Trinkets, Trash, Th'alak

After a brief write-up from local authorities reprimanding Raian for attempting to drown a weird-looking squid boy, the two chose to vacate the area. It’s not like he was trying to drown him. It just happened to look like it from certain angles.

Anyhow, many soggy footprints were left in their wake, and while Raian’s trousers only barely survived the ordeal, Mochi was saturated to the bone. Going back up by tram was out of the question. It had been done one too many times in the past that it was now an explicit rule to not board trams while wet.

Smoking, though? Fully permitted.

So, back up the hill on foot they went. Raian protested a lot more than Mochi, and Mochi was only doing it because Raian was doing it. He often felt left out, so imitation is the best way to counter that.

It was about that time in the afternoon where many workers go on a break, and a joint scheme from food stalls and restaurateurs began to kick into action. A thick, borderline overwhelming smog of cooking oil and MSG wafted downhill, pulling at the tired and hungry workers like a salty temptress.

Because of this imminent crowd, and to avoid the inevitability of spending more money on fried chicken, Raian dragged his squid down a route neither of them particularly knew. He wasn’t confident about a lot of things, but he at least thought his sense of direction was impeccable.

Debatable, but in this utter spaghetti that Tarin Oth calls its architectural layout, surely one route lead back to where they needed to be. It was flatter, but there were more stairs, which pulled some genuine complaints from Mochi this time around.

It was a bit darker down these roads, as the hovels and establishments were built with the phrase ‘touch starved’ in mind. It was more like a tunnel than anything. Anything you didn’t see on the main street appeared on these roads.

Tattoo shops, holes in the wall selling shirts with weird phrases on it, third-rate second-hand jewellery stores, pawn shops that refused to question whose blood that is, there wasn’t a lot this place didn’t have, except a mop apparently.

“Come! Have a look, I think you’ll find my wares quite… peculiar.”

To Mochi, his voice was as tantalizingly smooth as salted caramel, but to Raian, the man had a discerning ear to tell when that salted caramel was laced with something nasty.

Another Senrali called out to them, sat cross-legged on a cushioned chair in another dingy hole in the wall, with eyes as black as the bottom of the lightless ocean. It was decorated with a chaotic assortment of items, almost none of which was decipherable. That seemed to be a running trend.

The bearded Senrali had more gold teeth than natural, with deep, grey skin, and two straight, pointy horns that seemed to darken at the tip. His smile was noxious, and his breath, possibly even more so.

He was a peddler of sorts. Relics and artifacts of dubious origin. These relics don’t just fall out of the sky of course, you had to dig deep for them. One might call it graverobbing, but experienced merchants would call it a business transaction with the mortally challenged.

Quite simply, there was no honour to it. Profits were all the craze, and you only had a small chance of the dead coming back to turn you into their new pair of slippers. Besides, they only sold the low-tier trash anyhow.

The trading and movement of relics was a highly monitored activity. Of course, the government of Tarin Oth wanted all the fancy ones to themselves, they always did. By law, they are to own anything that might be of value, or a danger, or both.

However, anything that Tarin Oth didn’t bother to set its greedy eye on was technically free game so long as the original owners didn’t come back to haunt them. Even then, there were services for that.

“Would you and your little—” he squinted, “ah, lady-friend, like to have a… browse?”

The demon’s hair was a deep crimson, slicked back with some manner of pungent oil. His tie seemed to match in colour, with his button-up shirt being the only thing that managed to stay mostly white.

“What name belongs to you, my… dear?” the demon scratched his fiery red goatee, leaning in close to the squid.

“My name’s Mochi, and I’m not a lady.” He smiled uncertainly.

“Mochi? An interesting name… indeed.”

Raian saw fit to finally pipe up.

“I’m Raia—”

“Th’alak is the name people call me,” the demon loudly interrupted, only giving Mochi his attention, “it was a name I chose when I came to this city… perchance.”

“You can’t just say ‘perchance’.” Raian said flatly.

Th’alak shot Raian with a truly insincere smile. It was the kind of smile he got from Unali when he asked if he looked good in a turtleneck. He did not.

“Lamp oil? Rope? Bombs? A mystical relic, perhaps? Or an aphrodisiac? What do you see that takes your… interest?” Th’alak raised an eyebrow.

“What’s an aphrodisiac?” Mochi whispered to his handler.

