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The Big Oof! Volume 1 Chapter 19: Watching the Watchers
🕑 Added 2022-12-19 08:44:07 +0000 UTCBennett found himself standing around browsing the wares in a rather cramped shop while he waited for Azeline to finish her negotiations. Tilting his head, the engineer couldn’t help but be interested in the poorly shaped mannequin that had a metal plate hammered roughly in the shape of a human torso.
He couldn’t help but feel somewhat conflicted at how similar everything looked to an actual triple A fantasy game. Sure, the craftsmanship was nowhere near as polished as an actual game and what he was inspecting was the only metal piece in the building, but everything was the same in essence.
It was incredibly strange.
As he walked away from the metal piece and looked around further, he felt an odd sense of comfort that came with the wood and stone laid out of the little shop. He could tell that there wasn’t a single thing in the surprisingly spacious room that wasn’t hand made and that was something he could respect.
While prefabrication was convenient and perfect, there was something that just felt cozy about the flaws of a workmen.
“Hmm…” Bennett tilted his head curiously at a rather nice looking leather pelt that was neatly folded on top of a wooden table.
His eyes briefly twitched as his ocular implant flooded him with information as bright formless blobs of light emanating from the piece of leather.
But before he could really get down into analyzing, he felt Azeline bump into side and knock him out of his concentration
" Ah! That's Worg leather!" she called out excitedly with her eyes wide in surprise. "I've always wanted armor made of Worg leather!
A genuine smile spread across her face as Bennett passed the piece over to her. Even though Worgs were rather plentiful around the world, getting their leather in any significant quantities was extremely difficult due to how dangerous they were.
It usually took an experienced Freelancer to take down only one and the beasts rarely strayed too far from their packs. And that wasn't even counting the mana rich ones, so it was a genuine surprise such a desolate town had any Worg leather at all, let alone one so full of mana.
Letting out a huff of amusement, Bennett let the woman gush over the piece and instead turned back towards the shiny metal breast plate and saw the distorted reflection of the room.
Their green hair friend was following them around like a gremlin and out right gawking at them when he thought they weren’t looking. It was painfully obvious to anyone that had two functioning eyes that the man was following them, but then again how proficient people here were with tradecraft was an unknown factor.
"Heh, fucking clown." Bennett chuckled under his breath.
Counter-surveillance was one of the very few tradecrafts Bennett was comfortable with performing when he wasn’t in a supporting role. All he had to do was keep aware of who was around him and do whatever he wanted while Elijah did the rest of the work.
Where the fuck is he anyways? Bennett thought to himself, trying to find his captain in the reflection.
The man was inordinately good at this.
There had been quite a few jobs where Bennett physically assisted in conducting surveillance on a bounty or counter-surveillance for a VIP and each one Elijah outright scared him. The man was like a specter in the night, tailing his target while they were none the wiser until it was too late.
It made the engineer question several times whether Elijah was a spook or not.
“This guy’s just following you around like an idiot…” Bennett heard Elijah’s voice over their sub-vocal network. “Shake ‘em, this is becoming pointless.”
Another breath of amusement left Bennetts lips as he suppressed a laugh that was creeping up and turned towards Azeline who was already haggling at the shopkeeper.
“What do you mean you only take coin!? These are so chock full of mana, it’ll make your head spin!” Azeline furiously shook those spines that they sawed off the Hydrazine bear in her hands.
“We ain’t got no way of verifyin’ let alone measurin’ that!” The pot bellied shopkeeper retorted and waved his hand dismissively at the snarling woman. “Now do ye ‘ave the coin or no?
After all the time he’s spent with her, Bennett had at least a surface level understanding of her temperament and eyed the woman cautiously. But when the engineer saw that Azeline was clenching her fist, he started to slowly back away considering his companion was about to burst a blood vessel.
But somehow Azeline managed to control her temper as she slowly reached into her coin purse and pulled out two silver looking coins and slammed them on the counter.
