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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 17, 2014 19:41:59 GMT
Hoch's mouth hung low for a moment as Morgan explained that he might be having to jump for cover. While Hoch was pleased that Morgan was only joking with him, he was just a pissed as well, "Ohhhh you crazy asshole you..." he laughed as Geoffry pulled up and the two stepped outside.
Hoch followed Morgan's orders and climbed into the car. He simply waved off the offer for a drink - he was a bit jittery already - and simply watched the two men tentatively; he wasn't sure how you handle things types of deals and the last thing he wanted was to say was something that could derail this entire operation.
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 19, 2014 16:40:14 GMT
The driver said nothing else the drive there, making the ride a very long and awkward one at times. It was a relatively long one, considering how big Thelotia was and oddly enough even Morgan was very terse with his words the entire way there.
Things moved quickly as they approached a strip club tucked away in of course, the dirtier streets of the city, owned by this 'Waylon Graves'. Considering the kind of money Morgan had (what was known and what was not), it appeared unusual that he would invest in such a shabby building, let alone this business as it was with the higher demand for smuggled mana present--"pocket change" could be made here, Morgan could say, as well as be a place to meet some folks now and again.
The driver let them out of the vehicle and then let them into the building. It was too early for the place to be running yet, so it was a good time for them to meet. Morgan marched himself in and motioned Hoch to follow him, taking them past the front desk and around the corner into an empty room full of tables and empty stages but not short of many gentlemen whose appearances varied, though mostly with a rough look about them and dressed to hide blood. All eyes turned to them once they made their appearance and several already put their hands to their hips presumably to grab whatever weapon they had holstered there, though Morgan put up his hand as though he could somehow command them with his mind to hold fire.
"Wow..." one large gentleman said from his chair to the right, leaning an elbow on the table and wearing a dark tee-shirt. He gave Morgan a long stare, who in return raised his sunglasses only a moment to make any eye contact with him. The man finally spouted, "You look like shit."
"You look like a piece of leather," Morgan shrugged, pointing to Hoch then, "this here's Hoochie."
The hands were pulled away from their weapons and replaced with a wave of laughter from everyone. Morgan put his hands on his hips and frowned.
"Hey! Don't you make fun of him! I've seen this guy shred people like you with minimal effort, don't you go screwing with him," Morgan warned, though he really hadn't seen Hoch really do anything violent like...ever...
"I'll take him," one hooded man at the back of the room leaped out of his chair and Morgan pulled his gun on him.
"We're not here to screw around, sit your ass down! Gentlemen, we have business to discuss here."
"We don't do business with dwarves," the rougher man to the right said again, giving Morgan a shrug as he turned to him.
"Dwarv Minor," came Morgan's correction, oddly sounding as though he'd been the one insulted instead of Hoch. The big fella shrugged again and with a chuckle mumbled, "No difference."
And then Morgan did that thing that he does, where he stares at the fellow for a very long time and actually has to think about what he was going to do next. He could let it go, he could just shoot him conveniently with the gun in his hand...
Morgan tucked away the pistol for a moment as he also began to chuckle, walking around the table and as he did he slipped a large, metal club from another man's hands. The man in the chair saw but sat and gave him no reaction, in a way figuring that was what Morgan wanted from him.
In a matter of seconds Morgan took a heavy swing and knocked enough of the chair legs out from under the man that the whole thing collapsed. As the room erupted into laughter again Morgan gave the metal club a twirl and marched around to the front of him again, giving him a grin.
"Well, now you're on his level so there shouldn't be any problem," and as the man went to pull himself up Morgan raised the club, "you stay there...or I'm going to break those legs of yours."
As ordered, the man sat himself on the floor and gave Hoch a dirty glare and Morgan addressed the group again as the laughter died down.
"I need some volunteers who want to make some money and blow a ship into oblivion..." he gave Hoch a quick look then, "now...who's ship was this again?"
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 20, 2014 1:08:26 GMT
Hoch was aware Morgan had some businesses located in these streets of Thelotia, although he was a bit surprised at the fact he owned a strip club, he quickly reasoned it was a good way to move the main product; mana. Hoch usually avoided such places, they were sad establishments with plastic women that shrouded the mind to how beautiful Thelotian women were truly.
Oh, yeah, and the people who went to such establishments were bad in their own ways. Most Thelotians were raciest, but these men took no care to try and hide such thing. Hoch was well used to ignorant comments relating him to Dwarves, in fact when people actually got the fact he's a Dwarv Minor RIGHT Hoch usually had to congratulate the slightly-less-ignorant dumbass. However, that comparison still did piss Hoch more than anyone could understand and if Morgan didn't take action the young Dwarv Minor was about to bring back up the many ways he had learned to quickly kill people back when he was a guardian of the Imperial family.
