Rylan woke with a startle as a blaring sound came from the cockpit of his ship. It was the sound made whenever someone was hailing him. Rylan groggily stood up from his resting position on his couch, where some drool had pooled at the armrest he had been using as a pillow while sleeping
Aylward walked towards the Sarthaches' cockpit like a zombie in search of its next victim. When he finally entered the space, he slumped down in his captain's seat—well, it was the only seat in the cockpit, but he called it that.
Rylan then pressed the button that allowed the TDPA to project Garner's goblinoid appearance, which had a pleased but slightly annoyed appearance on his blubbery gremlin-looking face. "You look like shit." was the first thing he heard from the ugly short stack in his nasally voice laced in a snarky tone, to which Rylan only grunted as he was too exhausted to retort back.
Garner looked over the tired mercenary with slight contempt and a bit of appreciation in his gaze. "That tired from your first job here, huh? You better toughen up, or you'll be another rat dead on the street when you get on world freelancer."
Garner then scratched the scruffle on his chin with his lanky, thin fingers. "You have my contact information if you need to make some mutually beneficial arrangements." he said as he stopped scratching his chin hairs to pull up a datapad ledger.
"You can land in my territory controlled by the nightshade syndicate. Don't land anywhere else on the planet unless you want to deal with unhappy gangs shooting you the second you step out of your ship." Garner warned as he sent landing information and permission to the Sarthaches console. "and don't do something stupid like land in Lythan Irun's old territory on the planet."
Aylward looked at the man, who was more goblin than anything, quizzically. "And why would that be stupid? It's not like any of his guards saw my face."
Garner shook his head in disappointment. "Think mercenary. Why would I, a fellow Don of the same syndicate as Lythan, want him dead? Territorial expansion! Fool, if you go there now, what do you think would happen? It's a complete warzone with the other Dons of the syndicate fighting me for it."
"Okay, I see now, but why are you telling me this?" Rylan was even more confused by Garner's willingness to explain the purpose of his plot.
Garner cocked his eyebrow upwards. "Why do you think? You've proven valuable and I don't need a semi-competent mercenary on the front lines, my grunts can handle such a thing. You provide a much more refined service than some street rats armed with basic weaponry. Simply put, you're more valuable alive for the moment." Garner emphasized the last part of his explanation to drive home his point.
Rylan sighed deeply as he circled a finger around a button on the Sarthaches control console. "So basically, I'm your fine-point laser to cut your jewels, huh?" he said with an exhausted chuckle, both from the physical strain of yesterday's work and the mental strain of having to look at and hear Garner's ugliness for an extended period. He was glad that they were not face to face, where he could smell the little crime goblin.
Garner sneered at Aylward's words. "Oh, please, you're not that refined, but you are correct in your assessment of being a tool. You are more like water cutting, powerful and effective if focused in the right area."
He then scratched his chin stubble that twisted and curved. "Though we are all tools, whether to ourselves or other people, no? All that matters is we get what we want." Garner chuckled darkly at his assessment, enjoying objectifying everything around him.
"You're a twisted little bastard, aren't you, boss?" Rylan said unenthusiastically at Garner's attitude as he pinched the button his hand had been sliding against out of boredom from Garner's little philosophical speech.
Garner's sneer switched to a pleased smile, surprisingly happy with the assessment. "Indeed I am, and unlike some, I'm powerful enough not to have to hide my real thoughts. Those below will always admonish the ones above them out of envy, but the second they take power themselves? Well, people aren't saints, are they?" Garner said with a mock laugh, finding the nature of human power struggles entertaining.
Aylward smirked as he leaned back in his chair. He pondered the coup that happened in the mercenary guild that forced him into this forsaken planet. He laughed with Garner as he nodded his head in agreement. "That's something I can't argue with," he said, amused by his own struggles caused by humans' lust for power.
"I know, right? I can place a competent officer in my ranks only to see them killed by someone else and be replaced the second I turn around, only to find them even worse than my pick at anything but their job. It's quite interesting to watch but annoying; however, that's the way of Lausgaiegüse and has been for centuries." Garner said with a toothy grin as he remembered his rise to power and sighed with melancholy.
"Are you Getting sentimental, Garner?" Rylan asked as he brushed his messy hair back down, fixing the bed hair he had throughout the entire conversation. He yawned into his hand, the last vestiges of his grogginess slowly fading away as he started to fully wake.
Garner shook his head ."Not at all. Nothing for me to be sentimental about." Garner said with a frown as he leaned back in his throne-like seat in the projection displaying him.
"I've spent enough time on you, Aylward. Maybe you'll be worth more of it one day, but for now, enjoy your stay in Lausgaiegüse. Need a job? You know how to contact me." With that, the transmission with Garner closed before Rylan could respond, and the projection of the little goblin crime overlord vanished into light particles.
Rylan shook his head as he firmly grabbed the joystick on the control console and began to guide the Sarthach planet side. "Enjoy my stay?" he grimaced as he looked at the gilded towers that outreached from the planets and past its atmosphere, their beautiful intricate gold-white engraved statures sitting elegantly and dominantly over the Ecumenopolis of Lausgaiegüse. He knew that the gilded city was just that, coated in an air of luxury while deeply carved by the underworld.
Aylward landed the Sarthach on a levitating platform with smaller circular floating disks leading into one of the gilded towers, most likely a trade hub within Garner's territory; he thought to himself as he walked down the platforms. "Probably using some inbuilt gravitational devices," he assessed as he entered the building, which was just as grand inside as it was out.
