Never Full: A Tale of Adventure, Curiosity and Hunger Without Ending [Original Quest]

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We don't have anything that would show that we are working for Bariq, so I don't think we will get help. So it's probably the best to sneak in, eavesdrop and then ambush Alek at an appropriate time.

[X] Sneak in.
 
I'd like to apologize to everyone for the wait--finals have been crazy! I anticipate an update in the next few days. Thank you for your patience!
 
Welcome to Iash Qoma 22
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    • [X] Sneak in.

    Alright, this is definitely the place and the guy you were hired to track down at the very least, and he's threatening someone over something. People fighting is always a double-edged opportunity--it's easy to turn the tables when the involved groups are too busy tuning up on each other to properly get after you, but there's always a chance the person or thing you want will get broken or killed before you have a chance to properly intervene. That just won't do.

    You shake your hands loose of your sleeves, exposing the spurs, and draw your gun, before quietly slipping through the partially open door. You're pretty good at collapsing your ribcage, so the door barely moved as you passed through it. Beyond is a small lobby of sorts, a long shelf serving as a counter and displaying several pieces of metalwork, some chairs and a table, faded posters and other examples of work--guns, blades, a brutal-looking splitting maul, and, hung proudly above the counter, a spear made from a single piece of glistening black material, displayed on a plaque. Beyond the counter, the machinery of a workshop and smithy gleams in the dim fiery light of a huge banked forge in the middle, which also serves to split the workshop area into a front and back half. From behind the forge, the voices emerge, and you drop into a crouch as you quietly sneak towards them.
    "Come on, Shelly, be reasonable! It's just a--"
    "My name is Shelev, bristler. And it isn't just anything. This thing will get me on the map, and you have to be out of your gods-fucked skull if you think I'm just gonna hand it over to you so you can sell it to that spineless chairwarmer for a fat bonus and a corner office."
    You get yourself a vantage point--the arguers are an Erzan woman, wearing a leather apron, goggles on her forehead, and an impressive layer of soot on her dark orange skin, clutching a roll of paper to her chest with one hand and angrily gesticulating with the other, and a human man you can only assume to be Alek Helingen. He's pale and soft-looking with yellow-white hair, and he's carrying a pistol that he's not quite aiming at the woman, and a bottle that carries the unmistakable smell of a firebomb.

    Your furiously racing mind tries to take account of every variable in this room of weapon bits and tools and machinery and a very flammable stockpile of coke, all the weapons and involved people and alliances and dangers, but it's as you try to think that the luck you weren't quite aware how heavily you were leaning on finally snaps. While edging closer, you knock a grimy mug full of screwdrivers and lockpicks from the shelf it was precariously balanced on to the floor, and it shatters loudly, scattering tools and shards everywhere. Immediately, both the woman--Shelev, you think she said--and Alek both turn to you, his gun coming up and she scrambling to draw a derringer from her apron pocket. You bring up the gun, splaying the fingers of your other hand wide, and offer a brief, desperate entreaty to Damalu that if you have to fire this thing, it'll obey.

    "Hey, hey, whoa whoa whoa. Everyone calm down," you say, flashing your winningest, fangliest smile. Alek winces, even as he keeps his snub-nosed revolver trained directly on your clavicle, and Shelev visibly debates on whether to aim her dinky little weapon at him or you.
    "Alek Helingen," he flinches as you say his name, "I've been looking for you, in your boss's name. You'd be best served by telling me what in the name of Damalu's pendulous paps is going on here, and why you're threatening this apparently very talented weaponsmith with a bomb of flames."
    He sneers at you, revealing a gold tooth.
    "Why should I tell you anything, cannibal? This is just business. Shelly here and I are engaged in negotiations, and I don't appreciate you nosing in on us."
    Shelev spits.
    "Negotiations, you rat bastard? You're threatening me to let you turn in my design, which you couldn't come up with if you had a thousand years and Daiel's personal notebook, as your own work!" She turns to you, smelling of nervousness and indecision and battle-fear, before making a snap decision.
    "You, I don't know how you knew to be here, but I'll pay you if you get this fucking bristler out of my horns."
    Alek raises the firebomb. "Now, you wouldn't want to be making such reckless decisions with your shop at stake, right? Locust, I'll give you two hundred astrels if you either get the hells out of here or help me make her see reason."
    [ ] Help Shelev, attack Alek.
    [ ] Help Alek, threaten Shelev.
    [ ] Write in.
     