“Just. The. Repairs.” She said slowly, glaring daggers into the man's soul
Bennett had to give the man credit, he weathered the infuriated woman’s gaze as if she was just another irate customer. However, he couldn’t tell if the shopkeeper was either bluffing or was arrogant enough to treat someone who could literally rip his head off so cavalierly.
With his implant still active, Bennett noticed Azelines hand was still clenched into a ball and was lit up like a Christmas tree.
“Ptu, come back in the morn.” The shopkeeper dry-spatted with a scowl on his face and snatched both the money and the damaged armor.
Azeline was PISSED.
Both of her hands started to glow with an overwhelming amount of light while her face flushed deep red and contorted into one of seething rage.
Bennett had to squint his eyes from how much of that strange energy started to build up and became worried that he might have to help clean up a murder. While this would make good cover to help throw their stalker through a loop, the engineer didn’t know if committing felony assault would actually end in their favor.
Then again, he wasn’t familiar with the laws of the land and slaying the man where he stood for such an insult may be the standard.
“Hmph!” Azeline let out an aggressive breath of air and spun around to storm out of the building.
A sigh left Bennett’s lips as he jogged lightly to keep up with the woman, it had seemed fortune was smiling on him today. As they were leaving, the engineer anxiously turned around to make it look like he was looking at the shopkeeper and saw the man grumbling as he went into the back.
However, his real target was their green hair friend.
The uncoordinated man was caught off guard by their little spat and fumble with a piece of leather he was pretending to inspect and hurried to follow them out.
A smile crept across Bennetts face as he turned back forward and saw how busy the plaza was in front of them. Traffic was heavy with pedestrians as they went to and fro from the stone and wooden constructed shops that lined each side of the streets. Colorful banners and other clutter were strung from one side of the street to the other just over their head, helping masking Bennett’s tall stature.
It was the perfect place and time to lose someone.
But the most beneficial part was a sizable crowd that had gathered around what looked like an organized play right in the middle of the street.
“Follow me and don’t look behind you.” Bennett said as his arm snaked around Azelines shoulder and directed her toward the crowd.
Azeline was caught off guard by being intimately touched so brazenly and her first reaction was to push him off and stab the man. But then she remembered how there was always a purpose when Elijah put his hands on her and begrudgingly allowed it as they flowed into a large crowd.
Bennett looked over towards the play and saw a group of people in a serpent like costume similar to a Chinese Dragon puppet, but magical. Fire and plumes of frost flew from both nostrils of the serpent as it reared up and faced against a tall golden blonde woman with bright red eyes.
The woman had a crown of what looked like a golden fire burn on top of her head, gold scaled armor with royal red cloth flowing down and golden regal emblems on both shoulders. The Engineer's eyes nearly bulged out of his face when she raised her right hand that held a deep red partisan spear and thrusted it towards the serpent unleashing a red light in the shape of a dragon.
“The fuck!?” Bennett said to himself, being reminded he was in fairy tale land.
Refocusing on the task at hand, they made their way to the other side of the crowd and saw they were close to an alleyway that led towards the tavern.
“Come on, run!” Bennett ordered, letting go of Azelines shoulder and taking off into a dead sprint down the alley.
“What!? Why!?” Azeline complained as she watched Bennett take off in front of her.
But seeing how he wasn’t stopping, the woman cursed under her breath and ran after him hoping he’ll answer his questions once they stop this farce.
And just as they disappeared into the alleyway, the green haired man finally popped out on the other side of the crowd, and aggravatedly looked around looking for his target.
“Damnit!” The rough man muttered angrily under his breath. “Boss’ll fookin’ kill me…”
Rubbing his head with his hand, the man let out a sigh and decided it was best to find out where they’ll go tomorrow. They’d more than certainly show back up at the tavern at night and he could resume finding out their habits and what routes they took the most.
For now though, he might as well go back and report things were going to be delayed
Another sigh left the green hair man’s lips as he started to lazily walk back towards the hideout.
