<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/0c/Doomtown2-Recovered2.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Walter Sinnett<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 4th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Casino Morongo and just outside, heading towards the noise<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>The Event, Open<br/><hr/>Walter was just finishing his fourth whisky when he was rudely interrupted.<br/><br/>Perhaps uniquely among the denizens of Gomorra, Walt didn't find it particularly unusual for a sudden bout of screaming to interrupt a night's drinking. In truth there was rarely a night when he wouldn't glance up from his pint of bitter, the liquid as brown as dirt (and often tasting like it), at the Nag's Head at the sound of some poor unfortunate letting out a scream or two. Partly that was because the Nag's Head still hadn't got around to replacing the door after he and Dickie Bird went through it during a 'friendly' bar brawl and so all the sounds of the streets carried through but it was also a sad fact of life in the mean streets of London, in the alleys and the gutters which Walter called home. He was the tattered king of his tattered kingdom, the ragged ruler of a ragged realm and it was not a realm known for mercy. Stabbings, coshings, muggings, murders, rapes... all went on in those back alleys where the light never quite seemed to travel and where the sodden mud at the bottom of the docks was so near, always ready to welcome another poor, unfortunate soul into its cold embrace. So no, Walter was used to screaming during a nights drinking. Although he did note that he was often the cause.<br/><br/>And it never quite sounded like this.<br/><br/>The main room of Casino Morongo was busy as it always was and because of that it was noisy, the clink of glasses, the inane chatter of gamblers, the shuffling of cards, the rattle of coins. Loud enough that you could sometimes miss a word during a conversation, it snatched away from your ears. Loud enough that you shouldn't be able to hear a scream, not from outside. And not that clearly. Not that hopelessly. Walter had heard people scream in pain. It wasn't that, not even when he was the cause of the it. Walter had heard people scream as they died. It wasn't that, not even when he was the cause of it. That scream was<strong>more</strong>then that .Walter was a superstitious man even if he followed no Church. That scream was someone losing their soul. Having it ripped from his body. Walt racked his mind to remember if he had smelt any roses or spilt any salt recently. It was the sort of scream that brought such thoughts to his mind.<br/><br/>It was no surprise that the scream brought proceedings to a halt. Walt may not have been in Gomorra long but he had been there long enough to know the town was, in essence, safe. That's not to say it wasn't a hard land... it was... or that death didn't haunt a man's footsteps as he made his way through the world but that was out<em>there</em>, out in the Great Maze, away from Gomorra itself. Yes, there were brawls and yes, there was the odd death but they were rare events despite the rapscallions and villains who called the place home. Even in the near lawless tent city of Soddom death and murder were a somewhat rare occurrence. And here in the northern part of Gomorra, the rich part, the respectable part (although no doubt the Watley's would dispute that from their southern estates)? Death truly was a shock. No, it was no surprise that a hush fell on the casino, that cards remained tightly clenched in fists, glasses left on tables, eyes turning to the door, to each other, back to the door.<br/><br/>And Walter was already moving.<br/><br/>He hadn't really intended to. Walter was no bloody white knight gallivanting his way across first London town and now the Great Maze looking for damsels to rescue, causes to take up or windmills to joust at. Hell, he was more likely to e the reason a damsel was in distress. He'd heard hundreds of screams in the night and he had always ignored almost all of them. It was not his way to deliberately invite danger onto himself, not his way to go charging off to confront whatever it was people wanted confronting on a given day. He faced enough danger doing his day-job... there was no reason to do it during his free time. And if it was not a general dedication to “doing the right thing” which made him move then it likewise was not that his friends were in danger either. He didn't really know anyone in Gomorra, he was friends with even less and even if someone did qualify as his friend then the chances of them being in the northern part rather than Stiffys or some other dump was minimal.<br/><br/>But still he moved.<br/><br/>Perhaps it was the whisky; not enough to physically impair him but maybe enough that he made a rash decision. Perhaps it was the opposite and he was being too logical. Walter knew enough about how people reacted to things like this, to screams and murders. He knew they frequently looked to a stranger to blame, whatever the cause and whatever had actually happened... and Walter was a stranger here. A stranger from a foreign land with a foreign accent, an eye that seemed to glow red when he was angry and a generally disreputable appearance. However many had seen him drinking here that evening he knew that could easily be swept away by a tide of hysteria. He'd seen it. He'd even done it as a cover to get away with his own crimes, deliberately blaming it on a pair of Hungarian itinerant workers before simply stepping back and letting the mob do its work. Perhaps it was the fact he was employed by Howard Findley and from what he knew of the man he valued the safety and security of Gomorra highly, that it was him who had turned it from a lawless town to one where murder was a rarity, and he would not think highly of someone on his payroll ignoring an event like this. Perhaps he was just bored by his mundane existence, by threatening miners and drinking whisky and not killing maze dragons.<br/><br/>Or perhaps it was all bollocks and deep down Walter Sinnett was actually a hero?<br/><br/><em>No, that last one's definitely bollocks.</em><br/><br/>But whatever the reason, Walter Sinnett was moving. Not rushing aimlessly; he had been through too much to do that, but still, moving. His left hand may now have one of his knuckle dusters on it, supporting the shotgun held in his right, his walking stick tucked into his belt along with his knife, but he was still moving towards the door and then out into Gomorra's evening, towards where the screams had come from. He may not be the only one from the casino going to the scene but he appeared to be the first and while he wasn't running he was moving with a brisk, determined jog, eyes open, ears alert. He was no tracker, especially not in a place like the Great Maze but Gomorra was a town and for all his sins that was his domain. Ten minutes ago he'd have considered himself the alpha predator in this place.<br/><br/>Now he was not so sure.<br/><br/>And across town in he Scared Stiff Saloon his donkey, studiously ignored by the scum that were still drinking there, let out a plaintive noise as its ears pinned back against its head and its flanks trembled. This far away no-one heard the scream, but sometimes animals just knew.<br/><br/><em>Something wicked this way comes.<br/><br/>I think you hear me knocking.<br/><br/>I think I'm coming in.</em>