<hr/><div class="floatleft">(http://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/0/0c/Doomtown2-Recovered2.jpg)</div><br/><strong>Name:</strong>Walter Sinnett (https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=200832.msg9812108#msg9812108)<br/><strong>Date:</strong>May 11th, 1876<br/><strong>Time of Day:</strong>Evening<br/><strong>Location:</strong>Walter starts out wanderin' through town but ends up at the Scared Stiff Saloon.<br/><strong>Tagged:</strong>Open, the usual bunch of malcontents that waste their hours at Stiffies, Walter's Donkey.<br/><hr/><hr/>Something stank of fish.<br/><br/>And it wasn't just the fact that Sweetrock had access to the only working dock in Gomorra.<br/><br/>Walter never really smiled but he'd quickly let whatever expression he had on his face that at least somewhat resembled a smile disappear as he left Mr Baine's office, the semi-permanent scowl now permanently fixed on his features. Long, pacey strides carried him through the long corridors of Sweetrock, out onto the mesa and across the bridge down to Gomorra proper. No-one tried to stop him or made the mistake in attempting to engage him in conversation. Walter cut through the evening as the darkness began to settle like a man who belonged there. Down Temptation road, across the town square, a single grimace dismissing the revellers who were beginning to tumble out of Babel's Tower sodden with drink. Even these men and women, their faculties loosened by liquor, had enough reason left to realise catching the Tattered Man's attention was a remarkably poor idea... and if they didn't then they had friends quick to throw an arm around their shoulder and suggest that even something as innocuous as offering a greeting may quickly lead to what had been a pleasant evening taking a rather sour turn. Walter Sinnett was a man apart, a man alone. And so the man apart walked through the town square and into the maze of narrow alleys and cramped buildings that made up Miner's Peril. To the closest place he had to home here in Gomorra.<br/><br/>To the Scared Stiff Saloon.<br/><br/>Stiffies was nothing special to look at. In fact from the outside one would likely consider it a derelict building. The front was shabby, the wood warped, panels missing, what little paint was left cracked and faded. One lonely swinging door hung desperately to a weak and loosened hinge, creaking softly in the weak breeze. Of its partner there was no sign. Perhaps it was part of the scattered debris that littered the ground outside the saloon. Perhaps it had been stolen. Perhaps it had simply fallen off and faded away, never to be seen again. The inside was no better. There was no bar, at least in the conventional sense. Instead a contraption consisting of little more than several doors nailed together and propped upright served the purpose. None of the furniture matched and each chair, stool or table was missing at least one leg. Best not to ask where they had gone... or where it had come from to begin with. The building had originally had two floors but from the way the odd plank jutted out below a roof that failed to keep out the occasional rain it was clear the upper floor had collapsed long ago. Perhaps material from that had been cannibalised to keep the rest of the saloon in working order... or at least as close as this place came.<br/><br/>In some places in the world there is the concept of a “villain watering hole”, a pub, bar, saloon or restaurant where the ruffians and ne'er-do-wells would congregate and plot, hatch schemes, buy and sell stolen goods, drink, fight and generally make a nuisance of themselves. They were the dark heart of petty thievery in an area, the hub of its street crime. Long-in-the-teeth lawmen learned to tolerate such places, some even to embrace them, for it meant it was easy to keep tabs on the ragamuffins and scum. Walter was used to places like that... his old local the Nag's Head was exactly such a place, a place where the worst of the worst of Millwall used to congregate, a place famed throughout the East End.<br/><br/>Stiffies...<em>wasn't</em>.