Fucking clown… Elijah thought to himself as a dangerous smile start to form on his face
He tugged on the furred coat he borrowed from Mara earlier in the day and followed his target down the street. Usually he would never be alone when performing foot surveillance, but there had been a severe lack of options regardless of the dangers it came with.
However, he deemed the danger levels very minimal due to how amateurish his target was.
Elijah was close, but not too close to his subject as they traveled throughout the town, twisting and turning down the narrow streets. Intervaling between traveling on the opposite side of the street as he pursued his target, to just rear of him, Elijah found himself approaching the part of town that was lined with warehouses.
Seeing how the streets were no longer full of crowds and only a sparse amount of pedestrians traveling through the streets, Elijah let experience shine through. The man slowed his roll and allowed his subject to gain some distance on him and refrained from looking at the man’s head.
Every now and then the subject would either stop or look around to take stock of who was around him, but his eyes seemingly glided over Elijah, even though he stood out due to his height. Elijah just simply seemed like he wasn’t paying attention to him or anyone in particular and so he was essentially a blank spot in the subject's brain.
And when the subject stopped to talk to someone in front of a small warehouse, Elijah just kept walking straight past him as if he had his own destination to be.
“Ey boss…” The green hair man let out a dejected tone.
Standing in front of two large wooden doors, stood a rather short statured tanned skinned man with a pair of rounded animal like ears and a short stubby tail. Just inside was a rather human looking individual with a monkey like tail and dark skin, laboring away by unloading boxes off of a cart.
“I dun’ like that tone Jini!” The boss sneered.
Elijah’s ears perked up at that and decided it was time to improvise and made a hard turn into the secondary door that led into the warehouse. Once inside, he racked his brain trying to figure out a way to maintain close proximity to the target and eavesdrop on the conversation.
Seeing the laborer let out a ragged breath and bend over from exhaustion, a sudden jolt of inspiration hit him.
“Ey, I’m to tell ya to take a break, I’ll finish the rest.” Elijah adapted his speech into the local slang as he walked towards the man and the cart.
The laborer looked at him funny for a moment, but opted to let out a sigh of relief.
“Ay, ain't much left, but thanks.” The laborer said, jumping off the cart and walking away.
“THE FACK YE MEAN YE LOST ‘EM!” The boss screamed, causing both Elijah and the laborer to snap their head over at them.
The green-haired man named Jini took a hard smack to the face, causing him to fall to the ground. He immediately tried to get up, but was stopped by a heavy kick to the face, causing a tooth to fly out of his mouth.
“YE HAD ONE FACKIN JOB!” The boss screamed, giving another kick to the man's stomach. “FOLLOW A WHORE AND TELL US WHERE SHE GOES!”
That laborer looked at Elijah with an uneasy look and patted the man on the shoulder and fucked right off.
“THA FACK YOU LOOKIN AT, SHIT EATER!” The boss looked at Elijah and pointed at him “GIT BACK TA WORK I’LL FUCKIN SELL YE TALL ASS TO THE SACRIAS!”
“Y-yessir!” Elijah said, jumping onto cart and grabbing a crate to unload it.
The boss stomped on Jini’s head with a heavy thump against the dirt ground and held it there while crouching down. Jini squirmed and screamed while his boss pulled a knife from belt and grabbed his ear.
“Tell me some fackin good news.” The boss said in a vicious quiet tone. “If I lose a finger fer failing Kjadnar, I’m takin yer fackin dick.”
“S-SHES STAYING AT MARA’S TAVERN!” Jini screamed.
Apparently that wasn’t good enough for the boss as he pulled hard on Jini’s ear and ran his knife through it. A high pitched screech resounded through the warehouse district as Jini shifted and squirmed while blood poured down his face.
“NOT GOOD ‘NOUGH!” The boss screamed
The boss brought his boot down ontop of Jini’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him before reaching down in order to pull down his victims pants.
