The Black Market

[Lail]

Soreya with Umoya
Grijakeren (@Raisins)

Soreya’s lip inched upward, just a hair, at the comment about orcs. “There are some of us left with sharper minds and more refined tastes than the idiotic creatures who slather this place with their scum.” Now her lip curled at the very thought of them. Her opinion on orcs was clearer than the night skies over the expansive deserts of the Sunlands.

Her eyes followed the line of Umoya’s skirt as her leg slipped through to reveal the patterns which recalled the sacred stories of creation on her body. She could not help taking in a sharp breath at the sight of it. Not only was it impressive and beautiful, it was daring. It said something about the woman whose skin it graced. She had to be fearless and maybe a little bit reckless and quite possibly even braver than Soreya herself. She may have strolled over casually, but she wanted something very specific and not unlike what she now looked upon: a firebird stretching crimson wings as it rose with the eastern sun. "What an interesting choice," she commented, but said nothing further and gave no compliment. Her business would speak for her appreciation of Umoya's work.

She lifted her chin and looked Umoya straight in the eyes. “I want a firebird with wings aloft, flaming with the dawn sun. I will see a design first and then we will see who is braver than a farm bird. But-” she paused, lowering her voice with one last demand, “I will supply my own ink or I will not have it at all.” There were countless ways to kill someone and it was far too easy to imbue poison into ink. Soreya was not about to trust anyone, even one of her own. "I assume that can be done."

[Fuin Elda]

Umoya with Soreya
Grijakeren (@Lailsheenbo)

Umoya noted the snarl that crossed the womans face at the mention of orcs. "Indeed pity our men associate with them as much as they do. I swear it dulls their wits." Umoya said with a smile as the other woman stared at the pattern on her leg, an knowing smile crossing the Haradi womans face. She let the fabric of her dress slide back over her leg, she was brave and reckless perhaps but not stupid enough to leave her leg bare for the whole world to see. She needed no other comment from the woman than what she had given her body language had told her more than enough what she had thought even if compliments stuck like tar in a Haradi's throat there were other ways to read a compliment if one was wise and sharp enough to notice them.

Soreya tipped her head back slightly at the request, a firebird with the morning sun. An impressive motive, and a powerful symbol indeed to put upon ones skin, it was something that she was willing to do for certain. She raised an eyebrow at the request for her own ink. A strange request but not one she'd not heard before, after all the women of the Southeast were skilled almost beyond measure in poisons, though why she would poison the ink she used to tattoo people when she was generally happy enough to have them back multiple times was a silly thought to her.

Umoya stood for a moment, she'd never found a single person that cared as much for how smooth their ink and pigments were as she did, which is why so often she found others with terrible scars and raised flesh with their tattoos, it made them look simple and primitive instead of stunning as they should. "Only if you will allow me to remull the ink. You may watch me do so, and inspect the muller and the tablet before I put your inks to them to make sure they are clean to your satisfaction. I only work with the best pigments and I make sure they are mixed so that they do not scar, your inks, I do not know their smoothness, but I can ensure that if you will allow that step." Umoya said calmly looking to see what her fellow Haradi had to say.

[Lail]

Soreya with Umoya
Grijakeren (@I Said What I Said)

The tattoo artist was no fool. Either she wanted the business, she truly did not want to kill Soreya, or both. The list of people who wanted Soreya dead was not short and she never knew where one could be lurking in wait, especially here in the heart of the Black Land where servants of the Dark Lord hemmed her in wherever she went. Seeing a fellow Haradi woman was like finding an oasis in the desert, but she could not drink the water without knowing where Umoya’s loyalties lie. Even then, there was no trusting anyone but herself. These measures were extreme but necessary for survival.

“My inks will not scar.” She bristled slightly, defending them with pride as if it were a personal slight against her. Her voice lowered, taking on a dangerous edge as her eyes flashed ever so slightly with a simmering threat. “But if you must remull them yourself to ensure quality, I will allow it and I will watch. I will see the muller, the tablet and every last tool you use whether it touches my skin or not. If your fingers slip the slightest from their task, I will see it. I will watch your every move.” She did not explain herself or elaborate on her reasons for such suspicion, assuming the other woman knew well the dangers afoot both here and back in Harad. Whatever side she fell on, if any beside her own, there was no such thing as safety for any of the Sunlanders.

