Scratching the Surface

[kixinorbit]

So it had finally come to this... All his years of labour and general compliance, outweighed by stating the truth?

Well, it wasn't surprising. Not really.

Cairn Brackenridge heaved a sigh as he reclined against the smooth stone wall of the Council Building. It was not, he'd been reminded, to be confused with the Grand Council Building that was located in Ironstead's high district. No, that wasn't a place for people like him. He might track lower-class dirt onto their carpets. He was not, however, terribly concerned with the condescension. It had, of course, been delivered behind a mask of politeness and a very false sense of grandeur, and it was a thinly-veiled attempt to make this entire situation seem voluntary.

Mr. Brackenridge,

It has been brought to our attention that you would make a most excellent candidate for Ironstead's new and exclusive Exploration Programme. We are searching throughout the city as part of an ongoing effort to expand our newest Programme, seeking well-qualified candidates who will be undaunted in the face of the unknown. Given your history working as a Collector of the Dead, your unique lineage, and several well-trusted referrals, we believe you would be invaluable in this undertaking.

As it is of the utmost importance that we discover what the surface world holds as soon as possible, we kindly request that you report to the Council Building* on Friday, the fifth of September at six o'clock in the morning. You will meet with the Exploration Officer who briefed you on this Programme upon delivery of this message, as well as your partner in this grand and exciting adventure. You will receive supplies and instructions before being escorted to the exit point. We advise you to wear comfortable clothing and sensible footwear.

Any questions concerning reimbursement and reward will be answered prior to your departure. If you fail to arrive for your departure, Exploration Officers will be dispatched to collect you. Nothing is more important than discovery!

Best of luck on your exciting new career as an explorer-- adventure awaits!

- High Chancellor Valor

*Please note that you should report to the Council Building in the Common District, not the High District.

The letter that started this disaster had been given to him three days prior, delivered by a surly city guard. Currently, the letter was rolled into a loose scroll and tucked into an inner pocket of Cairn's dark cloak. He wasn't sure if he needed to bring it with him or not, but he was bordering on reading it again simply for something to do. He'd made the mistake of arriving slightly before six. It was now slightly after six, and no one had yet appeared to do as the letter had indicated.

He had briefly considered not showing up-- giving the guards a merry, week-long chase around all of Ironstead, but in the end, it seemed like too much of a hassle.

Stifling a yawn, the lanky man stretched a hand up to cover his mouth before rubbing at his eyes in attempts to better wake himself. Not that it would help. He had a perpetual look of fatigue, emphasized by the dark rings below his eyes, which never really seemed to fade. It likely had something to do with a poor diet and lack of sleep, but that was a staple of the common district.

Overcrowded, overworked, and underfed.

Exactly why he was here now-- he couldn't be content to just keep his damn mouth shut.

But perhaps the surface wouldn't be so bad... Maybe death would be quick. Maybe he'd even get to see the sky first.

An approaching figure drew his attention, rousing the man from his thoughts. Straightening, he adjusted the worn canvas pack on his shoulder as the "Exploration Officer" slowed to a stop in front of the building. He gave Cain a somewhat quizzical look, as though he'd not expected to find him here so early—or at all. The guard also looked somewhat disappointed. He, no doubt, had been looking forward to "collecting" him.

"Mornin'." Cairn drawled the word in a low, accented voice as he moved away from the wall.

The guard simply nodded and unlocked the door, motioning him inside.

Silently, Cairn ducked through the doorway and looked around. The entry foyer opened into a large and excessively decorative space. Lanterns were already lit, and Cairn was somewhat surprised to see that there were already several people present, many going about various tasks that involved staring at the surface of desks. Why no one had answered when he knocked, he wasn't sure.

Not that it really mattered.

Scanning the room more closely, Cairn tried to identify the poor sod who'd be accompanying him up to certain death, wondering what they'd done to earn the same fate.

