Port Lorrel- Prison Break

[Jack Rothwell]

"One step at a time." Gabriel replied, a touch sharply. He wasn't giving up Logan's name without first establishing his trust would be well placed. "Trust is hard to come by in town, you know that. It's harder to come by in here."

A banging at the bars interrupted the mercenary's sentence. A voice rang out sharply in the low hubbub.

"Out to the yard! One hour!"

The sound of a key being turned. The door swung back, a pair of wardens wearing thin armour and carrying cudgels flanked the frame with humourless looks on their faces.

"On your feet, maggots."

"As he says..." Gabriel murmured.

.............

The central yard of the compound was a plain affair, devoid of much except a smattering of stone benches and wooden posts. A few of latter had unfortunates chained to them, some of them dying of exposure, others not moving at all. Gabriel drank in the scene with crossed arms and a blank expression, turning full circle to mark the pentagon of buildings which made up the gallows. The three floored guard house that resembled barracks, the three wide circular buildings which housed the prisoners and the squat thing where the worst the prison had to offer took place.

The people here were unsurprisingly sullen, some had the grass-eating look of small time crooks and the unemployed, but there were many who wore hardened faces. Some of those faces were ones the ex-captain had hoped not to see again. Namely people whose current accomodations he was responsible for. It was an obstacle he would have sooner not dealt with, but not an unforseen one.

Some of harder folks were clustered in groups, having murmured conversations. Gabriel scanned the men for one matching the description he'd been given of Samuel; short but broad, an explosion of a black beard and a beak of a broken nose. Although he saw other things, the brief flash of notes being passed, the brown of tabacco, meaningful nods at people whose backs were turned, he saw no-one matching Riekstien's description.

"Would have been too easy I expect." He said, mostly to himself. He tapped Jack on the shoulder and pointed at a group of men clustered around a much older figure.

"There's Old Roland." The man Gabriel pointed at was grey haired and heavily tanned, his thin face was a mass of furrows framing a pair of grim, deep-set eyes, one of which was a blank, white orb.

"Don't stare directly at him, especially at the eye, and throw none of that 'roguish charm' bullshit his way I hear thieves like to employ (OOC In every rpg. Everywhere. Ever./OOC). Don't approach him directly either, those men he's with'll beat you to a pulp before you get within five yards of him, and the best you can expect from the guards for that is a kick in the ass to sent you on your way."

[Alberich]

Jack nodded. "So it's a waiting game for now, I guess. Lot of dirty looks going around. Anyone I need to watch out for?" He was better with weapons than without them, but he didn't figure any of these cattle would be that much of a challenge if they went for a brawl.

He noted a few dirty looks going Gabriel's way. It suited him. If one of these barnyard beasties started something, a fist in the right place might get him closer to the "trust," and so the name of the contact, he needed. A little blood didn't bother him. Truth be told, neither did a lot of it.

[Jack Rothwell]

"There's more people you should watch than you shouldn't, even waifs like these..." Gabriel aimed a kick at a kid who was barely a teenager, sending him scurrying away for straying too close. He pointed at a pair of bulky men with shaven heads. "Those gentlemen were hired muscle for one of the worst gangs in the port. The lithe fellow who's sitting against that bench is responsible for the deaths of half dozens merchants in ambushes along the trades routes out the city. There's a dozen others like them dotted around, there's a look to them you'll come to recognize..."

Gabriel had heard the approaching footsteps as he talked, but didn't bother to turn. He'd seen the man detach himself from a shadow out the corner of his eye and then disappear from sight as he looped around behind them. He also knew the meaningful pace of the walk, and especially what it signified in a place like this.

But Gabriel was an opportunist at the core, he could turn and beat the living shit out of Terrance Burns, the smuggler he'd arrested some years ago, or he could let himself be taken by surprise and see if his partner-in-crisis was worth a damn.

He felt the hand fall on his shoulder, and the tell-tale sharp tightening of the fingers to hold him in place, a sign the gripper was about to strike.