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    • Wicked Sanguine said:
    One of the supervisors, Alek Helingen, told me he had an idea for a new model, and I told him that if he could bring me a prototype schematic I'd try and get it to the higher-ups. A month passes with no news, and I ask him about it. He says he'll 'have it for me tomorrow.' The next day, he's gone, along with a big chunk of money and some valuable components. That was three days ago. I need somebody to track him down, find out what the hells he's up to, and bring back as much of what he stole as you can find.
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    [X] Write in: Your job is to bring Alek and whatever prototype schematic he was going to submit. They can both go with you to see the boss willing, or you'd beat up whoever doesn't agree and drag whats left of either of them to the boss.
     
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    Wicked Sanguine said:
    While edging closer, you knock a grimy mug full of screwdrivers and lockpicks from the shelf it was precariously balanced on to the floor, and it shatters loudly, scattering tools and shards everywhere.
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    Shameful.

    [x] Write in: Your job is to bring Alek and whatever prototype schematic he was going to submit. They can both go with you to see the boss willing, or you'd beat up whoever doesn't agree and drag whats left of either of them to the boss.
     
    Hmmm, I am unsure what our job actually is. From what @veekie quoted above, it sounds like we should get Alek, and as much of the stolen money and components as possible. The schematics, however, are not something Alek stole, at least not from our employer. Later though, the boss told us:
    Wicked Sanguine said:
    "Gun to my head, I'd say he went to Great Men. Not Much Sink has foundries, yeah, but with the noise he was making about what a great idea this was, I'd think he went somewhere where he could guarantee someone that knew what they were doing. As for compensation... I'll want the schematics and whatever's left of what he stole, but anything on him that looks like his is yours, and I'll throw in a gun, hot off the presses."
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    From what we witnessed here, Shelev wanted to take the schematics to some "spineless chairwarmer". If that refers to the boss, things are easy. If not, we will have to decide whether we want to rob Shelev to be 100% certain of completing our job. For now I will vote for taking Alek down and then hashing things out with Shelev later.

    [X] Help Shelev, attack Alek.
     
    Gingganz said:
    From what we witnessed here, Shelev wanted to take the schematics to some "spineless chairwarmer". If that refers to the boss, things are easy. If not, we will have to decide whether we want to rob Shelev to be 100% certain of completing our job. For now I will vote for taking Alek down and then hashing things out with Shelev later.

    [X] Help Shelev, attack Alek.
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    Just to clarify things, Shelev said that Alek wanted the schematics for the "spineless chairwarmer", which means you can safely assume that said chairwarmer is the Oriza boss. Shelev hasn't made her own plans for the schematic clear beyond "It'll put me on the map."
     
    Ah, so they are connected - it's just that Alek has been trying to steal credit for Shelev's work, and has now stolen some components so she could build her prototype.

    [X] "I represent a potential buyer for this weapon you two have created. Depending on what it is, they may pay a considerable sum to make sure no-one else gets it, at least for the next few weeks. Now, why doesn't everyone take a step back, calm down, and see if we can resolve this peacefully?"
     
    Welcome to Iash Qoma 23
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    • [X] Write in: Your job is to bring Alek and whatever prototype schematic he was going to submit. They can both go with you to see the boss willing, or you'd beat up whoever doesn't agree and drag whats left of either of them to the boss.

    "Nobody's gonna get anywhere if we all blow up," you say frankly, cutting a glance at Alek's firebomb. He actually flinches a little at that--what's wrong with him?
    "This place is full of all kinds of things that will not play nicely with fire, and if you drop that thing you're not gonna get out in time." The guy looks angry at that, but his grip visibly tightens, which affords you a little time to think.
    "Now, Helingen, your boss paid me to track you down because of your light fingers, while Shelev, I think I've been looking for you for different reasons. Basically, two different groups are paying me to find both of you for different reasons, which means that if you blow this place up you are causing enormous problems not easily solved. So, tell me what in Xhaal's terrible fucking name is going on here, and maybe we all get out alive and uneaten." Your gun remains leveled at Helingen, but you cut a Meaningful Look at Shelev, too, who makes a weird little snarling noise in her throat.
    "You know what? Sure! Not like my life hasn't been a godsdamned nightmare since the idea came to me. I'll tell you what the hell, and maybe you'll see which side's right, Locust."
    Alek opens his mouth, and Shelev growls at him.
    "Sssshut up, Helingen, you stupid bastard. Gods, but I hate you."
    Keeping her gun aimed at him, she addresses you, smelling of frustration and anger and a growing hope that you might be the way out.
    "So here's the story."

