psychoshenanigans | Skeleton City // PSL

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Skeleton City // PSL

They call it the "Market", and it's always buzzing like a hive. The vast caverns are warmed by the hundreds of bodies all hauling, shouting, pitching, laughing, exchanging things from one hand to another. Even more people stroll up above, their voices lost in the tangle of bridges made of stone and wood and metal. The place is lit by dozens of electric signs, spilling brightwarm colors where the hanging lanterns cannot reach.

There is a lot to look at. One person seems to trade a bolt of rich red cloth for some nails and hinges. One man is trying very hard to convince another that the chicken he is holding is worth at least three bags of grainmeal. And then there is whatever Phalanx is holding, which they most certainly did not trade for, and it most certainly leads to someone reaching out over their stall table and grabbing them harshly by the arm.

"Hey, you little theif!" Says an irate, heavy-set woman, "What do you think you're doing?"

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Phalanx isn't distracted this time--just very definitely watching the woman with some amount of visible concern. And if Robin slows his pace, that gives Phalanx permission to lag all the way to a stop.

And now the both of them have stopped. Robin follows Phalanx's glance towards the woman, then looks back at them with a slight tilt of his head.

"What, she scaring you?" He ends the question with a tiny smirk, even if he doesn't mean to.

Phalanx glances to Robin, and either because of his smirk or the question itself... they frown a little bit.

Yeah, she might be scaring them.

His smirk turns into a smile as he chuckles a little, under his breath.

"Don't worry, I know her. She's going to let us in."

He takes a couple of tentative steps in her direction again, giving Phalanx's hand a small tug to suggest they follow him too.

"I'll do the talking. You'll be fine."

Phalanx doesn't dig their feet in, so they let themself be led forward... but they don't seem particularly reassured about it. They probably wouldn't be able to explain why they're unnerved, of course, and they're probably thinking hard to figure it out as they're pulled closer.

Robin will let go of their hand within a few feet of the woman so that he can drop down to her height, crouching there on the dirty cave floor. She does not react, at first, continuing her intent drumming.

"Hey friend," Robin asks her, "How's business?"

When he asks, her drumming abruptly stops, the last couple of notes falling off to silence as two narrow, distrusting green eyes dart up at Robin, and then up at the weird, pale person standing behind him.

"...Business is booming," she replies. Her voice is slow and raspy, does nothing to inform of her actual age, "Looks like you found a friend."

"Sure did," he reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, immediately offering her two of them out of the box in what seems like a very practiced, natural gesture.

Her eyes flash down to the offered trade, barely a second before she reaches out to snatch them up, putting one unlit between her lips and the other into a hidden pocket somewhere on her person.

That seems to be the end of their exchange, as Robin stands back up again.

Phalanx stays right where Robin allows them to stop, continuing to watch the woman with some anxiety. However, when the drumbeats halt, the creature blinks and looks a little surprised at the silence.

It's not a bad surprise. If anything, Phalanx seems somewhat relieved, shoulders leveling out--so, maybe the drum was even scarier than the woman herself.

Robin had been trying to get a read of Phalanx behind him, of course, even while he performed his little exchange with the drummer. It's good to know which parts are more worrying to them--since they're going to run into a lot of scary-looking characters, but significantly fewer drummers of any kind.

"Follow me," Robin says, even though he doesn't have to. He takes their hand again, leading them around the side of the tent and in through an opening that reveals the chaotic innards of this makeshift tent.

Calling them a tailor or a clothier would be doing a disservice to those fine, upstanding industries. At first glance, this appears to be the interior of a garbage pile, with things sitting in unsorted mounds and bits of fabric and metal and ancient, warping plastics hanging off of rusty nails hammered along the questionably-stable frames of the structure.

There are some candles burning here and there, placed on little shelves and bits of furniture that may or may not actually be for sale. There's also an impressive mound of fabric scraps in one corner that sort of topples over onto a mattress that is also half-covered in blankets, making it hard to tell if that is part of the store or if it is just where someone sleeps at night.

It's dim in here, despite the candlelight, and the air is stuffy and warm... But it smells surprisingly good in here, like a dark tea or some kind of herbal remedy, directly contrasting the confusion around them.

