Grey Markets

After we’d been to Jordan’s, Ilyara wanted to go to Hammer and Hammer, she wanted to speak to Edward who ran the shop, apparently she had a favour to ask him. When we got there he recognised me, which was interesting as he’d not seen my new body. When I asked him about it he said he recognised my mannerisms, and that this was an improvement on the old body.
 
It turns out the favour Ilyara wanted to ask was to help us with the vampires in the sewers issue as he ‘had a skillset we might find useful’ he nodded. Ilyara had been able to get some additional information and knew there were 11 of them we needed to deal with. H was happy to help us and suggested he might have some ‘Specialist toys’ that we might find useful. Plasma weapons would be the best and most effective against them apparently.
 
Ilyara then asked something slightly concerning, she wanted to know if he knew how we could capture one alive. Apparently if she were to get an enzyme that would counter their metabolism then she might just be able to do it. He also suggested delivering the enzyme in contact syringes or darts. Endgame or Buzzer pistols are going to be the most useful. Endgame would be more effective but the buzzer has a longer range.
 
Once we’d got the information we could from Edward, as well as promise of help if we needed it, we went to go and see Persephone. Her apartment was on the border of hers and Ilyaras districts. It was quite bright in there, old school and retro with loads of music memorabilia, looking at the pictures on the walls it quickly became apparent why. They were of her on stage, she had been in a band at some point. An older gentleman comes out and asks us to take a seat then makes tea for us all. Persephone was in a meeting but will be with us all shortly.
 
By the time the tea comes out Persephone has finished her meeting and comes to join us. She tells us there are certain individuals from a group of PNC’s, ransacking into areas they’re not supposed to be in and stealing data. They are working across districts and she wants them stopped, they’re causing trouble for her and Ilyara but also ‘she who must be obeyed’
 
She also talks to us about the grey markets and security. They have a large scanner that can pick up heartbeats so sneaking in and out isn’t an option for most of us. Ilyara would be OK getting past that. However, they also have magical means of detecting infiltrators so we do need to be careful about that as well. Any recording abilities I have will be disabled as recording in the grey markets is strictly forbidden. Rumour has it that one person did manage to get something working but to do this they must have jacked into the network which is exceptionally risky and a guaranteed way to get the guns turned on you.
 
She also recommends we don’t ask too many questions as that’s a surefire way to arouse suspicion and get our every move watched which is not what we want.
 
We headed to the grey markets with the tickets Zeek had given us. We arrived at the designated spot and we were bundled into a vehicle with the instructions to jump out as soon as we saw the green light. I must admit, I didn’t like the idea of jumping out of a moving vehicle but since that was the only way we were getting in, that’s what we needed to do.
 
It felt like we were going down an incline and the temperature was dropping. We couldn’t see outside so I had no idea where we were but if I had to guess it would be that we had gone underground. The green light came on, there was a click and the back door opened and we all piled out. The truck didn’t even stop and so we were left in the dark pretty quickly. Before long a yellow light appeared above a door and it opened ajar.
 
Heading over to the door I noticed a catwalk above us, there were 5 heavily armed individuals, we were being watched and I caught us being scanned but the weapons weren’t raised. We had to leave any explosives and laser weaponry in some lockers but they hadn’t picked up on my nano-blades or nails so I got to keep those with me.
 
We all ended up splitting up a little as we went to go and check out the respective shops we wanted to see. I headed for the hackers. We had a few jobs coming up where my hacking was going to be much more useful than my skills with a gun. I picked up two DST’s and two DSD’s as source code for programmes and a Kr4K virus. You never knew when they were going to come in handy.
 
They also had some tasty little rounds for tech pistols. KR4K rounds with virus injectors, they would only get through light armour but it could be useful if I needed to take something down from a distance. They also had a watchdog programme and a chameleon programme. They also had some millimetre scanner glasses which could come in handy if it meant I didn’t need to keep borrowing Ilyaras scanners.
 
As I walked around I kept my ears open for any gossip or mentions of the slave market downstairs. Most of it was irrelevant but then I did come hear ‘Moved downstairs, some might not last the night, some look like good stock, I fancy a lot would pay a good price for these’ I messaged Ilyara and got her to come over. If anyone was going to get information out of them, it was her. She sauntered over and within minutes we were blindfolded and led down and up stairs and spun around and even picked up and carried. I got the impression that we were being disoriented on purpose.
 
When the blindfolds were removed we were in a large viewing room, there was a large bay window and on the other side were cages. Although the blindfolds had been removed we were all given masks to wear, looking at the others in the room they were all wearing masks. It was a quick and easy way to hide your identity and no-one wanted to be seen buying slaves.
 
The auction started and the cages started moving past the window. There was a selection of races and even ages. Max was interested in saving some of the people who were clearly ill or overworked. A cage was brought forward with two elves, a dwarf and a human. They were a mix of radiation sickness, and some that had obviously been attacked by something. Between Max and Ilyara they bought all four.
 
The next cage had 5 children, a poseidonian oy, two female elf girls and two boys, one human and one amaranthian. I bought all of the children, wanting to get them out of the situation and somewhere I knew they would be looked after.
 
One of the security men came over to quietly speak with us. They were getting nervous as we were new customers and purchasing this many slaves was unusual, they also didn’t want us to intimidate the other buyers. He suggested we come to the next auction and continue our purchases then. We followed him out of a back door and he handed us a bottle of expensive wine each, to apologise for any inconvenience and to sweeten the new relationship. He asked why we needed the slaves and we told them about the ruins we wanted to excavate. He has heard of them and understands why we would be looking for slaves to work on it. He suggests we come back in a few days when there will be a ‘Special selection’ auction. Some are indentured, some are not legal, some they will have to keep in the back. He can send us an invitation nearer to the time. He did warn us though that the prices from tonight were much cheaper, these could go for a few thousand as some are very rare, spellcasters, digimancers, healers etc.
 
He also asked if we were interested in a job. It was a one off. There were some ruins he wanted us to raid. We’d have the pick of the loot and they’d take everything else. It was a sunken settlement, far to the north near scotland. It’s an Amaranthian settlement, when it appeared here it was below ground, still accessible but buried. There are Amaranthians and sand sirens reported to be in the settlement. They are after the Amaranthian artefacts and if we can get them for them there will be a sizeable reward. He hands us a holocard, if we pop it into a table it will give us all of the information we need. I took the holocard and we made arrangements for the slaves to be delivered to the base along with all of the weapons and munitions we bought and had to leave at the door when we entered.