Nebulous Emperor

Nave turned off the lights of the mine and exited the room, locking it behind him.

He walked down the roads of his rinky dink town and reached a corner with men standing on it.

He patted his pocket to make sure he still had his knife on him.

They all wore black clothes that looked very similar.

Nave walked past them without being bothered.

The bar was painted a dark gray with brown highlights and a sign that said "Mcclarens."

He entered and saw even more of them, along with plenty of regular citizens. An equal mix of both.

The inside was mostly brown with dark gray.

Nave sat down at the bar.

"Aren't you a little young to be in here?" Said the bartender, a middle-aged woman with dirty blonde hair, tanned skin, and a scratchy voice.

"I just turned 18." Nave responded knowing that 18 was the legal age to drink in Rumian.

"Okay, youngin, first time in here?"

"Yeah."

"First drinks always on the house."

She grabbed a bottle opened it for him and slid it over.

Nave caught it and looked at it.

'Mom always wanted to have my first drink with her.'

He decided to just leave it alone for now; he had to be focused anyway.

'The bar is mostly occupied by gang members and is probably run by them too; regulations and rules should be lax, which explains why she didn't ask for any proof of age. That might mean that I can snoop around. Probably no guards in the back.' He deduced.

'After I'm done snooping, everyone should be a little more drunk, which means I might be able to get away with asking some questions as long as I find a good victim.'

He took a quick walk around the bar with his drink in his hand, acting as if he were looking for the bathroom. He analyzed the room and the people as best as he could.

He actually entered the bathroom, so it didn't seem like he was just walking around.

'About 36 bodies in here, roughly 70% male, 30% female. Half of the attractive females are surrounding particular males, and the other half are being approached by males. I can probably assume that the men surrounded by women and other men have some influence. Ideally, once they were drunk, I would target them, but I don't know if that's optimal.' He thought while using the bathroom.

'I'll keep thinking about it after I'm done snooping around.'

He walked out of the bathroom, and instead of going right, he went left, where no one was.

He walked through the unavailable area and explored; there wasn't much to be seen. Storage area for alcohol and for the very few food items this bar seemed to offer. Nothing interesting until he found a door with the sign "office" on it.

Thankfully it was unlocked; he looked around before entering the room. It was dark, and Nave pulled a string before the lights turned on.

He gazed around and found a very generic-looking office, a brown wooden desk, stuff on the desk, cabinets and drawers, papers, and other stuff.

He went behind the desk and looked into some drawers and perused some random papers he found laying around.

'Nothing much here at all, unfortunately.'

He had been looking around for a little bit now.

'I'll head back after just a little more.'

He looked around even more; before he could read into detail of more random papers, he heard voices.

'Damn. What can I do?'

He placed down the papers, and his eyes glowed green.

The door opened.

"Boss wants us to get some cologne he just got; heard it was expensi- Who the hel are you?"

The two men spotted some random kid who looked drunk out of his mind. He smelled like plenty of beer, had one in his hand, and had a stain of some liquid running down his leg.

"Hiccup—is this the—hiccup— bathroom?"

"Damn it, did we leave the door unlocked?"

The guy smacked the other one upside the head.

"You idiot."

"Are we hittin each other? I wann - hiccup - wanna join." He said as he fell on his face.

"God, let's get the cologne, then get this kid outta here. Looks like he even pissed himself."

"Damn, should we get him a change of clothes?"

"Nah, I don't care that much. Let's just toss him outta the bar, and don't tell the big guy about this, or we might die."

"I know that you idiot."

They walked Nave just outside of the door, then they just let his body drop.

He hit the ground hard.

"That was - burp - fun guys!"

The men walked back into the bar, and Nave got up clumsy-like with no stain on his pants and quickly retreated around a corner.

"Damn, I messed up."

Nave had gotten greedy.

'As soon as I realized I probably wasn't gonna gain anything from reading papers that were left around, I should have gone back to the bar.' He realized. 'It's not like people are gonna just leave vulnerable secrets laying around, especially not gang members; this isn't some fictional story.'

It was a good thing he decided to carry that drink around with him and that he hadn't touched it. He poured most of it on himself and cast an illusion of a wet stain on his pants.

He might have to change his general plan.

He made his way back home and wasn't in the mood to eat; he quickly showered and went to sleep.

He woke up and quickly went to work, completing his task for the morning, maintaining tools, making sure the storage areas were organized, and checking the bathrooms.

'I need these guys to take me seriously; if it isn't spotless, I will fire them.'

Fortunately, for the men, they were very clean.

