Scene #5920: Blood on the Water

Owner	Pose
Empty Tidings	It's night on the shores of the River of Queens, days from the city of Sapphire. The Golden Brothers have moved out in force, travelling by horseback across the low hills and plains abutting the river itself. They number just shy of thirty men, with less than half of their force comprised of hardened warriors, with the rest made up of fresh-faced recruits from the city. Due Giang leads the way, keeping spirits up and taking time every morning and every night to drill the Brothers in basic but effective fighting techniques. The Lintha encampment is more like a tiny village. A cluster of buildings sit at the river's edge, built up in the mouth of a river valley that is fed by the River of Queens. Docks extend out into the water, criss-crossing and holding up shacks and houses. River-going skiffs and other water-craft come and go at all hours, and lamp-light glows off the river's surface as sentries' shadows are cast on the waters. The Golden Brothers are camped a distance away. It seems like they intend to attack at first light. Whether you want to beat them to the punch or go join up with them... well, that's the question, isn't it?
Finna	Finna has taken some time to scout out the area and research these Lintha, learn a few things about their place in the region. And the results aren't pretty or heartening. Certainly nothing she can sympathize with. Even stretching the idealogy of her kind to its absolute limits and using the fringe arguments some of the strangest among them use... she cannot see any reason to tolerate these assholes. And so for the moment, a barn owl has been snooping around using the trees as rest perches, observing first one camp and then the other, sizing things up and readying to act...
Orchid	The Exact details of how the local system worked still largely eluded Orchid, but she thought she had some of the basics. Still, she has been doing what she can to avoid calling attention to her robotic nature as she traveled with the Golden Brothers. Unlike some, she didn't offer her ability in battle, but her ability as a medic. She did hand out eye-pieces to those that would accept them, explaining that she could help coordinate in battle with her communications systems. So as the party approaches the camp, so to do her spiders, the drones being her many eyes, as she attempts to get the lay of the land.
All-Seeing Eye	All-Seeing Eye arrives at the Golden Brothers' encampment without the slightest attempt to be stealthy. A black, synthetic leather longcoat billows behind him as his hoverbike, held aloft and propelled by jets of purple flame, carries him to the destination. He does so entirely unannounced, and regardless of any concern his arrival may cause, he himself is as carefree as can be, offering both the Brothers and anyone else present a cordial smile. Lifting both hands upwards with his palms out in a show of nonaggression, he holds his coat open and produces a Paladin badge which proves as his identification. "All-Seeing Eye, Warden of the Paladins, Head of Public Security, and, I suspect, most relevant to you," he says, addressing whichever Golden Brother is nearest, "Chosen of Autochthon." His smile widens, and, lowering his hands to do so, he gestures in the direction of the nearby Lintha encampment. "I'm here to help with the... issue over there, and though I'm certainly all that's necessary, I doubt I'm the only one here for that." He pulls back a sleeve of his longcoat and checks an expensive-looking timepiece. "I'll be commencing advanced law enforcment techniques in thirty seconds. Join me if you care to!" He gives a little wave, wiggling his fingers playfully. The Exalt marks the aforementioned period of time, and, barring any resistance from anyone, hops back astride his hoverbike and makes a beeline for the camp. Finna, watching from the trees, will see a trail of dust and debris kicked up as Eye approaches the Lintha encampment, the whine of the engine growing louder as it nears. Again, he makes no effort to be subtle, and stops once he reaches the edge of the encampment. In typical arrogant fashion, he announces his presence to the camp full of hostile pirates with a shouted ultimatum. "Good day! I am All-Seeing Eye, Chosen of the Machine God, and I have come to bring his justice upon you. Exit your structures, form an orderly line, and await your punishment for crimes against Creation and her people. Your compliance in this is mandatory!~" The last sentence is punctuated with the mechanical click of wrist-mounted crossbows emerging from their hidden housings.
Finna	The owl, recognizing Eye from previous endeavors, spreads her wings and soars down to the Lintha camp... and perches stealthily atop a tent, doing her best to take advantage of what's undoubtedly going to be a bunch of staring-in-disbelief pirates to slip in unnoticed. But, mostly to fix Eye with an OWL STARE and dipped body posture and ruffled feathers. Body language that he most quizzically will find his gut interpreting as an 'ARE YOU SERIOUS?!' query. Yeah, the bird's CONCERNED about him. How exactly his subconscious knows to interpret it that way though, is a mystery.
