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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goonalan" data-source="post: 4800071" data-attributes="member: 16069">The Friday Knights in Sellswords of FallcrestPart 9: The Bazaar of the Bizarre.    “He looks trustworthy enough, not… you know… bright.” Ignaran adds while making sure Astaroth is out of earshot.“No, that.” Cathal turns and points to the now decapitated statue, beneath the filth and dirt. Sculpted from blood red stone, wings outstretched, the headless demon waits.“Who is, I mean, was it?” Kullervo asks.“Orcus, Demon Lord of Undeath.” Cathal firmly states and heads down the alley after Astaroth without a backwards glance.Leaving the young Rogue alone with Ignaran, the pair stare at the statue of Orcus- a gigantic cloven-hoofed Demon Lord with the head of a Ram, cruel taloned furred wings spread wide and a huge skull topped rod in his hand.“What's that all about?” Kullervo asks and motions towards the statue.“Not good.” Ignaran states and turns to leave.“I thought we were after something valuable- not killing the guy, the Beggar King I mean?” Kullervo asks, his voice strained- slightly desperate, perhaps even afraid.Which stops Ignaran in his tracks, the Druid doesn't turn around, merely shrugs his shoulders- “I don't know”, he whispers, “I don't know what we're here for anymore.”The Druid heads after Cathal, leaving Kullervo alone, the red mist spirals and shapes in the air, a trick of the light perhaps. A single strand of the bloody fog reaches out, dances before the Rogue, Kullervo grins, until the hazy tentacle suddenly jerks upwards, like a snake ready to strike.“Ignaran… Ignaran, wait for me.” Kullervo heads back down the alley at speed, sploshing as he half-runs through the waterlogged courtyard. He looks back but the statue is gone from sight, lost within the coiling mist, but it's still there, he can feel it, it's gaze.Back in the alley Cathal pushes past Astaroth and toes the door open, and into a shop, of sorts.“The Bazaar of the Bizarre”, he adds by way of explanation.“The what?” Ignaran questions.“It's a shop, all the sh... ahem detritus of life ends up here. It's a Beggar's Shop, a shop... for Beggars.”“I got that the first time.” Ignaran adds and then wishes he hadn't, Cathal's gaze is withering.“How do you...” Kullervo starts.“Born here”, Cathal finishes, “now shut up”, he adds for good measure.The shadowy chamber ahead is packed to the rafters with junk, the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. Broken barrels are stacked in the centre of the floor, tatty and half-collapsed boxes and crates line the walls. Strings of silverware, all tarnished- most worn to dull edges, criss-cross the room, like faded streamers. Bundles of cloth; clothes, rags and scraps. Coils of rope, and rusty chain. Stacks of ancient, and rotten looking, spears and staves; broken swords and blades dot the chamber.On the far side of the cluttered store, to the left, is a curtained opening, unlit beyond; to the right a clearing before a low counter, a lit hallway on the other side.“Yerv, ad yer fun, nah sling yer 'ook.” Fat Alan, the ex-pie wielding sentry, totters into view, the obese guard swigs from a bottle of “Smashed Eric” [1], thumps it down on the counter and swats his short sword about haphazardly- clearly full to the brim of alcohol-fuelled menace.Cathal and Astaroth take several steps into the Bazaar, the Warrior nods towards the curtained opening, the man-monster Astaroth covers the distance quickly, his greataxe at the ready.“Perhaps we could reach some sort of accord, no need for violence?” Cathal approaches, sword still drawn, but trying his very best to look as peaceable as he can.“I dunno abowt dat.” Fat Alan slurs, then looks behind him for reassurance, clearly he wasn't aware he was going to have a speaking part in the production.“Get 'em. Get the bastards.” A voice urges and whines- there's someone in the hallway on the other side of the counter, out of sight at the moment. Astaroth pulls the curtain aside, peers into the gloom.  The dirt floor of the small slum chamber ends at the lip of a stinking black pit full of liquid rot and filth, scraps of half-eaten food and worse scattered about the rim. It stinks.Astaroth nods at Cathal, who gets the message.“I think what we need...” Cathal begins, covering the last few yards to Fat Alan, all smiles and goodwill; and then as quick as a flash delivers a southpaw hay-maker to the side of Fat Alan's head. The fat guard slams his hip into the counter and concertinas to the floor. “Ooo ya fu...”But Cathal is far from done, his longsword lances out and down- hard and fast, piercing Fat Alan's flimsy and ragged leather jerkin. Stabbing straight through his chest and out the other side. In the process puncturing, slicing and skewering all manner of important organs and vessels.Fat Alan gurgles a little, and lies still forever.“Shop.” Cathal approaches and bangs the pommel of his sword on the counter, beyond is a short hallway leading to a flight of stairs, at the top of which is another curtained exit; to the right of the stairs an open doorway, around which a hooded snivelling little man peers, a dark twisted dagger before him.Cathal smiles at the runt of a thief, while behind him Ignaran and Kullervo move up into the Bazaar.The man, Arthuro the Fence [2], looks terrified, and then some thing, some... thought wings its way into his addled brain, he smiles back at Cathal revealing his four good teeth and his many not-so-good gnashers. Then at the top of his lungs he yells, “TIMMY!”The response is instantaneous. Back in the curtained alcove, at which Astaroth still stands, the pit suddenly explodes liquid filth, literally a shower of <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />, and from the dark recesses of the dank gloom emerges a many-tentacled horror...Timmy.[1] 'Smashed Eric', the scumbag's guzzle. Smashed Eric is a potato-based spirit that with time will send a drinker blind and mad. It's named after... well, Smashed Eric, a wild tramp with the fortitude of an ox, who swears by the stuff. Bottle fed on the foul brew from the age of seven; Smashed Eric is to be found staggering at odd times around the wharves of Fallcrest, for every ten bottles he sells he gets one free. On a good day he sells ten bottles, on a bad day- twenty.[2] Arthuro Ignatius Riptorn the 3rd; the third generation of his family to occupy the position of shopkeeper at the Bazaar of the Bizarre. A weasely man whose clothes and soul are stained by a patina of filth. In truth Arthuro had no intention of following his old man into the family business, he had his heart set on becoming a barber, or perhaps a hair stylist. Alas fate, and his father, had other ideas. This travesty set back the barbering business by twenty years, for in Arthuro's possession is an invention that would revolutionise the hair care industry in an instant. A simple device, like a pair of very blunt and flat-bladed scissors, the ends of which are designed to be heated in order to tame unkempt and uncultivated locks. He calls his invention the “Arthuro Ignatius Riptorn Straighteners” which, if fate had played its hand differently, would have been shortened, by the marketing men, to “AIR straighteners”, and thus an entire industry silently suffers- such is fickle fate’s whim.</blockquote>

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