Golden statues, white marble walls, and paintings depicting gorgeous yet barbaric tapestries of ages past, showing the original settlers of Lausgaiegüse, the pirate invasion, and the subsequent slave rebellion all renditioned vividly, not hiding any of the bloodiness or cruelty of such affairs to remind the current generations that times were even harder for their not so distant ancestors.
Many of the paintings depicted vile atrocities of the pirates that made even a hardened mercenary like Rylan's stomach churn in disgust. Rylan kept his gaze down as he walked through the halls, not wanting to see any more of the vile pictures on the walls. He could understand why Lausgaiegüse is the way it is after seeing things that he could only describe as a sadist's wet dream and not the fun kind of sadism either.
He hurriedly left the building and went into the lower streets, which were also platforms levitating, though much larger and sturdier to hold the thousands of people walking across them every second of the day. Aylward decided that he needed a long stay in a bar after everything he had just seen to forget it entirely.
Making his way through the throng of people that were heading their way back and forth to their destinations as stellarcrafts fly overhead, Rylan finds a decent-looking bar with flashing neon lights that shine through the late afternoon darkness with letters giving birth to the words 'Splotch of Joy'.
As Aylward enters the building, the smell of ale, wine, whisky, and other liqueurs makes his nostrils have a burning flare as the stenches overpower everything else within the bar.
Another scent wafting about was barbecue meat and odd sweets that were alien to him. He also noticed a distinct sign with thick black text stating 'Citizen Zone, Follow Code,' which confused him as he noted down the 'code' as something he needed to research.
Rylan decided to take a seat directly at the bar counter, where he hailed over one of the many bartenders. "Can I get your strongest drink?" he asked, clearly trying to forget everything he had just witnessed when entering the city of ambitions. The bartender nodded, seeming used to such a request, as he brought a very strong, fruity-scented drink with a myriad of colors in it. "What is this?" Rylan asked, intrigued.
"Deathclover. Local speciality." The bartender said without elaborating further as he went to tend to his other customers. Aylward shrugged and took a sip of the drink. The taste of the alcohol was barely there as the drink tasted of banana, watermelon, strawberry, mango, lemon, lime, and blue raspberry all mixed together at once.
After taking a bigger sip of the drink, Rylan started to cough as his face flushed. The alcohol density in the drink was clearly far more than what the flavor would suggest, stronger than Vodka and other usually hard liqueurs. "The hell is this stuff made of?" he asked the bartender, who looked at him with a bit of pride at his reaction.
"Secret recipe, but the strength is from a special type of fortifying technology that we developed here not that long ago, maybe half a century at most." The bartender replied as he dried off a used cup with an odd-looking device that both sanitized and cleaned it simultaneously, making it ready to be used again in just a few seconds.
Aylward nodded in appreciation, not prying any further as he sipped his fruity but extremely strong drink. Powerful enough to get him good and drunk yet still tasty, he couldn't complain about that, he thought to himself as he sighed contentment.
Finally, he was glad to get a much-needed respite. He then felt something brush against his arm, making him peek to his side. Rylan saw a gorgeous lady with milky white, pale skin next to him. Her legs were crossed, and she raised her suspiciously short skirt just enough to show off parts of her lower thighs. The woman had an arm wrapped under her chest, exasperating her, and what Rylan assumed to be B cup-sized bre
asts. Her other arm, which was brushing against his own, was leaning against its elbow on the counter, with her palm pressing against the side of her face. She was dolled up with eyeliner, eyeshadow, and cherry red lipstick on her mouth, which had a small smirk. Her face may have been pointed forward, away from him, but Rylan could see her side-eyeing him.
Aylward side-eyed the woman in turn as he waved the bartender back over. "A refill and another cup of the same thing," he said as he gazed at the attractive lady beside him, not with lust but suspicion. Maybe a little lust; the guy was drunk and stressed; give him a break. "You are?" he whispered cautiously as the bartender silently passed them their drinks, which he partook of his first.
The woman's smirk grew slightly wider, almost imperceptibly so. She sipped from her cup and licked her lips of the substance inside before setting it down and whispering in a sweet voice that sounded soft but firmly strong-willed: "Irene. Azran says hi."
Rylan's muscles instantly tensed at her words before he relaxed them just as quickly. He took another sip from his beverage and whispered back, "What does that fox want with me?" he asked as he took another sip, eyeing her with distrust and wariness.
The woman's smile grew a little wider again as she took the rest of her glass like a shot completely unaffected by the unusually powerful drink before leaning in to whisper into Aylward's ear as she gently placed her hand on his knee causing the mercenary to slightly jolt but not move knowing that now was not the time to make a scene.
"That's best discussed in private, no? Floor 12, room 16~" she said in a mockingly teasing voice as she got up and left the flustered mercenary alone, unsure how to process this new temptress set in play.
Rylan sighed deeply when she left. "When the hell can I get some time to relax, damn it!" he cursed under his breath, lamenting at how much politics he was being forced to play.
Aylward is just a hired gun, not a politician; why is he suddenly popular with so many organizations' plots? Having said that, Aylward sat up and paid the bill for the drinks, which was more than he was happy with, but he wasn't willing to do something stupid and snub the bill in a world run by criminal syndicates.
Rylan sighed again for what felt like the millionth time since arriving in the solar system, climbing up the stairwell of the bar to the 12th floor. He stood at the entrance to room 16, where the vixen working for Azran and his eccentric club of hidden figures awaited. Aylward's hand gripped the doorknob, hesitantly unsure whether he should enter or not.