[adamu]

Al shrugged. "Can't see what difference it'll make, but yer the boss. Ixnay on the eardbay, though. Shee-it, next you'll have ol' Al smokin' clove cigarettes."

Concentrating on his circus ringmaster persona, Al never broke character once as he stopped at a couple of kiosks on the their way, picking up a scarf at one and a pair of glasses on the way. There were no sunglasses for sale here in the land of the Molepeople, there being no sun, but AR glasses came in all shapes and sizes, and, all being manufactured out in the productive world, they all had tint features. It looked sort of funny down here, sunglasses, but he didn't want to make Isaint feel bad. And this way he matched Alyce with her own funky eyewear.

After stopping for beers and sandwiches on the way, they arrived at Nightside in plenty of time for a careful approach to the meet.

[Mercy Merchant]

Alyce moves close to Al as they walk.  "Al, you are perfect.  I like your circus ringmaster disguise, but the glasses just give it that extra added bit."

[adamu]

"Of course. Good taste. And I s'pose, if'n you say so - fer ol' Al's money it jist makes the whole effect kinda garish."

[Mercy Merchant]

"Are you saying I am kind of garish?  Thank you for the compliment.  You do know how to say the nicest things to a girl."

[Jack_Spade]

While Al and Robyn kept bantering, Isaint's eyes kept roving along their underground way. Once they passed the entrance to the market he had to use his concentration trick to be able to keep his focus. "Eyes on the prize my friends. This is where our troubles really started last time. Let's hope the Flowers are as well behaved as the Old One wants us to believe."

Isaint periodically took a look into the astral - watching out for watchers, spirits and the like. "We are getting close now, if there is a trap waiting, we should be getting attention about now."

#472

[Mercy Merchant]

Robyn has been monitoring the feeds from the four drones she has deployed as well as alternating between her radar and ultrasound sensors and nods at ISaint's words.  "Nothing really suspicious on the feeds.  Would you like me to hook you into my visual net?"  She also reaches down to pat the head of the Hell Hound at her side, trusting her friend to alert of danger.

The market is a cacophony of movement and noise, with local and Overworlder vendors trying to get their share of the money spent here.

[adamu]

Al was also on high alert for any funny business from the Flowers. He doubted they'd advertise their ambush beforehand, so he figured the best way to spot trouble would be to keep his eyes peeled for hippies. Soon, however, his senses were overpowered by inputs - within scarcely a minute of entering the market he spotted no fewer than nine facial tattoos, enough visible piercings to supply a steel foundry with scrap metal for a week, half a dozen men wearing some sort of cosmetics, seventeen people using what seemed to be drugs (nearly half apparently underage!), four same-sex couples holding hands (one kissing publicly), twenty-three males with hair down below their collars, and literally countless women flagrantly displaying both bralessness and unshaven armpits.

Despairing of picking out the hostile from the merely degenerate, he realized that their clever disguises would prevent any attack anyway, and simply enjoyed smoking as he walked, congratulating himself on is ability to accurately assess the situation even amid such trying environs.

[Jack_Spade]

Once they had found the shop, Isaint took the lead, entering wary of an ambush.
Finding the emissary between the shelf rows of merchandise proved to be a lot more difficult than expected. <<Lets move methodically through this place and keep an eye open for the sign of our contact. Al you can relax your cunning disguise for a moment so she can recognize you.>>

[adamu]

Unbeknownst even to his boon companions, Al had already shifted from his ringmaster guise to his chimney sweep persona. On their way here, he had been getting a lot of fairly hateful stares from quite a number of Flowers - identified by their thorny-vine inkwork - and knowing it was impossible they recognized him, thought maybe they had a problem with circus folk. Once he'd shifted over, though, the stares had inexplicably continued. He found this odd, since he was doubtful there were in chimneys down here to be swept.

Now, at Isaint's direction, he allowed his true colors to shine, also removing the silly scarf and glasses. He was fairly certain this dwarf girl they were meeting had never seen him, so he wasn't sure what the point was. Probably what Isaint really wanted was for him to lower the veil on his blinding charisma and apex-predator demeanor, and thus attract their mark's attention.

Well, it worked. A short woman - though, as reported, tall for her gender and metatype - caught his eye briefly. She bore the characteristic tats of her House, wore her hair in long, tatty dreadlocks, and was placing various plants and herbs into a wicker shopping basket. Her features were sharper than many of her metatype, though she had a rather pronounced brow, and a heavy charcoal effect around her eyes made them appear to recede even further beneath it. She had full, bee-stung lips, and her delicately pointed ears were festooned with ceramic ornaments in the shape and likeness of various brightly colored blossoms.