Scarlet silk rippled as Soreya slid a deft hand beneath her garments to reveal a vial of crimson ink she held out to Umoya. “Here is some of mine. You can see for yourself and perfect the process before I return to review the design and sit for the work to be done. I assume it will be a private appointment. No one there but the two of us.” It was more another demand than a request, but she raised a perfectly manicured brow at Umoya, expecting the woman to agree. “Do you require a portion of the payment in advance?”

[Fuin Elda]

Umoya with Soreya
Grijakeren (@Lailsheenbo )

Umoya let out a slight breath at the bristling woman, but she agreed to the remulling. "Only an idiot believes the word of a person as the truth of the Sun. If you trusted me you'd let me use my ink, and I would be as wise as a Mumakil pile to trust your ink is perfect. You know this, I know this. Peace Sunsister." She said calmly waving to her shelf of pigments that were all in dry powdered form, they kept better this way and she only mixed them for client. Upon it there sat a beautiful glass muller and several glass tablets, rich items from the deep south of Harad. Letting her see the muller even now before she got to work on the ink.

"I have this particular stall of that reason, I can shut the door of it and keep." She motioned to the outside, "out so yes it will be private with only us I've no use for the drooling maws and under developed minds and filthy hands of the locals." She rolled her nose up at the thought of the orcs and goblins that were the main inhabitants of the nearby lands. "Anywhere near a piece of the likes that you have asked for, maybe for the chicken tattoo but this... no this this will be a bold piece." Umoya said with a proud smirk upon her face. "I will need a gold piece for the advanced payment, but it shall of course come out of the cost of the final piece when we are done. A piece like this will take hours to perfect, so we shall begin work on you tomorrow when you approve of the design."

Indeed Umoya was very proud of her skills and knew full well that this woman would approve of the design. It was not a question of if at all, Umoya often had been called a witch as a child for being able to draw things that people described, pulling them from the air as if she'd cast a web into the persons mind and pulled the image from there itself. It was a useful skill to have when one worked in such a permanent art form.

[Lail]

Soreya with Umoya
Grijakeren (@I Said What I Said)

“Peace.” The word was waiting to be uttered back and was strange to her, but she dipped her chin ever so slightly to Umoya in a gesture of acquiescence. Peace was a thing of the long gone past, if it had ever been something she had known at all. The world as she saw it was all death and danger, waiting to sink its claws into unguarded flesh like a tiger ready to pounce upon prey.

It was clear they understood one another. They both knew trust was the failure of fools and neither of them could be described as such. Soreya looked at the glass tablet and muller with a hint of approval, recognizing it as a style from their faraway home, if home it could still be called by her. It even seemed to shine almost as brightly as it would beneath the burning desert sun and the stall was almost like a little slice of home. Though she rejected sentimentalism outright, she felt a little more impressed by the tattoo artist than she was already.

“Neither do I. I don’t want the locals,” what a euphemism for that filth, she thought, “to be anywhere near me with my skin bare and needles at hand.”

The price did not require negotiating. There was always more gold, but there was only one life, which called for stronger demands than those of her budget. Soreya unclasped a necklace hidden beneath her red silks and drew a single gold coin from the chain to pass to Umoya. The gold was still warm from the heat of sitting against her skin as she handed it off.

“Tomorrow, you will see how brave and bold I am and you will have the pleasure of inking the most memorable subject you will likely ever have.” With those final words and a challenging grin, she took her leave for the day and would return again tomorrow.

There was no doubt in her mind if the design would be worthy of Soreya Zunkar as much as there was no doubt of her own confidence and bold words. It would have been smarter to be less memorable, to forgo the art altogether and hide in the shadows but Soreya was a daughter of the sun and she would not allow herself to be swallowed up by darkness but rather go marching into the flames, head held high.

[Fuin Elda]

Umoya with Soreya
Grijakeren (@Tuilindo Sorry for the delay)

The day passed swiftly and Umoya spent much of her time drawing creating the sweeping smooth lines showing the utter power of the firebird strengthened and by the dawn sun. and in each line she put more details, negative spaces that told their stories of the dawn firebird until the whole story was told in the overall image that might be enjoyed by the common fool that only saw the bird and the sun. Wiser minds though would understand the story told in the negatives spaces as well when she finished she headed towards her home in this area, a small building secured from the worst of the creatures of these lands, and rested.