 

[satanic pandemonium]

When the mine collapsed, Salvo had been certain that it was his fault and that his life would be over. Not because he'd been in the mine at the time, unlike the sixty-two men and women who had been trapped and killed when it fell with puffs of smoke and explosions that shouldn't have been there. No, Salvo had been asleep at home and he'd heard-- or rather seen- news of the mine the following morning in a newspaper. Salvo was not the kind of person to waste money on news, especially once he'd realized that he was out of a job with the mine collapsed. But he'd bought that paper and read it over repeatedly. The more he read the guiltier he felt and he couldn't stop himself from reading. Even now, two weeks after the incident, Salvo kept the paper on his person. It was stowed away in the front pocket of his mud spotted rucksack which was otherwise stuffed with clothes and explosive materials as it lay fallen over against his leg.

It was unclear what exactly had caused the mine to collapse, and the insurance investigators and owner of the mine had yet to comment publicly about it but anything Salvo read had made it clear most thought the collapse had to do due with a mishandling of explosives. No one really cared outside of investors and people who used to work shifts at the place. It had been front page news the morning after, but following articles were buried deeper and limited to short paragraphs that didn't have anything new to say. Salvo might have gone to speak with families of the departed, but he was afraid of what they would say, if they would blame him and his work with the explosives. He wasn't in charge of demolitions by any means, but the cherufe in his mixed blood made it easy for him to enchant explosives. His magic could stretch out materials, made the mine's use of dynamite more cost effective, more volatile. The folks in charge hadn't cared that he was too young to be very experienced in his magic, and Salvo had been too hypnotized by the minor increase in pay to dare protest. And now the mine had collapsed and dozens of people were dead and it was his fault.

The guilt manifested itself as an acidic feeling in his stomach and it put a terrible sulfuric taste in his mouth. Salvo tucked a hand inside the front of his coveralls between two buttons and rubbed between his ribs with his palm while he continued to fill out a form he'd been given. Now wasn't the time to be thinking about it. Salvo was worried it would make him seem the suspicious kind of nervous and not the excited kind. With how openly he wore expressions on his face it was fortunate that the investigators from the insurance company hadn't dropped by to visit him yet. Salvo was pretty sure that was because the woman in charge of demolitions had died with the mine. But he was just as sure that sooner or later the investigators would stumble upon his name in some ledger and Salvo wanted to be gone before then.

With a small sigh, he signed his name heavy handedly onto the bottom of the form and pressed the pen flat onto the surface of the table. In the same paper that had reported the tragedy at the mine, Salvo had seen an advertisement put out for the Exploration Programme to the surface. After a few days of sitting on it, he'd decided to go to the Council Building to find out more and what he'd heard sounded too good to be true. A supplied trip to the surface? Salvo couldn't ask to get further away from the mine than that. And to be rewarded upon success, well that would be like getting away with murder.

Salvo smoothed a hand over his face, pulling the other away from his stomach to grab the paper. He'd be better off not thinking about it that way. Picking his pack up off the floor and slinging it over his shoulder, Salvo moved to deposit his paper with a clerk. After his first visit to the Council Building, where he had also filled out a few forms, he had been told to come back the following week, on the fifth of September where he would meet an assigned partner and join the next group to be brought up to the surface. Which he had done and why he had been made to fill out a fairly lengthy form with a lot of fine print as someone who had volunteered themselves for the surface, of which it didn't look like there were many judging by the two others in this small clerical one that reminded Salvo vaguely of a miserable bank. He watched as the clerk behind the high desk browsed over the form before scribbling and stamping something at the top of the page.

"Go ahead through the door to your left, you'll meet with your partner there. Thank you for volunteering Mr. Hierro. The Council wishes you a safe journey to the surface," the clerk spoke in a bored and overly rehearsed way, her glasses low on her nose as looked across her desk at Salvo and waited for him to get a move on. He thanked her with a nervous smile before going the way she'd said and finding himself in a much larger room. Salvo had been expecting something more to be happening, but it looked like it was just a lot more people waiting around. Well, Salvo could wait around too. So he carefully set his pack down and took to doing just that.

 

[kixinorbit]

When the officer failed to follow Cairn into the building, the man simply shrugged and slunk further into the room. Upon closer inspection, he saw that not everyone sitting appeared to be performing clerical work. Indeed, some were seated along a wall and looking as though they weren't quite sure what was supposed to be happening. At least he wasn't the only one… Though he couldn't help noticing that few of the other soon-to-be "explorers" had a resigned or even worried look about them. If anything, most of them appeared to be somewhat excited, though perhaps a bit reserved.

