Debt Collecting
(Reply to the quest provided by @eliceynbirch )
The Black Eyed Walrus was your typical seedy under the docks bar. All manner of men, women,and who knows what made their way down here for the kind of quiet drink that made sure the constables wouldn’t look twice at it. It was old, it was gross, it was unkempt, but it was the shadowy aesthetic that would be pirates craved and discovered they were not ready to be in. Owned by Maggie, a one eyed crone who’s stories about her past life made men pale and ill treated women their hero, she’d come into possession of the dockside establishment via a strong bite and the early retirement of the previous owner. Maggie was just Maggie, she didn’t have a last name that she was willing to share and by the muscle she hired to keep things in order no one pushed to ask about her personals. Maggie was as much the bar as the bar was her.
Despite how it looked, it held a huge part of Maggie’s heart and she’d be damned if anyone was going to ruin it. The biggest source of pride of the crone’s was the large plate glass window she had purchased to look out onto the old dock outside and shadowy waters of the harbor. It had cost quite a bit of gold and took some brave craftsmen to come down and install it for her. She loved that window that she had painstakingly painted the visage of the bar’s namesake, a large walrus with a large black ring about it’s eye. The literal personification of the woman in paint and time. Maggie loved that window and her art as much if not more than the bar she never left.
Sadly, a large figure was currently being launched through the window in a shower of glass and roar of a brawl within the bar.
Twenty minutes ago…
“An you are?”
“Zexx, Zexx Candell.” A calloused and sea salt worn hand reached between the bottles of rum and liquor to grasp the other man’s hand firmly.
“Hoarse, Hoarse Darby, pleasure tha Candell,” the sailor nodded genially as he broke the grip and lifted up his fresh bottle to his lips again followed by a hard pull of the alcohol. Darby was young, dumb, and likely full of a troublesome substance but his thick corded arms and bald head did the trick to know him a tough bastard. He liked it that way. He also liked it when free drinks followed winning a few rounds of dice with a stranger.
“Likewise, mate, you took me for quite a ride there,” Zexx replied with a wide toothy grin. If not for the thick salt and peppered beard, the laugh lines of the man would have been very clear. But for all the smiles and laughs, his one blue eye was slightly red and carried a sadness that only comes from true loss. “I swear I can roll better.”
“In mah experience that more ya drink tha better the dice seem ta follah,” Hoarse replied with his own grin on his reddened face, his nose showing easily a future of alcoholism as he toasted his cycloptic benefactor.
Zexx let out a bark of a laugh as he lifted his own bottle and took a short pull, a hard grimace following as he wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Shame yer friends, didn’t want to play any more. Though probably better for me to lose to one of you than all of you.”
A few drunken nods joined an oily grin as Darby wiped his own mouth with his own palm. “Aye, but thems lookin fer tail more’an drink an games.”
“And they plan to find it here?”
“Right?” Darby laughed and leaned forward into the table, his head bowing forward as a soft jangle of metal could be heard as he guffawed.
“Oy there, what’s that then?” Zexx asked as he tilted his head looking to his gaming partner.
“Eh? Oh this thang, pretty lil bauble I picked up recent,” Darby nodded as he sat back up drunkenly and reached inside his shirt to produce the silver anchor talisman.
Peering across the table with a whistle, Zexx held out an expectant hand. “Fine piece of jewelry there mate, mind if I take a closer look?”
A hard tug pulled the leather thong from around Darby’s thick neck as he swayed drunkenly across the table to lay it in Zexx’s hand who nodded softly as he lifted it to look at. “Simple make, but damn fine. Where ya happen upon it?”
Darby leaned back in his chair and kicked his bare feet up on the table, to wiggle his toes with a sigh as he rested the bottle on his belly. “Tha thing? Reason why ahm alrigh on tail myself. Some ‘hore had it an I ask where she got it says somethin bout an uncle or something.”
Hoarse snorted as he shook his head while taking a swig. “Yer uncle? Ya righ ya filthy bitch. So I confiscated it up righ. Brough me hell o luck out on the blue. An tonigh!”
The sailor waved to the moderate pile of gold he’d picked up from his companions and the one eyed man across from him. Zexx nodded softly as he held the pendant still in his palm, he’d never been much for arcane work but he knew enough to know this was more than a bauble. This said sages all over.
“Sounds like quite the girl,” Zexx murmured as he set the anchor between them.
Darby nodded with a laugh, “Oh yeah sweet as o bee hive, feisty as one too!” The sailor leaned forward with a dark, drunken grin that held a lot more information about what happened between him and the girl than he was saying. His free hand reached forward to pick up the bauble again. “Ah tell ya, she had thighs tha dra-”
Darby’s words were cut short as a strong hand grabbed him by the wrist and pinned that hand to the table. Shock sobered him up for a brief moment as he followed the hand up and into the face of a no longer smiling Zexx. Shadows framed the one eyed man as he pinned Hoarse’s hand, as a dark anger radiated from the man. Darby never even had a chance to shout as Zexx’s free hand grabbed him by the back of the head and slammed it swiftly into the old birch table with a crunch of a nose and snap of a jaw. The same hand grabbed hold of the stunned sailor and lifted the head to smash again into the table for good measure, a spray of blood and teeth following this hard slam. With a grunt Zexx pulled the head up and tossed the sailor back into his chair which amazingly kept standing as Darby flopped back loosely with a ruined face and blank stare.
Zexx peered behind his shoulder and around the immediate area for a moment, the chorus of the bar still a low din as this was not quite an uncommon occurrence around this place. Spitting in the direction of the sailor, the swordsman would sweep up the bauble before swiftly moving to Darby’s side of the table. Keeping a quick on the bar and for sight of Hoarse’s friends, a moan sounding behind him as the stun was starting to wear off on the man. Turning about swiftly to plant his fist between the eyes of the sailor before ripping a bandana from around Darby’s neck and ‘knapsacking’ it for the coin on the table.
