignored the other attacks to reach back and clutch the leather lashing with both hands. Bending at the knees and waist as well as his arms, he pulled forward against the constraining tug. It was attached to something, he reasoned, and once it was free, he could fight again.


I think he's only at Athletics: Adept here.
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Lady Eko
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It was a foregone conclusion that Eko would lose that battle of raw strength, but muscle memory worked against her; she kept a firm hold of her weapon for a moment too long. The worker wrenched her whole body along with the whip. Its handle slid out of her grip as she stumbled and hit the ground shoulder-first.

On the ground, prone just to the left of Rurik's feet, Eko panicked. Shadows played across her body in unnatural patterns, putting her in and out of visibility for a moment. Her employees had just enough time to shout, "Eko!" before she was on her feet again, a knife ripped out of a secret pocket in her jacket. She stalked around the front of the huge man. Her whip was still tied around his wrist, but it was useless trying to fetch it.

She got an idea.

"What the hell are you doing?" another employee exclaimed.

"Everyone on this side, move to the next row over! I'll hold him off!" she shouted. "Just do it!" Even with her insistence, there was some hesitation. It clicked with a few that Eko probably had a plan, so their retreat paved the way for others to do the same.

Eko stared down the crazed, towering man alone, light on her feet, just out of his striking range, watching him like a hawk to try to read what he'd do next. It would be a lie if she told herself she wasn't terrified. Her heart beat fast, spurring on rapid shallow breaths. One direct hit from him and she'd be dead. She forced back the mental image of him crushing her ribcage or breaking her neck, focusing on keeping him in more or less the same place instead. She couldn't let him run after her employees. Had to focus on her. Eko thought about saying something, but she didn't need to after all. Her employees had gotten to the other row of shelves quickly. They peered at her through gaps in the crates.

"Push!" Eko ordered, and then bolted down the row as fast as her legs could carry her.

The combined strength of several people made the shelf teeter. Once it lost its balance, it was all over. The whole thing collapsed. A shower of crates fell onto the side where Eko and Rurik remained. Eko ducked and darted, wheeled to a stop to let a crate shatter in front of her, leaped over it and got out just before the whole shelving unit hit ground level. The harrowing escape left her on her hands and knees, eyes wide, still breathing fast from adrenaline.

She looked back, unsure of whether the worker had survived that. That potentially lethal plan was the only thing she could come up with on the spot that had any hope of at least bringing someone so dangerous under control.
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The burst of energy began to drain, leaving his muscles as though they were slowly filling with sand. The sickening fear remained, and though the number of threats moved from ten to only one, he still struck out, now with fists instead of the fallen mallet. The threat kept darting away, however, leaving him near breathless and striking only air. Each punch fell slower and slower, but his panicked rage forced him forward against the lead in his bones.

The threat shouted. A creaking caught his ear, and he looked up in time to see the tall, heavy shelving stuffed with crates descend in strangely slow motion. His reaction felt just as slow, as he raised his arms to shield his head, managing little else as the full forced of the warehouse's heavy crates knocked him to the ground, some cracking and even smashing open to cover him in the near frozen liquid and harvested organs. The shelving struck the one next to it, and its teetering fall toppled the one after that, until the final line of shelving struck the wall and the cacophony of breaking infrastructure died down, until there was only the splashes of leaking liquid pooling from the crates.

Rurik, knocked out a few seconds by a blow to the skull, regained consciousness sprawled out on the floor, covered in broken wood, the preserving liquid and, he realized as his stomach roiled and his eyes widened, covered and surrounded by a horrible assortment of body parts. He screamed, a final burst of strength pushing him free from the wreckage. His footing slipped on an errant kidney, sending him sprawling into a pile of intestines. Instead of rising again, he curled up tight, wrapping his arms over his head and drawing his knees to his chest.

"I-I didn't know!" he cried out in Tarbathin, his mind too sickened and reeling to bother translating his horror into Common. "How could I have known!? I-I didn't...How could I..." His hysterical defense fell into chocking sobs, tears and mucus streaming from his eyes and nose, hating himself for what he allowed himself to aid, knowing his own cries of innocence didn't absolve him of this. "I didn't know...."
Edited by Bloodknight, Sun Aug 25, 2013 8:33 pm.
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Lady Eko
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Eko's stomach sank when she saw him rise from the wreckage, covered in things unspeakable but barely harmed. She flinched at his shout, took a step back. The language wasn't familiar to her. He was a foreigner and he sounded desperate and full of guilt, maybe even on the verge of tears. The raw emotion in his tone transcended the language barrier, making Eko feel guilty too. She didn't let that new feeling show on her face. "...Ketta, is it ready?"