Empty Tidings	The Golden Brothers accept medical help with only some minor questioning. Due Giang takes one look at Orchid and decides she's alright to add to the group. He expects there to be violence. At one point during the several-day-long journey, he takes her aside and quietly and politely inquires about her ability to defend herself. The Lintha, it seems, are not in the practice of mercy, and he doesn't want her to be defenseless during the chaos. Aside from that, everything is pretty orderly -- until Eye storms up and announces himself. Due Giang meets him. He's a tall man with thick, tied-back black hair, with loose-fitting black trousers and a dark red coat. The shape of a spear is tightly bound in brown cloth and held in one hand, with a metal ring and a covered lantern hanging off it under the covered spearhead. "I am Due Giang, leader of the Golden Brothers," he says. There's some murmuring about the 'Chosen' bit, but Due Giang doesn't seem moved by it. "Fighting them in the dark just gives them the advantage. Going in unprepared will --" Eye goes in by his lonesome. The Golden Brother encampment starts to stir to follow him. They can't let the Lintha leave with the goods they need, or... MEANWHILE, Eye comes into the main street of what might as well be an Old West boom-town setup on the water and makes his proclamation. Several men in the streets stop and stare. One, a big, fat guy with plenty of tattoos, not enough clothing and a huge spiked club on his back, steps up. "Ehh? Compliance? Crimes? I don't think I heard you right, buddy. D'you know where you are?" He laughs, spreading his arms. "You're nowhere! That's what the magistrate said, isn't it, boys?" He calls back over his shoulder. "We're all just law-abiding fishermen, here!" Finna can see people rounding the buildings, armed up. They don't intend to just roll over if Eye doesn't go.
All-Seeing Eye	"Oh?" Eye smiles sweetly, tilting his head. "Perhaps you didn't," he agrees with a nod. "Well, we can't have any miscommunication!" He raises his arm over his head and fires a bolt, which ricochets off of a wooden post on one of the buildings and darts towards one of the men who stopped to stare in the street. The shot is deliberately aimed to kill, and aimed at someone the large club-wielding fellow would have to turn his head to see--a show of both force and skill. "I know exactly where I am, dear," he says cheerfully, wagging a finger at the club-wielding, tattooed man. "And I also know where your little friends are." He nods backwards as men begin to come around the corners of buildings behind him. "What /you/ need to know is that here, /I/ am the law. Now, are you going to swing that club at me and disappoint me like every other man with a big weapon, or, are you going to cooperate?" It seems like he /won't/ go--which likely leaves the men little choice.
Orchid	Orchid would have demonstrated to Due Giang her ability to at least defend herself, using her shield emitters. With her dash boots, she's confidant she can see any problem with enough time to get away. Back in the present, Orchid is creating and uploading her tactical map to those who took her up on the offer of an eyepiece. Her spiders close in, taking careful note of those with weapons in hand. This... is going to be interesting.
Finna	Did he just-- He did. He DID. The owl would go wide-eyed, but it can't. Its eyes are fixed in its skull so all it can do is rotate its body around while keeping its eyes FIXED on Eye - yes, it fidgets into a one-eighty and spreads its wings while KEEPING ITS HEAD LOOKING AT EYE - and click its beak at him once as if irritated. THEN the barn owl looks away, and with y a few mighty flaps takes off from the tent and soars into an alley... Now, a Snow Fox (albeit in its summer coat, so short brown-grey hair instead of fluffy white) dashes amongst the alleys. Here and there, what peace is left of this night is broken by the BONE-RATTLING, BLOOD-CURDLING ROAR OF AN ANGRY TIGER. Occasionally broken by the sound of terrified humans - screaming, yelling, sobbing and gurgling death-rattle noises. Torchlight and moonlight and starlight all play havoc on the eyes of anyone who looks around at the walls, for the silhouette of the GREAT SOUTHWESTERN TIGER seems to be in every shadow, along with the human prey it's chasing. A shadow show of claws gashing into backs and vicious fangs sinking into flesh awaits anyone who looks down the wrong alley. And this noise moves from building to building, giving the impression that the tiger is HUNTING THEM ALL DOWN. But no, there's no tiger here. Just a fox playing tricks.
