<hr/><div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/2/21/JacksonJackson.png)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Jackson P. Jackson<br/><strong>Faction:</strong>None<br/><strong>Date:</strong>5 June, 1871<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Late Evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>The Great MAze<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Lilah, Closed<br/><hr/><br/>He smiled when she moved to turn the old shirt into a bandage rag.  There were always cuts and scrapes and bruises and knocks - and the brief splash in the salt water of the maze made the abrasions on his hands sting like the devil’s pitchfork besides.  He let her fix it up, and then wrapped his hands around the oars, grinning at her salute and returning it.  Truth be told, working a boat was really a two man job - it took a good head and good memory to remember the ever-changing currents and channels through the maze, and even a day long row like the one they had ahead of them was a potentially catastrophic undertaking if they hit the wrong channel, and ran into a whirlpool, a maze dragon, a pack of hungry sharks or worse.<br/><br/>“I don’t think I could ever be a boat rat,” chuckled Jack with a little shake of his head.  While the miners did a good enough job convincing the rest of Gomorra they were an occasionally united front, the truth was there wasn’t a more contentious lot in all of the city.  Boat Rats hated Cavers, and Cavers hated Townies, and Townies hated Boat Rats.  White hated yellow and black, but yellow and black weren’t too fond of one another either, and the occasional redskin who got it in his mind to try his hand at mining was unanimously loathed by all three.  It hadn’t been until she’d lived among the mining camps for a time that it had been appreciable just how monumental a task it was that J.P. more or less kept a kind of peace.<br/><br/>Which made Jackson’s strange tolerance a particular rarity.<br/><br/>“Sure,” he said, after their singing had died down a little.  “I mean, Lost Angels - I been there once.  Grimey - he was around ‘fore you and I met - he convinced me once to sail on down to Lost Angels to sell his ghostrock without giving Sweetrock a cut.  That place gave me the willies, and I don’t spook easy.  Plus, you wouldn’t like it down there.  There’s a fellow - Chang, or Chan, or somesuch - built himself a little Chinese kingdom not so far away, and they’re ready to wage war on the ‘heathen’ at the drop of a hat.  Liable to charge you with espionage just for setting foot in there,” he said with a frown.  “And Shan Fan… I heard they treat them half-white women worse than they do white women.”  He frowned softly.  “Sides, the whole place is run by crooks everyone pretends are respectable.  Gomorra… we got businessmen who occasionally act like crooks, but Shan Fan got crooks that occasionally act like businessmen.”<br/><br/>He shook his head.  “I heard there’s a place between Gomorra and Shan Fan - some kinda monastery.  Practice that secret fighting thing some of those Chinese folk do.  You remember that little fella in my last fight?  One that kept jumping up and trying to kick me in the head?  That kinda stuff.”  He gave a little chuckle.  “But supposedly they’re better at it than he was.  Little guy still hit like a mule, though.”