"Almost!" a voice cried down from the rafters, unseen.

"Charmaine, Rashen, and Sven, take this one in. Everyone else, finish cleaning up. I'm going to do a final sweep."

The three employees gave Eko a look of dis-ease. They were hesitant to approach the seven-foot man. They agreed to all jump him at the same time, on the count of three. Eko walked away before she could see them bullrush the poor, foreign man through the rubble and organs littering the ground, likely restraining him and rounding him up with the other low-level warehouse workers.

Ten minutes later, everyone was gathered in the street just outside the building. Lanterns in buildings nearby within this neighborhood called Aune were dim. The last stragglers filed out of the door, but the last one out -- a girl with cat's eyes -- went straight up to Eko. "No one alive's left in there and she's all rigged up. You want me to bring it down?"

Eko looked up at Ketta from the bundle of cloth in her arms. She'd found the sun-faded desert poncho during her last sweep. Something about its well-worn nature struck her as sentimental somehow, so she'd picked it up. "Blow it off the map. I don't even want to use the building," she answered, and turned to walk away.

Ketta got everyone to back away. Most scattered. Prisoners -- the low-level haulers -- were escorted into the streets by groups of Eko's employees. Eko herself climbed a nearby rooftop and started her idiosyncratic method of travel in earnest. Once everyone was far enough out of the blast zone, an ear-splitting explosion erupted from the site of the warehouse. The resulting fireball obliterated the structure in its entirety. Eko could see the light it gave off from a huge distance away.



"This is an inn, not a prison!" Mohdu exclaimed in his usual boisterous manner. All eyes were on the bar where Eko sat and the middle-aged man tended. She swirled her glass in her hand, jingling the ice within.

"They're harmless."

A vein popped out of the proprietor's forehead. "That's not what I heard."

She waved her hand dismissively. "Only one was dangerous. I put him in Room 4." That was the room that looked exactly like the others, except it had iron bars on the windows and its reinforced door could only be locked from the outside. It was her "dungeon." "I just need to interview them. Once I verify their connections, I can let them go. I'll even offer them jobs working for me if they're that hard-pressed for coin."

"I take it you're going to offer the murderous, giant berserker a job, as well?"

Eko smiled pleasantly at Mohdu not because she was actually content, but merely to mess with him. "Maybe. I think he has a story."

Mohdu sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. "Today, you hire the berserker. Tomorrow, you hire a fox of the Lady Nochesce."

A guard poked his head in. "Eko, the guy in Room 4 is awake now."

"Ah, thanks." She slid off the bar stool and headed for the room in question. She'd gotten a little worried there. The guy was sleeping way longer than she expected. In fact, all the haulers had basically conked out as soon as they were thrown in their "prison cells," which were really just normal inn rooms with guards posted. Eko had cleaned up from the raid and now wore a nice jacket with a fur collar as well as a scarf beneath it. She knocked twice on the door before entering. "Good evening. Mind if I ask you a few questions?"
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The three charged at the giant, and found him suddenly meek. All the fight was drained from him, and all he was left with was a body and mind that felt like wet sand. They herded him together with the rest of his former workers, all of them giving disturbed looks through their tired visage at the contents spilled before them. None made a fuss at being led away from their erstwhile prison and slavehouse to another section of the city entirely. They did give a collective flinch and duck as the building exploded in the distance, but none lamented its destruction. Weariness held them captive as strongly as chains and, as soon as presented with a bed, each flopped upon it and slept.

For Rurik, as he sprawled on the raised mattress, his legs bending at the knees as they hung over the end, it was the first solid, uninterrupted sleep he'd had in over a week. When he'd awoke, over half a day later, his entire body felt as though it should creak while moving through the stiff ache in his muscles. He looked around blearily, confused as to where he was, the events leading up to this left blurry in his still aching, tired head. There was no one else here, but someone else must be around who owned this room.

"Hello?" he called out, not yet willing to commit to standing and checking past the door. He heard footsteps in a room beyond, but little else besides the muffled sounds of foreign voices. Rurik blinked, noted no dangers or immediate responsibilities, and found himself lying back on the bed, pulling the blanket over himself as he drifted back to sleep. A knock at the door pulled him back to reality.