A final clink of coin and swift pull of the ends finished the ‘golden lunch’ Zexx had prepared with a snort and grim smile. So far so good, Zexx though as he lifted the money and gave a final look to Darby. A new soft moan given to signal just a bit of sadism on the hero-for-hire’s part, a swift jab delivered to the broken nose for good measure. A wet smush and moan as Darby finally fell out of his chair with a clatter.
“Wha tha fuck?” His blue eye widened as Zexx looked up from his unconscious quarry and turned to find Darby’s five mates who had been at the bar glaring at him. Their hands were holding bottles, a couple of girls, and a lot of fists.
“Shit.”
Now...
Zexx coughed hard and spit, struggling up to his hands and knees from his prompt exit of the bar. Rolling over onto his rear he sat a moment to catch his breath, tasting quite a bit of blood in his mouth again as he spit to the side again and stared back the way he came from the Walrus.
Inside was a madhouse of fighting, blood, and a thundering shot followed as someone had finally drawn a pistol into the air to either find some order or put down a brawler. Zexx guessed it the latter.
Breathing heavily and painfully, the swordsman would struggle to get up and scramble away down the dock his old boots thumping on the wooden dock. His left hand squeezing tighter again about the anchor in his palm, happy for keeping it and the luck it was sending his way. The loss of coin wasn’t in the plan but sometimes you gotta buy an exit.
Zexx stopped for a moment and leaned on one the dock posts as he tried to ease the ache in his ribs from breathing and even moving. The big sailor had packed quite a punch or six and definitely finding his way through a window was not the most comfortable way to vacate the premises. As his pain slowly eased thunder resounded the docks and the post he’d leaned on exploded in a shower of wood and muck causing him to stumble away in a panic. Flipping about he’d easily find the bloody and angry culprits to be three of the five mates of Darby’s, one with a smoking pistol in hand. The second man lifted his own pistol now to pull the trigger for the loud Kul Tiran salt shooter to blow past Zexx’s ear. A quick check found the ear still there as he turned to run again, the loud thumps of feet and curses following him as he booked it past the moored ships.
As much as Zexx wanted to just run it was very obvious from his previous beating and wounds there was no way he would outrun them. Fight or die was taking precedence over flight now as he rounded to down a dock, seeing a head of him quite a few rows bobbing in the black water. Could he row? A thunderous shot ringing about with a swish of a bullet was a clear indicator that he could definitely row. Reaching one of the boats, his booted foot kicking the knot hard to loosen it before pulling it off the tie off, which followed the rope as a bullet tore it from the dock and sent it spinning into the water.
“Crap in a hat,” Zexx muttered as he readied to leap into the boat. Thankfully he had some help in getting in the row as thick muscled arms grabbed him behind and tackled him forward into the boat below. The swordsman made a perfect landing pad for her his pursuer as the boat dipped into the drink and sped away from the dock further out into the harbor.
There was some muffled threat and yell Zexx heard as he painfully breathed and tried to steady his rocking brain with the rowboat drifting too and fro. More pain flooded his body as a punch struck him in the back and another in the kidney before he struggled to right himself away from the sailor. A quick twist on his back and an elbow caught a defensive arm of the attacker and let Zexx follow with a roll to his back to face the sailor.
Darby’s mate was already clamoring up to his feet with a well experienced ease of fighting on the sea, his feet loosely planted as he let his body roll with the pitch of the waves. Fists raised to taunt and egg Zexx on to stand, who replied with breathing heavily as he felt around behind him in the boat for purchase to get up. Bloody and ragged breath flowed from the one eyed hero as he finally gripped onto something.
“Get up ya bastard! Get up ya fuck! Ah’m gonna smah ever bone in ya!” A short kick was sent into Zexx’s leg as he winced and struggled back onto the seat of the row boat. Leaning forward a moment to catch his breath and Zexx made what might have been perceived to stand and fight. Instead it was to level the short harpoon gun at the sailor who suddenly went white in the face before going red as the short fisherman’s spear went through his left eye and skull.
A familiar thump of dead meat rocked the rowboat again as the current took it further from the docks and into the harbor from the Walrus. Zexx dropped the gun with a clatter of metal and fishing line before slumping back with an exhausted sigh. His hand ached just as much as the rest of him as he lifted it up in front of his face to let the anchor uncoil before him, a new appreciation of the elements coming. Behind that swaying talisman came a glint of something on the still form of the other man, a curious brow raising at what luck had befallen him now.
Two days later…
“Sorry again on the delay of retrieval, had to wait for Darby to arrive back in port before I could track him down.” Zexx spoke calmly in the office of Madame Kestavin sipping at a cup of herbal tea she’d been gracious enough to have for him. Though he was a mass of bruises, bandages, and strong scent of herbal salves miraculously he was healing quite quickly and easily. According to the medical staff he’d been seeing he was lucky to not be in traction for the rest of his life, but instead somehow a few days rest and medicine he’d be right as rain. Lucky him.
“As for your girl’s items,” the anchor pendant was set gently down on the desk followed by another necklace of gold marked with a well sized ruby. “I was able to retrieve the pendant but as for the gold it wasn’t in the cards. Fortunately though, I was able to grab this and had it appraised before coming down here. I think you’ll get roughly what you were owed for it but I’ll understand if you’d rather take it out of my reward.”
Zexx sipped at his tea again with a wry smile at the woman as he tried to cross his legs and winced loudly before putting his leg back down to sit easier.
“Are you satisfied?”
