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On the other hand... what did those guys inside do to deserve a beating from you, exactly? Made a few bad choices? Believed the words of some charismatic twat who promised them the world? Valsen is the one you really want. You can't, in good conscience, just beat this lot down. At least not without offering them an alternative first.
But doing so may require an unconventional approach.
First you take a moment to refocus and steady your mind, at the same time letting tension bleed from your body. Cause if you step in there looking like you want a fight, that's all you're going to get.
Then you listen carefully at the door, picking up muffled chatter from within. They seem relaxed. Distracted. Preoccupied with a game of some sort. That is ideal. You wait like this for a few minutes, getting familiar with the rhythm of their conversation, the rise and fall of voices as rounds are won and lost.
Then, choosing the moment when the voices drastically jump in volume, with one in particular rising above the others, you send a tiny jolt through the door's panel to release the magnetic lock, slide it open, allowing the full force of the argument to briefly spill out into the corridor, slip inside, and immediately close it behind you.
Past the door is what once used to be a moderately roomy airlock, now converted into a guardroom of sorts. But what immediately draws attention is a pershala and an ogrot quite literally butting heads and yelling at each other over a table littered with dice, hex nuts, and opened beer bottles, even as a tired looking human tries to push them apart and mediate. They're so absorbed in their screaming match over cheating and loaded dice that they genuinely don't even notice you for the first few seconds.
At least, not until you kick up one of the empty bottle crates lying around, pull it up to the table in place of a chair, and sit down. Causing the argument to immediately cease as three pairs of eyes stare at you in complete shock.
"Journey, right?" you nod toward the dice with the distinctive pictograms on the faces. "I've got time for a few rounds. Using my own set is fine? I always carry it around just in case," you grab an unopened beer from the crate under the table, pop the cap, and take a swig while dropping a couple cred on the table. "Hey, what's with those expressions?" you cock your head to one side. "You didn't think I'm the kind of shitheel to just grab a beer someone else bought without paying for it, did you? That's not how we do things on Barter."
The three men finally unfreeze, shaking off the initial shock. The ogrot, an unreasonably tall tower of muscle, is the first to speak, leaning forward to loom over you.
"Who the FUCK-"
"It's <span class="mu-i">her</span>!" the human yells out, scrambling for a photo lying on the table - before he picks it up, you're able to see the same mop of flax hair that you see in the mirror every day. "Valsen said she'd be coming! It's Elne!"
(cont)
