Eliot hurried down the narrow side street, palms sweaty as he put as much distance as possible between himself and the town square as possible. He desperately repressed the image of the young marine's bisected body, face frozen in a rictus of terror, life snuffed out in an instant on the whim of Axe Hand Morgan.
The alleyway he had chosen was a twisting labyrinth, the buildings on either side leaning in so close that their upper stories nearly touched, blotting out the sun and casting the passage in a perpetual gloom. The air was thick with the mingled scents of smoke, unwashed bodies, and the ever-present tang of fear.
As Eliot stumbled through the streets alleys, a chilling thought wormed its way into his mind: what if he had arrived just a few minutes earlier? What if he had stepped into that square and introduced himself before the ill-fated marine caught Morgan's eye? Would it have been his body lying in two draining halves, life leaking away onto the cold stones?
The answer was a resounding and undeniable yes.
Eliot's stomach churned at the realization of how close he had come to sharing the marine's fate. Yet beneath the suffocating fear, there was something else - a twisted sense of elation, an undeniable thrill at having walked so close to the razor's edge and surviving.
It was as if every nerve ending in his body had suddenly come alive, crackling with electricity. Colors seemed brighter, sounds sharper, the very air he breathed more potent he smelled every flavor of the mingled scents of neglect and desperation—the musty odor of mildewed wood, the acrid tang of smoke, and the sickly-sweet rot of uncollected refuse.
Distantly Eliot knew it was a young marine, a boy who had looked to have fewer years than Eliot, was cleaved in two by Morgan's monstrous axe. But he couldn’t get himself to focus on that part, all he kept thinking over and over again was how it wasn’t him.
It wasn’t his hot spray of blood that freshly coated the walls of some building.
It wasn’t his lifeless flesh falling to the cobblestones in sickening thud.
The alley was a chaotic jumble of scattered debris and detritus. Eliot's eyes darted about, hyper-aware of every detail around him. A shattered window, the remaining shards of glass glinting like jagged teeth in a twisted maw. The frame splintered, jutting out at odd angles like broken bones piercing through skin.
His gaze flitted to a scrap of brightly colored fabric, somehow cheerful amidst the backdrop of everything else that stated otherwise. It was a tattered remnant of a curtain, he realized, the familiar pattern of pink with white hearts. Must have been a sale on the fabric or something.
Wanted posters fluttered in the breeze, the snarling face of "Mad Dog" Maddox plastered across every surface. Smaller sketches of the pirates crew dotted the spaces in between, their crimes listed in bold print below.
The further he ventured into the labyrinthine alleys, the more the town's nature revealed itself. Doors hung off their hinges, splintered and scarred, evidence of forced entry and hasty retreats.
Euphoria of survival began to wane. The color around him leeched away, replaced by a dull, lifeless grey. Sharp sounds grated on his nerves, each scrape and clatter making him flinch.
As he walked past a cracked and shattered mirror, the fragmented glass distorted his reflection. In that brief moment, Eliot caught sight of himself. His eyes were wide and frantic, pupils dilated with both fear and exhilaration. But as quickly as it had come, the wild energy faded from his gaze, replaced by a hollow emptiness. In that moment, Eliot made two decisions: to get better at avoiding seeing his own reflection and, most importantly, to find a stiff drink.
That was how the young man found himself in front of a dingy tavern, a sign too weathered to read swinging forlornly on a single rusted chain. The young bounty hunter couldn't help but marvel at the sheer audacity of the establishment. In a town ravaged by conflict, where every other business had shuttered its windows and bolted its doors, this lone bar dared to invite patrons into its murky depths.
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he building's facade was a patchwork of mismatched wooden planks, some half-rotted, others scorched by long-forgotten fires. The windows were grimy, the glass so encrusted with dirt and grime that it was nearly opaque, filtering the feeble light. Another crooked sign was nailed above the door, paint peeling and wood splintered, proclaimed it to be "The Rusty Anchor." Eliot couldn’t see the place as less appealing if he tried, then he read a chalk board sign the place had out front, promising 100 berry drinks. He’d give it a shot.
