Kris had just begun puffing on his newly-lit cigarette when the door opened again and a loud, gruff voice bellowed down into the small storage room.

"KRIS, GET YOUR ARSE UP HERE, YA LAZY PIECE O' SHIT!"

The dark-haired young man sighed heavily. He kicked the barrel beneath him with the back of his boot, adjusted his sword belt, and stood up. He extinguished his cigarette on the doorframe and let it drop into the receptacle by the door. Then he trudged his way up the stairs, listening to the edge of his sheath scrape along the wall as he moved. He reached the top of the stairs and stared disinterestedly at the burly, hairy, bald-headed man glaring at him. "Hi, Carson."

Carson fingered his thin mustache in annoyance. "You figurin' on workin' t'day or what, Kris? I ain't up for payin' people who aren't gonna work."

Kris rubbed the back of his neck and deftly avoided a pair of drunk fighters as they careened into the wall beside him. He looked around the noisy tavern and shrugged. "You got yourself a brawl here, Carson. I don't do brawls."

The burly man's mustache could have stuck straight out, if it were so inclined. "Kristopher, I hire you for one job and one job only: to deal with rowdy customers who - EEEEE!" The mid-sized man let out an unmanly shriek as three entangled patrons collided with him and the four of them went tumbling down the stairs.

The black-haired youth stepped to the side as a stream of others raced down the stairs after the tumblers. He adjusted his sword belt so that no one would catch it and made his way through the crowded bar. He brushed past a group of females who were huddled together and paused for half a second to cast a glance over them. Well-kept fingernails. Impeccable posture. Tensed frames. Alert eyes. They were navy. He proceeded towards the exit. They were, most likely, there to find the crew that recently took over a government ship. Not that it was any of his business.

Even though it was.

He stepped out through the doors and turned the corner, thinking he would stop by the fish market to see if anything edible had been caught that day, when he nearly walked into a petite woman, who seemed wholly interested in the coin she was holding. He side-stepped to avoid her and tripped over a set of low buckets. He clanked and clunked his way along the wall before falling over the low dividing fence and landing unattractively in the flower shop's water trough. "Geh-heh!" he hissed, rapidly bracing himself up on the edges of the trough, his clothing now dripping wet. "Damn."