Misbehavior

[Ryker]

Ryker looked up at the massive corrugated metal doors at the entrance of the city. They were anchored onto an equally massive wall on both sides made by carefully welding anything from old steel panels to car doors together. The resulting aesthetic reminded him of a modern art exhibit he had gone to back in Goldshire. It was titled something pretentious sounding like "Waste of Waste" or something along those lines. This wall, however, was not a waste. The most realistic rumors said it was 5 feet thick it its thinnest point and got up to 20 feet in the corners. Any crevices that might have been present in the structure had been filled with junk and the occasional rock, all hammered down to make a relatively uniform and almost smooth surface. He put an eye patch over his ocular implant. His other augmentations were already covered by long sleeves, thick pants, patched up shoes, gloves and a worn out cloak, all standard clothing within the walls according to his sources. He knocked on the thick jagged door with his right fist. A metal iron cylinder receded, revealing an eye looking back at Ryker.
"Wara ya benas 'er?" It was a man's voice, sounded like a smoker.
"Emm." The dialect caught Ryker off guard.
The eye rolled, "Yoor 'on o them new traders?" The voice struggled with a more understandable accent.
"Yea, I 'ave good coin. Lemme in an' I'll give you a cut yea?" Ryker was surprised with how convincing he sounded but decided to not question and just roll with it for now.
"Soun' real fockin' dandy an all ba' wot makes you fink I aught to believe yeh. Ah?" He was trying to milk this. Ryker wanted to milk it too.
"Oh, yea? Don' fink I'm good for it? Just you cheeky conts wait 'til I let Rolrik know you focks turned a caravan scout away." As soon as he dropped Rolrik's name, the cylinder filled the peep-hole.
As Ryker was beginning to think he'd crossed some line, he heard the hinges shriek as the two slabs of steel parted. The man who Ryker had been talking to directed him to the market but ran off before he could get a good look at him. He'd made it. He was in Pontimistry.

[Ryker]

Ryker made his way through labyrinthine alleyways between shanties, the walls caked in dried mud decorated with piss stains. He wished that he'd brought something to filter the air. Even a simple handkerchief could make the shit-stained air more bearable. He lost his way more times than he cared to count, each time having to climb up a wall and look for landmarks from the time before. More often than not those landmarks were strange roof-tile substitutes or the occasional antenna. Eventually an old man took pity on the strange outsider and pointed him towards the urban center. After floundering through the alleys for another hour, with slightly more direction, Ryker came upon a break in the sea of scrappy shacks and hundreds of people making their way past one another around a large stone building. It was old architecture for sure, certainly not hastily assembled from whatever junk they didn't stick in the wall. "It must be from the Shireroth colonization days." thought Ryker, "No way these guys could pull that off now. And that stone. I'd bet it's not even from the island." A large population of the ever-moving crowd was focused at the entrance of a rather impressive looking shack (more like a cabin actually), clad with what must have been some of the only steel panels not used in the wall. "A sign of wealth here?" he whispered to himself, amused and slightly fascinated. He noticed that the steel cabin fed an ascending pathway into the imposing stone structure. There didn't seem to be any other way in, so Ryker pushed through the river of greasy human flesh and sweat-matted clothes until he was at the metal doorway.

Interior decor was lacking to say the least. The layout of the large room was little more than a few benches along the walls, all bloated with sleeping occupants, and a regular sized desk and chair at the center filled by a gaunt man looking deadly at the papers in front of him with the doorway to the pathway to his back. Ryker walked up to the desk, which to no surprise was made of steel, and tried to get the young man's attention. After several failed attempts, he tapped his shoulder. The man's body slumped, fell out if its perch, and hit the dirt floor with an abrupt, lifeless chorus of thuds. A nearby woman on a bench woke up to the sound and looked at the heap of man on the floor. "Fack's sek." she croaked, "I bin'er an 'af day an vis prick kisses 'is fackin' boots." Her tone was more exasperated than anything else. Her outcry woke a few more around her who spoke with similar sentiments before all leaving. After about a minute, the whole room was vacant aside from Ryker, the man on the floor, and four bodies on the benches who were either also dead or couldn't be bothered to get up. Ryker, having shaken off the initial shock of recent events, tried the wood door at the back. It was locked. He ran into it augmented arm first and heard a sharp crack. He instinctively winced before realizing it wasn't his arm. Hairline fractures had appeared around where the hinges were anchored. He ran into it again, this time ramming though the door frame. He barely maintained balance even with his heightened reflexes. The door that he had ejected in front of him hit the gravel pathway with some hybrid between a boom and a crunch, either way, it turned a few heads from the townspeople near the building. He decided to risk acting casual, walking only slightly faster than most would call "normal" up towards an open corridor. He walked in and looked around. A woman coming from a nearby hallway had noticed him, looked like a guard by the helmet and club. Before she could react at all, Ryker dashed toward her at incredible speed with his left arm held outwards. She was dead before she hit the ground. After dragging the body into a nearby room he searched her for other weapons or some sort of patch or badge. He found a medallion around her neck. "Palace Guard" was etched into it along with a symbol worn out beyond recognition. He placed it in his pocket and then Ryker wanted to cry. But instead, he woke up, sweaty and in bed.