A man with a tan named Fran concoted a plan concerning a clan which ran from Iran in a van with his nan for lifting a ban on a can over a LAN with his fan named Jan who span a pecan flan containing bran on a courtesan who lived on a catamaran until stopped by a orangutan due to cyan Dan who drove a sedan who’s slogan was “Batman: Lifespan overran”.
If anyone can think of a hard “-an” i missed, feel free to inform me.
Co-author credit goes to my cousin Mike.
My very first offering for Alastair’s photo fiction. Exciting! Let me know what you think! And obviously, if you haven’t, check out Alastairs’s blog.
The photo for this weeks is:
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She peered through the gaps of her crate, suspended high above the familiar waves below
Land! She’d almost forgotten what land looked like. Docks, buildings, even people! Well, people that weren’t the gruff, bearded men who slotted the food through the top of her crate twice a day, but they did little more than grunt at her.
With little fanfare, she found her crate being lowered from her position high above the waves to a boat bellow. Her attempts to stop herself being thrown mercilessly from one wall to the other proved futile.
The men on the boat bellow watched the crate apprehensively, some nervously shuffled backwards as it descended inevitably towards them.
Everyone’s heart stopped at once, the crate began to slide from its supports and tumbled into the water below. The girl let out a final scream as she plummeted into the murky water.
And from the depths there came an explosion of light. No one said a word.
Despite the name, underground venue, and surly nature of a lot of its patrons, the Black Market is a hub of colour, lights, sounds, shouts and bartering.
Even if a lot of the colours are black.
The Black Market: the world renowned center for all covert mutants, freaks, hidden species and all those people who knows far too much. Any one appearing to be human almost certainly knows more than what is reasonable, safe or even desirable to know and usually pertains the following facts: the human race isn’t alone, magic isn’t fake, almost every religion is at least partially true.
Discovering the Black Market usually gives a rudimentary crash course in the above topics. Area’s of extra-curricular study usually include: How not to offend most major races, species or sects; basic Black Market etiquette; a rough approximation of exchange rates and barter values of common items; how to defend against mental compulsion; how to ward off fairy dust; the locations of your nearest xenomedic and why never to buy anything from any of the sub-sewer species. Those who don’t study up on such topics either learn the lesson very fast, or very quickly decide to start enquiring about hiring a guide.
The black market exists to cater for the needs and wants of such diverse intersection of demographics, and is notoriously unregulated. If you find a space, you can set up a stall; you can sell what you want, buy what you want, offer anything for anything. But the market has its own unwritten rules, enforced by general consensus and upheld by who ever has the most power at the scene of the crime. And who that is can often be deceptive. The rules are generally understood to be:
-Do no passive harm. Selling a weapon is fine, emitting noxious fumes to your stall neighbor isn’t.
-Don’t obstruct the trade.
-Respect the stall owner
-Respect the stall
Anything beyond that is judged by gut reaction, but break any of those, and no power or knowledge or trinkets of value will save you.
First and Last chapters 