He turned his head just as a black haired woman in a fur edged coat came inside without waiting for a response, suggesting not only was the knock given out of courtesy, but that she was the likely owner of the house in which he slept. "Good evening," she said, watching him sit up with cautious green eyes. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Ah...no?" Rurik said, rubbing at his face and now scraggly beard, the amnesia of awakening still clouding his memories. "I...the house here is what?" he asked, his translations into Common suffering with his recollection of current events. "I come here when?"
Edited by Bloodknight, Mon Aug 26, 2013 2:27 am.
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Lady Eko
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Eko shut the door behind her. "We brought you here to Mohdu's Inn and Tavern around 1900 yesterday. You must have been pretty tired." She settled herself on the thinly cushioned rocking chair propped at the opposite corner from the bed. She acted cool, but maintained a careful distance. "My name is Eko. I run a security business around here. Could you tell me your name, please?" His name didn't give her any immediate idea of which foreign place he came from. Eko's best guess was Istan, but that was her guess for most any foreigner; her understanding of its actual residents was limited if existent. "Mr. Rurik, I placed an order downstairs for some food. They should have it up to us by the end of our interview if they're quick. Don't worry about the cost." In cases like these, generosity was worth it. It did more than pay her back in the form of information: it paved the way for mutually beneficial alliances in the future. Eko knew the importance of small, debtless kindnesses.

"First of all, are you okay?" Eko folded her fingers over her lap and tilted her head. "The other haulers were just as exhausted. Some are still asleep. Muscle strain, weakness... just what kind of conditions were you people working in?" She tapped the side of her head just next to her eye. "It's the eyes. I could've confused you bunch for the walking dead. So tell me: how did you get into such a mess?" The girl neglected to mention that this wasn't her first interview. She'd spoken to one other hauler before him. What she wanted to see was how similar their stories were. Eko was developing some suspicions about what kind of ship that crook Fortread was running.
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Bloodknight
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"Rurik," he said. The fact they were in a tavern made the possibility of this being her home a bit less likely, but if she could simply book rooms for strangers at a moment's notice, she had some influence here, either through money or partial ownership or something else. When she mentioned food, his stomach, no longer deadened by crippling exhaustion, grumbled in complaint at how the food wasn't already here. It was quickly followed by thirst's own signaling for water. He kept silent, keeping his focus on the enigmatically generous Eko. A part of him fretted that this was another trap, somehow, but the sludge of his thoughts couldn't work out what kind of entrapment this was, not yet.

"First of all, are you okay?" she asked, continuing their interview. All of the haulers at the warehouse, she said, were exhausted and overworked to the point of near injury, pointing out they all moved as though already dead.

"The...warehouse...I..." Rurik began, prodding at the clog in his memory. He pulled at the right piece of debris, and he was flooded with the sewer waste of what happened. He paled, his stomach forgetting any desire for food as his eyes widened in unseeing shock. "Oh, oh kees, they were..." He buried his head in his hands, slumping over to rest elbows on knees, shaking as he remembered the contents of that crate, a crate like so many others he'd shifted on and off the shelving without question or care.

"I...I know not!" he said, lifting his head to stare, pleading, at Eko, struggling to commit his words to common when there was so much emotion he didn't have the means to express. "I...We know not! We...we ask not....I ask not..." His head bowed again, unable to hold her steady, cold gaze, especially when he could barely stand to hear the excuses he was spewing from his mouth, as though he were a child avoiding punishment for breaking a vase.

"I...If I knew..." he choked out, images of Fortread's smirking, fish-like expression playing before him, and all the revenges, great and small, he could have rained down on him. He pushed them aside. What could have been didn't matter, only what he did. What he perpetuated through his ignorance.

"I...I need work..." he started again, the words barely audible as he bit back his sobs at his pathetic, wretched state. "I...but I owe Fortread coin. I work more...I owe more....and....I ask not....in the crates is what...." The tears began to fall on their own, as a mind with at least the edges of fatigue sheared away quietly recalled all those numbers Fortread threw out am, realizing there was no way he could have paid the man back, not with only forty silver a shift. He could have starved, never slept, worked days on end, and it would never add up to that total. Why couldn't he realize this all those days ago? Why had he been so blindingly stupid over a arithmetic problem a beginning student could solve?

"I am fool," he muttered into his palms, his fingernails digging through his head into his hair. Some of them might have pierced the surface, but he gave no signs of noticing.
Edited by Bloodknight, Tue Aug 27, 2013 2:57 am.
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