After her fleeting eye contact, she resumed her shopping. Al did his best to seem interested in the shop's tree-hugging wares, and eventually the girl made her way out a rear entrance. Waiting a good two minutes, Al led the way out after her.

[Mercy Merchant]

Robyn notes the change in Al's gait and posture as he changes personas once and then as he drops his disguise at ISaint's request.  As directed, she takes one of the wicker shopping baskets and walks the aisles, using one of her drones to scan the items available and the rest to scan for their contact.  Robyn is not unknown in Below and some of the other shoppers stop to greet her and exchange bits of small talk as she puts a couple of things in her basket to purchase if they get a chance.  She is interrupted in her shopping when one of the drones spies Cara in another aisle.  She is about to say something to the others when they get Al's message and she heads in the direction of the rear entrance, stopping to pay for her purchases before exiting the shop.

[Jack_Spade]

Isaint was content to let the other two rove through the shop, while he kept an eye on the exit and the other open for trouble. To do this without being to obvious about it, he took one of the little hand mirrors that the shop described as "divination aids" and used it to glance over his shoulder while appearing to admire the cheap piece of mass-produced trash.

As expected, his team-mates flushed out the dwarf girl, so he let her pass through, but not without flicking a little stealth tag into her bag.

[spoiler]
Palming Edge Reroll: 12d6t5 [12d6t5=4, 4, 5, 3, 1, 4, 5, 5, 5, 4, 6, 2]
Damn, zero successes on the first throw. I'm spending a point of edge
[/spoiler]

<<Don't start to storm out after her, I tagged her, so keep doing what you do. We can follow her at our leisure.>>

[adamu]

Two minutes later when Al went out the back of the underkingdom pot-shop, young Cara was nowhere to be seen. But there was really only one way forward down the narrow back lane, and at the first intersection a glance down each passageway quickly turned her up, just at the edge of his line of sight, examining mushrooms at a small stand. He stopped, she kept shopping, and then she moved on. He waited, letting her get out of sight. At the edge of his vision there was an alert ping insistently offering him a map overlay with the location of Isaint's tag, but he shut it off in annoyance. The ork would be happy to keep track of it himself.

Al waited for one of his teammates to leapfrog him before himself heading in the direction the dwarf girl had gone.

[Mercy Merchant]

Robyn sets ISaint's tag feed on her overlay and smiles as she heads out the rear after Al.  The passageway is quite narrow and she squeezes past Al; a feat even more difficult for her hound.  She does not need to stay close behind the girl as she sends one of her drones flitting after her.  Her radar and ultrasound sensors assist in keeping Cara located on her overlay of this section of the Market, and she "follows" by turning into a slightly wider passageway between shops and then paralleling the other woman's progress.  She links her feeds to ISaint's 'link so he can see what she sees, but keeps Al appraised by voice since she knows he will not accept the feeds.

[Jack_Spade]

Isaint let Robyn monitor where their contact went while he continued to watch out for threats. Now came the really dangerous part: A meeting with the emissary at a secluded place of her choice.

The underground nature of the Night Market gave a plethora of options for this: Without regulatory oversight the denizens had build their stalls and shops not only adjacent to existing structures but also above, behind and in some cases below other existing dwellings. Having a straight piece of street was the exception, dead ends prevailed and also unofficial back alleys, walled gardens (for a lack of a better word), cat walks and impromptu underpasses.

It was therefore no big surprise when her signal turned suddenly a hard right and entered a nondescript building in a connecting alley. The team reached that same door a minute later. It was unlocked and after a short, dark corridor opened up into what Al certainly would have described as a hippy paradise:

Rows upon rows Marijuana plants - at least Isaint thought it was Marijuana - stood under daylight lamps, while an automated drip feed and a host of drones cared for them. In the midst of this, the dwarf girl stood and looked expectantly towards them:

"Took you long enough..."

[adamu]

Al's back still hurt, and he was in no mood for lip from a halfer hippie hemp-dealer. "Heya toots, yer the one warned us ta watch our step in these parts, an' it's your privacy we's aimin' ta pertect. Besides, since yer girlfriend's genius chummer shot ol' Al inna back at our last meet, which I dare add was set up at an absolutely inspired locale, reckoned a modicum o' caution might be in order. So if yer serious about gittin' hitched ta yer Iron Ork ladypal, you can start by watchin' the sass."