    "I made a gun," she says, after a moment of thought during which Helingen was increasingly fidgety.
    "It's a design which is inaccurate, clunky, and delicate, it has very few uses, and it's more awkward than a pistol while being shorter-range than a rifle--and it shoots almost 300 rounds per minute just by holding down the trigger."
    You draw in a breath quickly--the fastest guns you know of are the Holashner rotary cannons that get mounted on airships and fortresses, and they're bigger, heavier, and an order of magnitude more valuable than you. To pack that kind of fire power into a hand-held gun? No wonder Dial's interested and Helingen tried to steal it.
    "Nothing else that a normal soldier can carry comes anywhere close to that," she continues with what you consider to be well-earned smugness, "and," her voice shades back towards anger, "this absolute shithead here is trying to take credit for the thing so he can, what, get a headpat and a nice bonus for his boss? I'm gonna revolutionize firearms and Alek 'Shithead' Helingen wants to sell the design to Bariq."
    This is apparently too much for Helingen, who cuts in. "You don't understand business at all! You don't know what to do with this design! I can make it work!"
    She spits on the floor. "You don't know your ass from your elbow, bristler. I am not going to let you steal everything from me cause you don't think I deserve to be this much smarter than you."
    She turns back to you as he splutters, knuckles whitening around the neck of the firebomb.
    "I know better than to trust you, but I think you're a better option than this asshole. So what's it gonna be?"

    Having someone steal all the credit from you because they're faster and meaner is something every young Locust gets used to. The taste of betrayal is almost as familiar to you as the taste of raw meat, or of gunpowder-scented air. It's why forming a crew is so difficult and so vital. Trust is a rare commodity where you come from. It's with that perspective that the idea of this unbelievable concept being stolen from its creator by this rude, greasy jerk absolutely boils your blood. Before you can even articulate that thought to yourself, you've made your decision. You make a show of lowering your gun, and as Helingen smiles, you shoot at his knee, drop the gun and lunge for him all in one motion, the world blurring around the edges as you move.
    He curses, taken aback, his shot going wild as the bullet in his shin knocks him over, and before your heart begins its next beat you're straddling him on the ground, pinning the firebomb-holding hand to the floor with your other around his throat.
    "Give up," you growl, bloodthirst distorting your words. Gods, you can smell the blood, and it's taking all you have to not just bite out his throat.
    He opens his mouth, but only a thin, reedy whine escapes before his eyes roll up in his head and he goes limp. It takes you a second to realize that he's fainted dead away, but you make sure he's unconscious before standing up and dusting your hands off.

    "I believe you, Shelev," you say in a voice calmer than you feel. "Find some restraints?"
    She stands there frozen for a second before nodding and scurrying off, returning with some chain that you wrap his hands and ankles in, crushing the links in place with a squeeze and then taking his weapons.
    "Now, I'd just eat him," you admit, "but an encounter from earlier has lead me to believe that we should take him to the Law. Do you know how to do that?"
    She nods, before toeing him in the ribs.
    "Yeah, I can handle the fucker now. But, uh. Why don't you tell me why you showed up? For real, I mean."
    You notice she took the chance to retrieve a bigger gun while she was getting the chain, and has it not-quite pointed at you.
    "I was supposed to find a weapon inventor in Great Men," you say, shrugging. "Pretty sure it's you. On the way, I ran into a guy who wanted me to track down an employee who stole a bunch of stuff. That's Helingen. I'm gonna drag his ass back to his boss and turn him in."
    She nods, smirking slightly. "He had a suitcase with him, it's over there," she waves vaguely towards the seating area. "Bet that's it. Okay, sure. But why did you want to find me? Silence me?"
    You shake your head fervently.
    "No no no, I'm here to make you an offer! My boss is really powerful, and she's interested in your scary bullet vomiter. I'm supposed to escort you and your schematics back to the Embassy and let you make a deal with her."
    She stops, and visibly thinks it over.
    "Really? I... shit, that was fast. I guess... this isn't gonna be the last time someone comes for my design. Who's your boss?"
    "Dial, the Vespergren ambassador."
    She blanches.
    "Talk about friends in low places... shit, I'm living in a Great Men hive-squat. Hell am I to judge. Tell you what, eight cells down and across the street is the Burnt Femur. I'll meet you there in an hour, after I turn this fucker in and get my shit together, and you can make me your best deal. Deal?"
    [ ] Sounds good to me. (Be accommodating, accept deal as offered.)
    [ ] Surely you could use help? (Be helpful, imply distrust.)
    [ ] And how do I know you'll be there? (Be skeptical, openly state distrust.)
    [ ] No way. I'm going with you. (Take the hard line, directly state distrust.)
    [ ] Write-in.
     
