Tal Ravis slowly made his way down one of the main arteries of Al-Kharid; a narrow, winding paved path that their large, lightly-armored vehicles couldn’t squeeze through. Not that he’d particularly want to be riding in a thinly-shielded transport if things went south out here, since tall adobe-based structures flanked two sides of the path and would effectively box their convoy into a long kill zone. Instead, he and another mercenary had disembarked from their convoy, which had parked up in a sizable town square, in order to explore the settlement, eyes peeled for any trace of marauding Corsairs.

All of this came about as a result of Nodtviet’s exceutive order, which had the intent of gathering information about settlements on Planet Nauru. However, a translation error must have occured as the order disseminated down to the grunts from Hawken, as they were now looking through random sand huts in the middle of nowhere with intent to find Corsairs.

Al-Kharid, meanwhile, seemed to be completely devoid of life, at least in this sector. Certainly not something one wanted to notice, especially while they were incredibly exposed to enemy gunfire with nowhere to run or hide, and as such Tal breathed a sigh of relief when he saw a somewhat aged-looking, darkskinned man in white robes behind what seemed to be a stall filled with cheap consumer goods from the Freeport in Delta. Initially, Tal gave him a quick wave, taking his right hand off the pistol grip of his weapon momentarily to do so, but he was suckered in when the man gave a verbal response.

“Good day, and welcome to Al-Kharid!” he had exclaimed, spreading his arms out wide and above his head. Not wanting to be rude, Tal paused his little trek through the sand and decided to stay and chat for a while. Hell, maybe he’d even find out where the Corsairs ended up.

“Hello to you too,” he replied, resting both hands on the collapsable buttstock of his carbine as it dangled from a three-point harness.

“My name is Ali Morrisane,” he proudly pronounced, although no one had asked for his name, “and I am the greatest merchant in the Sirius Sector.”

Tal turned around slightly to cock an eyebrow at his squadmate, who simply shrugged back at him. Perhaps this was going somewhere after all.

“If you are the greatest merchant in the Sirius Sector,” Tal inquired, shifting the weight of all of his equipment onto his right leg and leaning over ever so slightly, “then why are you still selling goods from a stall?”

“Well,” began Ali, “One can only do and sell so much. If I had more staff, I would be able to sell more. Rather than waste my time on menial things, I could get on with selling sand to the Bebadin and useless tourist trinkets to everyone else.”

Tal adjusted his sunglasses slightly, quickly scanning the terrace above him out of paranoia. “I’d love to help you, but I’m too busy searching for Corsairs,” he proceeded to say, wanting to stop wasting time on this shop owner so he could get on home faster.

“Yes, I know, I know. The life of a shopkeeper isn’t always slaying dragons and wooing damsels, but it has it’s charms. Although, you may be able to help me in another way.”

“And what would that be?”

“A nephew of mine lives not too far from here in a little town called Pollnivneach. If you could fetch him here, I’ll give you some information about these Corsairs!”

Tal turned once more to his partner, who once more gave him a slight shrug. Being extorted for help wasn’t really something he was interested in, especially when he could just make the shopkeeper stare down the muzzle of his 5.56x45 millimeter carbine and force the information out of him right then and there. But hey, who cared? He was feeling nice this afternoon anyways.

“Fine, I’ll help you. But you had better tell me about those damn Corsairs once I succeed.”

“Ah, many thanks, my friend! My nephew’s name is Ali and he lives to the south in a town called ‘Pollnivneach’. Tell him uncle Ali M needs his help up in Al-Kharid.”

They exchanged nods.

“Now, have a look at my wares!” Ali continued to insist.

“No, I’m really too busy,” Tal replied, turning away to return back to the town square.

“A man by the name of ‘Ali Morrisone’ approached us today. Said he was willing to exchange information about the Corsairs here on Nauru if we went down to a small town called ‘Pollnivneach’ to fetch his son, Ali.”

Tal stood amongst a group of mercenaries and Hawken, each one of them huddled around a small crate that had a map and some water bottles on it, and partook in the day’s debriefing. No one else had any leads or confrontations of interest to speak about, and as such the interests of his colleagues had been thouroughly piqued.

“Sounds reasonable,” said Hawken, a stern look on her dumb face as usual, “We set out tomorrow for ‘Pollnivneach’, then. Mount up, and we’ll return to base.”