She was up with the dawning of the sun, the design ready for the approval of Soreya, she opened her booth once more setting her muller and tablets down off of the shelves and onto her raised table as she waited for Soreya to come, and keep her word that she was indeed braver than the farm bird that Umoya had inked the day before in challenge to those that might be wise enough to read it.

[Lail]

Soreya with Umoya
Grijakeren (@Fuin Elda)

It was mid-morning when Soreya returned to Umoya's stall, not that anyone could tell by the persistent, unnatural cloud above that no ray of light could pierce. Soreya dared to try, bringing the sun with her orange silks swaying loose over her frame and the gold powder dusting kohl-rimmed eyelids. Beneath the outer layer, she wore a vest concealed from view. Sachets and vials in a rainbow of hues were tucked inside, as well as the ink of course. She had wrapped an extra layer around the vest to protect them and hide them from sight. She was not here to spill her secrets to the tattooist, Haradi woman or not, nor was she here to advertise her own vocation. Soreya was a walking apothecary if death was the remedy sought. Her jewelry was decorative and purposeful; poisons lurked encased in gems or hollow gold loops like those dangling from her earlobes. Hidden in plain sight.

Marching up to the stall, she was prepared to demand the design and suggest several improvements. The design was so much more than art. It was a story. Her story. She had been caged for years until she set herself free. She had burned and been burnt. Still, she breathed. Still, she lived. Soreya stared at it, feeling prickles dance across her skin.

"You have a talent," she said at last, drawing her gaze away from it. "And a keen eye as well as hands." Perhaps a bit too keen for comfort. Every detail, every swirl of ink, from the bird's feathers to the flames, was perfect. It was as if the woman had delved into Soreya's mind and pulled out all the pieces to put them together. It was a good thing Soreya did not believe in such prosaic sorcery. Still, she would not throw caution to the wind.

"I will see your tools before I hand over my ink." It was the only verbal signal she gave that she approved of the art.

[Fuin Elda]

Umoya with Soreya
Grijakeren (@Tuilindo)

She didn't expect any less of Soreya in she was dressed and made up as a proper haradi woman she saw no ink in her hand and had to assume that this woman was similar to her. She had ways of hiding items in plain sight or in hidden folds of loose swaying silks. Umoya was proud to hand over the art that she had already created but knew full well that this was a piece for Soreya and as the artist suspected the woman had suggestions; suggestions that Umoya took and made. These things she knew were changes to make this tattoo reflect her story not just the original story that the Haradi shared back and forth between themselves teaching their children. This had more meaning. And to hear the compliment that she had talent was the highest compliment she could get from this woman she was certain about that.

"You are generous," She said in response to the statement, and motioned for the woman to follow her into the stall where she shut the door and made it fast so no one could burst in, letting Soreya see how she locked it to make sure the woman knew she was not locked in, just the denizens of Mordor were locked out so that she could get her story inked upon her skin in peace. Inside the stall was lit by a number of bright clear lanterns so that despite the stall being closed to the outside the light was enough that there would be no shadows to hide a slight of hand on the part of either woman, and would allow for Umoya to make clean lines on her skin as well as for Soreya to clearly see the tools that Umoya would be working with. There on the raised table were all of the tools that she would be using to do this tattoo. The glass sheet and muller were the first items that she'd put out before hand but she sat down crossing her feet and sitting on them as she pulled out her ink bowls, the needles that she would be using to push ink into the womans skin, and the handle she would attach the needles to and the striking mallet. She left the witch hazel oil and her own pigments on the shelf in clear sight but clearly off of the raised table. She motioned to the soft mat on the floor for Soreya to take a seat on the mat. She would be positioned where she could see the self clearly and if she wished she'd be able see the table as well with a shift of her eyes to the side.

"Feel free to inspect my tools she said calmly, and then, laid her own hands upon the raised table knowing full well where her own mother had kept powders and poisons, and while she did not currently wear any rings that held anything as a proper haradi woman she did have gold bands on her fingers and bracelets about her wrists that she had no doubt Soreya would want to inspect fully as well.

