Underground Pirates

The Black Bazaar

The Black Bazaar. Calling it an integral part of the Underworld would be a sever understatement. But this is not the underworld that the news would have you believe in. THEY describe this place where the criminal masterminds lurk, plotting their evil schemes, buying and selling drugs, weapons, bodies, alive or dead.

This place is much tamer. And much worse.

Sarin grabbed hold of Clacks' shoulder, pulling the shorter man back.

"Thanks," Clacks said to Sarin before turning to yell at the kid that road past on a rusted unicycle. "Watch where you're going!"

The kid may have said 'sorry' but it was lost amongst the bustle of the Bazaar.

Clacks looked around, "He's gotta be here somewhere." Booths, sometimes a couple of pipes and a tarp, often times no more than a few strategically placed cardboard boxes, lined the main strip of the small island that had come to be known only as the Black Bazaar. A man nearby was hocking roasted rats while the woman in the stall next to him had tiny shampoo bottles full of potions she claimed could cure everything from bunions to hemorrhoids. Massive torches lined the road, providing what little light existed deep down below the boroughs of New York.

"Who are we looking for again?" Sarin asked, looking at a roasted rat and telling his stomach to shut up.

"His name's Tony, last I saw him, he had set up shop next to Martha's tent."

Martha was a staple at the Bazaar. A doctor of some renown, no one really knew why she was down below, but she was, and she operated, sometimes quite literally, out of a tent that was more dingy fabric now than anything else.

"But she's back there," Sarin said, pointing in the direction the unicycling youth had come from.

"I know, but I didn't see him back there."

"Well, how 'bout I go ask, maybe Martha knows where he's gone."

Clacks shrunk at the idea. "Uh-"

"I'll go, you just stand outside, see if you see this Tony. What's he do anyways?"

"He helps out some of Martha's patients sometimes, helps others out too."

The duo made their way through the crowded street, the crowds thickening as they went.

"What's going on?" Clacks asked, his five foot eight frame keeping him from seeing over the mass of people before him.

"I can't see either," Sarin replied, before shoving his way into the crowd. "Make way, coming through." He threw elbows only when necessary, and it was necessary, but finally, followed closely by Clacks, he made it to the front of the crowd.

"I don't care what you think you're services are worth, I'm not paying." He was taller than Sarin by at least a foot, and had Martha by the collar of her brown frock.

Sarin locked eyes with Martha for a brief second, and she seemed to shake her head, but Sarin ignored the signal. "What seems to be the problem, friend?" He almost spat the last word, and had to jump back as the behemoth of a man holding Martha turned toward him, swinging the greying woman at him.

"This witch-"

"I'm not a witch, I'm-"

"Shut up!" The large man raised a hand to slap her, and she winced, prepared for the blow, but it never fell, a flattened and sharpened piece of rebar poking the large man in the stomach.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Sarin said from the other end of the piece of metal. "If I do what I want to right now, I doubt she'll be too eager to stitch you up."