The bar was… well, unwelcoming. To say the least.
It was hidden away in the south-west sector, the path to it being obscure and almost impossible to find organically. But I did ask for a quiet place to talk, so I guess I was getting what I wanted. The people inside were largely Reptilia, easily ninety-five percent or more. Though it didn't hold the same atmosphere that the Skinned Lizard made use of, clearly being a highly exclusionary establishment, one where everyone knew everyone.
The humans that were inside stood out like a sore thumb, clearly only here for something ancillary to the actual bar itself, like I was. The majority were placed opposite a Reptilia wearing a similar getup to my own Gek guide, face coverings and sometimes less strict body coverings. It became clear quite quickly what the purpose of this place was.
I was led to a small table in the very corner of the establishment, one that has walls erected around the table for whatever privacy you could get within a place like this. Though I had no doubt it was just fanfare for the humans that are brought here, something to make them feel as if their dirty little secrets aren't being listened in on. Of course they were, I had no doubt that it was a selling point of the bar, to listen to what was going on in the less than savoury world within Crossroads.
"So, a professional criminal then?" I said as I sat myself in the chair, letting my cloak drape over my shoulders once again, a look that was starting to grow on me. It felt powerful, socially anyways.
"You have to do what you can to get by here." She replied stoically, though some of it was fanfare for those that were listening in on our little conversation. I hummed to myself thoughtfully as I extended my aura of safety, a tool that I used passively much of the time. If I focused on the ability, though, I could enforce a soft sense of security. Many were overlooking our conversation due to their worry for my friend across the table. I assume that 'high-rollers' like myself rarely, if ever, came down to muddy their pristine skin with this sort of environment.
"That's fair enough." I said, nonchalance bleeding for my words. As my aura extended, the tense atmosphere slowly quietened before almost becoming calm. The ears listening in on our conversation dropped to nothing more than listening to the mumbling murmur of our voices, no interest in picking up specifics.
"There we are, had to make sure no-one was listening in too hard there." I said, letting a smile warm my face. We were totally obscured from the rest of the bar, so I let my back slump into the fairly decent wooden chair before regarding the woman opposite me.
"What?" She said, her voice low but still natural, keeping the strain out of her voice in fear that it'd alert the Reptilia at the tables around us.
"Don't worry about it too hard. As long as you aren't going to yell, nobody will be taking specific notice to our conversation for the night. The perks of being close to the Hearth Court." The dark orbs of her eyes locked onto my face, examining my expression, and letting her mind whir through what had happened over the past thirty minutes.
"Fine. Do you want to explain why you knew the greeting ritual for Kaliha? The formal one?" Her words stayed at their natural tone, but her emotions were anything but neutrality. It was a mess of quite a few emotions, all ties to each other intrinsically. It wasn't something that I could unravel at first glance.
"I'm sorry, it wasn't meant as an offence. The truthful answer is that I didn't know the greeting ritual. I simply asked toward the Court of Hearth and they responded." I shrugged, keeping it intentionally vague and only really supplying her with a gentle smile. It was a smile I had cultivated to the point where I could almost wear it permanently and never sway from it, an incredibly useful expression.
"You just asked a whole Court of Gods and they responded? I'd more likely believe that you're a God yourself." She said bitterly, the venom in her voice dulled by the hilarity of her coming so close to the literal truth. I chuckled restrainedly, careful to keep the large belly laugh within.
"Ah well, I am a priest of sorts—faithful to the whole Court, rather than just one." She sneered quietly, her lips staying unmoved but her strange skin pulling itself into an intimidating mask.
"A priest? Bullshit. My mother was a priest of Kaliha from childhood, and she wasn't even capable of doing anything more than a greeting, let alone something on the level of a true Divine Pact. I know that Kaliha was only worshipped by the Gek tribes to the far east, and a formal greeting was never given to a human, nor ever translated into the common language. How do you know it?" She threatened softly, her eyes cold and piercing. There was a lot of hurt buried underneath her words, and me giving her this formal religious greeting trawled up this slew of horrible emotions—underpinned by surprise.
