Conrad "Sandy" Dorn's Story

"God damn, this place never gets old."

Dozens, no, hundreds of shoppers and walkers littered the sidewalks of Main Street. While much of Wing City was nearly constantly in shambles, the popular shopping center remained relatively well-kept and well populated, even after the recent massacre. Even in its damaged state, two figures still stood out from their peers as some that should be seen at a more sleazy part of town, let alone one as impressive as this.

The shorter and more unscrupulous-looking of the two, Hadley Rayne, had insisted that they visit the street on her trip to buy smokes. Not only was this the place to get the best brands, she claimed, but there's plenty of the city's more wealthy denizens to rob. Her hands were stuffed in her jacket pocket, one hand fondling a lighter and the other rubbing her thumb along the casing of a straight razor, not unlike that a barber would use.

Eventually they reached the establishment of choice, Smoke and Mirrors, a smoke shop that catered to the more magically inclined as the name implied. A friendly ringing of a bell announced their entrance, and Hadley made a beeline to the cigarette display, eyeing up her options. Hundreds of packs in every sort of color and pattern, containing all sorts of plants or other ingredients inside.

"You're kidding, right?" Sandy's scratchy voice was laced with annoyance. In fact if you stood close enough to him you could probably feel waves of discomfort radiating off of him. See hie voice was a bit stand-out in a place so prim and proper. Whenever he was on the surface anybody who heard him would always ask, "What happened?". Assuming they didn't recognize him. Then they'd just point and laugh, or pretend to feel sorry for him. He hated the surface, hated Wing City.

This place took everything from him, he could steal every dime this city and never feel even.

Although wiping a wallet from a fat man in a pinstripe suit on their way to the smoke shop made him feel a bit better about the whole trip. Nothing like taking cash from the pompous surface fuckers. He leafed through said wallet while he watched out of the corners of his vision. He never understood her impulse to smoke. There was more than enough fumes in the Slumwalks to burn your lungs to cinders, why add more? Besides, he knew what smoke damage did to a person all too well.

Not his body, not his place to judge though.

Instead he waited contentedly, happily counting the...Three? Hundred bucks the sweaty fat cat actually carried in cash. Seriously, who walked around with more than a tenner in Wing City? Oh well, thieves have always profited off of stupidity, he reminded himself. He also remembered one of the most important aspects of the Slumwalks, and that's being a family.

"Yo, Radley." His damaged voice disrupted the casual atmosphere of the shop. A side effect of scarred vocal chords from the smoke and flames of his failed housing project. "I got you covered today, girl. Pick somethin' pricey."

"Aw, aren't you so gentlemanly," Hadley shot back almost immediately, "that's a dangerous game you know, letting me use your money."

She turned back to the display, and made up her mind with some particularly colorful boxes towards the top of the shelf. A steel bell sat on the counter before her, and she gave the button on top a few taps to summon an employee. Towards the back of the small storefront a door opened and someone came out, a man that looked to be in his early forties with more than a few scars crisscrossing his face. One of his eyes' pupils was whited, clearly was somehow torn beyond any use.

"Hey Smith," the girl flicked her head back a little as a gesture to come towards her. The shopkeep nodded and huffed, shambling behind the counter.

"Damn it Had, you're going to wreck your lungs like that, smokin' at your age," the man's voice crackled and grated even more than Conrad's. He sounded more than double the age he looked.

"Already not gonna live long in this city. Where's your coworker? The cute one."

"The orc boy?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, him."

He took in a raspy breath and let out a long sigh. "Haven't seen 'im in a while. Heard he got hooked on El, he wasn't even at his apartment. He's probably gone, I'm afraid."

"Really? Shit," Rayne didn't know him well, but she definitely wanted to. Young and lean, with wild black hair and. . .

"Did you want to buy something or what?" Smith blurted out, making the teen jump a little.

"Oh, yeah. I'll take one pack of Dragon's Dance, one Firecracker, two packs of Issunar Special, and how about a pack of Sloth just for shits and giggles."

The shopkeep grabbed the desired packs and punched in the items into his cash register, the number coming up on a small screen facing his customers.

"255.83," he read out the total while Hadley pulled the cash from Conrad's hand, just giving him 260 and grabbing the bag.