Tal turned around and walked towards his vehicle, while Hawken swiped up the map and left the rest of the cleanup job up to two unlucky men. As he tried to climb into the driver’s seat, he got snagged on something, and was sufficiently stuck in place. One hard tug didn’t seem to pull whatever was trapped loose, and a second didn’t seem to help either. He then proceeded to look down and around to find a pair of shears that had been clipped onto the rear of his kevlar vest, which had somehow gotten caught on his seatbelt, and promptly removed them, stuffing them into his empty pocket for storage. Wait, empty?

He had a 100-credit chip in there. Where could it have go--

That goddamn merchant, he thought, resting back in his seat in anger.

A convoy of vehicles some 5 armored trucks long rumbled their way through the relatively small and quiet village, coming to a grinding halt right outside of a large complex that he could only assume was a bar from the sign that read “Ali’s Bar” in big red spray-painted letters. With a general idea of how small towns operated, Tal figured that if there was anywhere in the entire village to get the latest and greatest in gossip, it had to be right here. He proceeded to dismount his vehicle, making sure to grab his carbine on the way out, and turned to walk towards the bar, bringing with him a similarly-armed mercenary as an escort while the rest of the convoy remained on defensive standby.

As he stepped foot within the red tile-marked boundaries of Ali’s establishment, the bartender’s attention snapped over from a random patron to him and his battle buddy.

“Hey!” Ali the bartender yelled, “No weapons allowed! Can’t you read the sign?”

The man pointed to the enterance, and Tal took a step back to see an extremely old sign with a faded gun and large red X painted onto it. Tal simply unhooked his rifle from his three-point sling and handed it over to his squadmate, promptly directing the mercenary back to the convoy with a whispered, confident “I’ll handle it myself”.

With that hurdle jumped, he proceeded to swagger his way into the bar. There wasn’t much here from what he could see, aside from a few cheap wooden tables and chairs with some ceiling fans spinning slowly above. Two patrons constituted the crowd that Friday morning, one of which who was busy striking up a conversation with the bartender, and another who must’ve been eyeing him the entire time. When he returned the gaze, the man spread his arms wide and gave him an enthusiastic greeting.

“Ah! A kind stranger! Get this old man a drink, so that he may wet his throat and tell you of strange happenings in this town.”

Tal cocked an eyebrow in response, looking over at the bartend to see if he had any prices for drinks. Sure enough, featured prominently on the counter was a slab of cardboard with “BEER: 3 CREDITS” scribbled on it, and at such a small price, it was probably worth a shot. Who knew, maybe the old man had what he was looking for.

“Hey, bartend!” yelled Tal, who waved three small 1-credit pieces in the air before slamming them down on the table, “Get a beer for this man!”

In a flash, Ali the bartender dashed out from behind his counter, grabbing the credit pieces and replacing them with a cold beer that was quickly inhaled by the drunken old man.

“I happen to know that you are looking for somebody,” he said, a smug grin spreading on his face as he leaned back in his chair.

“How do you know that?”

“Well, you're not here sightseeing, that's for certain. Anyways, it's not really important how I know what I know. What is important is that I know all about the person you're looking for.”

That was convenient, perhaps a little too convienent.

“You do? How do you know that I'm looking for Ali Morrisane's nephew, Ali?”

“I'd tell you more, but my throat is drying up and my lips are dry. This desert climate is an inhospitable one. Get me another beer so that I can continue.”

Tal sighed, drawing three more pieces from his pocket and signalling for the bartender.

“Oy!” he shouted, slamming the little chips down once more, “Another one!”

The bartender waddled over at flank speed and replaced his money with a beer that was gone just as quickly as it had come.

“You are too kind,” he said, wiping some foam off of his mouth, “Now what were we talking about?”

“Ali Morrisane's nephew,” droned Tal, who was getting more fed up with this drunk’s antics by the minute.

“I've known him since he was a wee lad. A right little mischievous beggar......” the man trailed off, evidently a result of his drinking habits.

“That's all cool and *****, but do you know where the little turd ran off to?“

“Well now, if you had just asked me about that in the first place, I would have told you directly.”

“Don’t give me your sass, old man. Where is he?”

The man brought a leg up to cross them, taking a deep breath before speaking. “I'd tell you more, but my throat is drying up and my lips are dry. This desert climate is an inhospitable one. Get me another beer so that I can continue.”

Tal’s face flattened into an unamused expression, and he drew another three credit chips out.

“Another one!” he shouted, but the bartender simply shook his head.

“Sorry, I’m not making any more express deliveries to ol’ Drunken Ali today. Bad for the knees, you know?”

Another sigh made it's way out of Tal's mouth, and he walked towards the counter while his new accomplice went back to picking at a platter of...something.