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    • Hm. She sounds honest, but I have two reasons for wanting to stay - I want to be around to guard her, in case some other danger shows up in the next hour, and I want us to be there while we turn the guy in, because every fight we resolve in a way the Law approves of is another reason for them to trust us. And because it'd be good form to tell the Bariq manager which station he can find the guy at.
    [X] I'd like to help turn him in, but otherwise I'm at your service. (Be accommodating, don't imply distrust.)
     
    [x] Surely you could use help? (Be helpful, imply distrust.)

    Don't go anywhere, don't let her too far out of sight.

    Anyone who'd ever heard of Locusts would know not to expect trust. But also to not openly antagonize them, especially after our little stint here.

    Edit:
    Wicked Sanguine said:
    "You know what? Sure! Not like my life hasn't been a godsdamned nightmare since the idea came to me. I'll tell you what the hell, and maybe you'll see which side's write, Locust."
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    "right"?
     
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    veekie said:
    [X] Surely you could use help? (Be helpful, imply distrust.)

    Even odds she does a runner.
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    Yeah, I don't think so. We found her pretty easily; if she isn't trustworthy we can either do that again, or she's really committed to not working with Locusts, in which case we should go back to Dial and say she'll need to work through proxies.
     
    Welcome to Iash Qoma 24
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    • [X] Surely you could use help? (Be helpful, imply distrust.)

    "Sure you can't use a hand?" you ask, brushing yourself off now that you're no longer in active combat. You look around the foundry, really taking in how small and cramped it is, how many tools and containers are packed in to such meager accommodations. You've lived in tinier spaces, and probably will for now given how you've spent no time looking for living quarters, but you've never tried to run an entire business and crafting concern out of such a hole. That, combined with how relatively nice Alek's clothes look compared to Shelev's, makes you feel like you made the right choice during that standoff. You produce a gyurma and begin gnawing as a way to calm your surging blood, pocketing the firebomb and gun Alek had.
    [Acquired: Unremarkable Revolver, Firebomb, Suitcase of Parts]

    Shelev mirrors your own cooldown routine, visibly thinking about what to say as she rolls herself a cheroot from tarry, cheap tobacco and takes a drag. You wrinkle your nose as the smoke fills the room, and keep a weather eye on that coke stockpile, but you don't say anything. She's letting you gnaw a blood sausage in her work space, she can smoke however much she wants.
    "I... yeah, maybe I can. I know you're being canny by not letting me out of your sight, by the way, you're pretty obvious, and you're probably right to. We just met, at gunpoint, while this piece of shit--" she punctuates her words by tapping ash onto Alek's unconscious body-- "was trying to burn down my entire workshop, so that's not the most conducive environment for mutual trust I've ever seen or heard of."
    She thinks for a moment. "Shit, I don't even know your name, you're just the Loc--uh, shit, I don't know if that's insulting or not. Fuckin... Vesock? Maybe? You're the crazy hardcase that bust into my shop and saved my idea, house, and possibly life, on orders from one of the scariest people in the city, is the point I think I was trying to make."
    You laugh a little, shaking your head as her words help you realize how breakneck insane the last few minutes were.
    "Locust's fine, actually. We fly in and eat whatever we want, right? And the name's Grail. Please to meetcha."
    "Grail, then. And you know I'm Shelev." You nod.
    "Okay, that's a start. Grail, if you're gonna stick around, then help me carry him. Nearest watch-house is a long way from here, because this is a squat lane, and also Great Men, and the Law likes to pretend we're not here. Even the big concerns, like you saw up the road, tend to hire the local gangs as security."
    "Oh, you know who those are? I walked past them to get here, cause I was tracking Alek, and they all gave me the worm eye but nothing happened about it."
    "You don't... are you new or something?"
    You nod, a little warily.
    "Shit, alright. Let's talk on the way, then."