"Keep the change I guess," she continued out the store without waiting for her companion, "catch ya later Smith."

"Come see me more often, will ya?" He called back, but the door had closed by the time he was finished, punctuated with the hanging bells chiming again.

"His money." Conrad snickered, quite audibly. That had to be one of the biggest running in-jokes of the Guild. The whole Slumwalks really. Nobody there ever paid for a damn thing with 'their' money. Who's it was was anybody's guess, but in a den of thieves you can bet that any and all cash changing hands belonged to other people. Lots of other people.

In fact Conrad had been wondering why Hadley even wanted to come to a store to buy something. Until the comment about the Orc anyway.

Typical. Smoke and Mirrors would've been one hell of a place to hit in the dead of night. Cut the security, hire a shifty wizard or sorcerer to deal with any wards, and steal a van for the merch. They could easily have cleared out the registers, floor safe, and had Shitbird hit the buildings accounts. All while taking thousands worth of top-tier smokeables at the same time. Really, small shops like that were a dream to rob. Easy with a high profit margin, but no. Instead here they where, forking over somebody's hard earned cash because Hadley was in to some orc.

Normally Conrad would've said something. He was big on lecturing the newer-than-him-members, but not this time.

He merely stuffed what was left of the cash into his duffel bag and walked behind the woman, shaking his head. He remembered being young and doing plenty of nonsensical things to impress the opposite sex. Or at least have an excuse to get their number. It was good to see that kind of naive hope. That ability to live day-by-day and think about a future, even if only stretched a few nights ahead.

That was the power of the Slumwalks. Somehow that dank hell gave everyone who found their way there a new lease on life. A future.

Of course being trained to steal everything not nailed down had a way of bringing hope, too. Who needs to "work" when there's an endless cash flow as long as other morons are willing to show up nine-to-five. That rattled something in Conrad's brain. He jogged up to Hadley's side, leaning in a little too speak softly. "Hey, big spender. I hear the Bulwark is finally starting to clean up the mess on Main Street. Means they'll be pretty damn focused, and slow to respond. You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

"Hit Smoke and Mirrors? Fuck off," Hadley waved dismissively at him. Though, almost as if on cue, a woman stepped out of a car around twenty yards ahead of them. Middle aged, glittery jewelry that could be seen even from that distance, sundress and a distended designer purse hanging by a thin strap. If only to make matters better, she was chatting away into her phone and balancing on needlepoint high heels.

"Hold on, meet me back at the walks."

Rayne reached into the plastic bag and stuffed the packs of cigarettes into various pockets, dumping the empty sack into Conrad's hand and moving in on her newfound prey. As she approached, more bits and pieces of the conversation began to become audible.

"No, Gerard, I'm not coming in for a shoot. I've got an appointment with my yogi scheduled then. Yes, that is more important, like he always says, 'a connected mind is a healthy body'." She then listened, nodding and mumbling "yeah" or "no" every few seconds. Hadley approached closer, reaching into her jacket and grabbing the razor, pulling it out with a flicking motion to extend and lock the blade.

"Hold on, my husband's calling," as she reached to press the button on her phone, Rayne bumped into her with considerable force, swiping the blade along the purse's strap to cut it free and pulling it away from its owner in a single motion. The woman stumbled and fell flat, cursing and squawking as the thief rummaged through for the wallet, pulled all of the cash out, then tossed it to her hapless victim. She didn't need the ID, credit cards or other personal information there, that kind of theft was cowardly and below her.

She broke off into a half-sprint into a nearby alley to assess her spoils. All sorts of random fancy cosmetics, a few hundred in cash, and other knick-knacks. The strap was made of cheap plastic, so just a little flame from her lighter and some careful movements melted the severed line back together in a way that still looked (mostly) presentable.

"Hell, it even matches my jacket. Might just keep the damn thing," she grinned and turned to head towards the Slumwalks.

Sandy was about to pitch a fit over Hadley's incredibly direct approach, and abandoning him, but his ringtone stopped him short. Well. It wasn't his, the phone was of course somebody else's, but still. Possession was 10/10ths of the law, right? He fished it out of his duffel, which more or less contained every useful thing he "owned", and unlocked it.

He was excepting anything but what he saw.