He walked back to the main area and got on with his day, which went very smoothly. He stopped by the lunchroom to make sure Selena wasn't being bothered, and as far as he could see, his little stunt worked. He'd have to continue checking to be sure.

The end quickly arrived, and Nave was ready to approach Rahesh and begin asking him questions.

'Snooping around didn't really work; I probably need to take a slight risk if I actually want to get anywhere.'

Just as he got up and was heading to go downstairs to talk to the man, a knock on his door arrived.

"Come in."

A woman who was probably very beautiful in her prime walked in, dark hair, a sharp contoured face, and a blue dress.

"How are you doing, boy?"

Nave stood awkwardly for a second.

"Do I know you?"

"Not yet, but I'm assuming we're going to get to know each other pretty well over these next few weeks. Someone has to teach you how to run this place." She said while flipping her hair and taking a seat across from Nave.

"You don't seem to be doing too bad so far. At least you continued the deal with Rahesh."

"I'm still considering continuing the deal with him."

"Do it." She demanded.

"Why?" Nave asked. "I feel I could potentially improve the way money is disseminated."

"You need his help, in case anyone gets out of hand, even if you do find a way to improve it." She looked to the side with what Nave thought was an emotional look. "Plus, people get crazy when money is involved. Especially if they've never had a lot of it."

"Okay, fine, but you do think it could be improved?"

"Maybe, but the system is like this for a reason. The Harashers are just one of the underworld influences in this area. They are one of the most prominent, so their protection is vital. Even if you were to pay them weekly or biweekly, they'd be under the threat of another gang waiting right outside, ready to take their money."

"Isn't that what we pay the Harashers for? To protect the people from other gangs?" Nave Asked.

"Partially, we mostly pay them to stop any of our workers from acting out."

"Couldn't we just hire our own men to do that?"

"We could, but it's more beneficial to have the gangs do it for us. It not only helps to maintain the relationship, but it also replaces what would be the more expensive 'protection' fee that they demand from every business in the area."

'She has a lot of knowledge on the gangs.' Nave realized. 'Might have just found myself a new information bank.'

"Protection fee?"

"Yes, it's something that gangs ask of local businesses. If the business pays it, then when another gang comes in and does something unruly, that business is under the protection of the original gang."

"What about random weekly or biweekly payments? The gangs wouldn't be able to predict when the workers would be paid, and we wouldn't have to pay the Harashers as much since we won't need them as often."

"That won't work for two reasons. All it takes is for the other gangs to guess right every once in a while and the workers will suffer, and the gangs payment demands are based on a percentage of the transaction, not how often you acquire their services. Trust me, boy, we've thought and tried all of it, and this is what works best. If the other gangs have to commit so many men every day to trying to rob every worker of this mine for only 2 cor per worker, then they'd be wasting their time; they would never do that."

She continued, "Plus the workers enjoy it this way; they feel like they're being paid a lot since they get money in their hands every day."

"Fine, anything else I should know?"

"Yeah, there's some other stuff, but I'm tired from my trip, so I'll tell you tomorrow. Plus I gotta help my boys have to get all the pyr onto the truck so they can get outta here." After saying that, she stood up and left.

Instead of asking what she was talking about, Nave decided to go see for himself.

He exited the room behind the attractive woman. "I never got your name, ma'am."

"Don't call me ma'am; that makes me feel old." She said while cringing. "My name is Ciara."

He extended his hand, "Nave."

She accepted his handshake.

"Nice to meet you, Nave. Have you ever seen one of these beauties?"

She waved her hand toward a huge machine that was backing into the entrance of the cave. It looked like the machines that nave had found before in the storage area. It had four wheels and all that stuff but a huge rear, I mean huge.

During the conversation, not only had all the employees received their payments and went home, but Ciara's men must've also used the smaller machines to bring all of the gathered pyr toward the main entrance to get ready to load onto this machine.

"What is it?"

"It's called a truck."

"Woah, a truck. What powers such a huge machine?"

"It's all powered by pyr; those smaller ones are too."

"What are they called?"

"Forklifts."

"Wow, who made them?"

"Some really smart people in the science sector."

"I wanna visit there one day; it seems amazing."

"It is Nave."

Nave looked at the woman with a small sparkle in his eye.

"How long are you going to be here, Ciara?"

She sighed, "I have three weeks to whip you into shape, Nave."

~~~

In Charles' Mansion.

Charles sat around a table in a dark room with two other men.

One of them was Enforcer Donald; the other was a dark-skinned man wearing all black.

Charles said sternly.

"In three weeks this town and the surrounding ones will rise from the ashes born anew."

"Initiate Project Incinerate."