"I know it because they know it. Because they thought that I was worthy to hear it, and that you were important enough to receive the greeting. Maybe it'll sound a bit up myself, but the Hearth Gods are quite invested in me—so obviously they think that you are a worthy investment of my and, by extension, their time." I sat with one leg crossed over the other, the pant leg of my suit pants riding up ever so slightly, just enough to show a tasteful amount of the sock I wore beneath.
"Hah, as if the Gods ever cared so much about anyone." She said, bitterly. Though I could tell that she knew she was being unreasonable, bitterness to be bitter.
"Maybe so." I agreed easily, "I'll be honest, I only ever have been following the Hearth Court. I know next to nothing about other religions and other Gods. As nice as I may look now," I gestured to the suit, "would you believe that I came from a small road town? That I didn't even know that Crossroads or any of the surrounding kingdoms, cities and empires even existed until just today?" She didn't narrow her eyes, which I only just realised was a physical limitation of having no eyelids, but the woman certainly felt more suspicious in her emotional state.
"A road town? To the east or south?" I nodded in the southerly direction, and she sat back in her chair, a little flabbergasted.
"What the hell did you do right? Did you sell your ass out to a rich man and does he have any interest in a woman?" I choked down a laugh, before it forced its way out my nose, destroying any guise of coolness I had going.
"Oh no, I think he'd be quite unhappy if I were to open up the relationship like that." I said with a smirk—unable to think of anything but the outrageously funny disappointment that would be marring Mayer's face right about now. Or he'd find it funny as hell, soldier humour and all. The Gek woman did her best not to laugh with me but failed just as amazingly as I had. What was meant to be a scathing remark had somehow turned out to be the best ice breaker I could have possibly dreamed of.
"Maximilian Avenforth, or just Max." I said, reaching out a hand in greeting. With only a little hesitation, the Gek woman grabbed the hand gently and shook it.
"Lauka." She said after a moment, hesitance loud and clear in the word. As far as I could tell, that was her real name. I'd half expected to receive a made-up mess of a name, something that would have shown up in my empathy brightly.
"So, Lauka. Crossroads seems like a place that is desperately trying to look like there is absolutely nothing wrong going on under the covers. What do you think about that?" I asked sarcastically. I would have mimed a microphone, as if I were a reporter, but that'd probably only be confusing in a world without a televised news and microphones.
"It is an absolute nest for villainy." She said, snorting amusedly, "If I could, I'd have moved into the Brauhm Empire the first chance I got. At least there are less gangs there."
"Can't go because you're Reptilia?" She nodded with exasperation.
"They still think that most Reptilia, especially ones from the west, are the religious and warring type. Not that some of them aren't, but the ones willing to move out of their tribes? Not likely to be the type."
"So you're stuck here with your family?" There was a moment of great caution before she nodded, "Is there a better option other than the Brauhm Empire or Vahla to the east?"
"Nope, unless you're willing to make the trip south to Veringohs, which I hear have a relatively high Reptilia population. But so many people die trying to make that trip, unless you have the money to hire people that actually know their way around the place and others that can kill the really nasty beasties in the desert. Other than that, this shithole is the best you can do for yourself."
I let myself sigh, my shoulders slumping ever so slightly. It didn't seem like anywhere here was all that nice a place to be. Crossroads had an unknown degree of corruption—at least enough for professional thieves being used by higher class citizens; Brauhm was religious and racist, which already made them sound extremely appealing; Vahla was probably selling slaves to the Brauhm Empire, and any further out than that couldn't be much better.
"So what about here, then? What goes on in the shadows and who are the hands that pull the strings?" Lauka grimaced, the skin of her cheeks pulling taut in the best approximation of the expression as was allowed on her reptilian features. I wonder if they had to learn those expressions, or if they were natural.
"Well, if I wasn't under your assurance that no-one is listening, I would be very worried that a little lizard will crawl their way back to one of those hands." Her voice was a warning tone, though it still didn't seem like too taboo a topic—probably something that got asked often enough that it wouldn't light up on any radars. Not yet anyway.