Whoa, wait. Morgan actually defended Hoch? Hoch stood there completely dumbfounded for a moment as he watched Morgan dispatch the fool with a quick movement that impressed the Dwarv Minor warrior. He stood there speechless until Morgan called upon him, Hoch cleared his throat and spoke out to the crowd, "Ice'ly Co., a small trading company with a fair amount of traction between Zoi and Proti."
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 20, 2014 2:52:07 GMT
"Ice'ly Co, there it is. You need a handful of men. Through your own means you'll gather a submarine and whatever weapons you'll need but I need you to avoid causing a scene, the vicinity is heavily watched and anything that's amiss will alert trouble. You'll go under Ice'ly's ship, attach the bombs that will be later supplied to you after this meeting, and then as it's coming into port the whole thing will go off in a burning, sinking mess of crushing defeat for the company," Morgan delivered the plan enthusiastically, clenching one fist tightly while the other one shook the metal club still firmly in its grip.
"Hang on, Flynn, using some of the boys here is one thing but Paddy's the one who organizes us," a shorter, blond-haired fellow spoke up and gestured to the one presumed to be 'Paddy', a tan-skinned man with dark brown hair and a coarse beard. Paddy didn't make eye contact with Morgan, and the moment that the blond man spoke out, Paddy bit his lip and gave a cringe. Most of the men in the room either let out a low "ooooh" or they immediately looked down at their shoes or just turned away.
Morgan nodded, staring at the younger gentleman for a long moment before he removed his sunglasses and tucked them into his jacket pocket. He then gave Paddy a firm glare as he yelled, "Is this guy new here?!"
"NO, sir! No, Mr. Graves, he is not," Paddy responded automatically, his voice was loud and his every word slow and deliberate as his gaze turned to the blond man, "isn't that right, Marlin? You work for me, I work for the Boss, which means you work for the Boss and do exactly as he says--right?"
"I have very simple rules in my house. One, don't ask questions, two, if you can't remember who I am 'The Boss' or 'Your Excellence" will suffice, and three, I don't take orders from my peons," and with that, Morgan set the club down for a moment to pull the gun back out and point it at this 'Marlin' fellow, "you've broken two out of three so I'm not going to fire you unless you can come up with a sentence organically without using the letter 'e' to tell me why I shouldn't terminate your employment, 'Marlin'. Now. Go."
Marlin shrugged.
"I am a good man who also is a good gun-slinging thug, and will gladly smack a bitch down--"
The gunshot not only interrupted Marlin's sentence but made most of the gang jump as well. The man fell lifeless to the floor and all was silent all for a moment before Paddy spoke.
"Shit, he was doing very well."
"I know, and there's no room in my empire for a wise ass," Morgan snarled, the whole air about him suddenly changing as he turned back to the others with a grin, "now as you can see, Mr. Graves is a very generous man who's handing out bonuses for anyone who also wants to be a wise ass and attend his new university. He calls it Graves University, and its education is absolutely to die for."
None of the 'peons'--as he so eloquently put it--chuckled at the jokes so he resumed by tucking his gun away and carrying on like nothing happened, his stare slowly turning back to Hoch.
"What say you, now? Paddy's got men to go under that thing and blow it to smithereens--we'll have them time activated, all we need is someone fast. Paddy won't screw this up because he knows what happens if he does."
All Paddy did was smile and nod at Morgan's comment, and he too gave his attention to Hoch, not daring to ask what the short man had to do with any of it.
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 20, 2014 16:22:40 GMT
Hoch held his hands towards his ears as the gun went off right beside him; causing a loud and roaring bang that followed with a sensation of dizziness and loss of hearing, only to be restored moments later. "Shit..." Hoch muttered as he watched the man fall to the ground from the bullet; Hoch didn't ACTUALLY think Morgan was going to kill him, all he thought Morgan was going to do was wound the fool.
Hoch fixed his jacket, a sign of how uncomfortable he was, as he tried to reason as to why he shouldn't give another thought to that man's death. He was no doubt a scum by all standards, everyone in this room were scums but at LEAST Hoch had standards! Everything needed standards, without standards there was just chaos.
"I..." Hoch started as Morgan addressed him, giving himself one more moment of composure before continuing, "I want to be able to watch it as it happens. I need to observe things, the raw data I would be able to retrieve could be very helpful to us in so many ways. So if at all possible; a place with a good view would be greatly appreciated."
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 20, 2014 17:29:07 GMT
Paddy nodded.