[Dungeon Delver]

天庭
Ânash-ilz
(Open to All)

Certain things are just fated to go wrong, it was a fact of life; whether by the turning of the starwheel or the capricious intervention of a bored deity, nothing was meant to go as people planned and yet people still planned as if they were the one true exception to this universal rule. Zuriaake was, as much as she would never admit it, one of those people. She had been around for a long time, a very long time. Not as long as the onyx tower dwelling bourgeois, but long enough to know that planning anything in Mordor almost automatically doomed it to a certain kind of failure. Still, there was comfort in the way she went about planning and organizing. Exerting control over those beneath her, subjecting things and events to her will so that they ran along the track she set was something more than satisfying. That was a habit of the current occupants of this land: control. Everyone and everything scrapped and scraped for it, but only a select few managed to actually make something of themselves with it. Zuriaake, from a young age, determined that she would be one of those few. Her military career was a spotless one, success after success, no mission was too difficult for her, no task too daunting, no project too outlandish. She managed to make everything work her way. If she believed in metempsychosis, she might have believed in that something had happened to her in a previous life that the eternal balance was making up for, but that would be far too easy.

There was no such thing as reincarnation, no such thing as karma, no such thing as luck. Zuriaake got to where she was because she was the best goddamned orc for the job. She killed, she schemed, she built. Her blood and sweat were mixed into the very foundations of all that she’d accomplished. She didn’t have some noble bloodline, didn’t have some nebulously defined special power, didn’t have someone looking out for her in the shadows. She was herself.

She didn’t usually have occasion to visit the Black Markets, but this morning, unlike most mornings, was quiet and she felt a rising anxiety inside her. Her troops were off on various missions for various powerful folk and she was left with naught but a skeleton crew to operate their barracks. They were not overly efficient, no that was not quite right, they were not efficient whatsoever. The men she’s been left with were worse than the scrapings of the bottom of the barrel. There was nothing for her to be doing right now because there was nothing to be done. Sabotage? Perhaps, she’d made enough enemies in her years that anything was possible. She didn’t like being paranoid, but that didn’t mean something wasn’t up.

Zuriaake found herself wandering, trying to clear her head. There was a smoked meat shop ahead, Ânash-ilz it called itself, Morning Star. The smell coming from the tent was intoxicating, a heady mixture of gamey meat and intense spices. Her eyes watered for a moment, and something caught in the back of her throat, making her cough loudly. She could almost taste the peppers in the air. If that wasn’t invitation enough, she didn’t know what was. She’d never been in this place, and knew not what to expect when she entered. She felt quite out of control today, what was one more thing she hadn’t planned?

[Lail]

Soreya with Umoya (@Fuin Elda)
Grijakeren

Soreya followed Umoya into the stall, studying the lock’s mechanism and the array of items within. It was well-lit, appropriate for such work, and to ensure neither party might be tempted to try anything too devious. She was not here to poison the tattooist nor to make trouble but only a fool would entrust another with the same expectation. Still, the measure gave her some confidence.

She inspected each and every tool, every little thing that might touch her or be used in the process, including Umoya’s hands, which she scrutinized with extra care. Satisfied she had found nothing suspicious, not even a hint or whiff of treachery. It was almost unnerving how professional and true to her word the tattooist had been so far, a rare quality to find in Mordor.

As she settled upon the mat with her back straight and proud, regal and commanding (in her own opinion), her silk skirts fanned out around her like pooling sunshine. She secured her hair out of the way with a scarlet scarf. Unfastening the knots of her outer gown, she let the fabric fall over one shoulder so the vest (and its contents) remained hidden beneath fabric, only the strap visible.

“Wash your hands. Then you may begin. Since we are spending time in such close quarters, what should I call you?”

Soreya was careful to be precise with her words; she did not ask for her name, unwilling to give her own and knowing that a name given freely was not always the same as someone’s true name.

“Call me Rey.”

Let her think it was an alias alluding to a ray of sunlight in their homeland, spun on the spur of the moment, a fragment of her own name. It was too dangerous to utter Soreya Zunkar in the Sunlands, let alone here, surrounded by servants of the Enemy. No doubt many would be eager to capture a Haradi rebel who refused to recognize the Dark Lord’s rule.