"That's quite alright. I'm a big boy and can handle it. Plus, I am paying you handsomely for the information." She looked about ready to argue before her hand made its way into the folds of the cloth wrapped around her body, likely to feel at the single bronze coin.
"You might need to pay more for me to be willing to spill the sort of information that'll get me killed, but general information I can give you." I waved my hand nonchalantly, letting her dictate the exact limits of the deal was an easy enough concession from me. Honestly, I was hardly fussed either way—though her continuing to feed me information would only serve to be more and more lucrative to her. Always reward loyalty.
"So," she began, her voice much quieter even with the lack of listening ears, "The big players in town are three. You have the 'officials', which are really just the oppression department of the 'law'. They mostly just police trade, but they are super corrupt. They let anything from drugs to slaves slip through if they are paid enough, taking a huge cut on the imported and exported goods. Most of the trade goes straight through Crossroads, so that's where all the wealth comes form in the first place." She pointed a thumb towards the north-eastern quarter, where the police station was set up. If I remember correctly, there was also an administrative building nearby.
"Second are the deep pockets that are all holed up in the northern sectors. Most of them have estates further out of the city towards the Brauhm Empire, but they basically have private soldiers all day and all night. Unless you have a death wish, no-one is getting in those places—though people certainly try. I think I have heard of maybe three that have actually gotten in and out without being killed, and one of them is probably lying. Either way, they are usually the big wigs that run the trade that makes its way through Crossroads, worth hundreds of silver hum a month. Many them are 'procurers' of specialist merchandise. Which is to say exotic slaves, usually.
"Thirdly, we have the gangs, which there are really only two. Humans work under 'totally-not-a-sellout' Haedar Kout, who is almost certainly a sellout. They do all kinds of scary shit, but mostly taking people down to the back alley and making them shift to nowhere." I rose my eyebrow at the odd euphemism.
"It means–" She began, thinking I didn't get it.
"Yes, they kill people for hire. I'm assuming that this is to do with the officials that get too righteous or the storekeeper that got their hands on a little too much information?" She shrugged.
"Or a guard that fucked a trader's daughter. Or just a guy someone hates. Anyone for the right price, and at least Reptilia are worth more because we're harder to kill."
"I'm assuming the other gang is Reptilia?" Lauka rolled her eyes gratuitously. Or maybe that was just how it looked when Gekkota rolled their eyes. I'd have to check with Genhe.
"He's a genius folks, get him a pint." I pushed up an imaginary set of glasses, which remarkably seemed to translate, managing to get a small laugh out of the woman.
"I assume you are with them, then?" She stiffened a little, before she just shrugged defeatedly after a moment. She didn't really feel any need to hide it before me, seeing as I could almost care less. I knew almost nothing about her circumstances, but I strongly doubted that they were ones that lent themselves to honest success in the light of day.
"Yeah, basically. Though I try not to take jobs through them anymore, because they are just about as fucked as the human slicks. Though, the leader of the gang just goes by Shed, and he is absolutely not a sellout. Don't fuck with him unless you want one of the only guys that can get in and out of the most secure houses we know of." I tilted my head in thought. I was looking at jumping into a very dangerous game of Texas Hold'em, though the stakes for me were remarkably low, all things considered.
"I'll make a note of it. Though I will warn you, I am finding myself more and more interested about this darker flipside to the first city that I find myself in after Gods know how long in that little town." I smiled charmingly, which made the woman visibly cringe with the understanding that I couldn't be dissuaded.
"Though, I do have to ask; is that Shed person a 'Shadow Walker', as you called me?" Lauka went stiff, this time there was large disturbance in her emotional state, forcing her to swallow a nervous deluge of saliva that suddenly made its way into her wide mouth.
"No, he is not. They come from anywhere, at any time. We think they are professional assassins, but we know nothing else. Please don't bring them up or they will kill you, then they'll kill me. And I really don't want to die tonight."