Duties to the People :: Lucian Clarke

There was and always had been a certain sense of awkwardness born from uncertainty and self-consciousness attached to the act of walking up to and interacting with strangers. The way Lucian saw it, it was just an inevitable facet of human interaction, much like how seeing others get mildly hurt would unfortunately always be funny, or how seeing mutilated body parts would never not cause people to cringe in pain. The trick, much like in any similar scenarios, wasn’t not to feel what you are expected to feel, but to be able to proceed without much mental backtracking in spite of these emotions; Lucy, being nosy not by choice, but by necessity, knew this better than anyone.

At some point within his time of stay within Junction, Lucian had decided that it would be a good idea to come down to the lower ward frequently. Not something a lot of particularly smart people thought to themselves, he realized that, but he needed some sort of lead into the bizarre wound on the back of his neck that refused to heal even now. He had always been a victim of slow scarring, but never this slow; he was convinced that this wound had been dealt by something specifically designed to make unscarrable wounds… yet a wound fitting that description couldn’t really be deemed as accidental, now could it? Everything he knew about the situation – despite how little said information was – pointed to him having been attacked at some point while he was unconscious. While he couldn’t fathom who he would’ve pissed off to get attacked, the facts did add up to a degree. Initially he thought it might’ve just been a looter in possession of an especially fancy weapon… but everything he had on him at the moment of entering Junction was still with him when he woke up (albeit in an uncomfortably dusty box), so that possibility seemed out of the picture. In the end, the only thing Lucian knew so far… was that he knew nothing. Great.

With little to no information except an obvious location at which to start, Lucian set out to interrogate the residents of the slums… or at least, those that didn’t look like they would outright shank him for looking at their general direction, such as… that one! Formal attire, a sheathed sword, solemn stance… a form of peacekeeper, if he had to wager. Slowly making his way up to her from behind, Lucian cleared his throat to grab her attention. “Excuse me. Sorry to bother you, but, would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

Well, at least this one didn’t intend on shrugging him off from the get-go, so it was a good start after all, even if he could sense an indistinct sort of… judgmentality coming from her general posture, expression and stance (or at least, as far as her voice gave away Lucian assumed she was a she). Adjusting his glasses and following up with the pocketing of his hands, Lucian instinctively cleared his throat to speak now that he had her attention.

“Would you happen to know anything about people with… special wounds in this area? I’m conducting an investigation into a very particular matter, but the people here seem to share a spirit of… uncooperativity, to say the least.” When some had straight-up tried to attack or rob him, saying that they were uncooperative was a very generous stretch, but this lady didn’t need to know about his horrible experience with the slums. “If you could direct me towards any individual at all with a wound that’s unable to scar… possibly around the neck area, you’d be doing me an incredible favor.”

A herbal toxin from her homeworld, huh? Now, Lucian didn’t want to cast suspicion unto someone he’d barely just met, but this woman had earned his interest with that bit of information. “I see… I realize this is none of my business, but would you happen to know how many jumps ago Junction landed on your homeworld?” It should be public information, really, considering it was a subject regarding Junction’s societal infrastructure and he was pretty sure the top ward kept info and records about this sort of thing, but he still wanted to be cautious around such a matter. It could be considered offensive; you never knew. Either way, offensive or not, he couldn’t afford not to learn as much about potential leads as possible.

“One more thing…” Lucian added, turning around to show the woman the wound on his neck, against his better judgement. It resembled the result of being struck by a sharp, hot rock. “Would wounds afflicted with said toxin happen to look anything like this?”

"I've had it ever since I first came to Junction. Nobody knows how I got it; it just kind of... appeared one day."

“Hmm…” Lucian stopped to consider his choices for a second. On one hand she seemed incredibly friendly and cooperative, plus he’d already gone so far as to show her his wound and she still hadn’t tried anything suspicious, but on the other hand… well, Lucian knew it just wasn’t a good idea to go around being so oblivious and showing everyone and everything his wound and personal info. It was incredibly reckless and self-destructive, and no doubt the more he asked around the more unwanted attention he garnered.

That being said… Lucian raised his hands towards his wound, feeling its sting as potent and fresh as the day he’d found it. Its circumstances were just too… unusual to ignore, and if left alone and untreated they could possibly lead to grave consequences. No amount of doctor’s appointments had garnered him any progress in closing it either.

Well, better to have the unwanted attention of the populace than the unwanted attention of the Grim Reaper.

“…Here.” Lucian handed Rianara a small card with his cell phone number on it. “You can call me anytime. Thank you again for your cooperation; you’ve gone much further than you should have to help me.” As he said this, Lucian gave Rianara an honest, pure-hearted smile.

“Well, goodbye then. Thank you again for your time.” Lucian waved as he turned around and took his leave. It was getting a bit late, so it was probably better to head home for the day.