[Lokktar]

Snak new Proprietor of Pakon Stazim

Teeth shifted in glass jars strung to her belt. Snak sunk to the damp arda, exhausted. She was out of the swamps and gaining on better grounds. In a few days she would be well on her way to the Black Market. To the Pakon Stazim. In her breast pocket was a deed to the animal stall that she he had fished off the corpse of an orc that had been generous to her and trusting. Too trusting. Never good to be a trusting orc in this choking southern land. Snak untied her pack and laid it to the side. She had hung the staff, wrapped in course fabrics, in a tree branch where a traveler would not spot it. The jars strung to the staff shone like the Isil on a clear night. Too out of place in this land. Too out of place anywhere. She had to cover them up. They were her meal ticket.

Nigh a week Snak spent in the swamp. Hunting for sign. Hunting for trinkets in the trees and for the tiny tree houses. Hunting for stone circles and mushroom circles and other odd shapes in the moss. These folk were strange. The liked to build shapes where shapes should not be. Liked to build odd things in places where only owls or rodents should live. When she finally found them, she had smoked them out like bees.

They didn't remind her of bees. Didn't remind her of anything except for the fair folk. Fair folk that fit in jars and complained with bright, bright magic when she sealed them in glass. Fair folk that were obsessed with collecting teeth. Why had they had so many teeth? Snak had not heard the swamp shaman say anything about bones of any sort. But these little folk had hundreds of hundreds of them. They had the teeth of all different kinds of creatures. Had teeth collected in different stashes in their little kingdom.

She recognized the human teeth. Most of them were children. Snak had killed enough human children to know what their teeth looked like.

The creatures were safe sealed in jars tied to her staff wrapped in cloth. Together with the deed to the Pakon Stazim, these jars were worth far more than their weight in gold. Snak grinned. She was going to be filthy rich.

[Lokktar]

Snak new Proprietor of Pakon Stazim

Goblins were a strange lot. Snak had grown to appreciate that they had a knack for finding the the extraordinary in the mundane. But she did not fully trust them. She did not trust anyone in this valley. Too much killing. Snak had had to kill one of the three when she first came to the Pakon. The little goblin was asking too many questions about the last owner. He was trouble. The other two soon fell in line and Snak quickly got used to the idea of snagas. After all, the two lads were not all that bad to look at. Maybe she could learn to trust them in time.

The staff she had squirreled away in her quarters in a safe place. The idea of selling the creatures for profit had seemed so easy when she was in the wilderness. Now that she was in this wild town, she was flooded with doubts. How would she advertise them? How could she put an actual price on such a strange creature? She would need bodyguards if word got around that she was selling "tooth faeries." That was the word that the swamp shaman had used. Tooth faeries. The fae, he had called them. Snak call them fauth-hai the hidden folk. And she knew how to find more.

The rest of the Pakon was in disarray. There were no horses, no wargs. The pens were empty. Snak had set her snagas out to inquire about buying horses by the head. But she knew her coffers were low. She dreamt about larceny. But if she went that route she would need to be careful. If a customer came in on an individual basis and paid in advance she could probably make something happen. But that would be unlikely and would probably take some skilled saleswomanship on her part. She would need to find a herd of horses somewhere.

Wargs were a different matter. The beasts ran feral in the foothills of Mordor. And the Pakon had traps. Snak had begun to take lessons from her snagas on how to set them. It would take some skill. But the boys seemed confident so Snak was not too worried.

She made lists of other things she could sell. The valley was surprisingly ripe with critters. But they were nothing the people of the Black Market would be interested in buying. Black squirrels, hares, wild dogs and cats. Different classes of corvid. Those she had some experience with. Her pine wood orc tribe in the north of the world used them for hunting. If she could trap some, and train them, that would be a good initial source of income. Maybe a cat or two would be nice. She liked cats. Maybe there were panthers in the hills.

[Dungeon Delver]

Nearing Pakon Stazim

It was Mother’s Day again. As it so happened, Mother’s Day had only been a few months ago, but when you had a mother like Art did, one who arbitrarily chose a day that would be Mother’s Day regardless of calendrical concerns, any day could end up being Mother’s Day. Nominally, Arthûr supposed that she did it to confuse her husband and younger son, two peas in a confused pod (that was inexplicably stuffed with belly fungus), but perhaps she didn’t realize the strain it put on him, the dutiful son who always did what his mother required of him. This year alone there had been four Mother’s Days, and it was only now nearing the end of summer. He was being pulled in two different directions. He had a duty, as a lecturer and researcher, to the university, but he owed his position to his mother’s mechanizations. Which should he put first?

