Martin's face lights up, "Oh, that sounds very interesting, I would be very interested in learning how all of these villages happen to float in the air and this weapon that you speak of sounds very interesting. Well we better get a move on then, when is the elevator coming back down?"

The man looks at his watch. Sometime between now," The platform floats to a stop behind him.
"and now. You can hop on now, the villagers at the top are who you want to talk to. Good luck on your quest thingo, hope that goes well."
He walks off scratching his rear.

"Wait, what is the name of this engineer that you spoke of?"

He looks back.
"Ask him yourself, I'm busy."

Martin shrugs and steps on to the elevator with the other two...

It floats into the air smoothly, and quietly makes its way to the top. When it stops, it shows a couple of people standing next to a long metal sheet used as a bridge. It connects the top platform with the village floating next to it. A couple of men are crossing the bridge with what appears to be the final crate.

Martin crosses the bridge with the others on to the floating village...

One of the men standing on the platform side of it steps in front of him
"Generally, you ask before you enter somebodies floating village. General etiquette."

"Oh sorry, I thought we could just enter, we were told from the owner of the Sky Harbour that the engineer doesn't live far from here and that your village is going that way, we would like to see the engineer if its not too much trouble"

"You're lucky my wife is eyein' me from the village with her binoculars, otherwise I would have smacked you one. Get on board, we're going now,"

Martin nods to the man and goes on to the village with the others...

They stand in the middle of the village as it floats away from Sky Harbour, drifting over the desert sands.

Martin looks around for a pub

____________________________________________________________
ON HOLD: ALL CHARACTERS HAVE ALTERNATE THREAD

Martin walks up to Naru, "where have you been?"

She waves and walks into a building shadow, gesturing him to follow her. Once hidden, she gives him a hug. "I've just been wandering around the village mostly. Some guy got framed for murder, and some old guy wanted me to have sex with him for information. Where did you disapear to?"

Martin laughs, "This whole town is crazy, I went into the pub for a drink and I was drugged and they took all of my equipment. When I woke up I was in a pit and they forced me to fight these people as a form of entertainment for them, those sick bastards. I managed to win the first fight, but the second fight was against this giant brute of a man who knocked me out, I had no chance against him. After that, they were going to throw me off the edge, but I managed to escape and then some really crazy **** happened to me, but that doesn't matter."

"Anyway, I need to get my equipment back before we move on. I don't know who has my equipment, but I'm going to go back to the pub and find the bartender who drugged me and I'll get some answers off him. They may be looking for me, so we need to be careful and not draw much attention to ourselves, do you want to come with me?"

"Yeah I'll come and help. Try not to threaten too many people though, we don't want to be any more infamous than we have to."

Naru walks with Martin to the pub, keeping in the shadows. On the way she gives him a spare walkie talkie and says "Yeah some crazy stuff happened to me too, or rather to the entire village and ground." She then proceeds to tell him all about the black and the silence. To her surprise she finds out that Martin experienced almost the exactly same thing. "And nobody else has noticed, it's so strange."

They arrive at the door to the pub.

"I'm going to go around the back and see if I can find a back way in, I don't want to scare off the bartender before I have a chance to talk to him. You go through the front door Naru, he won't be worried about you, make sure he doesn't escape through the front." Martin walks around the side of the pub and looks for a back way in...

"No worries" says Naru to Martin's back. She enters the pub and sits down on a bar stool, looking for the barman.

A woman stands behind the bar, washing a cup. She doesn't bat an eyelid at Naru.
Martin finds there is a side door that leads into the back rooms. Noises come from within.

Martin puts his ear to the door to see if he can hear anything...

Some muffled voices between several men are all that is heard.

Martin opens the door with his gun ready...