Breaking Ranks

Braun: Gangs of Sandstone

So it's been, what, a week? It's damned hard to keep track down here without all the electronic readouts listing the time and date. I heard back in the past that the Ancients advocated limiting screen time in order to meditate or focus or whatever. Well that's all horseshit, another subject I've been growing increasingly familiar with, and I would jump at the chance to spend some of my credits—and not this metal nonsense they use down here—for a few hours in a VR Room.

Anyway, I'd done my own share of heroics, adroitly navigating my way through the bazaar to avoid the recruiting bands of old and maimed soldiers who would tramp around through the streets to conscript any malingerers. The trader was clearly too high-caste for even the most desperate recruiter to try and round up, but I was just as clearly of low social status and I wouldn't put it past a particularly patriotic recruiting band to bundle me up into the town guard of Sandstone.

So that was something to be avoided.

The trader had spent his days wallowing in idle misery, leaving me to look after his horse, but I had spent the bulk of my own days wandering the streets of Sandstone. I figured I had a fair understanding of the place, though over the past week the geography had been changed somewhat, with the occasional hovel smashed or district fallen into looting. It seemed looting and crime were always just beneath the surface, with the town guard manning the walls, and roving gangs emerging at night. I did my explorations during the day and made my reports to Headquarters at night.

By and by I had even been grudgingly allowed into the tavern where I had met the horse trader; the Prancing Pluto. It was there that I would scrawl my notes on a packet of pressed tree-paper I'd purchased, a barbaric but effective enough tool. Even so, the patrons seemed to think of me as some kind of magician and kept their distance.

The owner was felicitous enough but seemed distracted, rounding up underlings and giving whispered orders that I would eavesdrop on from time to time. It seemed this slumlord wasn't going to let a little thing like a siege interrupt his own little duchy, far from it. His petty schemes and blackmail were part of the draw for me, lending a certain quaint rustic charm to the musty tavern, though the bouncer interfered with my spying. Not out of any protectiveness for the owner, but out of an incessant desire to grill me about life in the upperdecks. He was a dull man but I was aware of how unpleasant life was not so very far away, on the walls repelling sudden scaling attempts, and so I tried to keep a positive attitude as best I could, as I thought on the real mission that I had been given.

The Imperial compound had three levels, but the real difficulty of entering was making my way in from the Formian Plaza. Now that was a derelict district indeed, full of rundown alehouses and—

"Derrick," I heard the tavern keeper say. "I want you to take some boys with you to the Formian Plaza."

Now as you might imagine I perked up at this.

"Got it, boss," Derrick said at the counter. He looked over to a couple lean sorts who'd been nursing their drinks by the bar. I pocketed my sharpened black chalk-stick and notepad as I made my way over.

"Hey, think I could tag along?"

Derrick gave me a long, dubious look as he pulled a mace out from behind the counter. "Well, we are looking for muscle... a copper a day, three if blood is drawn."

He didn't mention aloud that I'd hired him before. Perhaps he was a bit smarter than he seemed. The crime lord running the tavern, a weaselly sort by the name of Felgor, didn't seem like he wanted his employees freelancing. He'd moved away, at least, grumbling to himself about the siege and so I sidled up close to Derrick and his thugs.

"Not as muscle, just as a tourist." I snorted. "A copper? You wouldn't believe what I'm making with the trader. No, save your coppers, friend."

Derrick scratched his head. "Just for hauling sweet potatoes?" He let out a low whistle. "Well, come along then. Fair warning, things might get messy. More than likely will." He stood up and made his way to the door, looking back at me as I followed. "So what's a tourist, anyway?"