He sighed. There was only one way to answer that question, and it involved a smack to the back of the head. He knew what he had to do. What kind of example would he give to his father and younger brother if he shirked on Mother’s Day, contrived though it might be? If the responsible, good son didn’t dote upon his (un)saintly mother, why should they? If only he knew what to get her. He was here in the Black Market, a snake of panic coiling around his insides, without a clue as to what to get her. Flowers, chocolate, spa days (that went over like a squid on a ship), were all well and good, but for the fourth Mother’s Day of the year? He needed to think of something better, something perhaps with a little permanence. Reg and Hârold would inevitably get her something like a bucket of toads, what did that leave open to Art?

He wondered and wandered, up and down streets and byways in the Black Market looking for something, anything, to catch his eye. He should have forced an unpaid intern to come waste their time doing this. He had a lecture he needed to prepare for. He was growing grumpy, a sour look felt like it had been etched permanently on his face. What in the Master’s black earth was he going to do?

“Ahhh, dammit mother!” he shouted, startling a mess of snagas huddled near a store front. They scattered to the four winds like scared chickens to a fox. He paused and looked at the shop: Pakon Stazim. Why the hell not? Arthûr cleared his throat and went inside. A pet might do his mother some good, at least it might distract her from another unnecessary Mother’s Day a few weeks from now.

“Hello? Anyone here?” Once inside his eyes started to water from the atavistic smell. He’d found something ripe, that at least was certain.

[Fuin Elda]

Umoya with Soreya
Grijakeren (@Kirinki )

Umoya gave a small nod her hands had of course been scrutinzed the hardest of all the things in her shop, and for good reason. She poured aout a bit of water from the pitcher that she kept for herself and her clients to drink from over her hands washing them carefully before she dried them on a clean piece of silk that hung near by. "You are welcome to call me Moya." She said calmly and began the process of setting the needles into r handles and transfering the design using ground charcoal mixed with witch hazel oil on the back of the art she'd done before laying it on the womans back and peeling it off leaving the faint traces of the design for Umoya to follow. Once everything was ready and laid out she at and looked at Rey.

"I shall need your ink to mull." She said lifting the fine glass muller from the sheet of glass sitting upon her work table. As soon as she had it she would mull it and the put it in the small bowl and begin the task of putting ink to flesh. Indeed the two of them would be there for many many hours. Umoya hoped that Rey had eaten well before coming here, as this would be quite the bit of work and she was not sure the noble looking lady could withstand such pain if she had not. Even she did not do so well on larger pieces that she did on herself if she did not eat, the body had its demands sustenance was one of them when it came to tattoos

[Dungeon Delver]

Pakon Stazim

Well, he had been in the market for some sort of pet or guardian or familiar for his mother, but the smell was so overpower that, within just a few moments, Art had completely forgotten why he was in this shop in the first place. For what felt like a good two weeks he stood in the door way, a great lumbering tower of orkish intellect. He blinked slowly. There was something about the smell of wild animals that awoke some primal warrior instinct in him. When he realized this, he was, of course, embarrassed to no end. He was not his father or younger brother! He had no business fantasizing about being a woad-stained warrior wielding an atlatl. He was a professor of natural philosophy and history dammit! Still, the more he inhaled that deliciously foul odor of caged animal, the more he could feel a tingle in his hands and an urge to pick up a spear and chase after a mumak. It was unseemly and perverse, but he could not get the image to completely leave his thoughts.

Was there a connection, he wondered, between the ripe scent of these animals and the primal, hunting instinct of orcs? He thought he’d grown out of it, but perhaps he had not. It would make a fantastic study, whether or no. He could study his reaction to the animals and perhaps his father’s. Having Hârry come down under the guise of picking out an emotional support warg would not be too difficult. What effect might this smell have on someone with only the power of a dozen brain cells?