"We're more than happy to help. Get back to me when you have the bomb, Boss, and I'll be sure that Aren's got the sub ready for this," he answered smoothly, finding he was unable to add more than the assurance that his gathering of men would be able to locate the ship and take it down as ordered. He smiled and gave Hoch a polite nod as Morgan stared down at the short man and tried to think of a good place to watch the 'fireworks' so to speak.
"I'm not particularly familiar with that whole area...would the pier be a good view? Or would you prefer something with a leg up? There's a fancy restaurant that overlooks the harbour up in one of the towers, we could be having a 'business meeting' at the time? We also have a yacht that could stretch its legs if we wanted..." he threw out a few suggestions, though he himself actually had no preference. His favourite was personally the yacht, and preferably with a lot of mana and booze, but at this point it didn't matter to him just as long as the Ice'ly ship went down.
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 20, 2014 20:17:29 GMT
"The higher the better," Hoch nodded, "I need to be able to see everything; the police's reaction, the Ellusian's reactions and the people's..."
His eyes glanced over at the dead body, which had now seeped a rather immense amount of blood onto the ground. Hoch frowned as he remembered something he had just been telling himself; 'empires are built upon the blood of others.' It was funny, he had never really considered that blood to be blood of an ally spilled by their own master.
Hoch shook his head of those thoughts. He would question Morgan about those actions later, to question him in front of his men would only serve to direct the man's rage at Hoch.
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 20, 2014 21:40:41 GMT
"Excellent. I'll make the dinner reservations and we'll watch from the tower, i'll be sure to get us a window seat," Morgan grinned, giving Hoch a wink. He turned to Paddy and gave him a quick tap on the shoulder.
"I'll let you know when your 'book order' comes in, Clyde," he said very casually and Paddy gave him a grin himself.
"I'll invite you and Kathy out for lunch then, Sam," he answered. The two of them made the story up on the spot here and now, though for many years they'd had a system and clearly understood each other well. With another wave of his hand Morgan signalled Hoch to follow as he made his way to the door and picked up the club along the way.
He stopped before the gentleman on the floor and the one he'd borrowed the club from. Just before he made to return it, he took a swing and smashed it on the one man's legs anyway. Ignoring his curses and screams Morgan hurried out the door, handing off the club and announced behind him, "You DO do business with Dwarv Minors, none of you better ever forget it!"
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 20, 2014 23:46:09 GMT
Hoch followed Morgan outside. The Dwarv Minor was seemly having trouble focusing, he barely even noticed Morgan break the man's leg, his mind was still stuck on the killing of one of his own men. Hoch shook his head to try and clear the thoughts, but they seemed to persist.
"What time?" Hoch questioned before defining his question better, "What time will you set the reservation for?"
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 21, 2014 0:58:37 GMT
"Depends on when you want to watch this all happen. I'd like to say we have ourselves an early, 6:30 dinner and should it all work out we'll enjoy our show with dessert and coffee," Morgan laughed as they left the building, the driver from earlier sat attentive and moved quickly to let them in.
Morgan was very comfortable, and unlike Hoch it was very apparent he'd already long forgotten Marlin, the man he'd only known the name to for only those few moments. By the end of the day, he'd also already forget he'd even shot a man down today.
((Did we want to do this ship sinking event here or go to new thread? I'm out of ideas here now unless you have somewhere else you wanna take this :3 ))
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 23, 2014 0:23:06 GMT
"6:30 is fine," Hoch said with a wave of his hand, pulling at the top buttons of his shirt to let himself breath more, "I'll see you there. I've got things to attend to."
By 'things', Hoch meant that he needed to retreat and pray for an answer to what he had just witnessed. It was funny, he had thought about a plan that might kill many men when it finishes yet for some reason he was able to push that aside as merely business. But to kill your own man? That needed reflecting... and while Hoch wasn't a very particular religious man, he thought he'd send a prayer to his dearly departed Imperial god.
(We could merely continue it here. It's up to you! :'))
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 23, 2014 20:35:54 GMT
((oh hooo, I gotcha. I got this!))
Morgan never spoke about this particular meeting again, as was the usual for him. In the next several days he barely lifted a finger to arrange the delivery of the bombs that would be needed to Paddy (being a weapons manufacturer helped quite a bit with that). Oddly enough, Morgan sat very well behaved for the next couple of days.
He had one of his more well-trained gentlemen pick them up when the evening finally came. It was a very warm, pleasant night all things considered. Morgan particularly enjoyed that there was next to no cloud coverage, the moon sat up in the sky and acted like one giant spotlight and he could barely contain the joy he felt as he waited impatiently for the event to unfold.