<br/><br/>Sure, it was full of scum. There was no doubt about that. No-one went to Stiffies by accident... hell, if you didn't know any better than you wouldn't think it was a saloon at all, just a run down house a gang had taken over. But few went their by choice either. All the things one went to a saloon for... drink, entertainment, women, food... were missing from this wrecked shell. The drink was vile... cheap and only occasionally strong, the only entertainment was the frequent arguments and occasional punchups, the only woman was Scabby Sally and she barely counted and there wasn't any food outside of what the patrons brought in and the occasional bowl of stew, porridge or gruel which would send a starving man on a fast. But it wasn't a villains pub either. The clientelle were the worst of the worst of Gomorra but that just meant they were pathetic, not that they were particularly dangerous, devious or deadly. They were chancers and grifters, the have-a-go hapless, the “one big score”ers, those with big dreams but simple imaginations and even less ability to actually implement an idea. Sure, they pulled small cons, they stole little things, hell every so often one of them got brave enough to commit an actual robbery... although admittedly normally when the person they were robbin' was either asleep or passed out. But compared to what else one could easily find in the Fast County? These poor mugs were exactly that. Mugs and poor. There weren't the richest, the weren't the smartest, they weren't the toughest, they weren't the strongest and they sure as feck weren't the most villainous.<br/><br/>But they were the closest thing to a family Walter 'ad and so there he was in all his dusty glory.<br/><br/>The scene in Stiffies was the same as it was pretty much every other night. Ethan, the one-armed owner and barman, was stood behind his sorry excuse for a bar tryin' to do an impression of an actual barman. Billy the Knife, Dirk and Apache Matt were sat at what passed for a table playing cards, let down by the fact none of them had any money to gamble, none of them knew what game they were playing and the fact they didn't even have a full pack of cards. Sally and Taw were stood in a corner chattin'... Sally because it was still too early for anyone to be drunk enough to want to spend money on a night with her and Taw because no-one wanted to play cards with him after the great evil Queen debate of 1875 and because Ethan was angry at him for bringin' in a cage full of rats that he'd intended to sell. Stiffies bein' Stiffies, Taw bein' Taw and rats bein' feckin' rats of course the cage had bloody broken and the buggers had got loose. Walter wasn't sure what the issue was... they'd never eaten as well in Stiffies as they had the next few days... but Ethan was perhaps the only man in the world who could be houseproud of a shithole like Stiffies and the fact that to this day you could occasionally see a furry face peak out from behind a cracked wooden panel made him right bloody mad. And of course, there was the smartest and most sensible of the Stiffies crew... Walter's donkey, tied up at the far end of the bar and happily munching on barley straw.<br/><br/>Walter of course went to sit by his donkey.<br/><br/>Bein' a man tryin' to do a good impression of a barman, Ethan had immediately pulled out a glass that looked only slightly dirty and was about to fill it with what passed for whiskey in this place, but a shake of Walter's head made him pause, a look of confusion settlin' on his face.<br/><br/><strong>“You don't want whiskey Walter?”<br/><br/>“Not that bloody whiskey Ethan. Get me the cheap stuff.”<br/><br/>“The <em>cheap</em> stuff?”<br/><br/>“Yeah, I said that didn't I? Get me the bloody cheap stuff?”<br/><br/>“You know what the cheap stuff is right?”<br/><br/>“I bloody do Ethan and I bloody want it... so pour me a bloody glass.”</strong><br/><br/>Walter was lying. He didn't know what the cheap stuff was. No-one outside of Ethan did and he wasn't tellin'. What Walter did know was what the cheap stuff was<em>like</em>. Once upon a time Walter had accused Ethan of sellin' whiskey that was nothing more than potatoes and grain boiled in water and then cooled down. This was the stuff that was worse than that. This stuff... Walter imagined it had probably been the potato water once, then Ethan or some other bastard had drunk it, let it flow around their body for a few hours and then pissed it back into the glass. Tasted like that anyway. But the key here was two things. First, it was barely bloody alcoholic and despite his tolerance Walter had gone through a fair amount of whiskey tonight. Now, Walter was not a man given to worrying about bein' sober or drunk and quite honestly, he probably preferred life drunk to sober. But he wanted his thinkin' head on for the moment and with too much drink his thoughts tended to drift. To battles, buggerin' and bloody swan-necks. Secondly, the stuff tasted so bloody vile that it kept you on your toes. And Walter needed to be on his toes.<br/><br/><strong>“It stinks, don't it donkey?”