The store itself was full of yowls, hisses, squawks, and growls meaning that animals were aplenty within the darkened recesses, but it seemed to Art that, perhaps, the store’s owner was not about, or was so engrossed in the care of the animals they had hitherto captured and displayed that they had not noticed he was standing there. But, then again, he had been standing there an awful long time. A bell had not rung when he entered, at least not that he’d heard. There really should be a bell. He felt rather out of sorts and awkward having to call out for assistance, but alas, that is what it looked like poor Art was going to have to do. He really should have just forced an intern or grad student to find a sufficiently vicious animal and bring it to him.

He coughed. “Ahem, ah, hello? Is, is anyone available? I’d like to— to purchase,” he stepped forward, narrowly avoiding a pile of… something, “to purchase an animal. Some assistance would be quite, uh, quite welcomed.”

[Dungeon Delver]

Vid Häxan’s Härd
Mosnat Trog
(Open)

Fleeg was back and he was not happy about it. He sat on a stool in the midst of a nightmare abattoir. The tang of blood and bile sat heavy in the air. There was no breeze to alleviate his suffering; even the smell of burning ash would have been preferable to the constant smell of viscera. The shop was silent, not quiet, silent. If it were merely quiet, he probably could have suffered through day after day of the slow burning monotony, but silence made it unbearable. Silence was different from quiet. It was not a matter of degree or ambience; it was a matter of tension. A quiet shop did not harbor shadows that could stretch out and grab patrons of their own will and do unspeakable things, a quiet shop did not have the brooding tension of vampiric intention. Before he’d left this red pit of doom, he’d never thought of this place as horrific or overbearing, but after adventures as a hornet apiarist and a spa owner, this place was stifling and uncomfortable. The ceiling of the place was high, high enough for his master, no, no he would not use that term, no matter what the vampire believed he would never be that, to be able to stand and walk comfortably. To Fleeg, however, the ceiling looked as though it might crush him at any given moment, a great slab of stone meant to entomb him for all eternity. An older version of Fleeg might have thought that idea funny (at least for someone else) but now it made his skin crawl. Arioch was on the only thing watching him, Fleeg could feel eyes on him all the time. Was he being spied on? It made little sense for Arioch to send spies to watch him and report on his spying, but sense had very little to do with things in Mordor. It didn’t fit the aesthetic.

A toad crawled across his counter. It was not large, covered in splotches of green, brown, and grey. Its eyes were deep and empty, it stared at Fleeg; Fleeg stared back. In the old days he would have licked the toad, gotten high, and tossed the poor beast out into the dusty streets to hop away in horrified shame. Unfortunately for this toad, its fate was going to be much more gruesome. Quick as an eel, Fleeg stabbed a knife into the toad’s hind leg. It tried to hop away but only ended up turning in a circle before nearly tearing its foot in half to escape. Fleeg flipped the poor creature over and stabbed another dagger into another leg. Since getting back, Fleeg had changed. He was not some farcical dimwit with myriad ambitions leading to ill gotten gain. Part of him had been burned out, tortured, and excised in that ghost town in the far south. He still had impulses, he was a goblin after all, but he was willing to be patient, to delay the instant gratification that goblins were so well known to indulge. His penchant for insanity and slobber was at an end. Those things had been fun but had led him down a Fool’s Path.

He had become a student, a student of what was still to be determined, but nonetheless he was learning. He’d pilfered a few books and scrolls from the Spa before he abandoned it, the writings of Gabby Tammie Swampback were both insightful and disturbing. Hags were a strange, strange lot. Her writing was laid out in blunt, horrific banality. She wrote about curses and their visceral effects on people’s body and mind the same way she wrote about predicting weather patterns. She was rather laissez-faire about the suffering of the animals she dissected (and kept alive) as long as she was able to gain some kind of discovery. Fleeg studied the books day and night. He wasn’t sure what he was hoping to get out of it. A change in perspective? A weapon against the vampire? A new obsession to spiral down into? Probably all three at once, if he were being honest with himself. Swampback’s books were a mix of alchemy, natural philosophy, and occult ritual. It was all fascinating, though equally terrifying. Her books were not alive, thank the goblin gods, but that did not mean that the things written in their pages did not give him nightmares. Much of it, too, was written in a dozen different languages, most of which Fleeg could not even begin to identify, let alone decipher. Where had Swampback learned to do all of this?

