Drabble post: Pre-Return to Dracolabyrinth events with Xylon

[weeabuxhrdr]

The Drink Lounge, 22:32
Blacot

It was another night in the town of Blacot. People doing their things to survive another day, shady business or legit. Corporate elites and street thugs alike had traveled their way through the streets once the night life had begun. In a certain little spot in town; a simple, yet very relaxing jazz bar had two customers that had decided to catch up with old times, as old running partners from days gone by. First was how life was treating them, how the family was… and of course, the personal venting that one or the other had to share. In this case, it was by the blonde dragon kin who still couldn’t get his mind off of a certain prize.

“Tch… I still can’t get it out of my mind.” Down goes another drink by Xylon as he and an old friend stopped by at their usual spot to relax back in their old days together. Letting out a sigh, he slides the glass back over to the bar tender with a ’More whiskey’ muttered as he lets out a groan afterward and covering half of his face with a groan. “So much wasted… so so much wasted…”

The shifter next to him made an annoyed snort and took a sip of his bourbon as he flicked an ear to pay attention to whatever blues jazz that was playing more than his old partner. “You’re whining an awful lot more than usual. Now what? Did someone decide to ram a car through the front window of your store?” The shifter’s purple eyes gazed at the current musician taking the stage so far before passing a mental judgment; that is before being slugged at the shoulder by the dragon kin.

“Don’t even joke like that! Besides, that’s not it, but that problem is at least a manageable one compared to this… listen, remember--” Oh, a brief pause came to Xylon. He glanced around at the other customers that sat near them, and then the bar tender himself. That’s when he cleared his throat and then tapped against his forehead to signal his partner to log into their channel on their Commlink. Once the two had caught the same notion, a simple ‘flip of a switch’ was made and their voices was then replaced with a private audio feed.

“Alright, listen. Remember when I told you about the run over to the Dracolabyrinth? The place where we thought Silver might have escaped to?” Xylon let out an irritated sigh and took his sip of whiskey in hopes to drown that emotion away. “Well, remember about the dragon I’ve mentioned? I can’t stop thinking about it. That hoard… all of that treasure that could be easily be used to make a man’s life more beneficial in so many ways.”

“Aaah. Yeah, I remember that,” the cool voice replied and then scoffed. “I also remember you had to run away because that thing was a colossal monster to deal with. You almost had your face ripped off and flew a good distance. Also remembering that you also had a couple of your new team almost biting it.” The shifter made something of a snicker at the description of such terrible results. “All for what? A couple gems? You sure you wanna go back for more? Don’t forget, I doubt that last place you had going for you won’t be so nice to give you a boost on support to getting there again.”

“Yeah, I thought about that. I also thought about what my old man and mom told me about old legends. I contacted them, of course, telling mom that I was able to go to the ‘homeland’ and how things went. Pissed as hell, but I think they were more upset that Lav didn’t go and I did. Anyway, moving on--”

“Isn’t that your sister that is into that shamanism stuff? Why would they--”

“She has more of the blood than me, but that’s not the point. The point is, I remember hearing about the legends. A long time ago in Reydala, there had been dragons at one point. Their sizes were immense and their power was just as big. But there came a group of people who had dragon blood in them… a lot more than people like me, mom, and my sister, but back then, they were capable of using powers of dragons too. So I thought to myself ‘Well Gold, what do I have at my disposal that could equal a dragon’s power?”

“Oh yeah? And what, pray tell, would that be, asks Hunter.”

And that’s when Xylon tapped his head. “This. Smarts. Initiative. Experience. Everything I needed, I have right here in my brain. By experiencing what I’m up against, I’ll be able to find ways to get that dragon right back. I don’t have any control of that unreality junk, but science has given us strong enough tools to back that up. And by science, I mean if I wanted to make something deadly spitting out, I’d use tons of rocket launchers if need be and pepper it off with a minefield or something to bring down that cave on top of it. Something. Anything.”

“Uh-huh. Alright smart guy, how do you plan to even get that far without it going all kaltian b-rated movie on your happy ass?” And to be fair, this idea had started to become something of interest, if not just for a good humor and build up to laugh at Xylon’s face anyway. “Let’s hear it. Your grand plan, that is.”

“By making it a kaltian a-rated movie, of course! By that, using these fancy gizmos called… holograms. Aaaah shit, but the real problem is getting there to begin with…”

That’s when his drinking buddy made a snort and then placed his glass down. “Well, you might be in some luck. There is a job I’ve been offered that starts in a few more hours. The place will be completely empty save for a certain somebody that needs… persuasion by force to talk about certain matters. Job business, you know how that goes. I’ll spill more details later if you‘re interested in coming along, but if you get your info on where to go next to at least find a next step. This will be a big name company, so I‘m sure you‘ll get a name or a place.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Call it a favor being paid after having to train kids on how to live the streets like actual shadow runners.”

And then there was a brief pause of silence that was eventually broken by clinking ice hitting the glass cup and a chair being pushed out for the dragon kin to rise up from his seat. “Fair enough. So, where to?”