Introduction story for the new Urban Warriors Dungeons&Dragons variant
((NoDungeons&NoDragons; Urban Warriors has been made by me for th e enjoyment of others and will be set in a post-magic universe with high-tech weaponry and psychics...))
((So on with the story...))
“You were born a street-rat, you will die a street-rat and only your fleas will mourn you!”
On a small satellite-moon orbiting an inhabitable gaseous mesa, there was a city…
This city was generations old and had been originally founded as a prospecting settlement for Delnan miners.
The small town had found rich seams of both gold and a radioactive substance which they dubbed ‘Inolion’ after the town, soon the small population of seventeen hundred escalated to a mind-blowing sixteen million within just a decade and the town of Inolion had grown into a city that stretched nearly the entire face of the moon.
Now, nearly a hundred years onwards the once-glorious metropolis was now an enormous ghetto ruled by crime and drug-trafficking with little or no intervention due to the corrupt hierarchy of law-enforcement.
If you weren’t an addict then you were a part of a small minority that the dealers hated; they would kill people brave enough to refuse them and sell their families for the lost profit.
Even if you were an addict then you had to work harder and harder as the prices escalated uncontrollably, men worked the mines and women either stayed home to raise their large families or fell into prostitution.
The most disgusting aspect was that many young children, girls and boys had also filled these positions usually after being sold or their parents over-dosing on narcotics.
This story is about one little girl…
She was fortunate enough to be devoid of drugs in her family but had suffered such tragedies that would make most fall to their knees in agony...
She had been born on her kitchen table and her mother had died giving birth as doctors could only be afforded by the richest of people; her father was a miner until his girlfriend’s death forced him into the career of a mugger, trying to take from others what he had lost himself.
They were Dreld, with long ears, slate-grey skin and dark hair and eyes their kind had always been treated as scum.
At the age of four, young Ilkena’s father was murdered as he couldn’t repay a loan for his addiction for the hallucinogen ‘Green-Grass’, leaving her with his brother which toppled his fragile but steady budget that he kept to feed and house his own family so on Ilkena’s seventh birthday, he abandoned her…
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Ilkena woke to the fetid smell of urine and garbage, she had taken refuge in a seemingly deserted alley-way just off of the main central road near the 82nd square.
She was in desperate need of a wash as both her clothes and her own person smelt worse than her choice of sleeping arrangements.
She wished that there was such a thing as peace and quiet; the streets were filled with the raucous sounds of screams and wailing police sirens as they were either arresting random people for revenue or just to keep up appearances as the outer-region planet authorities take little notice as to Inolion’s business so long as the money flows outwards…
She could now hear the low hum of a disposal unit approaching, signaling that she needed to leave otherwise the Homeless Welfare Society would find her and force her into a career; usually straight into the excitingly endless path of a prostitute.
There was a chill wind in the morning air that bit to the bone, Ilkena drew up her thick dark cloak and put the hood up; her people were naturally acclimatized to cold and low-light areas but bright and cheerful mornings combined with chilling winds was far too much and the light hurt her eyes.
Distant gunfire reached her ears as two rival drug-gangs warred over territory far out behind her and beyond the drainage gulches; that region of the city was avoided by even the most courageous of people.
Holo-Neon signs flared left and right, advertising random and rather useless items for sale at ridiculous prices. Many people stepped out of stride to avoid her as she made her way down the sidewalk; they were either repulsed by the smell or simply not wanting to get in the way of a Dreld as the highest gangs were ruled by people of her race.
Suddenly, she could no longer take the next step, looking back into the face of a Terran patrol officer wearing a malicious little grin.
“What’s an under-hab doin’ in the respectable regions of town? Why aren’t you in the Straights?” he asked almost in a friendly manner, using his grip on her arm to wheel her about and back towards the outer regions.
“Trying to survive Terran, is that such a crime?” she inquired with her loathing for the law heavily laced with each word.
“The crime is that such a good-looking thing like you shouldn’t smell like that; you could kill people just by walking by!”