    You hoist Alek up onto your shoulder, this not being the first time you've carried dead weight around, and carry him out the door, picking up the suitcase with your free hand. Shelev leads the way, her pistol visibly on her hip but not actually drawn, and you consider that progress. You head down the street, away from the gangs, and as you walk, you talk.
    "So you've never been to Great Men before?"
    I've never been to Iash Qoma before, you think but don't say. No sense in giving away everything.
    "Correct."
    "Okay, so here's what you need to know. Everything's gangs, militias, and mercs, because the Law has better things to do. Richer folks to protect, places where the gangs don't have gods and guns and a conviction that only they can get anything done, right?"
    You nod, though you fail to see why that makes Great Men special. Hells, it's almost just like home.
    "There's a couple watch-houses on the pillar, but mostly if you want anything done, you do it yourself or you pay the gangs. Back there on the street you saw kind of the best cross-section of what we're dealing with. The ragged mob? Militia. Just folks, who know how to fight enough to get a paycheck for it. The uniforms outside Mirak? In-house mercs, private army. The flash bastards in the coats? Those are the Seven Death, and in this part of the pillar you're dealing with them first and foremost."
    The pair of you turn left, and begin descending a long, steep street lined on both sides with the back end of buildings, all ladders and loading docks and the kind of windows you pour chamber pots or hang laundry out of.
    "Militia, private army, and Seven Death," you repeat, wanting to show you're paying attention.
    "Right. There's a lot of them, they got fancy uniforms, and they live well, so they're popular. As long as you pay up and show respect they don't go around fucking with people for fun, but if you step to them? They get creative so nobody gets ideas. We're talking feeding you to the Cousins, barbed-wire flogging, or barehanded wrestling with this one Caprid that just straight up eats you alive. They're also mostly human but I have no idea why. Suppose humes just got more appreciation for theater."
    "Sounds familiar," you admit. Like some of the nastier crews back home, but bigger and with a more solid aesthetic.
    "I pay my dues, the concerns pay their own thugs, and nobody gets killed. It's about all you can ask for, down here."

    At the end of the road, you turn again, and suddenly you're facing the lights of the city, bigger buildings, more crowds, a far livelier chunk of city compared to the warren you just crawled through. Rising amid the buildings is a thick-walled tower, wider at the base than the top, roof bristling with bright lights and odd spikes of metal. Four of those Law masks, each about 12 feet tall, are mounted around the sides below the rim of the roof. Shelev points. "There's the Law. Let me do the talking, yeah? I know how to deal with the local steelheads."
    [ ] Let Shelev take the lead. (Be polite. Be accommodating. Be watchful.)
    [ ] Take the lead yourself. (Be assertive. Be confident. Be personable.)
    [ ] Write-in.
     
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    • [X] Let Shelev take the lead. (Be polite. Be accommodating. Be watchful.)

    I'm tempted to do a write-in (I know from experience just how soul-killing it is to watch people just line up and choose the first vote, with maybe a line at most between them as reasoning instead of interesting, interest-showing debate), but Shelev (who I have trouble not calling Sheila for some reason) did ask to take the lead, and it's not like we can't trust in her in this particular situation. I doubt there's a strong incentive for her to turn in random people as criminals, for instance. Of course, we don't know her yet, so we can't trust her (thus the sensible secrets), but letting her do as she asks, following her orders/suggestions when it makes sense, builds trust and a reputation for possessing sense. Plus, we don't know what to say to these people, judging by the differences between Great Men and the rest of the place we're new to!

    Personally, I'm just hoping those Law masks are to protect their identities in case of corruption or assassination. At most, I hope it's to prevent accountability. If they turn out to be Joo Dees, I'm recommending Grail GTFO at the first "There Is No War in Ba Sing... *coughs* No Crime in Great Men." NOPE! No brainwashing for us! Maybe the oracle we met has more prophecies, but NO going against an organization with standardized Mind Rape.
     
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