Westward Ho

[B4UTRUST]

"Both sound like a good place to start. I'm of the opinion that we check out the dockside first. That's supposedly where Hardwick's is, and sailors are sailors. If there's anywhere you're likely to find a drink other than what passes for water around here it's going to be there. Kill two birds. But I'm open to suggestions otherwise."

William's head turned, looking around for something that clearly wasn't there. He wasn't even sure what it was, but part of him had a desire to find a big map and a place marked you are here. He never had seen a map that showed where exactly he was but it sounded like a hell of a good idea. Some sort of map that would automatically show you where you are on it. Would take all the guess work out of things. He almost regretted thinking about it immediately as the whispers at the back of his head started in on the ways he could do something like that. Just a little bit of knowledge and he could do it. Just a small cost for it...

[Josh]

"Right. We'll get some food, get our gear, and get a place to bunk down. Night's rest, and then we're to work."

He grinned suddenly, that burst of expression he suddenly got when his normal dourness evaporated briefly. It most commonly occurred when he was thinking about doing unpleasant things to local power structures, or nerding out over antique newspaper equipment.

It was the three of them in an alien city with no friends, few resources, and an insurmountable task. Don Klukas felt at home once more.

"C'mon y'all," he said as he accelerated toward the docks, his voice slipping back into his southwestern effect, the one that actually sounded legitimate rather than the overdone spoof he was fond of doing of Texas accents.

[Blair]

Eve grinned when Don had a burst of energetic excitement, moving swiftly to follow behind the others. "To the docks we go," she said cheerfully.

[B4UTRUST]

Finding the way to the Docks was easy enough. One just had to follow the smell of the sea mixed with dead fish and sulfur to find your way to the docks. The closer you got, the stronger the odor became. The group made their way to the waterfront area, their journey becoming increasingly busy and noisy as they went until they were surrounded by people. All around them were the dock workers, street urchins, ship hands, merchants, slavers, traders, Triad members and foreigners. The sounds of a dozen different languages were all around them. Many didn't appear in great health or fortune, it was obvious that despite the amount of money and goods being traded here most of it did not stay in the area.

It took them awhile wandering the long waterfront district to find what they were looking for. The district itself was almost a quarter of the city in terms of land usage, though it seemed most of it was taken up by warehouses and storefronts rather than residential. Finding a bar or a brothel seemed almost trivial, which was surprising given the theocratic government. Though maybe it was a case of giving the people what they wanted in order to reduce the risk of uprising. Give them bread and circuses.

Something William and Eve picked up on, though Don didn't seem to in his continued jubilation over the prospect of tobacco, drinking and dismantling authority was the prevalence of what appeared to be little holes in all the exterior walls of the buildings they passed. After they noticed it though, they realized that literally every building they passed had them. On closer inspection they realized they were latched and locked covers, not much bigger than the size of an eye. But every building had multiple of them, in different locations. It was, needless to say, odd.

A street off the dock itself stood a large three story building that had a simple sign out front proclaiming it as Hardwick's boarding house.
"Well, this looks like the place. Shall we?"

[Josh]

"What?" Don said, as he caught them staring at the buildings. "Something wrong?"

[Blair]

Eve chewed on her lip. "Look at these. What could they even be?" She gestured to the covers all over the walls. "They're so small."

[Josh]

Don looked around to see if anyone was watching them in particular, and if not he crouched down to squint into a hole.

[B4UTRUST]

Don saw the interior of the room he was looking into as if he was standing inside it himself. The fisheye effect was a bit disorienting, but it was clearly a peephole into the room from the outside. Nobody was in the room but it was clearly an office of some type.

The fact that the peepholes had covers and most of them had locks gave the impression that not only were they there on purpose, they were officially there and required. Someone had to have the keys. Given the theocracy in charge of Lost Angels there was an obvious guess as to who probably would. And why.

[Josh]

"So," Don muttered softly. "Police state's got their own little Patriot Act going on."

Seeing the lack of comprehension to a modern American reference in the other two he shrugged. "It's a thing where... I'm from. Anyway, those're to let the pigs peep on the citizens."

He lit a fresh cigarette and looked around, his voice still pitched low and soft. "On the one hand," he said "it means we gotta step lighter here than we have anywhere so far. But on the other hand, you don't put the screws to people like this, without having people willing to screw back, given the chance. We find a squat, we find out who's getting shit on, and then we start talking."

His hand drifted down to where his gun had been holstered the past few months, then continued as it didn't meet the expected presence of a grip. He looked sheepish for a moment, then resumed walking.

[Blair]

Eve bit her lower lip, frowning at the holes. "That's horrifying," she said quietly. She swallowed heavily and looked around the area, seeing things in an entirely new light. They were walking a very fine line here, and in a very different kind of danger than she could have expected.

Taking a deep breath and setting her jaw, she looked again at her two companions. Between the three of them, she had faith that they could get through pretty much anything a bunch of Bible thumpers could throw at them, no matter how dire the situation might seem.

But, she thought, tightening her fist, she'd have to be especially careful. She couldn't risk letting anyone catch on to the fact that she could cast magic - a surprise like that may be the difference between life and death.

[Josh]

"Right," Don said. "Now to find a bar, or something similar. Gotta be a place where people drink and bitch their lives away."

[B4UTRUST]

"Shouldn't be too hard, I would think. Just find the nearest dock hand and ask them where we can find a drink," Will stated, looking around and then heading back towards the docks.

[Josh]

Don nodded and followed along, eyes roaming.

Reading people in an environment like this was an acquired talent. There'd always be talkers, one simply had to wander into their vicinity and then become available to be talked to.

Talkers, however, had highly variant levels of actual utility. Some were full of shit. Some would sell you out in a second flat. And some were actually honest and reliable.

As a general rule, he simply assumed that most were of the second sort, until proven otherwise. So he watched the people they passed, looking for a talker to put himself in the vicinity of.