[Alberich]

Jack had heard the approaching tread himself, and had stepped away from Gabriel's side. When the stranger's hand fell on Gabriel's shoulder and his fist started to clench, Jack's own hand fell on the stranger's shoulder.

"This how you say hello around here?" he said. "Different pigsties, different customs..." The stranger tried to throw him off balance by throwing himself back, but Jack was able to avoid it, and get in a quick rabbit punch that would stick in the man's memory. Probably closer to his brain than a headshot, anyway. Then the stranger went for his legs, and soon it was a tussle on the ground, but with Jack on top and getting the better of it. This wasn't the time to worry about getting a little dirty.

[Jack Rothwell]

Gabriel grinned, finally he was beggining to enjoy himself. The younger man (OOC Assuming he looks under mid-thirties?/OOC) handled himself well enough. Luck had favoured him. The mercenary braced himself.

"Watch your head!" He called, and took a run up. Jack leaned off the thug just as the ex-captain's foot connected with the man's face with an ugly crunch, teeth flew, the man went still.

It was like a signal, several of the men who'd been eyeing Gabriel earlier threw themselves at both men in a flurry of beating fists. The captain covered up against the worst of the blows, kicking at crowding legs to trip them, choking an assailant to use as a shield. He drove his fist into a shouting face hard to enough to break the nose, then finally went down under the press of a half-dozen bodies.

Further shouting, the guards finally decided to get involved. After was great deal of struggling Gabriel was pulled to his feet. He stared back at the wardens who'd done the job, then raised his hands in a placatory gesture.

"Wasn't my fault, gentlemen. The thug with the missing teeth started it."

One of the guards stepped forward and wacked Gabriel squarely in the breadbasket with the blunt end of his cudgel. He doubled up, wheezing.

"Shut your fucking mouth Averis! You disgraced the good name of the lorrelian guard!" To the man's credit he actually got through that sentence with a straight face, although a few sneers could be heard from prisoners out of the guard's earshot. "An animal like you will learn some discipline!"

He was seized by a pair of officers, who began to drag him towards the squat building at the end of the compound.

"You've got some questions to answer, Captain!" The man in charge of the group called, and then, pointing at Jack. "Don't get comfortable lad, you're next."

[Alberich]

[OOC: Yes, he looks to be early thirties, younger than Gabe by a whisker.]

Jack grinned as he rose, a little blood in the smile. He'd held his own well enough, served up some pain, taken a little too, and adjusted his level of "dirtiness" to the situation. Some places, you fought just to prove you were "one of the boys," give a few, take a few, have a beer, and no more said. Some places, you fought to inflict pain. This jailyard seemed to lie over on the "pain" end of the scale. 'least where Gabriel was concerned. Well, Jack could play that way, too. These sheep and cattle had such a hard time figuring out their own rules, but to fit in, you had to figure them out yourself and pretend they meant something.

So - Gabriel was a "Captain" named "Averis" and "disgraced the good name of the local guard"? Oh, yes, the honored retainers of the noble merc-thug ruling house that held control over this port! Why, their noble heritage probably extended back...months! To a dynastic alliance contracted and consummated in Roger's Cut-Rate Cathouse! Let their titled lineage be celebrated in clarion tones throughout their ancient empire! Moooo!!!!

Well, it explained a thing or two. If he'd really been concerned with getting along in this sty, he might worry about his choice of allies. As it was, it added to the excitement - and really, why else did he bother to play this way? If his own interrogation was coming, that was fine - he had a plan - and all he needed was a whispered word from the good Captain, as to who and where the contact was, to broker the briberies.

[Jack Rothwell]

Gabriel was led to a tiny, stone room and slung into a chair with an aim that was clearly practised. He smiled thinly, he didn't recognize the guards who'd escorted him here but he did know the man who cursed him and dropped his name in front of dozens of violent criminals, Lared Finn.