“I’ll tell you later.” Raian lied quickly.

The squid hummed and eyed the many cluttered shelves of this little hovel. A lot of the things here he couldn’t even recognise, but it all seemed so interesting.

“What’s that?” Mochi asked.

He pointed toward a rather unassuming orb. If it looked boring, then maybe it did something really exciting.

With his nails painted a vivid red pattern, Th’alak’s grey fingers swiped the object. It was a dull, metallic-looking sphere. He huffed a breath and rubbed it against the cloth of his shirt, doing nothing to improve its lustre.

“Look closely, my tentacled friend, and… observe.” The Senrali’s lips curled into a wry grin.

And, from a height he dropped it onto the stab pocked countertop. As one would expect, it bounced. And then it bounced again, and again with the same momentum. It took Raian a moment, but he figured it out.

A minute or two of blank stares passed into the void, and the sphere still bounced at the exact same height Th’alak dropped it at.

“What’s it do?” Mochi asked earnestly.

A bit of the Senrali’s patience chipped off in that moment.

“It’s still bouncing… see!” the gold-toothed man gestured frantically.

It clicked, finally, and a look of awe exploded across the squid’s face, bringing himself closer to the phenomenon. More minutes passed, and as you can expect, the object still did the same thing it always did.

The boy watched every bounce, with not even a single part of his interest dwindling.

“He’s very easily… impressed.” Th’alak pointed out.

“Yeah, kinda.” Raian replied softly.

Those same grey fingers swiped the relic from the air, lowering his black eyes to meet with the cephalopod.

“A wonder… no?” Candlelight shimmered off his golden teeth, “A one of a kind sort of something! It is yours, if you have the… coin.”

A barbed tail swung about behind the man, swiping at a price tag from a shelf and knocking it down. While Mochi didn’t even pay it any mind, Raian had played these games before. A mere glimpse was all he needed. 6 vin, it said.

“How much is it?” Mochi asked with a glint of hope in his voice, now fully ensnared.

“Well, originally… 50 vin.” Th’alak spoke, “But for you, my little calamari,” he turned his gaze to the man who would obviously be paying, “all I ask for is… 18 vin.”

Golden, pleading eyes burned a hole straight through Raian’s resolve, and that pair of black eyes mimicking Mochi’s genuine want for that junk only fed his daily urge to punch something.

“Mochi, I really don’t think we should be wasting our money like this.” Raian intoned.

“Oh, come on Raian, relax!”

“Yeah Raian… relax!” Th’alak’s venomous words poured forth.

In a flash, Raian suddenly stopped caring and pulled out his wallet. It’s not like it was his money, anyhow. Notes and coins clattered against the counter, and the Senrali scooped it all up happily, despite Raian’s glare.

The moment the transaction was complete, Th’alak carelessly dropped the orb into the boy’s waiting hands. The relic, despite being metallic in nature, was unusually soft. It was mildly rubbery to touch, but knocking it made it as hard as it looked.

It was an odd item, but at least Mochi seemed pleased with it. The urge to drop it and see what happens almost took over, but even he knew he’d immediately lose it down this narrow street.

“Pleasure doing business with… you.” The horned man chortled to himself, watching his customers disappear down the street.

“He was nice – really generous too!” the boy chimed, overjoyed with his find.

“Yeah, very generous,” the handler gritted his teeth, “in fact, you go on ahead, I’m going to go see what else he has.”

Raian disappeared down the curved street, and the cephalopod came to face his biggest enemy yet. At least six flights of stairs.

Step by step, Mochi did his best to climb the stairs until Raian came rushing behind him to catch up. The man was already out of breath, rubbing at his knuckles that had now reddened for whatever reason. He opened his palm to Mochi, garnering his attention just as the squid’s mouth opened to say something.

Writhing about in his palm was a small, silver construct no bigger than a coin struggling to gain a footing. It has a set of four, spiky legs that did nothing more than tickle the man’s palm, and a pair of tiny, jointed rods for arms, all floating independently from a central chassis.

“What is it?” the boy asked, eyeing it fervently.

“Tiny golem, they used these centuries ago for… something, I don’t know.”

“How much was it?”

“Oh,” the man looked forward with a smile, stuffing the golem in his pocket as they reached the apex, “he was happy to part with it for free.”