Futuristic Scavenger's Grotto

[RoarkSouth]

The station was quite. Soon to be passengers kept an eye on their belonging while also sizing up what each other had. Vendors were setting up their stores, bringing out gadgets, gizmos, and weapons whose cheapness and reliability had an inverse relationship. The only sound was the chugging of the train, followed by the screech of the brakes as it pulled into the station. The doors opened, and all at once the station came to life.

The debarking passengers barely had a chance to finish the conversations with one another before they were drowned out by the sales pitches of the vendors.
"Best crafted firearms this side of Treston! So precise you can hit the eye of a Hollow from 50 paces!"
"Get your gadgets here! Decryptors half off!"
"Freshly made blades of the finest edge!"

Several of the vendors got prospective customers who would soon come to regret their purchases. Those who had more wisdom ignored the vendors and got out of the station as fast as possible. One didn't want to hold up the seasoned Ruin-Hunters from returning home with their loot. They weren't a particularly patient lot.

CAM wasn't wise. He was, however, oblivious to sales pitches of the vendors. He had turned off his hearing several hours ago to ignore the chatting of a particularly social Gemf. The Gemf didn't even notice. He walked unimpeded to the exit of the station and was met with the sight of Scaveneger's Grotto.

"Wow, this place is a dump." CAM realized he couldn't hear the word he had just spoken and turned his hearing back on.

The village was on the lower end of livable. The buildings were mostly huts made out of scrap metal and poorly cut wood. Here and there were a few decent buildings, but they did not make up for the relative dump that surrounded it. Then again, what else was one to expect from a place populated mostly by adventurers?

 

[PrincessSkye]

Home. The word, and destination, was all Magpie could think off as she stood on the overcrowded train. Squished between a slick fingered human, one of her own kind and one who never took the hint as she continually smacked his hand away, and a Gemf that was overdue for a bath. She wasn’t so clean herself, being on this journey for the best part of the past few days, but she had at least the decency to scrub her face and try to clean her grubby clothes.

Home…and maybe a drink once she settled in. Magpie stewed over the prospect of protentional getting a hazardous beverage as the train began to slow and barley moved an inch when it jerked to a halt at the station. She waited a moment for the worst of the crowd to spill out of the train before making her exit, slipping between two eager soon to be passengers as they started to board the train. The station exploded in the noise of venders yelling over one another to advertise their wares. Magpie barely spared any of them a glance as she jogged quickly down the steps of the station leading into the one place she felt truly at home.

Scavenger’s Grotto.

Magpie’s ears pricked at the sound of mechanical voice and turned her head to locate it’s origin. She smirked at the MEC that stood atop the steps leading out of the station and rolled her eyes.

“City bots…” Magpie muttered and turned to continue her jog into the Grotto.

A hazardous drink was beginning to sound pretty good in her mind. She wouldn’t have to meet up with her newest client until the next afternoon and even then, her search for the current client had left her with no new leads. All she had managed to come back with was a busted up old personal computer watch and it was worth little to nothing in its current condition. All she had to trade for the drink was a few findings of common scrap metal, enough for maybe a portion of the days rations if best.

Magpie blew a strand of her short-cropped hair out of her face as she turned a corner and slowed her jog down to a brisk walk. Before her sat a poorly constructed ‘bar’ made of sheets of metal and wood that were either badly nailed together or just leaning precariously against one another. The ‘door’ was a sickly yellow with oil stains and rips running along its edges from the constant throwing back of the bar’s customers. Magpie did just that herself, pulling her small satchel around to the front of her body and placing an arm over it, her other resting lightly atop a blade sitting at her side.

 

[RoarkSouth]

CAM began walking through the ramshackled town, taking note of everything there was to see. It seemed that the buildings were in even worse shape than he had originally thought, though that wasn't saying much. What really interested him were the people. Tall and short, they all seemed to wear one of two outfits. One was either donning an eclectic selection of clothing, gear, and weaponry that matched the state of the buildings around them, obviously those coming or going to the ruins, or a rather casual, if mismatched dress meant for days spent enjoying what little entertainment seemed to be in the town.

One particular individual that stuck out was an overly large MEC, over ten feet tall and whose design must have originally been as a machine for war, who was just sitting in the middle of the market place and staring down. Curiosity, that ever vigilant force that drove him, got the better of CAM and he approached the behemoth. As he got closer, he could see the MEC was holding something. His other hand came into view, the massive sword no more than just a knife in his gargantuan paw, and he began rhythmically carving what must have been the entire base of a rather large tree. CAM, his interest sufficiently peeked, approached the large fellow.

"Hello there chum," CAM said with unfiltered joy. "What do you have there?" The large robot looked up from his work at the jovial MEC for a brief second before going back to its lump of wood.

"Art." He said, his voice deep and filled with static. Probably whacked a few too many times in the speakers, Cam thought.

"Well, why are you making art?" CAM asked, determined to get more out of the machine.

"Reasons." The machine said, without even looking up from the chunk of wood, whose shape was either becoming that of a human or a rather fancy computer. It was hard to tell at this point in the process. CAM, not deterred by the briefness of speech, continued.

"Care to share any of those reasons? I'm it would improve your work if you explain the reasons behind it. That's how most great artists refine there-"

"No." It said tersely, a hint of annoyance filtering through the static. CAM gave an exaggerated sigh.