He opened the book on the counter, there were no customers about today and likely would not be anyone until the sun went down. He flipped through it until he found what he was looking for, a dissection diagram for a toad, complete with labels or organs and other bits. He sliced the hapless toad open, it squirmed and wriggled fiercely, croaking in pain, but none of the sounds made Fleeg flinch or fidget. He had a task to do, a poison sac to find. He examined the diagram closely. He needed to buy himself a pair of spectacles, sometimes reading these books gave him such headaches as could not be believed. He removed the liver, the heart, the lungs, and finally the glands containing the poison. Each organ was placed in a bottle filled with his own embalming recipe. There were some benefits to working in a morgue/butcher shop. If the goblin actually paid attention to what he was doing, he learned he was more capable than even he’d have given himself credit for. His mother might feel something approaching pride in him. Well, maybe not yet, at least utter disdain would be off the table.

Speaking of table now though, Fleeg’s stomach rumbled. The toad was, miraculously (depending upon one’s viewpoint) still alive. He pulled the knives out of it keeping it nailed to the table, picked it up over his head, opened his mouth wide, and ate the thing in a single, wriggling and croaking gulp. It didn’t fill him up, but it went a long way to stopping the angry rumbling of his stomach. He’d go out for some smoked meat or something later. Fleeg corked the bottles and put them in his new coat pocket, a necessary purchase once he discovered just how inadequate his pants were at holding large quantities of random things.

Only six more hours of this today and he could go home. Home to more study, headaches, and nightmares. Eventually, he would figure out what he was doing. Eventually…

[Lail]

Soreya with Umoya (@Fuin Elda)
Grijakeren

“Moya,” she exhaled the name in a flat voice, testing it on her tongue, studying its shape and sound for any hints about the tattooist. The moniker, assuming it was one, was unfamiliar and told her little, but it was close to another name, an old ashen memory of a name she had buried long ago. Mina– her mentor and manipulator, who dosed Soreya with a thousand poisons and antidotes under the guise of education until Soreya had enough. Soreya’s venom and flames turned Mina to a dusty pile of ashes and bones.

Soreya sat still as stone while Moya imprinted the design upon her shoulder blade and back. Prickles danced across her skin from the cool witch hazel and anticipation of pain. She focused on Umoya’s intricate preparation dance, every step, every twist of the arm and every curl of slender artful fingers. She watched for treachery and for the soothing monotony of the routine.

At Moya’s request, Soreya slid the bottle of ink from the vest beneath her robes and handed it over. Each vial tucked away was custom made in a different shape so she could identify them without visual verification. The ink bottle was pear-shaped with three grooves scoring its surface and a small loop on the handle so it could be tied or secured to a belt, chain or necklace.

“I am ready when you are and then we will see who is braver than a stupid bird. If you need me to lie down, I want a cushion for my head. I am a woman of Harad, not some beast of Mordor.”

(ooc sorry Fuin I went a bit treeish!)

[Lokktar]

Pakon Stazim
Snak, free orc of the pine forests of Gundabad and the Ered Mithrim, recently come into dubious and illicit ownership Pakon Stazim through murder

A tip of her elbow sent several of Snak's jars over and falling from the crude table onto the straw of the shop floor. The bright funny creatures inside were all aflutter. She was hurriedly collecting them and cursing the little winged creatures to be still when she smelled an orc enter her shop. But this orc smelled funny. His smell reminded Snak of the libraries of the free folk. Full of leather and paper they were. perfect for burning. She pulled the cloth that hid her table of fairie jars from the main room of the store and caught a glimpse of Art (@Akhenanat). This orc used big words. He had a scholarly air about him that Snak had not seen in one of the orc folk. Her tribe in the north had learned elders who could read fortunes in the stars and tell the news of the world by the paths of the crows. But this orc was different. Like there were things and words in his head that Snak could not see.

This may be her perfect mark. Her first real customer. She had to get rid of these damned Fairies one way or the other.

"honored sir," Snak said, bowing and affecting a way of talking that felt much too formal to her ears. "How can I be of, assistance?" That was the word the orc had used, assistance. Snak knew next to nothing about animals. "All manner of beasts of the wilds have I. But an orc such as yourself, one who has many hidden trinkets in his mind," Snak was trying to flatter, "might be interested in something a bit more... shiny?" Snak smiled coyly and glanced at the cloth drapes, behind which she had hidden stacks of jarred fairies.