“One beer please,” he had requested, gently setting the credits on the table.

“One beer, comin’ up!” was Ali’s response, and in seconds there was a mug of beer on the table, ready to go.

Tal grabbed the ice-cold mug, wincing slightly as cold condensation sank into his gloves, and made his way back to “Drunken Ali”, setting the beer down on the table and watching as the man’s eyes lit up. He stood back a bit and watched what he assumed was classified as love-making in some parts of Sirius,as Ali downed the entire mug extremely awkwardly and noisily in the span of several furious seconds.

“Ahhhhh…” Drunken Ali sighed, returning to a relaxed position, “It's yourself again, isn't it?”

“Obviously. Who else could it be?”

“That's kinda getting a little deep for me, since existential reasoning or justification was never my strong suit. So what can I do for you?”

Tal sighed a third time.

“Look, all I want to know is where Ali Morrisane's nephew is."

“Hmm...now is that his nephew from his side, or his wife's? They have a huge family, you see. I remember--”

“You aren’t going to fool me into buying you another beer, old man.”

“But my lips are dry, how can I possibly continue?” he pleaded, giving Tal his best puppydog impression.

“If you can’t possibly continue,” he gruffly droned, clenching a gloved fist and showing Drunken Ali the knuckle covers of his assault gloves that were specially designed to make punches that much more painful, “I’ll wring you out like a wet cloth and get my nine credits’ worth of beer back.”

“I-I uh, I see,” Drunken Ali stammered, “Don't worry about me, I-I'll just have to ah, soldier on. Now, what do you want to know?”

“Where is Ali Morrisane's nephew?” Tal reached over and grabbed Drunken Ali by the collar, pulling him up and out of his seat with a fist poised to knock all of the old man’s teeth out.

“I-I don't know exactly, he disappeared last week, e-either those Bandits or Menaphites have something to do with it. Perhaps their feuding has something to do with it, perhaps if you were to solve that problem, m-maybe you’d find out!”

Tal let go of Ali, taking a step back and lowering his fist. He heard a sigh of relief, and then a final request from Drunken Ali.

“A-Anyway, is there any chance of another beer?” he asked, giving Tal a nice toothy grin.

“What do you think?” barked Tal in response. A quick raising of his fist towards Drunken Ali was all that was needed to get him to shut up, and Tal quickly took his leave.

”Old man robbed me of nine credits, but he said the Bandits or Menaphites did something to the kid.” Tal proceeded to converse with his escort outside of the vehicle, briefing the mercenary on everything that he’d learned in the last fifteen minutes.

“Maybe we oughta start with the Menaphites,” the soldier suggested.

“And why’s that?”

“I dunno, just a hunch,” replied the merc, who pointed past Tal’s head and to something behind him. He turned around to see a large purple and yellow tent, with a large sign on top with the words “MENAPHITE HQ” on it in big white letters.

That was easy.

Tal soon found himself approaching a rather menacing-looking male, whose intimidation factor was intensely stifled by the big purple hat that he wore, after having been tricked by his fellow mercenary into going at this alone. “I’ll cover you”, he had said, although Tal sincerely doubted that he would and subsequently decided to bring his carbine along for a quick walk. Should things go south, he had a reliable contingency plan to fall back on, but for now, he donned a bright smile as he prepared for some pleasant social interactions.

“As-salamu, alaykum!” he shouted, in an attempt to gain the man’s attention. It seemed to work, judging by the fact that the thug turned around to face him as he continued to close the gap between them.

“What do you want?” the thug barked once he had gotten in range. Tal reeled back a bit at the harsh tone in the thug’s voice, before finally composing himself and managing to pick his normal personality out of the crumbling remains of a faux friendly demeanor.

“I heard that there was a feud between the Menaphites and the local bandits,” he proceeded to drone, adjusting his sling so that his carbine was closer to his right side. No use in flashing a weapon if you wanted to make friends, anyhow.

“Not much to figure out there,” the thug replied, “The problem is those thieving bandits!” Tal flinched a bit as the man very audibly smacked his palm with the wooden blackjack, holding out in front of him with both hands in a shaking death grip.

“What do you mean?”

“They are always stealing, starting fights and causing disruption to the life of the people in this town!”

Tal cocked an eyebrow at the man, shifting his weight around onto his right leg. Considering that he was walking around with a big wooden club for knocking people out, added to the fact that the word Menaphite itself seemed to carry a very distinct connotation to it around these parts, at least from what he gathered of Drunken Ali’s slurred speech, he felt inclined to tell the man about his hipocrisy, but ultimately decided against it. His head was worth a little bit more than a good rebuttal.