Standing in the middle of this, leaning on a stool and blatantly yawning, is a pale, thin man in what is unmistakably a long, black dress with a high collar. His hair is cropped short and dyed this sort of muddy red color. When he notices the both of them there, he turns, revealing both dramatic eye makeup and the fact that half of his lips are missing.

The left side of his lips, specifically. There is a slit where his mouth still appears to open, but but it doesn't seem like that half moves very much when he talks.

"Ah!" is his startled reply, "Robin, I wasn't expecting anyone in here this early..."

What little sluggishness was left quickly disappears in the face of curiosity, as this stranger leans back to get a look at whoever Robin has dragged in behind him. "And who is this?"

It's probably a good thing that there is a striking, engaging individual in this hovel, because otherwise there might have been an immediate problem with missing trinkets. There are so many things in here that are obviously begging to be touched, and rags looking to be added to the collection. But Phalanx only has a moment or two to glance over the possibilities before their attention is drawn toward the star of the show.

They don't look quite as spooked as when they'd spotted the drum-playing woman, but there's apparently something about this person that is causing some anxiety in them as well.

If this person is at all bothered by the anxious look they're being given, they don't show it. If anything, being stared at only makes them more curious about the person doing the staring.

"This is Phalanx," Robin introduces them with a casual, sweeping gesture, "I've only just met him myself."

The man looks back and forth between the two of them, half his mouth curling into a smirk--or perhaps a smile, as it is a little hard to tell the intent behind his expression while half of his face is not emoting at all.

"It's nice to meet you, Phalanx," the stranger says, playfully, finally settling his attention on the pale figure again, "What brings both of you to the Argent Stone?"

Both of the man's eyes are technically brown, but the one on the strange side of his face has a strange pale blotch over part of his iris; it looks almost like a bleach stain. His ear is subtly wrong-shaped as well on that side, with his hair cut much closer to the scalp. Whatever happened to him is scarred into the entire left side of his face in ways that are hard to quantify or immediately parse, partly because of many years of healing, and partly from a significant amount of makeup.

Robin, not quite ready to let Phalanx talk yet, gets in a few words right after the shopkeeper asks his question-- "They talk like they've got a touch of night sickness, so don't be surprised if they start picking up things that aren't theirs."

Physical differences (or really, physical appearances of any sort) haven't seemed to matter much to Phalanx so far, but they are staring at this man's face more intently than they usually do.

And they immediately play nicely into Robin's explanation--starting their usual search for words but only coming up with recent ones from the air. "A touch of--a touch."

"Actually," Robin fills a strange silence that follows Phalanx's words, "I was hoping you might know where they came from, Tonic."

The man's smile fades as he starts to look between them again.

"You don't know?" He asks, "Robin, are you bringing a spider into my nest?"

"I paid our fare," is Robin's response. Something about this prompts him to reach over and take Phalanx's hand again, which the man clearly notices. "I just want to know if you've heard of anything like this person in one of your deeper circles."

Having one of their hands taken gives Phalanx an excuse to not look at the strange man and worry over strange thoughts anymore. They look down at that point of contact and let go of some other things, continuing to listen to the interaction but not as part of it.

"Besides," says Robin, taking full advantage every time this man tries to mull over his answer, "I thought you liked spiders."

"Oh, don't." The man waves his good arm and steps off of the stool, landing on his bad leg. It seems just a little too short compared to his other one, though he carries the slight limp very gracefully in that long dress of his.

"And we're buying things, too." Robin remains next to Phalanx as the other man approaches, not... protective, but perhaps as an assurance that nothing terrible is going to happen.

The man is not particularly tall up close, certainly no taller than Phalanx. He surprisingly close to their face with his own, peering at whichever eye is closest with his own mismatched set.

"Phalanx, was it?" The man asks, then leaning back again a little, "What do you think of all this?"

"--All this," Phalanx compulsively parrots before the man has finished the words, and the hand that Robin isn't holding gets fidgety with the edges of their new coat.

They look around the tent, give the man another hesitant glance, and then look up at Robin. They look like they want to answer, but maybe don't understand the question. Or the context. Or the place in time and space that it's being asked in.

"All this?"

The man watches this with interest, while Robin--who has a lot of experience talking to Phalanx over the last day and some change--finds it easy to respond.