Hoch had been picked up along the way, and the table that had been reserved for them many storeys high up in the tower was one that seemed a little too fancy for just two businessmen getting together for a casual dinner, yet at the same time rich businessmen were the people who could afford to do such a thing. The view was perfect, and to Morgan the thick red curtains that framed the window beside them made him feel like he really was at a show.
The man himself sat now with only half of his dinner touched, more content on focusing on his wine glass as he ran a finger lightly around the rim. He never really ate much while he was waiting on something, and when a job was about to go down he always became almost terrifyingly quiet, and as such he'd barely said much at all to Hoch all evening. When a plan involved bombs he found he waited with bated breath for the 'boom', a sound that meant so much more to him than just 'something exploded'. It was the ending of task, the beginning of another journey, the symbol of excitement and of a world changed, of people being changed all in a variety of ways--it was soothing and chaotic all at the same time and released feelings within him that not even mana could do, he dared to think. And here he sat high enough that he'd be lucky if he could hear the muffled sound of anything. Sirens, maybe. He had all but to watch for even a glimpse of fire below, but the ship...well, the ship they would see. It would be hard to miss that.
Morgan felt himself jitter a bit then and in response took an overly long sip of a very, very bold red wine he'd chosen for the night. He had to enjoy it, he was the only one at the table who would of course.
"Should be any moment now," he found himself speaking very low then as he decided to top up his glass.
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 23, 2014 21:09:44 GMT
Hoch took a sip of his drink, having hardly said a word all night, he had been thinking of the perfect time to bridge the question that he had been wanting to ask. Time was running out, however, and before long the action would be taken and Hoch would have other things to take care of.
"Morgan," Hoch finally spoke out, "Why did you shoot your own man before? What did you possible gain from delivering such a violent action to him?"
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Post by Morgan Flynn on Jan 24, 2014 18:50:11 GMT
Morgan gave Hoch a bewildered look at first. He hadn't shot anyone, what was he talking about? It took him a few very long moments to back track the event before he realized that oh yes, Hoch had been in the club the other day when he shot that...what was his name again? Barry? Sure, Barry. And before he even answered Hoch he let another very long pause hang between them as he took another sip of his wine.
"Hoch, I'm sure you would agree that in this 'business' there is little to no room for errors or things going awry. That is why certain people are in charge and why they have rules to follow, a system if you will. If someone were to break them for any reason, it could open up a window for errors, and chain reactions that will cause great distress in our happy little 'system'...
I used to be one of the peons, Hoch. I drove, I stole, I kidnapped, and killed people as I was told like a good little servant boy. The only way we climb that kind of ladder is because we know who is in charge, we understand the hierarchy, and even when we don't agree we do as we're told. It's a matter of loyalty and knowing your place. Keeping yourself alive is on you as a skill alone, and it's those of us that survive again and again and practice our individual crafts the best of all others are who get noticed. When we get noticed, we move up the ladder and have more say, and until then it's all about surviving, being the best at what you do, and having patience."
Hoch wasn't a stupid man, so he assumed he would at least understand this part if he worded it like a business. It really was no different as Morgan saw it, and yet it wasn't exactly the answer that was needed.
"Not all men are like that though, Hoch, you know that. Some try to step on toes too early. Letting it go sends a message about your leadership as well as gives the others a sense of authority on their own level. This isn't a democracy, it's too sensitive to be one," he finally shrugged and gave a smile, "so sometimes you need to give a 'gentle reminder' so they all remember their place. Those who are expendable are exactly that and treated as such, it's a good lesson to the others. Those who I need...well, there's always a different way of dealing with them."
His last thought was spoken very slowly and deliberately as he stared into Hoch's eyes, the air about him being very calm and warm which is probably what made him come off as unsettling at the moment. Morgan's eyes showed no real hint into what he felt, but he spoke only what he believed to be the truth.
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Post by Hoch Kreatur on Jan 24, 2014 19:44:29 GMT
"I..." Hoch began, loosing his voice as he mind processed everything Morgan was saying. He sighed, the few morals he had were outraged by the actions Morgan took, but they were the right actions - in terms of business. There was really no great alternative, "Understand, actually. I worked most of my life for Imperials back in Ellusia, I know all about the expendable and needed individuals to keep the machine running..."
He shrugged, "I guess I was just... shocked. I apologize, these doubts won't happen again." He shifted around in his chair a bit, a little uncomfortable feeling that he would display such foolishness in the face of such a simple business knowledge that he SHOULD have been aware of. The business they were in had a small value in lives but the profits were high and that's what Hoch wanted after all, high profits.
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