A string of texts from Shitbird, all in Knack. That was aggravating, but it meant a job. A real job. Not just freelance larceny. Only problem was Knack was a very...Elongated language. To say a normal sentence in Knack would take about two and a half times longer, it was not conducive to text messages. Still, the prospect of a Guild-approved job sent adrenaline through him. He ducked into a nearby cafe and went about decoding it.

Every Guild member was fluid in Knack, but the annoying language still took about twenty minutes to sort out.

The result wasn't even much, "Sandy, Lunch date today. About two shakes from now. Skyline. Up to you what to order, man, but I suggest a solid entree. Just don't run the tab too high, you know? I'm not made of credits. I invited a friend, someone from Uptown. He's a real go-getter, you'll love him. Play nice.", of course that was only the highlights. In true Shitbird fashion there was a lot of rambling that looked like friendly banter. The hope being if anyone DID decode it, it'd just look like some business people being shifty, or pulling The Bulwark's legs.

Usually worked too.

Coded in the message via an old school cipher was the cilent names, and meeting place. Some little dive bar off Main Street named McZongo's Cosmic Squid. Sandy really paused when he read that, wondering if he mistranslated, but three attempts at it all resulted in the same incredibly stupid name. How Shitbird came up with these places, he never knew. Never really wanted too either. He gathered up his things, sent a text to a phone he thought Hadley had telling her to meet there and headed off.

Hopefully by the time this Johnston showed Hadley would be there, if not at least he would be. He wouldn't even have to split the pay then! Could be worse.

Having just left from the battle that was occuring futher down the street, William walked down Main Street before coming towards McZongo's Cosmic Squid. He entered the bar to look for someone that could find out if there were any other 5th Battalion members who may have found themselves in this world.

He looked around before taking a seat to wait. He looked at the menu, before deciding to order a small portion of chips. As he waited for the food to come, he got out his journal and wrote about what he had witnessed. The Space Marines, the Dark Figures, Ciaphas Cain telling him things that wouldn't make sense in William's time and the young girl who hd approached the ship Cain was on.

As he finished writing, he noticed that his food had arrived. He put his journal down and applied some ketchup onto the chips. As he started to eat them, he realised, for the first time in since coming to ths world, that the food here was better then the food in the trenches. As well as the chips there was a glass of Coca-Cola, which he drank in under a few seconds. As he finished the food, he wrote in his journal about how better the food on this world was compared to the food in the trenches.

Hadley only afforded a few minutes in the Slumwalks before receiving a text from Sandy, just enough to toss her spoils into the tiny room she called home and deposit all but one of her packs of cigarettes on the stained wooden nightstand. The room itself was in reality quite barren even though the graffiti and posters might lead one to think otherwise. At the very least it was quite well insulated from both heat and sound, so she found it cozy enough.

The Cosmic Squid was pretty easy to spot once she approached it, the sign featuring the titular cartoonish sea creature wearing a fishbowl-style astronaut helmet. Even before entering, the colorful lights and faint beat of music gave Hadley a good idea of what was in store: something even trashier than what Sandy described for her, which made her love it that much more. She cracked open her new pack of Issunar Special and slipped the first cigarette between her lips, not even bothering to produce her lighter. Instead she pinched the end between her thumb and middle finger, snapping her fingers and making a strong enough spark to ignite it. She took a quick drag to make sure the ember took, and sighed contentedly. The smoke chilled her lips and throat with exotic herbs from the southern continent, the heat of the smoke quickly following to warm her back up.

Nowhere on the outside of the establishment told her not to smoke inside, so she pushed open the doors and slipped into the bar. A particularly odd individual, even for Wing City, was hunched over some food but Rayne paid them little mind.

Sandy was getting a little frustrated. He'd been parked in a booth for the last hour, just sitting and watching the room. Lord knows he had to be drawing attention, hood up, no meal, just sitting. Of course it was simply because the contractor wasn't getting with the program. Instead this dude was just sitting at the bar, eating and writing. Sandy wanted to yell at the guy, so, so much, but he wasn't even supposed to go over to the guy.

Client's were supposed to make the first move, but Shitbird probably didn't bother to tell the guy that.