Empty Tidings	Eye kills a man as the big guy is addressing him and laughing. That gets his attention, and his silence. He stares at the Alchemical for a long, stunned moment. "Get him!!" Well, that went about as well as expected. The guys lurking charge out from around the sides of the building, swinging at Eye with short, curved swords, a mob of a half-dozen pirates in various states of dress and no armor to speak of. The big guy reaches up and takes hold of his enormous club at that same time, roaring what passes for a battle-yell among enormous pirates and swinging it overhand to smash Eye into the dirt like a nail. Which would probably work if he wasn't, you know, amazing. The Lintha compound is suddenly abuzz with activity. Pirates come charging out into the streets and break for the docks or grab weapons. Others start to move to vantage points on flat-topped houses, or circle around in narrow alleyways -- only to back off and get corralled by the presence of a giant tiger apparently stalking the place. They end up funneled through the main thoroughfare on either side of the smaller river running through the center of the compound, turning the place into a chaos of running bodies. Some of them are taking stuff out of the buildings and heading as quickly as they can towards the water. One in particular, keeping to the shadows, has an ornate red and gold box tucked under one arm. He looks kind of squirrelly and paranoid.
All-Seeing Eye	"Disappointment, then," sighs the Exalt with a shrug. His posture doesn't change at the approach of the men with swords, nor the club-wielding pirate--but at the roar of the tiger, he does allow himself the most smug and insufferable smirk. It would seem someone else is taking the pirates to task. At the last minute, Eye darts inside the big pirate's reach, away from the striking end of the blunt weapon. His combat boots dig uncomfortably into the man's skin as he nimbly springs his way up and over him. At the apex of his ascent, two steel cables emerge from his wrists and wrap around the pirate's neck like a pair of constricting snakes. The svelte Alchemical's boots now dig into the pirate's back, using his leverage and weight to slowly strangle him. Using that large body as cover, Eye activates his mass-penetrating vision and begins marking targets. As his vision begins to fill with targeting reticules, the sword-wielding men which surround him are attacked by bolts of lightning and crossbow bolts which pass harmlessly through the big guy's bulk.
Orchid	Okay, this is actually the kind of madness that Orchid can deal with quite well, many subjects moving in many directions. With her spiders keeping their eyes on the crowd, she notices the one with the fancy box. The reploid keeps her allies updated, but for herself makes a break for the beach, looking to cut off the one with the box. Some of her spiders also make breaks for the boats, trying to get one or two on each.
Finna	Finna's goal had been to sow chaos and get people scrambling to evacuate and running off in the wrong directions so that Eye wouldn't be swamped by a full-fledged lynch mob of these well-armed pirates! And in that she seems to be successful? The fox does come across the spiders in the alleys here and there. It takes notice of them, stopping only once to stare, lower her snout, and sniff, but she neither assaults them or wastes any time dealing with them this time. Apparently, she doesn't consider them a threat to her plan. But soon she realizes... Eye is seemingly alone for the offense, and many Lintha are RUNNING FOR THEIR BOATS. Well. Can't have THAT. So the fox bounds faster than flesh should allow, zipping across the ground and outpacing the Lintha by several orders of magnitude. ZOOOOOM! She goes skidding across the damp soil, digging her claws in for traction... Which means just one lone fox is staring down the approaching panicking crowd of pirates. The fox stares down the entire gang-- And the mark of the crescent moon glitters and shines into existence upon her forehead. In the next few moments, the fox's mass just skyrockets. It grows in every direction, gaining height, length, and girth with wild abandon. The beast raises up onto her hindlegs just as humanoid proportions and feminine physique begins to emerge - though this towering creature is SEVEN FEET of sleek but RIPPLING muscles. Onlookers will notice them shifting and bulging like waves on the ocean as the raw spiritual power of Luna's fierce gifts to her Chosen are channeled. A great backwash of silvery-blue-purplish flames, a bonfire of light-and-shadow, brilliantly yet coldly blazes from the creature's skin. It surges outwards dozens of feet, illuminating the entire docks. A portion of it curls in on itself, congealing into a highly stylized phantom vulpine growing out of the actual woman-beast and hovering over the battlefield, teeth and claws bared for the slaughter. Of course, down on the ground, in the middle of this display of feral anima, the actual Chosen of Luna bares her own teeth and brandishes claws that glow brilliant deadly silver. And in the moment that some might then stop to piss themselves-- WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! There's nothing but empty air where she was, a rush of wind in all directions, and she's UPON the group, spearing claws into soft bellies and swinging bodies in various states of dismemberment at allies, a savage warbeast that moves almost too fast for tactics or reason to counter!