</strong><br/><br/>The donkey raised its head from its nutritious meal and clapped what could only be described as a quizzical eye on its so-called master. Walter didn't know if donkeys were meant to have quizzical eyes but his bastard donkey did and that was good enough for him. And he was pretty sure he wasn't really the donkey's master. Donkey was probably using him as a way to go on a bloody adventure. Walter didn't mind though. The donkey might be usin' him so it could go on adventures rather than waste its life on a bloody farm but Walter was usin' the donkey so he didn't have to walk and carry all his shit to get to his bloody adventures. And because donkey wasn't a horse. Walter bloody hated horses.<br/><strong><br/>“There's just somethin' not bloody right about this whole feckin' place.”</strong><br/><br/>While the comment could have applied with absolute accuracy to Stiffies, Walter's aim was far wider. Because there was something not quite right about Gomorra. About the whole feckin' powder keg Walter found himself perched on top of. Mad scientists, outlaws, ghostrock, redskins, bloody chinamen, law dogs, creepy families, greedy businesses, half-burned feckin' madmen, angry miners with dynamite and each day more and more of them pourin' bloody in. Even without that thing, the whole place was a mess. But you couldn't put that thing aside, couldn't hide from it, couldn't run from it. It had been out there, Walter had bloody seen it, he'd chased it and he'd even shot at it and it was still lurkin'. What Walter did and what Walter was worked because Walter knew his world and knew his place in it. And he knew his place was at the top of a foodchain. Sure, there'd be people smarter, sure, there'd be people richer, sure, there'd be people with more connections. But when it came down to it there was no-one scarier. Sure, some bastard with a rifle parked in a clocktower may technically be deadlier... but Walter wasn't just about killin' people, he was about terrifyin' people and the thought of Walter huntin' you down with blood on his mind and time to spare when it came to tortutin' you? Yeah... that was what made Walter. Because he was bloody scary. But here, in Gomorra, in this Fast County, in this Great Maze? Walter weren't feelin' quite so scary anymore. Sure, he could still send drunken revellers runnin' for cover and no sensible person wanted Walter lookin' for them... but compared to a damn beastie? Feck it, compared to all this other mess? Walter was thinkin' his time as an alpha predator ain't really lastin' that long.<br/><br/><strong>“And somethin' aint bloody right about this deal.”</strong><br/><br/>Walter weren't smart but he weren't stupid either. At least, not that stupid. Mr Baine had told him to not think of Sweetrock as a business but to think of it like a gang. Walter knew feck all about businesses. He knew the feckin' lot about gangs. And this weren't how gangs worked. Yeah, listen, you did a good job and you got moved up the ranks, that part was right. And Walter had done a good job for Sweetrock. But he'd done a good job haulin' bodies around the Great Maze and droppin' them in the drink, a good job scarin' and occasionally givin' a slight beating to a bunch of miners who didn't know any better. And at most he'd had to kill a couple of people. That was simple stuff, easy stuff. No real challenge, no real danger. And suddenly he was bein' put in charge of takin' down every rival faction in the bloody Fast County? Of takin' over every mine in the feckin' area? A man like Mr Baine standin' there and listenin' to Walter's advice on a large bloody operation? Yeah, that didn't happen. Not like that anyway. You only believed that if you were a bronzehorn or whatever the feck term these damn yanks used for some rookie who didn't know shit from a shovel. You didn't move straight from a bloody foot-soldier to a feckin' vice president (whatever the feck that was) and the test you had to pass to move up the ranks wasn't turnin' yourself into a bloody mining magnate.<br/><br/>Here's the thing. This was a bloody coup. Walter could see that. Feck it, Mr Baine had pretty much spelt it out himself. The Findley fellow was somewhere else and Mr Baine wanted it all while the cat was away. Fair play. Walter had taken part in coups before although they didn't call them coups, they just called it kickin' the crap out of whichever poor bastard in charge had taken his eye off the ball and missed how ambitious his underlings were. Walter didn't mind that it was a coup. He didn't owe the Findley bugger anything. He hadn't talked to the bugger. He hadn't even bloody seen 'im as far as Walter knew. He didn't really give a toss if Mr Baine stole the whole bloody lot out from under Findley. What he did care about was that his neck was on the line.