With a disgusted sigh he pushed past various Rave-revival enthusiasts, feeling unclean just being near them. "Raves" died out in the 2k's, what where these yuppies doing? Why would anyone on Terra bother with "trends" when an orbital strike was due any minute. His mounting anger dissipated a little as he spotted Hadley though, at least he wasn't alone. He motion for the woman to follow him, and slide casually into the seat next to William. He ordered something plain from the bartender, and fished around in his pocket for "his" cash.

Money of all kinds, paper, coin, and chip hit the bar, and he chuckled nervously.

"Sorry man,", he offered to the bartender, scoping up all the money except for one, small golden coin. The Thieves' Guild insignia proudly etched into the shiny golden circle. This was far, far too obvious for Sandy's taste but given the situation it was the only thing he could think of. He slid the coin towards William when nobody was looking, hoping that this was in fact his contact, and that the dude would take the hint.

As William finished writing in his journal, he noticed a man sit next to him. The man then slid a coin towards William. On it was the insignia of the Terran Thieves' Guild. William looked at the coin and then he looked at the man who had slid the coin towards William. He then realised that this was the person who he was meant to meet.

Sorry about that old chap. Got distracted by the food. I tell you, they are much better then the food that I had back in the Trenches. Anyway, I'm William Johnston. I'm assuming you are from the Thieves' Guild?

He whispered to Sandy.

"Oh jesus christ," Hadley ashed her cigarette and held her head in her free hand, almost losing the ember that so desperately clung to her tobacco. This guy had no subtlety about him in any way, from his form of dress to his mannerisms, to just how openly he mentioned things. Was the Thieve's Guild that desperate for members that they were willing to blow their cover just for another warm body? To make matters worse, he's one of those out-of-dimension-ers, don't know anything about anything or how things work.

More than anything, Rayne just hoped she wouldn't have to babysit him on any jobs soon.

William decided to explain the whole reason why he contacted the Thieve's Guild.

I'll be quite honest with you two, I contacted your group for a job. Now, where to begin?

William took a deep breath as he began to speak.

I'm assuming you're aware of the Great War. But you'll perhaps know it as World War 1, or the First World War. I was a Lieutenant-Colonel in command of the 5th Battalion of the British Royal Norfolk Regiment. We were deployed to Gallipoli in July of 1915. On the 12th of August, we were charging towards the enemies trench when an unknown Mist appeared. I charged through it with my Battalion, only to find myself here in this world. I waited to see if any of my Battalion had followed me through. But they hadn't. I was on my own, in a world with stuff that we didn't have back in the 1900s. I contacted your group as I needed information on whether any other soldiers in my Battalion made it into this world.

William took a sip of Coca-Cola before continuing.

I've little currency of this world on me, but I've got some old, undamaged items from my era that could be of value.

My chat went weird.

oh hi there

Aneres Coreveon wasn't dressed as obscurely as she would have liked to believe. The shimmering white kimono-style overlayer embroidered with golden moons down the sleeves, the long-hemmed fringe coming to rest just above the hemline of golden bell-bottoms. Beneath was a plain white top. A golden chain poked out from the collar but the rest of it was tucked beneath the shirt.

There was nothing Aneres could do about the bodyguards who followed her, but she had grown used to that to some degree. At least they let her style them at this point. It made everyone's job easier.

Aneres flicked golden braids to look one way up the street, then the other, then back again. A grunt from one of the bodyguards signaled that it was alright to cross. Halfway across the street she felt a slight tremor of energy. The bodyguards picked up their pace and hurried Aneres across. She didn't protest. They came to stop a stone's throw from a mercedes, a man perched atop the back.

"Did you feel that?" Aneres asked the man, half looking down her nose despite the fact that he was literally seated higher up than where she stood. Her tone wasn't pretentious but there was something about it that dripped with royalty.

"Bristol, very nice to meet you," Aneres extended her own hand and delicately gripped his. She frowned upon hearing that he didn't know what it was either.

"I am Aneres, as I prefer to be called," She regally addressed Bristol with a smile, "Princess of Aurealas. A pleasure to meet you. Is that what brings you here? Looking for the source of the disturbance? I will admit I haven't felt it anywhere else but here."

One of her Over's coughed. She rolled her eyes. They were always concerned she would reveal too much. Aneres had yet to do so.

The Rocketeer mutters "Bloody Hell... How'm I gonna get off-planet?"