Empty Tidings	Eye nimbly evades and gets the big guy in a pretty brutal choke hold. Despite being a big, fat pirate, he's pretty strong, and he makes it tough to keep up. He swings himself from side to side, and then throws himself back, trying to pin him under his bulk as he slowly goes from mocking to furious to expired. The other pirates don't stand a chance. They're reduced to twitching pin-cushions while trying to figure out if they can attack around the big human shield that is the big guy. One of them manages to survive the initial rush, and staggers towards a building to take cover, leaving a bloody trail on the way. Two others emerge from rooftops, firing short bows into the street at Eye, hoping to get the drop on him before he can get a lock and pick them off. Finna leaps in like a murder-gorillafox and starts savaging a group of fleeing pirates. She guts two or three before another couple flank her with boarding pikes, long-handled polearms that serve as spears with downward-curling hooks to one side, keeping them out of even her long reach as they stab at her. The others pile in with screams of pain, anger and terror, turning the route to the water into a bloodbath. Orchid gets ahead of the runner. The gangly figure skids to a halt, holding the box under one arm, the other holding a dagger tightly. He's dressed in baggy clothes, with black hair and a bluish tinge to his skin. He glances side to side, and then runs right at her and breaks to the side to get around her, warding her off with the knife as he runs towards the wooden pier. It looks like he's more interested in getting out of here than starting a fight with someone...
Orchid	Orchid isn't that scared by the knife, or by the thought of letting him go past. "Hand over the box, and I'll get out of your way," she offers, summoning her energy shield to better block him, using her dash boots to keep in front of him, between him and the pier. Of course, this is at least half a stalling tactic, because if this runner spends too long deciding, he'll find that her spiders have arrived, and are both jumping over him and wrapping him in a web.
All-Seeing Eye	From his vantage point atop his quarry, Eye observes the battlefield this shanty town has become. When that vantage point shifts, it's easy enough for him to move--but he stubbornly refuses to relinquish his chokehold. As a result, he swings around to the front of the big guy and is struck by the archers for his recalcitrance, arrows sticking painfully out of his back. This also puts him at risk of being grabbed, now that he's in the pirate's reach. Despite this, when he makes eye contact with the big guy, he's all smiles, and he keeps his whips around the man's throat even if physically thrown. "I'll be with you in just a moment," he calls pleasantly, addressing the archers. This, he does without turning his attention from the man whose throat he's still throttling. In fact, as the suffocation begins to set in, his grin only widens, and he sends several thousand volts of electricity through the whips. "I'm told the Lintha's ancestors assist them from the Underworld," he says in a conversational tone. His grip tightens until the whips, coursing with electricity, begin to dig and cut into his flesh. He winces as another volley of arrows strikes his back, the Exalt sacrificing his personal health for theatrics as usual. "When you meet them, tell them they're going to have a lot of company very soon! Ta.~" He takes a moment to revel in this, which sees an arrow pierce his shoulder. He hides a groan of pain in an annoyed sigh, bleeding through his jacket. A spray of black, oily liquid splatters upon the ground as he rips all of the projectiles from his body with one terse movement of his arm, aided in doing so by his ultra-peripheral vision. The archers are bothersome, to be sure--but he's left unfinished work, if that trail of blood is any indication. Twirling a whip above his head and generating an electric field, he reflects any further projectiles and follows the trail into the building, keeping a leisurely pace. He plies whoever's hiding in the building with his sweetest, most coaxing voice. It is genuinely soft and gentle--or would be, were it not for his proven brutality. As he enters, his vision begins to penetrate the solid objects in the room. "I can see where you're hiding," he purrs. "And I can hear your heartbeat. If you make me, I'll give you a very slow, drawn out death. But!~ If you come out, and give me some information? Quick and painless, on my honor. I'll give you... mmm... five seconds!"
