Van Drake and I snuck our way into town. The town was quiet, and not a single soul could be seen. We were on high alert the entire time, and reacted to every little noise that arose around us.

The windows of the houses had were jalousie styled, however at certain angles you could still see what was inside. While passing one of these houses, I decided to take a look inside. What I saw was a family huddling up at the corner of the house. They were scared, and once they saw my eyes peeking through the window, their eyes filled with terror and panic. To most, this would leave a lasting image that they could never forget. However this was a situation that I had become familiar with. Those who live at the bottom will always have to live in fear of their surroundings. Debt collectors, gangs, corrupt government officials, these were all groups of people that the lower class had to live in fear from. Fear of being killed for offending them, fear of your family members being taken away as punishment, I could understand these feelings to a certain extent. I had felt the fear of being possibly being killed for making a mistake or offending the wrong person before. The latter....well I could understand the cause, but have never actually felt it before becoming a part of the Maelstrom’s crew. Even now, after having developed my friendly relationship with Van Drake, I still don’t think I would be able to fully grasp their fear. Maybe one day I will, but that’s a problem I’ll leave to when it happens.

Eventually we did find some more gang members, however they were already dead when we found them. On had had his neck snapped while the other had multiple gunshot wounds across his chest. We continued on and found another cluster of bodies, and then another, and another. By the time we had combed through the rest of the town, we couldn’t find a single gang member left alive. However, what we had noticed while looking through those bodies was that a few had a different gang sign tattooed on to their bodies. The conclusion that we came to was that one the gangs must have wiped out the other. The question now was where they were. We couldn’t find a single trace of them in town, so we decided to check out the other pickup locations to not only find the remaining teams, but also to see if that gang were or had been there.

When we arrived at 3 of the other pick up locations, however, all we found were the dead corpses of our comrades and empty crates.The fourth location had several gang member corpses as well, and a lone corpse of one our crew members. We surmised that this was the location that that rookie had come from to warn us. If I recalled correctly, those two had previous experience as town guards, so it was no wonder that they had managed to hold out for a time. However, it was a miracle that he had even made it to us. This warehouse was a distance away from where our pickup location had been. I’m surprised he hadn’t been killed on the way.

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We reached the last pick up location not long after. Here, like at the last warehouse, there were corpses for gang members scattered about. However, this time we managed to find survivors. It was the veteran and another rookie. Like us, they had retreated before circling back and eliminating the gang members. However, by the time they had come back, their crates had gone missing as well.

With the mission a failure, we gathered the corpses of our fallen team members and sailed back to the Maelstrom. Once we arrived we stored the bodies in a room that was designated as the Maelstrom’s morgue. Some of these men had had families that were relying on them back home, so we planned to deliver the bodies back to them. Furthermore, the captain made it a must that each of the sailors’ family members would receive a months worth of the dead sailors’ pay should they die, as well as a personal apology from him.

When we went back to the city hall to report the failure of the job, we were initially fined for losses that the commissioner of the job suffered. However, due to the fact that the risks of undertaking the job had never been stated, and that several of our members had died, our fine was annulled.

I remember that during this entire process, the other surviving rookie had just continued to  mutter, “They’re dead, they’re all dead.” His voice was shaking and his eyes seemed to be staring at something that wasn’t there. If I recall, he was the son of a noble. Against the wishes of his father, he and several of his friends had joined the crew of the Maelstrom. Having lived such a sheltered life, I can only reason that this was a likely reaction to today’s events. A few of his friends had been on our ten man team, and now they were dead.

Now while reflecting on the events of that day, I cannot say specifically what type of affect that it had on me personally. However, I can say that it gave me a better picture of the disparity between the veteran crew members and us rookies. These veterans had probably had to watch hundred of their friends and crewmates die during their time serving on the Maelstrom. Despite this, they still lived on, pushing forward and refusing to become stagnant because of one traumatic event. I realized that the reason that there were so few crew members that had worked for a year or more on the ship was not only due to the fact that many of the members had died, but because many had decided to quit. In fact, before leaving Xylphas, at least 20 members of the crew decided to leave, as they weren’t able to deal with the trauma that they had developed from the jobs they had taken.

That day, I realized something. I realized that I wanted to become like those veterans. I wanted to become strong, someone who was dependable, and most importantly, someone who couldn’t be ignored....