<br/><br/>Walter knew that was how it worked. He'd been part of how it worked. When you started with a gang the risks were huge and the rewards were small. You did what you were told and you took some pennies home. You got caught and you served a stretch... or you got your neck stretched. You moved up the ladder and the rewards became bigger... and because the rewards became bigger you could afford to pay off the people you needed to pay off to make sure you never suffered the consequences. Feck it, you got high enough and some bastard started calling you the “thieftaker general” and then you started sellin' out your rivals and made even more money. Mr Baine was at the top. He had guards and money and his position to protect him. Walter? Walter had his knife, his wits, his fists and his donkey.<br/><br/>The fact was, Walter was exposed here. Let's say it all started to go wrong, lets say Findley showed up or one of the goddamn armies or Walter did his job a little too well and everyone started hatin' him. Mr Baine could deny it all. Walter was an outsider, a Brit abroad, a relative newcomer to Gomorra, a man not exactly noted for bein' sensible or cautious. It wouldn't be too outlandish to think Walter had gone off script, headed out the reservation and cut away on his own. Mr Baine could say Walter was merely a mad dog who had gone feral, not a loyal dog followin' orders. And who would deny 'im? Sure, Mr Baine would get his knuckles caned for not keepin' one of his own under control but Mr Baine was a man who was basically still bein' burned alive... why would a slap on the wrist bother him. Walter would get dead.<br/><br/>Again, Walter didn't mind that. That's how the bloody world worked. Walter went off and did the killin', the men above him made a killin'. Walter could take that. As long as he wasn't bein' set up.<br/><br/>On some level Walter didn't mind bein' set up. Because there was an understandin' see. You could set up Walter but you had to keep in mind that there would be consequences. And those consequences normally involved you bein' flat on your back, missin' your fingers and toes, at least one eye put out, your tongue hacked off, your bollocks forced down your throat, your penis cut to pieces and your guts bein' used to strangle you to death. All while your last sight was everyone you ever cared for bein' tied up in front of you and set on fire. That was the price of settin' up Walter Sinnett. And it worked because of Walter Sinnett's reputation, because of where he was in the food chain. People didn't set up Walter Sinnett because he was so feckin' terrifyin' and the consequences of doin' it were so painful.<br/><br/>But why would a half-dead man care about the consequences? And don't you remember the thoughts we just had on where Walter fell on the scale of terrifyin' things in Gomorra right now?<br/><br/>Walter weren't just feelin' exposed, he was feelin' vulnerable. Back in rainy London he had his reputation... a reputation earned through blood and death... to fall back on, to protect him, to make people think twice about setting him up or feckin' with him. Here? Who could tell him from bloody Adam? He was just another bastard, just another orphan washed up on the streets of Gomorra lookin' for his future. No-one gave a toss about him. Not yet. And to begin with the fact that people gave a toss about him just made him a target. No, he'd have to earn his reputation again before he could rely on it for protection. And that meant people tryin' to kill 'im. And Walter killin' them.<br/><br/><strong>“You're as much help as usual Donkey.”</strong><br/><br/>Walter didn't know if he was bein' set up. And he hadn't lied when he spoke to Mr Baine earlier. Sweetrock... and that meant Mr Baine... had given him a chance and if Mr Baine was true to his word they were givin' him one hell of one now. He did owe them for that. And he did want to do serious harm to the Twitch. Perhaps he'd been a little more forceful then he actually felt but the grain of truth was still there. But he Walter had walked down enough dark alleys to know he could be gettin' set up. Not just to be a fall guy in case everythin' went wrong, but as a pawn bein' moved by some bastard who wasn't gonna' explain what the bloody game was, let alone what Walter was doin' in it. Walter took a sip of a cheap stuff, grimacing and almost retching as the bitter liquid went down, fighting every step of the way and clawing at his throat. That's the spot.<br/><br/>So Walter “Do Down” Sinnett had to be bloody careful. And he had to be sensible And Walter “Do Down” Sinnett wasn't known for bein' careful and he wasn't known for bein' sensible.<br/><br/>But whatever happened he'd have a lot of bastards to kill.<br/><br/>And that made Walter Sinnett happy.