Finna	Flanking a Lunar is a terrible idea.. because front and back don't always make the greatest logical sense when it comes to these bestial shapeshifters. Their backsides can be just as deadly! ... for Finna, though, well, surrounding her DOES give these Lintha a fighting chance at wounding her. And wound her they do. She twists out of the way of ONE of the poles-- but the other spears into her side. This elicits a pained BELLOW from her... And from there, she just sees RED. With a snarl, she grasps the offending pike and YOINKS the offending head from her flesh despite a spray of blood and bits of torn innards. The wound heals in a display of quicksilver flesh and blazing silver flames... but she uses her grasp on the weapon to LIFT her attacker up off the ground and swing him wildly with prodigious strength into those in front of her. Unlike Eye, she is not pretending to be sweet or gentle. Although MURDERBEAST is not one of Finna's specialties, she is one of Luna's Chosen. When she is out to kill... They're going to have a hard time stopping her. Weapons carve into her flesh, but as agonizing as this is, the wounds staunch as quickly as they're inflicted. Most of the time, the beast's body shifts ever so slightly and in uncanny ways, limiting how deeply those blades can bite. All the while though... She leaps from perch to perch, pouncing on one target and ripping a head off with a twist of jaws only to spin around and hurl the head into someone else's face, spin about and open bellies with claws, and then kick the ground to fling muddy soil into the eyes of people getting behind. She ducks down and becomes a blur of silvery light zig-zagging through the pileup in the moments between seconds, leaving a glowing trail where her claws have been - which is... basically everywhere. Still, the moonbeast is beginning to pant from the exertion and the constant effort to regenerate. But Finna's thoughts are not currently goofy fun-loving playfulness. She's on a mission of FURY now, and it drives her in the primal way that only her patron's Essence can sympathize with. So she turns around, snarling a challenge to whoever's still daring enough to face her. Anyone who flees AWAY from the boats, she's not going to pursue... ... but that way leads to Eye.
Empty Tidings	"I don't think so," the runner says. He picks up the pace, but Orchid keeps between him and the docks. Instead, he jukes left, running /away/ from the docks and towards the shore, sprinting as he his the pebbly stretch of beach -- -- and then faceplanting, webbed up by spiders. The box falls out of his grip, dumped upside-down into the shallows. He grabs his knife and slices at a strand of web -- and his hand in the process, leaving a bloody cut. He makes a flicking motion at the box, grunting in discomfort as blood splatters across the red wood. The exterior of the box immediately begins to pit and sizzle. Uh oh. Finna turns the space around her into a scene of terrible carnage. Lintha attack her, despite the bloodbath, and she cuts their numbers down, suffering the pain of well-coordinated attacks from just out of reach or, in one instance, the awful poisonous blood that she's bathed in when one comes apart. The others scatter, fleeing, trying to get away -- and when they see Eye, they take their chances with the valley instead, fleeing into the dark. Glints of gold alight, shining in the darkness. Yells come, and the golden lights bob and strike, briefly illuminating the fleeing Lintha and spear-wielding men and women that drive them back into the killing field. The Golden Brothers attack from both sides, lanterns shedding golden rays like sunlight wherever they tread. Eye has one where he wants him, though. The injured one has backed himself into a corner, curled up and trying to stop the wound from bleeding. He's hidden behind a tall standing screen, mumbling wet, slurred words that don't sound like anything but a weirdly archaic dialect of Autochthonian. He's begging someone, or something, for some kind of intervention, and rapidly losing coherence. The building abruptly shudders. The dirt floor turns to mud. Water rises, but it isn't really water at all. Acid leaks out of the floor, looking like nothing less than sea-water, swallowing up the interior and the Lintha inside. The entire structure lists and starts to slide towards the river it's built against, walls and supports disintegrating. The roof starts to sag. One of the archers falls through, into the liquid, and starts to scream. Eye probably doesn't want any of that.
Orchid	"I said I'd get out of your way, that that I'd let you leave," Orchid says with a little smirk. There's an advantage to being somewhat afraid of attacking others. It leaves Orchid free to DO stuff, like save hostages, or in this case, get her hands on the box. She dives for the box, using her hands to wipe the tainted blood from it. Wait. Her left hand is still missing a finger. Weird. She's also moving out of the main battle, hoping to SECURE the box. Let others do the actual fighting, like those friends from the Golden Brotherhood, who just arrived. Surgical, effective... She does leave a spider to follow the big were-fox thing, thinking it may be a friend they will need to help later.