Inside, the air was thick with the commonly paired scents of cheap alcohol and desperation. The few patrons hunched over their drinks, shoulders tensed and eyes downcast.
Eliot made his way to the bar, the floorboards groaning beneath his feet.
"What'll it be?" the bartender grunted, barely glancing up from the glass he was halfheartedly pretending to wipe. Eliot wondered why the man was even pretending to clean anything without water. Maybe he was just keeping his hands busy.
"Just a beer," Eliot replied, his voice low. He settled onto a stool, the cracked leather seat sighing under his weight.
The bartender nodded, his movements methodical as he reached beneath the counter for a different glass, apparently the one he’d been working on either not good enough or too good for Eliot. It was a simple thing, the glass - chipped and foggy with age, the rim slightly uneven as if it had been crudely blown by an armature or a drunk. The bartender set it on the scarred wooden bar top and Eliot couldn't help but notice how the dim light caught the imperfections, casting tiny rainbows across the surface. He wondered if a master could have made a glass that did something like that on purpose.
Eliot's gaze flicked up to meet the bartender's, and for a moment, the two men simply stared at each other. The bartender's eyes were a dull, watery blue, set deep in a face that had seen too many hard years. The skin around those eyes was creased and weathered, like old leather left too long in the sun. There was no warmth in that gaze, no flicker of interest or recognition.
The bartender stared at Eliot, Eliot looked right back. This went on for nearly a minute before Eliot realized his mistake, and pulled out three 100 berry coins, placing them before the bartender.
“100 berry sake coming right up.”
A few moment later the bartender slid a cloudy glass of sake across the stained and pitted bartop. Eliot took a sip, the harsh burn of the alcohol searing his throat. He hadn’t really understood before today, but the drink burned in a good way.
The sake was cheap and harsh, with a bitter aftertaste that lingered on his tongue. It was worth every bit of the 100 berries he paid for it and not a single berry more. In all, it was exactly what he needed.
As the sake burned its way down to warm Eliot's stomach, the low murmur of conversation began to seep back into the bar. It started with a hushed whisper here, a muttered comment there, as if the patrons were testing the waters, gauging whether it was safe to break the suffocating silence.
Eliot nursed the drink, trying to focus more on listening than the taste, he strained to catch snippets of conversation.
At a table in the corner, two grizzled men leaned in close, their faces half-hidden in shadow in that way cheap bars tend to cast things in shadow when the owners are too cheap to light the place, and that expensive bars pay outrageous amounts of money just to try and look like a cheap bar.
Their voices were low and rough, the words indistinct, but Eliot caught snatches of their conversation - talk of supply lines and secret tunnels, of the dwindling hope among the rebels and brutality of the marines. One of the men, his face a lattice of scars, gestured emphatically with a hand that was missing two fingers. The other nodded, his expression grim, and took a long pull from his mug.
A man in the corner, his face half-hidden beneath a tattered hood, leaned in close to his companion, his voice a raspy whisper.
Eliot thought he was being all smooth-like, intel gathering like a cypher pol agent, when a woman sat on the stool to his left, a man on the stool to his right, and the pair started just talking over him.
"Did ya hear? They say Mad Dog's crew hit another supply ship last night. Took everything - food, medicine, even the damn sails." said the woman to Eliot’s left, there was a sharpness her already angular face, pointed cheekbones and high brow.
The man sat to his right, build wiry with a face like a ferret, nodded, his eyes darting around the room. "Aye, and I heard they left the crew tied up, hanging from the yardarm by their ankles. A warning to others, like."
Eliot listened as the sharp-faced woman and ferret-faced man continued their conversation, seemingly oblivious to his presence wedged between them.
Eliot sipped his sake, the burn in his throat a welcome distraction from the sinking feeling in his gut. The young and idealistic part of him was devastated his as he realized his first real bout of intel gathering would largely consist of him sitting between two drunks and trying not to be too bothered as he was sprayed by flecks of spit as they spilled secrets right over him.
The young man put a few more 100 berry coins down, and found that just about whenever he needed a new drink, one was already there. With each passing minute and each sip of the harsh, burning sake, the young bounty hunter felt himself being drawn deeper into the pairs conversation.