The thug seemed to slowly realize what he had said, and did a quick double take to avoid seeming like a hypocrite.

“A-Admittedly, we are far better than them at that sort of thing, but they did start ‘the cycle’.” He scratched the back of his head lightly and chuckled a bit at Tal, whose right eyebrow remained very much in a cocked position at him.

“How exactly did 'they' start it?” he questioned even further. If he was going to settle this feud once and for all, he’d need all the information he could get his hands on.

“I cannot remember, as it's been going on for so long.”

That complicated things. How the hell was he supposed to solve a decades-long feud if nobody knew just how exactly the damn thing started?

“Actually, I think our leader once mentioned that they robbed one of our camels,” the thug suddenly piped up, an apparent master of double takes, “A heinous crime around here, worthy of a stoning.” The almost loving emphasis on the word “stoning” made him question a few things, but for brevity’s sake he decided against speaking out once more. Sooner he got away from his joker, the better.

“So, if they offered a camel as a gesture of goodwill, would the Menaphites cease hostilities?” It seemed like a reasonable solution. Steal a camel, get a camel back as an apology. What could possibly go wrong?

“Those bandits would never agree to that. They're such bad thieves that they couldn't afford to buy even the mangiest excuse of a camel, never mind the desert-traversing four-legged beauty that we would demand.”

“...But if they did?”

“Well, I suppose so.” The thug gave him a slight shrug, and turned away to continue loitering around the HQ with his pack of similarly-dressed fellows. Not like Tal cared, anyhow, since he got what he assumed was all he needed from the Menaphites. Next stop: the bandit camp, presumably on the other side of the city.

Tal begrudgingly slumped up the large hill that divided Pollnivneach into two halves after he was denied permission to utilize his vehicle instead, and was still indeed quite alone. What good was bringing a convoy of five armored vehicles with accompanying rifle platoon if all they were going to do was sit around holding their dicks with their engines off, anyways?

Ah well, too late now, he thought, upon cresting the hill and getting a rather nice view of scattered white houses and not much else. From what he could see from up here, the bandit camp couldn’t have been too far off, especially from the looks of the populace. Everywhere he looked, there were stereotypical embodiments of marauding bandits, with accompanying headdresses, white silk robes, long bushy beards, and large scimitar-like swords that reflected rays from the sun at him and nearly made him blind. His eyes scanned around for the closest “bandit”, eventually locking on to one particular man that leaned against the side wall of a house, and from the looks of it he was desperately trying to hide from the sunlight in some shade.

Jackpot. He locked in the approach vector and made his descent down the hill, approaching the sweaty bandit stealthily as he remained distracted by something in the sand.

“Hello,” greeted Tal, this time with a lot less gusto. If these bandits were anything like the Menaphites–complete assholes–then there wasn’t much point in putting effort into a friendly greeting.

“What do you want?” the bandit returned, looking up at him.

“I’m trying to figure out the feud that exists between you and the Menaphites.”

“What's it to you?” Gee, this was going to be a fun conversation.

“Nothing much,” he explained, quickly searching in his mind for something. Ah!, he thought, coming to the conclusion that it might be productive to butter this guy up like a nice slice of bread. Bread. Damn, he was hungry.

“I'm just trying to understand why thieves of your repute would stoop to the level of the Menaphites,” said Tal, who nearly had to cover his mouth to keep a nice fresh block of bull excrement from falling out.

The bandit returned a sigh. “Well, if my memory serves me correctly, I think my granddad mentioned that they robbed one of our camels. A heinous crime.”

Hmm. Where’d he hear that one before?

“...So if they offered a camel as a gesture of goodwill would you and the rest of the bandits cease your hostilities?”

“Those Menaphites would never do that. They have no sense of honour.”

“...But if they did?” If it worked the first time with the Menaphites, it should work out just fine here, right?

“Well, I suppose so.”

Unbelievable.

“Now leave me alone, will you? I’m trying to cool off here!” A quick flash of a large, threateningly sharp sword caused Tal to raise both of his hands and back off.

Maybe if I got both gangs a camel, I could use the mutual goodwill to find out what happened to Ali's nephew, thought Tal as he made his way up the hill, back towards the staging area, But where would I find two camels?

As he passed by a flamboyantly-decorated tent, he couldn’t help but notice a sign that read “Ali’s Camel Store”. In the fenced-off area to the structure’s west, he could spot at least two camels.

All too easy.