“NO!! PLEASE NO!!” Jini screamed and struggled, leading to the boss getting off and sending a heavy kick into his groin.
Elijah did his best to pretend he was distraught and trying his best to leave as he sped up his unloading efforts when the small statured man shot him a vicious look.
“At least someone fackin useful…” The boss said as he continued to pull off Jini’s pants.
“WAIT WAIT, PLEASE WAIT, I KNOW MORE!!” Jini begged as he felt cold steel against his genitals. “SHE'S KEEPING COMPANY WITH A MAN!”
The boss yanked hard, but his knife stopped when he heard that extra piece of information.
“Go on.” He demanded.
“TALL PALE MAN, BROWN HAIR, SOME SCRUFF ON HIS FACE! THEY WENT TO AN ARMORER TO GET HER KIT REPAIRED!” Jini started screaming out as the boss kept the knife held firmly to his privates. “SHE ALSO GOT SOME CART IN THE STABLE FULL OF STUFF!!”
A pondering look spread across the boss's face even though there was blood that was running down his hand. Jini kept begging while tears and snot started to stream down his face, mixing with the blood that was pouring from his mouth. ‘
And from what seemed like a miracle, the short man let go of Jini’s poor manhood and cleaned his blade and his hands on his victims shirt.
“Now thats what I’m lookin fer.” The boss said with a smirk forming on his face. “I can do somethin with that.
“Now get yer ass home and tell the others i want a meetin.” He continued giving another kick to Jini’s stomach.
The poor man scrambled to his feet and ran towards a tavern looking building sandwiched between two warehouses further down the street.
And by the time Elijah watched him open the door and run his way inside, he finished unloading the crates. However he found the boss was staring at him with another annoyed look while he tapped his foot on the ground.
“What the fack ye still doin’ here? Fack off!!” He yelled, unsheathing and brandishing his knife menacingly.
Terror flashed across Elijah’s face as he jumped down and ran out of the warehouse and in the direction of the house that Jini went into. He turned his head to look behind him and saw that the boss turned his attention to something else and dove into another warehouse that was across the street.
Once inside, Elijah found the place was completely empty outside of dilapidated crates and was seemingly abandoned. He could see that the viny growth that plagued the town streets had torn through the food boards, and warped around the support beams or pierced through more crates.
“What a shit hole…” Elijah muttered under his breath as he looked around, trying to think of how else to play this to his advantage.
His little gamble had managed to pay in the form of vital intelligence.
It seemed these were the guys Azeline was referring to when she mentioned ‘her problems.’ and now they were thoroughly dragged into it.
A sigh left Elijah’s lips while he though about how those vicious fuck wits were actively plotting against them. This was a problem they were going to have to address relatively quickly, but it looked like they still had some breathing room.
There was already a ton of bullshit piling up on their plate, and they just got here.
“Who the fuck is Kjadnar??” He questioned as he looked around trying to find anything useful.
He walked up to a massive wooden door that had small holes and cracks torn by several vines and was able to see through them. Squinting his eyes as he peered through, Elijah was able to fully see the tavern including several individually trickling out and lingering just outside the door.
Suddenly another flash of inspiration jolted him as he pulled out his datapad and carefully laid it on top of a vine, pointing towards the Tavern.
And with a few taps, the small device zoomed and started to not only record, but stream what was happening in real time. The datapad managed to capture several faces that started to group up outside while that drank ales, including the boss who was yelling at everyone and Jini who was clutching where his ear was supposed to be.
Another smirk crept across Elijah’s face as he realized that Bennett could tune in and either watch or listen with his implants as long as there was a satellite orbiting above.
He got a where and who out of this impromptu venture, now they needed to figure out a when.
Comments
scribbles
I can respond, but it would involve spoilers.
David Ellis
So, besides the uncomfortableness of the situation itself, the boss doing all of that to Jini himself seems a bit unrealistic? If some other peon was holding him down it would work as a scene a bit better to me.