"I believe he's asking how you feel about my trying to figure out where you came from."

Whether or not this is, in fact, what the man is interested in, he nods a little in acknowledgement. He also reaches down towards that other hand of theirs, the one that's fidgeting uncomfortably, but stops just seconds after turning it up.

"Darling--what happened to your hand?"

It's the one that got stabbed by a dozen needles. The bleeding has probably stopped by now, but both the both of them had gotten so sidetracked by the "sewing" adventure that Robin completely forgot that Phalanx was ever bleeding in the first place.

"Oh, shit--" Robin says, genuinely surprised, "That's right!"

"...Oh." Right. That happened.

The fact that Phalanx's fingers look permanently filthy doesn't help either. Stained and sticky with blood and immovable dirt, they look ready for some kind of infection.

"Sewing," Phalanx offers helpfully. They know the answer to that one.

At that, the man laughs. Perhaps surprisingly, it is not a cruel laugh, but rather one of genuine surprise and light affect.

"Oh, do you like sewing?" the man asks him, half of his face lit up with a charmed smile.

Phalanx would be relieved to not be mocked if they knew to expect it. Instead, they only brighten a little bit with renewed interest and nod.

"Working."

The man seems to like that answer too, for whatever reason.

"Working, yes," he drops Phalanx's hand, "Always good to be keeping busy. Come--"

He turns, limping back towards the center of his tent with a bit of a guiding nod for the both of them to follow him further into the space.

"Make yourselves at home, I'll think while you shop. Would you like some tea?"

"I think you've made a friend," Robin says to Phalanx now that the surprise is over, not so quiet that this 'Tonic' couldn't hear them, but not so loud that it could be mistaken as meant for anyone else.

Phalanx makes a conflicted sound and--now that they have reclaimed some personal space--they take their hand back from Robin so they can start unwinding and fixing the wraps on their arm. Sensing that they're all going to be moving onto whatever the next stage of this adventure will be, they want to bind up and hide their wounded hand first.

If Phalanx's hand hurt more, Robin would offer to fix it. If they weren't used to hideous, debilitating injuries being a fact of everyday life, Tonic probably would have offered to fix it too. But as they are, neither men stops Phalanx from wrapping up his wounded hand rather than addressing it.

"No answer?" Says their shopkeeper, who has ducked down around a hidden corner of the internal geometry of this tent. "You don't have to say yes."

"No, thank you," Robin finally answers, "I was actually hoping you could help us find a skirt appropriate for my new friend."

Robin doesn't want to set Phalanx loose in this shop, honestly. They'll go right for the pile of blankets, tunnel into it and refuse to be parted from them. The things hung up on the frame look like coats, and bits of armor cobbled together from bits and pieces of metal and other scraps from all corners of the Underground--but none of it seems right for Phalanx.

"Mm," says the voice from just out of sight, "Something grey, I'd imagine."

Keeping the creature close and managed is a good tactic. Already, Phalanx is looking wander-y, and definitely eyeing the tempting sea of cloth. There is a distinct look of longing in those currently-colorful eyes.

Though, when they do finally begin to drift, it's toward literally whatever object is closest to them and can fit in the palm of a hand.

There are a number of bags draped over and spilling out of a small chest near where they entered--that's probably where Phalanx wanders first. Some of them have buckles, metal snaps, or drawstrings on them, but some are simply very plain bags made out of whatever fabric was available. The whole thing is kind of a confusing mash of grungy style and limited materials, but it would be fun to dig through.

"Something that wraps around multiple times, I think," Robin replies, briefly eyeing and picking up a leather glove off a hook, "Not too tight, though."

"You're describing a blanket, honey," the man replies, coming out of the back just to roll both of his eyes (though one doesn't quite follow in the same perfect loop as the other).

Robin laughs, glancing back at Phalanx, "I'd take that, if it would stay on him."

The man considers for a moment, before directing another question at his new acquaintance, "Well, how much do you like buckles?"

It takes Phalanx a delayed moment to realize that they're being spoken to, and when they do, they are absolutely in the middle of rummaging through that welcoming pile of bags.

"Buckles." Phalanx lifts up a bag that does, indeed, have a bunch of buckles dangling off of it. "Buckles... bugs. Bags."

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Skeleton City // PSL

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