A Wretched Hive of Gambling and Explosions [Open]

[cityship]

For those looking hard enough, the black market on XaXing shouldn't be too incredibly difficult to find - just look for the section of town where people don't look excited to be trading. Everyone in this little section of the market either looks like they just got away with a murder and need to keep glancing over their shoulders, or like they're about to get lined up for an execution. The more experienced traders here are clearly more at ease and looking as casual as possible, but there's still a distinct tension in the air.

An alien clearly designated as a police officer gazes down the street but, after a shopkeeper passes him and discretely slips some contraband into his hand, keeps walking.

An Iskoort and a human man dressed in black are relaxing outside the door to a store titled "Merchandiser, Brother of Hood Ornament Seller, Offers Exotic and Tantalizing Goods from the Far Corners of the Galaxy!". Under that sign, a few more signs detail how no background checks, down payments, identifications or collaterals are necessary. From inside the building, the sounds of a scuffle are audible, followed by the sound of someone choking.

The man in the doorway taps his cane against the window. "Keep it down in there!"

The Iskoort, Merchandiser, looks around a bit skittishly. {If you would allow me to purchase a sample of your superpowers, I could incinerate the body. I would pay a very reasonable price.}

"And leave nothing for your Mortician's Guild to clean up? Hardly."

Across the street, the shop that supposedly sells cactus extracts, but secretly specializes in drugs and hit contracts, lowers their blinds a few inches.


(( OOC: Here, have a criminal underworld! Feel free to tag in and run into other crew members ("what are you doing looking at faerie slaves?"), or into one of the underworld gurus here. If you want one of my NPCs to tag you, just put it in your post title. NPCs are Merchandiser and Dark Thomas Casey. ))

Comments

[j-y-d.livejournal.com]

For this section of town, the guns come out, Kickass and Bubblegun strapped firmly to his hips, the huge maul, aka Truck Stop, over one shoulder. Chase is pretty good at keeping people at a distance when he wants to be - and in this section of town, he's keeping his back near a wall and an eye on everyone.
He's not subjecting Inara to this part of town, letting her tend to her own business in nicer parts of town. Between the fact that he can regrow lost body bits, sold some memories, and has no shame or sense of modesty when people need models, he's come into money here and there, even if he gave most of it to Kang, and he needs a couple things that he's only going to find in a place like this.

That, and, honestly, he'd feel a little bad if he didn't at least visit the black market - it feels like home.

Despite that, right now he's really just up to two things - one, looking for other members of his crew that either look like they're feeling lost or out of place here, to make sure they stay out of trouble - or alternately, people from his crew who look like they know exactly what they're looking for and feel they'll find it here, but look like they could use a well armed, 6'8 wall of muscle standing over their shoulder to discourage cheats. In exchange, he's hoping he can get someone with more of a gift of gab than he has, not to mention a better brain for literacy and math, to do the bargaining for him.

Should he run into anyone he can trade such favors with, then he'll start considering finding a suitably useful black marketeer.

[smugearworm.livejournal.com]

Anything could be bought. Anything at all. For a price, the proper price.

That was almost intoxicating. The liberty that gave them, the ability it provided. Anything was possible. He'd need to explore it to greater extent later.

He had been looking for a place like this, a place that he knew had to exist in this world where price tags could be applied to anything.

He had a promise to keep. Several of them, by now. Promises were tricky things when you gave a damn about them. Tangled mess of things, by now. But he had been looking for this shop and it's shop-keeper. "Good evening, gentlemen. I'm interested in making a rather unusual purchase."

Sam was behind him, he hadn't even bothered explaining what his intentions were, but here they were.

And here was where they may part ways.

NPC me!

[not-edd.livejournal.com]

If Zedd was going to survive his time on board the ship, it was best that he got the supplies needed to do so. Though, most of his supplies would be more along the line of minions strong enough to throw around most normal humans. He'd already bought a few pieces of junk that would serve wonderfully as minions, but he needed something... more.