"So Lared got promoted, boys?" He asked conversationally. "No neck's in charge of a cell block now?"

"Quiet your mouth." They were binding his arms. Ah. It was to be an interrogation then. Guards delivering a beating rarely wasted their time on formalities like this.

"Who's paying me a visit?"

No answer, unless a backhanded smack from an iron-plated hand could be called such. The guards, satisfied with their work, left the Captain to his solitude. Gabriel waited for further developments, he could hardly do much else.

........

The guards left the interrogation building and made their way to the larger barracks across the compound. A few minutes later a middle-aged man wearing a uniform of office made his way back, flanked by a unit of wardens who were noticably better outfitted than the ones who watched over the compound.

Jack kept his ears open to the murmurs around him. The two phrases most often repeated were 'Head Warden Morris' and 'Personal guard'.

The man had a regal bearing about him which suggested nobility. His back was straight and his stride was long, yet his expression was calm. He swept the door open with a gesture to a pair of his men to follow, and entered the building without a backward glance.

[Alberich]

Jack stayed nonchalant while this was going on. Given the nature of the man he'd fought beside, trying to strike up a conversation with anyone else out here would be a bad idea. Better to show no fear, rest, and wait to be called back inside the barracks or forward to interrogation. If they called in the herd leader to interrogate Captain Averis, well, then, that meant he was the right man to have made friends with. But he'd often had luck like that.

[Jack Rothwell]

Gabriel didn't bother to look up as the door opened, prisoners who did that advertised their anxiety at who might be approaching. It wasn't until he heard the sound of another chair being pulled up opposite and a well-polished pair of boots came into his view of the floor that he made the effort.

"Gabriel Averis, Captain that was." It was a deceptively calm voice, people who didn't know Richard Morris might have taken his quiet tones as a sign of nonchalance. Gabriel knew from experience that he was anything but. The Head Warden leaned back in his seat and crossed his legs, he turned his gaze to the window as if contemplating the weather.

"You always were an insolent little shit Gabriel." He remarked, in that same gentle tone. "I knew it the first time you walked in here you know. That flat look, that boyish arrogance as you jostled some nobody into the grounds for my inspection. In retrospect it would have been a mercy to a great many people if I'd drawn my gun and shot you there and then."

Gabriel said nothing, he continued staring fixedly ahead.

"I wasn't surprised when you fucked up and got too greedy. You were promoted too young, the power of the position was all it took to turn you from an upstart to a bastard." He met the mercenaries gaze for the first time. "Quite frankly, it's the jump from crooked officer to psychopath I don't understand."

"I thought you'd be pleased with Fredriel dead."

"He brought commerce to the port, even if he was a hedonistic sack of lard." Morris replied. "And you crushed his windpipe, caved in the heads of his bodyguards and decorated the interior of the Red Rose with his working people. Ex-guardsman or not, your actions have sewn the seeds for civic unrest, faith in the militia and the gallows is shaken."

"My heart is broken for the face you've lost."

"You'll hang." The reply came before Gabriel had finished speaking, he saw the tight line of the man's mouth and the anger dancing in his eyes, but his voice never wavered. "In two days time, you'll be standing on a trapdoor with a noose around your neck."

"So I understand, is there a point to you telling me what I already know?"

"Tell me who your employer was and I will grant you a few days reprieve."

"That's a pretty shitty offer, Richard."

"If you tell me now I'll throw in a steak dinner before you die."

OOC More to come, feel free to add details to the compound and npc's as you like Al./OOC

[Jack Rothwell]

Gabriel wasn't so much escorted from the interrogation chamber as flung with careless, brute force. The ex-captain hit the gravel floor at a slide, coming to a halt near the centre of the compound with a weary, but amused expression on his face. Gabriel stood up and began deliberately brushing the sand off the clothing as the guards who'd thrown him out approached Jack.

"Your turn, lad." One of the men said. "Don't kick up a fuss now."