Chapter Two: Tenacity

The group reached the gates of Avok at dawn the next morning. As Sol began her stroll across the skies, the gates of the settlement opened for the party of adventurers, now in greater number after the profitable fiasco at the outpost.

Avok was a curious place. Rough in its underworld of honkeytonks and back-alleyways, but with civilization unparallelled at the tops of its rusted towers. The buildings themselves, where they were not crudely made stone or small amounts of precious wood, even mud huts for storage, were inevitably made from materials once found in something else--an else with a use far removed from the current savage world.

The gates--large pieces of corrugated aluminum roofing, welded to steel I-beams and on great hinges once comprising two front-loaders--opened to reveal a dirt road lined by structures of steel and aluminum rubble. One home's windows were once the transparent components of residential washing machines. Another seemed to have had its roofing made of heavy tarp, a respectable choice given the mild climate. A particularly luxurious building seemed to have once been a residential trailer, though it had been gutted by flame and had its interior replaced with sheet metal and scavenged wood.

The residents of the town didn't seem to let the scarcity of resources bother them. Almost all of them, save elders and the tiniest children, had risen at dawn--even before the town's drums, one of the few items in town being used for its intended purpose, had called them up for their daily duties. Cordial nods and the occasional enthusiastic "aey-uh" greeted Thales and his allies as they marched their way towards the local Tavern and Bounty Board.

Derrik reaches a room with a bunch of slaughtered raiders. "Better them then me," he remarks as he picks up an assault rifle. Derrik jogs towards the exit.

OOC: LOLwut? We left the outpost a long time ago.

OOC:I wasn't with you to the best of my knowledge, unless I've missed something in the first chapter.

OOC: After looking it over, yeah. We'll assume you came with us anyway. No use scattering our players about.

OOC: Also, not to be a bother, but do at least try to make longer and more detailed posts moom, this isn't one of Pandy's forum games. =P

OOC:No problem bleach, I'm sorry.

((OOC: I suppose it's okay for me to post?))

Alan walked with the others into the town. The buildings and various structures always caught his interest whenever he visited this town, as they sported many architectural differences because of the fact everything seemed to be made of scrap metal. Despite how strange it looked, Alan himself kind of liked the style. It was very interesting to see.

"Feels good to be back on civilized soil," he commented as they walked. "No bandits, no trouble, no nothin'. It's all just peace and quiet for the most part, at least. I mean, I still like to get a little action, but these pit-stops are where it's at."

Alan stopped, noticing he was almost rambling a bit, which wasn't like him. He shook his head to himself and continued on with them through the town.

Vladmir was worried, almost to the point of addressing the situation with raiding the local Bandit camp - his leader and his group hadn't been back since a few nights ago, or was it a night ago? He couldn't remember, but he knew something went wrong, otherwise they'd have been here yesterday, or at least this morning. Patrol as usual was part of his duties; he was bored anyways, nothing to do but patrol or guard until the leader of Avok, Thales, got back.

In his peripheral vision, he noticed the old rustic gates slowly open to reveal those that had gone missing, Thales at point, marched in, relieved. Vladimir jogged up to Thales, his militia soldier next to him, giving him a salute and yelling "Salvo, Redcoat!"

He was thankful that no one was harmed, but he noticed more people than when they left. dropping his arm, he pointed at the new comers, had they been in a Bandit camp? The looks of things told him probably. "What's with these new people? Did you raid a bandit camp without yours truly? You know that I love doing that!" now that they were back, Thales would probably allow him to do something other than Patrolling, because after all, without him, the town's militia would be untrained and clumsy, easy to pick off targets for bandits. Without him this town would probably be worse, not to say Thales was a bad leader.

Once inside the city, Derrik breaks off from the group.

"See you whenever"

Derrik walks down a sidestreet, and into a back alleyway. A drunken man stumbled about with an empty whisky bottle. Derrik sneaks up behind him, and pulls out the man's wallet. Derrik looks inside, and finds it empty.

"Ruddy drunk,"

He drops the wallet, and leaves. He continues down the street until he sees an inn. Derrik walks in, and sits down at the bar.