-Wednesday, January 12, 2058; 4:32 PM
-Peace Keeper Stronghold, Hellhound Tavern
-Nashville, Tennessee

Cigarette smoke swirled lazily around the room as the large industrial fan, being large enough to take up almost the entirety of the bar’s back wall, turned at an elevated speed. The bass line [i]whoosh, whoosh, whoosh[/i] was enough to nearly lull Boyd into an ill-gained slumber had it not been for the occasional [i]clank[/i] of a rattling ball bearing somewhere in the device. Drooping eyelids gazed at a reflection in the burnt amber liquid sitting in the shot glass before Boyd. He was a shooter in battle, but not in the bar. He drank his whiskey slowly in measured sips as the liquid was more valuable than it maybe should have been. Had he been looking for a buzz, he could have ordered a jar of ‘shine anyway.

Still breathing fire from his last sip, Boyd leaned back in his chair and gazed up at the dimly lit, swinging light bulb in the center of the room. There was no music. There was no television playing in the background. Just the occasional cough or grunt from a bar patron and the glassy clinking of their glasses here and there. If you were lucky, a buzzing fly might find its way nearby, maybe give you some entertainment for a minute or so. 

It was certain that Boyd could be in the upper level of the stronghold, drinking whiskey just as well with his father’s men. But he liked it better down here. There wasn’t constant talk about jobs and Hellhound’s lacked the constant smell of gun oils and the sound of blades being ground to a razor edge. Besides, he liked the owner here. His nephew had been a part of Boyd’s crew and had died valiantly (or at least Boyd told the story that way for a free glass of water now and then) in battle. The bar was plain and mostly comprised of metal and wood, but it was a far cry from the rubble Boyd had been crawling around in all day.

The majority of the light in the room came from wrought iron bowls filled with wax and lit with a crude wick. For a moment Boyd watched the dangerously bobbing and weaving flame as it danced. It was all about finding ways to entertain yourself, and to generally pass the time when you weren’t working. It was life. Even if his father maintained that his generation was far less spoiled. What he really meant, Boyd suspected, was that they simply had to drink their whiskey in the dark.