Sunberth throve on its anarchy. It was organic, in its way: the sheer gravity of the strong preying on the weak, the mood of The Mob holding the greater powers in check, the complete lack of regulation by anything less than brute force and wary alliances of opportunity... it all just worked. Many an economist had gone mad wondering how that was, but there it was, there it survived.
Al's Tankard was a good example.
Anywhere else in Syliras and it would have been reported, raided, shut down and (if the authorities were smart) burned down as an indelible stain best removed and forgotten. It's beer was either piss-weak or could blind you. The whores were past their prime or nothing more than bait for thieves. And the basement, well...
Al boasted that more cripples were made on his premises than in a leper colony. Yes, he was that kind of bastard.
Men and often women beat each other senseless or to death in the rough ring lined by spikes under the drinking floor. Fucking on top, boozing in the middle, battle in the bottom. That was what Al had set up. He put the word around that he'd host the fights; he had a couple of his kids work as bookies; he had local muscle work the door and everything... flowed.
No regulation, save for the weekly cut to whatever gang was lording over the neighborhood that season. Or week, as it was fast becoming after the Daggerhands fell apart. But that was just the price of doing business, and in return, Al got some extra clout just in case anyone wanted to welch on a debt or tear up his place.
Ruthless. Amoral. Unstructured. Profitable. Everything Sunberth was, encapsulated in one roaring, stinking shithole.
Nathaniel wasn't thinking along those lines when he walked in the door, though. His mind was focused on just one thing: doing what he had to do. The pace of the tavern barely slowed when he stepped in. A few halfway-familiar faces turned to him and offered a nod, or just a surprised eyebrow-raise. Six years, nearly. Six years since he left the ganger life behind.
And judging by the crude ink carved onto all the flesh around the place, Al's was still a good place to find wannabe street daemons.
Well, no shyke, with what goes on downstairs...
"Well, fuck me running..."
"I'd rather not, Al, but thanks for the offer."
Male pleasantries. Delicate flowers of conversation, aren't they?
Al scratched under his stubbly beard and shook Nate's hand after squashing some wriggling thing his fingers found. Hard brown eyes searched that stoic face for some reason for this appearance, unexpected and portentous after... well, years.
"What brings you back into my little paradise?"
"Paradise?" Nate said as a tankard was placed before him by a serving wench with eyes far too old for her face. "That what this is?"
Al hurumphed and gestured around with arms long run to wobbling fat, taking in all above and below in the gesture.
"You kiddin'? Gash, booze, dice and brawling, all under the same roof. There's peoples who'd think this was the fuckin' afterlife, boy."
"Name two."
"... you always were a smart cunt."
Nothing but a smirk greeted that challenge, and some nearby eavesdroppers were surprised... and disappointed. Nothing better than seeing a fight break out, and Nate used to be such a dead cert for seeing that. But he swallowed Al's bait without taking the hook, along with a mouthful of fucking awful booze... and shrugged.
"Feel like teaching me a lesson? Let me in the pit tonight."
Al blinked a few time. "You're serious?"
"When it comes to getting seven shades of shyke beaten out of me? Always."
Al settled back into his seat by the fire, eyebrows atop his brow, mouth a little open, like he'd been told the world was going to end tomorrow. "Well, dip me in sugar and throw me to the faggots... wonders never cease. What about you going all straight and narrow, hmm?"
"Needs must."
Al could tell the kid wasn't going to give him anymore than that... and he'd learned hard over the decades that the less questions a man asked in this own, the longer he lived. He sipped his own brew - actual ale, not the monkey piss he sold the punters - and savored it, thinking, plotting, planning...
"I might have an opening for you tonight."
"Gimme a shot to put some money on myself, same as in the past?"
"A'course, lad." The old man's face split into a leer, exposing holes and gaps and yellow and black and things that seemed to shrink from the light and hide in rotted gums. "I think this... is going to be very good for both of us..."
Oh. Well. That's reassuring.
