[b][2] - “ Far from home, samurai? We’ll know who to look for if someone finds a headless body in town. Next! ” [/b]

[1] - “ Why would you travel to a backwater hole such as this, tron? Next!”

[1] - “ Don’t let your pet beast cause any trouble in town and we’ll get along just fine. Next!”

[hr]

Narrowing your eyes at his flippant comment, you wait for him to sign off the rest of your papers. You swipe the package off the counter as you make your way towards the exit. Well, you would have but your hips bang into the turnstile. You push but it doesn’t budge.  Sighing, you lean your shoulder into it until the rusty metal creaks and finally gives way, making you stumble as it allows you past. 

A hideous smell breaks your line of thought, the eye-watering smog of burnt plastic and rubber leaving you gagging and coughing. You wipe away the tears and spot the source. A large inferno on one of the guard posts on the eastern entrance.  You hear one guard rushing past you shout out something about “ Damned nevergrow!”. He whistles and a ten man group rushed behind him in formation, armed to the brim with grill gloves. The bright  glow flickers and wavers in your entranced eyes, melting the acrylic into a bubbling froth. The embers whip wildly back and forth like kites under an air conditioned wind. The dance of orange and red is not new to you. It is something you are familiar with, the burning. It was inescapable during the Black Friday. 

Memories rush forth like  people’s craft was smote to ruins, all your efforts to protect and fight for your clan gone in a single war. You unclasp the honour badge from the sling that held your scabbard, the symbol that you dedicated your life towards in your hand. You saw………

Choose what you see. 

[X] - A splintered shield lanced through by two color pencils in a criss cross. 

You were a retainer of Clan Faber-Castell, one of the five founding clans of the Stationary Shogunate. As such, they wield considerable military and political power, having incorporated the territories of many minor clans in order to maintain their dominance. They are especially famous for their use of their pencil yaris, sharpening their wooden implements to a deadly degree. 

[X] - An origami pinwheel flower. 

You are a retainer of the Sakura Family. Sakura do not possess the army of samurai that most clans have but they are one of the very few clans that supply the Stationary Shogunate with their invaluable knowledge of Origami, the art of paper smithing that is considered legendary by other Departments in the Wal. 

[X] - A paper crane folded out of sheet metal in a pool of black. 

You are a mercenary of the decadent Crane and Co Clan. Although not a founding clan of the Stationary Shogunate, they are the most richest and preside over trade with other neighbouring departments. They favor the use of metallic stationary over the traditional paper stationary that most other clans use, believing that the Department’s strict adherence to tradition will be their downfall. 

[X] - Smears of bright cherry pink awkwardly shaped into a smiley face. 

You are what remains of Clan Smiggle. The smallest of the minor clans, what they make up for in size is their unquenchable optimism and code of justice that makes them a parallel of the Cereai. They are one of the many clans that favoured intervention of the Stationary Shogunate in the affairs of other more impoverished Departments. Shame that their approach led to their extinction in the last Black Friday. Now, the clans future rests on your shoulders. 

Shaking your head, your eyes wander over something else in the distance. The namesake of the settlement looms over you, a humongous mass of detritus and artifacts from all corners of the Wal. The tales you heard from wanderers on your journey as well as your Sensei did not do it justice. The pile rested in a massive gyre rent in the superstructure of the Wal, cratered in the floor. Stockers floated errantly overhead like a cloud of flies over a dead body. You watch one to your right, floating just low enough to be visible. Your body freezes instinctively, even as you tell yourself that you and the rest of the settlement are far away from the Stockers senses, enough that it won’t trigger a security alert.  It stops near the periphery of the pile, chute unfolding from its square belly. It only takes a second for the gush of expired garbage to unload before the stocker becomes a speck in the distance. 

Enough fooling about. You have a package to deliver and the sooner you can get out of here, the better. The meeting place that your client provided was on the 2nd row of a Shelf downtown. You begin at a brisk pace, your sandals plodding in the trash littered ground. You settle at a pace that’s slow enough not to bring any attention onto enough but still fast enough to meet the demands of your schedule.

You take a right turn, past a street of roving Samplers, all grinning hungrily and wearing sandwich boards with slogans such as “ FREE TWINKIE KEBABS” and “ BUY NEW QUINT-A BATTERIES”. Unfortunately, you seem to have stumbled onto a large mass of people, huddled together as if they were weathering the cold. They were paying attention to a man on a stage, preaching brazenly to the crowd. He was dressed in the blue and yellow polo shirts and jeans that the Pre-Fall employees used to wear, his mannequin features contorted in a cold homely grin. Around his neck was a long sash woven from a dozen old ties but the most identifying feature of his character was the yellow smiley face on his face, the lines carved messily with a knife. 

“ Refund your debts! Refund your debts before Smiley, my friends, and he will greet you at the Gates of Sliding with everlasting discounts!” The crowd was possessed, hanging onto every one of his words, before repeating “ Refund our debts” along with him. You roll your eyes. Great. A priest of the Smiling One. You thought your clan had wiped out those maniacs already. It seemed those lunatics were hardy like the blessed Nokias of the Electronics Department. No matter how many times you killed them, they always managed to put themselves back together at the end. 

However, you’re not part of a clan anymore. You’re strictly here on business. Before you can walk away, one of their followers runs into you excitedly. He’s young, at the age where you’re smart enough to believe you’re independent and dumb enough to be impressionable. He’s adorned in the same uniform as the priest onstage. 

“ You there, friend! Smiley blesses you with low prices! Please accept this as a token of his favor!” 

He lifts out an old coupon punched through the top with a pipe cleaner, forming a makeshift necklace. It’s old and crunched up. You can read out the musty letters of ‘90 PERCENT OFF’ on the scratched surface. 

Choose your action. 

[X] - Accept the gift. 

[X] - Politely refuse his gift.

[X] - Write in