"Great. The first interesting thing I find in this town and it wont say more than one word. Where will I ever be able to find decent entertainment or adventure that I, a hopeful adventurer, was promised when I came to this place." CAM put his hand to his head, rounding out the dramatic act. The large MEC, probably with the intent to get the chatterbox away from him more so than to fulfill CAM's request, pointed to a yellowing bar that was already halfway to the ground. "Ah, thank you my good man." CAM said, tipping his non-existent hat as he sauntered to the bar.

Passing through the oil-stained doorway, Cam was greeted by the sight of half a dozen drunkards, and another half dozen that were clearly in the process of becoming drunkards. He continued on into the fine establishment towards the bar. He elbowed one of the other patrons accidently, but she was in such a state of inebriation that she didn't even notice. Lucky him.

"One of your finest beverages sir." CAM said, slapping his hand onto the bar as he sat on a suspiciously clean stool. The bartender grumbled something about cocky kids that should get there circuits knocked in before passing a large mug whose contents were closer to battery acid than alcohol to CAM. CAM flipped up his back plate, pulled out a hose, and poured the fine beverage inside. CAM shuddered as the concoction reached his reactor, causing him to feel all bubbly inside. "Nice one barkeep!" He said as he flipped the bartender and chip. "Bring me another."

 

[PrincessSkye]

The enamored woman staggered forward, helped along by an elbow to her back. She let out a wheeze of a giggle and was vehemently shoved again when she fell, giggling, onto another customer. The woman let out a ‘whoooo’ as she stumbled back, colliding with Magpie and sending them both tumbling to the dirt floor.

Magpie let out a noise that was half shriek and half growl, all of it voicing her surprise and anger at the woman now on top of her. Her breath was amazing as she lay there, laughing histaricly now and patting what could be seen of Magpie’s head between her two barely covered breasts.

“Sorry~” The woman breathed out between her fits, her drink still in her other hand. Astonishingly not a drop of it had spill in the fall and the woman took a large swig as she pushed up with her arm, sitting back on her calves with Magpie still half under her.

“Jesus lady…” Magpie propped herself up in her elbows to glare at the woman, short hair mussed up around her round, and now red, face. “Give me that…”

Magpie reached up and ripped the drink from the woman’s grip, scooting out from under her and getting to her feet. She braced herself and took a long swallow, gagging afterwards before shoving it back at the woman. The scavenger wiped liquid from her chin, shivering a bit from the awful after taste.

“Do yourself a favor and go home…” She growled, her mood now soured from the fall as she started to feel aches and pains coming from various parts of her body. The alcohol, or what was being sold as alcohol, made her system hunger for more and just then she could have probably killed for one.

Magpie pushed up to the bar, digging out a few pieces of painted scrap metal and setting them on the counter. The barkeep tilted his head so he could look down his nose at her and gave her a sneer. Slowly he picked up one of the pieces, turning it in his massive and callused palm. After a few moments he picked up the rest, dropping them down into a box bellow the counter holding other various bits of scrap. The barkeep yanked down a dusted half glass, filling it 1/3 of the way before smacking it down before Magpie.

“Barely even worth this shorty…Why do you even bother bringing me junk?” He growled as the woman picked up the glass.

“Why do you even bother serving in this kind of establishment, hot head…” Magpie mubbled before tilting her head back and downing the liquid in one swallow. She turned the glass upside down and smacked it back on the counter with a grin.

“Opa!”

 

[RoarkSouth]

"Now, that was sad." CAM said as his reactor popped and whirred with alcoholic jubilation. He leaned back in the barstool, only his foot hooked under a rail kept him from toppling over. It was his personal belief that every being, no matter the age, size, or species, should be able to have a reactor (or there equivalent) full of ale. Well, less so for the Gemf, but that was justified. And here was a young girl, alone, unable to drink great deals of liquid happiness. It was a sobering sight.

CAM didn't want to be sober.

"Keeper of the alcohol, bring me two more!" CAM yelled as he flipped another chip on the bar. The man grumbled and slammed the froth filled mugs down. It seemed those were the barkeep's two favorite activities. CAM couldn't see the appeal in them.

CAM grabbed one of the mugs and slid it down the bar. It would have stopped right in front of his bar top neighbor if the previous glass still hadn't been there, which it instead collided with. The empty glass, as bound by the Newtonian laws that most things were, fell to the ground a shattered. A fact that none of the other patrons seemed to notice. Ah, the wonders of good company and inebriation.

CAM stared at his neighbor. "Would you believe that I had meant that to be a lot more," he searched for the word, "suave, I think?"

 

[PrincessSkye]

Magpie jerked her arm back quickly when she saw another class collide with her upturned one, sending the empty down to shatter to the floor and the full to come to a rest where her arm had been. She looked over at the mechanical sound of the MEC sitting jauntily in the bar stool next to her.

“Suave, huh…” Magpie sent the MEC a crooked smirk accepting his offer of drink by wrapping her hand around the glasses handle. It wasn’t in her genes, or rule book, to refuse a free drink…

“Well…to Suave then my good man!” Magpie lifted her glass to a height that signified for his to meet hers. After she brought it to her lips and took one long massive swallow, smacking the know half empty glass down on the counter and letting out a belch before covering her mouth.

“Skews me. Been awhile since I’ve had something half-way decent here. What brings you to this side of the dumb anyway MEC-man?” Magpie said, already feeling her head beginning to spin as the alcohol took its effect.