Part 2: Leaving the Watchtower and the hour is getting late

[Olvelsper]

"Nope. The table you were sitting at is my favorite, I always scan that one when I enter to see if anyone's at it. On top of that, my clients usually meet me there, so it's important that I know who's sitting there and when." Jan shook his head as he thought.

"And that sword isn't very valuable as is, you should get it patched up."

[Shukuen]

Leets shrugged indifferently. "Isn't the first time I was overlooked, probably won't be the last either. Besides, it's handy when I want to go places sometimes."

"And yeah, but I need money to fix this thing up, which until I finish this job, I don't have much of."

[Halbarad]

Clyde cast an eye over the sword. "Doesn't look too bad, probably just needs to be cleaned and sharpened. A couple of hours with a whetstone will take care of most of that."

[Olvelsper]

Jan finished getting everything ready. "So, how about you, Professor? How long have you been studying and such?"

[Halbarad]

"Hmm? Oh, beg pardon. I've been building machinery since I was fourteen - a bit over twenty years now. Steam engines always fascinated me ever since I first read about them in the newspaper, and that's when I built my first one. I've been trying to make them do all sorts of different things ever since, and I've learned quite a bit about other varieties of machinery along the way."

[Olvelsper]

"Wow. Wish I could say I knew what I wanted to do from the start." Jan admitted, as he scratched at some light dusting of stubble he had gained over night.

"I used to be a simple security guard since I wasn't very good at much else, basically my last choice in life, but one day my partner convinced me that I had too much talent at dealing with people. I started saving up, and barely got into police academy, and well...here I am." He sat down near the fire.

[Shukuen]

Leets instinctively shuffled himself over to the fire, shrugging off his heavy jacket before sitting down with the others. "Sounds like you two had some interesting lives," he said with a bit of envy.

"How did you come to the Wasteland anyway, Mister Smith?"

[Olvelsper]

"Hm? Well, I was on a simple hostage exchange. We'd gotten together an acceptable sum of money together to pay the gangsters who had kidnapped my client's daughter. One of the bills was a fake provided by the cops with a tracer in it. I was to get the girl out, and they'd get traced back to their hideout." Jan reached over to instinctually feel his chest as he gazed into the fire as the memories took hold on him.

"Things went bad when they shot me, though. Puts a crimp on your plans when you up and die."

[Shukuen]

Leets winced in sympathy, having seen a few gunshot wounds in his time. "You must have been lucky if they didn't hit any vitals."

[Halbarad]

Clyde winces at Jan's tale. "I have no idea how I ended up here. Our train was due to arrive in St. Louis, but somehow it ended up stopping somewhere in the wastes here. I met a dwarvish-looking fellow after I got off the train, then found myself in New Brunswick."

He gives Leets a wry grin. "And to be perfectly frank, I would not have minded a bit to have a less 'interesting' life. Working on ironclad warships was not what I had in mind when I took an interest in machinery."

[RyderHakubi]

Ryder silently took a seat at the fire, warming up after the exhausting walk.

[Olvelsper]

"Frankly, I could've done with a life of negotiating between bitter divorcees too." He snapped out of his funk to nod at Leets.

[Shukuen]

"Still sounds a lot more interesting then mine, Professor." Leets sighed, laying back as he began his own brief introduction. "I have no memories from before I was 8, you see. You'd think I'd be able to remember a face or something like that, but as far as I know, I just woke up looking at the stars," Leets admitted, gazing upwards. "The sky here is so different from home, isn't it?"

"In any case, my own trip to Wasteland seemed like something out of Lewis Carroll. One night, a bunch of weird military blokes invade my neighborhood and start chasing me into the London Underground. The next thing I knew, the tunnel started growing feathers and I ran into the desert."

He hmph'ed, sprawling back onto the sand. "I wish it were last night. Everything made bloody sense then."

[RyderHakubi]

"Still... that sounds alot better than my trip..." Ryder muttered as he wrote some random words and phrases into the sand.

[Halbarad]

"That much I can sympathize with," Clyde agreed. "Last night I was headed back to Washington from Nevada after an engagement with the Sons of the Confederacy, and then I fell asleep on the train. Somehow I wish I'd managed to stay awake, now - although there's no telling if it would have made any difference whatsoever."