If her dark-skin would allow, she would’ve blushed; both because he was right about her ‘pungent aura’ and that she had never before been complimented on how she appeared.
“So where are you taking me?” she hated to think what his answer would be.
“Well, I’m gonna’ give you the chance to reintegrate with society, I have a friend who deals with problems like yours on a day-to-day basis…” he said, his small grin widening as he looked into the eyes of his captive, watching her pupils contract in fear as she realized what he meant.
Ilkena tried to pull against his grip to no success, his hand squeezing her arm until it made her squeal in pain, “Don’t fight, I am really giving you an honest chance at making some money!”
“I don’t want to be a courtesan, please anything but that!” she cried, trying to claw at his iron-like grip.
“Stop that, your claws hurt Dreld!” the officer grumbled, shaking her violently for her to stop as he was nearly three times her size in overall mass.
Ilkena snapped and brought her teeth to bear upon his knuckles; the Terran howled in pain before rendering her unconscious with a single strike from his night-stick.
Ilkena’s body went completely limp, allowing him to drag her the further few hundred or so more meters to his objective, pulling up on the doorstep to the ‘Pleasure Palace’ and knocking sternly on the door three times.
It swung noisily open almost immediately, revealing a largely-built Felis Sapien male who wore expensive fiber-silk robes; he was running his tongue over his enlarged canines and with an obvious smile about his human-appearing features.
“Ah, you bring more bitches for my buffet, my friend?” his voice was high-strung and could become quite annoying very quickly. This half-human half-feline creature was one of the most well known pimps in all of Inolion, he had more police and connections in his pocket than what could be counted.
He leant forward and the smell reached his sensitive nostrils, “OH, OH MAN! Where’d you find this one, the sewers?”
The officer held her up and pulled back her hood so that the slate-skin caught the morning sunlight, showing her appearance.
“Well, I guess she could clean up… I’ll give you seven-fifty credits for this bin-diver!”
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Kyle sat back in his lushly-decorated office and punched in the communications code on his vid-phode built into the solid oak desk.
“Ah, mister Mayor; I have just come into position of an ‘asset’ that is just to your liking, I mean this girl is all in your style, baby!”
“Has she ever…?”
“No, this one is fresh, I mean fresh; right in your way all ready for you at no cost, my friend!”
_-^^^/\/\/\/====\/\/\/\^^^-_
As her mind cleared, the first thing she noticed was the smell, or the lack thereof…
She sat bolt-upright and rubbed her head as it swam, falling backwards as she nearly lost consciousness again and realized that she lay in the most comfortable bed imaginable…
And that she was completely naked save for the blankets on the bed.
She whipped the blankets back over her and held them close to her body as the only door leading into that room hissed open on well-lubricated guides, revealing a partially handsome man in his late thirties.
He took a few steps into the room and locked the door behind him before grabbing the hem of the bed sheets and ripping them from her grip, admiring lustily what he saw before him.
The man removed his small cap and over-coat, all of which made of the finest materials before sitting on the end of the large bed, patting the space next to him as if calling for her to sit with him.
Ilkena shook her head silently as she used ca pillow to cover herself.
The mayor of Inolion grimaced suddenly as his expression switched from exited to pure anger. He lashed out and grabbed her by the ankle, dragging her with ease across the mattress towards him.
With a twist of her waist she brought her free heel into his chin, but the man still held on, unsheathing a small wrist blade with a snap on his hand and holding it to her neck.
“You may not know who I am, but when I want something, people cower when I don’t get it!” his eyes and nostrils flared.
She didn’t know how it happened but before he could do anything else, she lashed out with both feet; hooking his elbow and slamming his weapon-laden wrist into his opposing under-arm, the tip of the blade piercing the skin about and inch or so.
The mayor leapt back with a whelp of pain; his arm had gone limp as blood gushed from the small wound, “How… how did you…” he whimpered as the arterial vein she had cut pumped fresh blood directly from his heart.
His breathing had become labored and he fell to his knees; within minutes the most powerful man in Inolion died from loss of blood as Ilkena made her escape after finding some cheap but clean clothes...