It hadn't previously occurred to him that some people might actually volunteer themselves for the "Exploration Programme." Looking at one particularly eager face, however, brought the thought into his mind and he felt a small pang of pity for them. Was the promise of a reward really so tempting that they'd volunteer for what was likely to be nothing short of suicide?

Can you really blame them?

Most people in the common district were impoverished to the point of desperation-- with the growing crowds and dwindling resources, more and more of the people were forced to go without. Crime was on the rise, and as it follows, so was violence. In light of the worsening conditions, Cairn couldn't shake the feeling that this push for exploration wasn't simply to expand their habitable space and resources. If this programme was used as a means of dealing with someone they viewed as problematic, there was more to it. Besides, if they had the money to offer rewards for venturing to the surface, they had the resources to provide more food to families and pay workers decent wages for further expansion of the city. There was a faint fluttering of curiosity in his mind as to whether the families of those lost in the recent mine collapse saw any recompense, though now was hardly the time to dwell on that.

A door had swung open to his left, and Cairn turned to face the two men who'd entered. In front was a stout little man in a dark waistcoat that fit him a bit too tightly. A mop of greying hair was swept to one side and he peered out from under it as he surveyed them through his large spectacles. He carried with him a leather folio and what looked to be an overly-ornate fountain pen. The man behind him was considerably larger, with broad shoulders and a mean sort of look. He was dressed in the same attire as the other officer Cairn had met, leading him to assume this man would be their escort. The officer glared around the room, his square jaw clenched in apparent displeasure, though his companion didn't seem aware of this.

"Good morning!" His tone was overly cheerful, and he gave them a wide and somewhat forced looking smile. "It's wonderful to see so many eager faces ready to take this daring plunge into adventure! I am Chancellor Masse, and I will be providing instruction on your assignments. With me is Officer Garrott, who will be escorting you up to the surface once we finish our instructions and collect supplies." Performing a quick count of those in attendance, the man nodded his approval. "It looks like everyone is present. Very good. Ah, would you like to sit, my good fellow?"

It took Cairn a moment before he realized that he was the only one still standing, though he merely shrugged and resume slouching. Oddly, this seemed to draw the officer's ire and he stared over at Cairn, his expression darkening. The intimidating effect was lost, however, as the officer was quite a bit shorter than Cairn was and had to look up at him in order to stare him down-- something that seemed to further aggravate the man. A hint of a smile tugged at Cairn's lips, and he turned his attention back to the Chancellor, who was flipping through papers he'd extracted from his folio.

What followed was a long-winded explanation of how exciting their exploration was going to be, and Cairn found himself surveying the others, trying to piece together stories for each of them. Some looked eager, some appeared tired, and two of them, who appeared to be siblings, listened to Masse with rapt attention. Only one other, a dark-haired man dressed in coveralls, seemed to be somewhat nervous. Perhaps he too had been sent on this expedition against his will.

Shuffling papers drew Cairn's attention back to Masse, who was withdrawing more papers the folio. "This is truly a unique experience," he was saying as he flipped through the pages, "and, yes, it appears that you all have already signed your release forms. Very good. That will save us some time." And he launched into instruction about their departure and tasks. They would be assigned a partner and each group would venture in a constant direction, record their findings and the conditions, and report back in one month's time to collect their reward. Greater findings gained a greater reward, which was split between them-- should they both return. Mention of this had caused Cairn to arch a brow in question, though he said nothing.

Groups were then assigned, and Cairn watched as the people were partnered up, hoping against his usual luck that he wouldn't get paired with anyone overly-excited looking.

"Last, but certainly not least," said Masse, reading from his list, "The Northern Team, which will consist of Mr. Hierro and Mr. Brackenridge. Please collect your things and prepare for departure."

Cairn glanced over to see the man in coveralls, and he gave a slight nod of acknowledgement as they were ushered through an adjoining door to collect their supplies. At least the man looked sensible.