All-Seeing Eye	Eye takes a step forward, met with a curious resistance and a pungent smell. The soles of his boots appear to have melted when met with the water. The crash of an archer through the ceiling, and the subsequent screaming, is what ultimately halts his advance. He levels an annoyed glare at the screen, flipping his hair over a shoulder... and marches further into the acidic water. First the leather of his boots goes, warping and bubbling before allowing the deadly liquid inside. The Exalt grits his teeth as it begins to erode his claylike skin, warnings blaring across his vision, alerts pinging in his ears, and above all, pain screaming across his nerves. Little granules of porcelain white skin bubble up to the surface, fizzing away into nothing as he tromps towards the archer. His hands are plunged into the water, grabbing hold of the thrashing pirate and forcibly dragging him out of the house. By the time he marches back, there is no skin which remains on his legs, and his hands sport rivulets and cracks more apropos of pottery than human flesh. Revealed in its stead is a glimmering synthetic musculature with welts and burns crisscrossing its surface, with bones of mixed metallic alloys--one of which seems almost alive, reflecting what appear to be agonized, alien faces when the light strikes it just right. His metal feet click against the road of the shanty town, every step grinding dirt and detritus into exposed muscle and bone. Despite this, he continues, leaving a trail of intermingled Alchemical lifeblood and blood from his captive's own grievous wounds. The pirate in his tow is dragged, willingly or not, to an alley away from the excitement as the house collapses behind them. There is a clicking sound, as a dark metal spike shoots out of the palm of his free hand. He grasps it, smiling despite the pain, as if seeing a familiar face. The spike is driven into the wounded pirate once he's able to get him someplace quiet, and upon driving it into him, he searches the pirate's mind. One question burns in his mind, and drives his search--a question which burns so brightly not even a pool of acid or excruciating pain could snuff it. Where is Bluehaven?
Finna	The Lintha are scattering! As well they should, Finna would reason, if she was in a solid state of mind. But her mindset is currently a flood of primal fury... and reason is only beginning to return as a selection of targets thins. Her breathing's gotten very heavy, no doubt because of the searing pain spreading through her veins. She's no stranger to poison, and immediately recognizes the sign. With a pained yowl, the moonbeast breaks off from the fight, forcefully FLINGING herself towards the Lintha encampment to take shelter in one of the tents. At this, her raging anima dies down a few notches. the enormous moonfire fox vanishes like a flame being snuffed out, and the raging bonfire drops down to just a brilliant light surrounding her. Which means that, even as Finna curls up in the tent, willing her body to purge and adapt around the poison with all due haste, the tent's exuding a silvery-purplish glow. "Poison. BLOOD? Nasty pirates..."
Empty Tidings	Cleaning the blood off means Orchid has to deal with acidic blood on her hands instead of on the box, which is its own problem. Fortunately, she's got dirt, grass, river plants and a bunch of water, so she can probably handle that before it gets too bad. The stuff inside the box, once she deals with a solid lock with an extremely cuttable latch, is a bunch of collected letters, missives, and other documents, alongside a ledger that is... written in code. It looks like blackmail and charts, but it's going to take some time and effort to decipher it all. Eye's pirate, meanwhile, lives -- at least long enough for him to ask that one simple question. He gets an answer: West. He sees it, there: a blind trek, endless waves, and the vivid memories of a floating city. Of a... ...floating... ...well, that could be problematic. The Golden Brothers move in. The remaining Lintha are either too injured to fight back or too outnumbered to seriously threaten them. Due Giang leads them in, clutching a spear that looks like nothing less than a shining shaft of shaped sunlight. They move to the boats, and the few that remain are burned to the water. Nobody finds Finna in her remote part of the encampment until she's had a chance to change and flee. Small favors, then.
Orchid	Wipe off the acid? Nah, Orchid just rips the skin off of her hands. It takes a robot to be this black metal. Orchid's forearms contain a multitude of tools, including a set of fingers narrow enough to act as lock-picks, and hands built to lift things like engine blocks. Who knows, maybe she'll keep the box once this is over. Still, her spiders are more interested in tracking the pirates than in stopping any more of them. Orchid is more interested in keeping away from the one that had the box, and is maybe following her?
All-Seeing Eye	Eye removes the spike, shakes the viscera free, and retracts it into his palm. Perhaps it was optimistic to expect an entry-level peon to have knowledge of the city's exact location, but he knows at least what the city looks like, and knows now where to look for more information. The quiet moment affords him some time with his thoughts. As the town crumbles around him, his mind drifts to his behavior moments before. Of course, the pirates had deserved everything he'd given them--more, if he'd had the time to do so. Mingling with the satisfaction of a job well done is a certain sense of relief, or perhaps of hunger momentarily satisfied. The pirates weren't his true quarry--but, as he departs the town on his hoverbike and leaves the crumbling wreck behind him, he admits to himself that they'll do. For now.