A bowl of off yellow gelatin with bits of gray and green floating inside slid onto the table in front of Yi Cao along with a spoon that looked meant for ladling out soup.
The bartender moved around and slid a similar bowl in front of Zihan followed by a cup full of the same amber liquor they’d drunk with their previous meal.
“Listen kid.” Izzi growled as he offered a wrapped smoker to TC. “You’re an idiot, right?”
TC accepted with a “thank you” and took the offered lighter to snip the end while Izzi turned back to Zihan.
Zihan waved his own stub of a smoker in the air. “Sure, whatever. We’re talking right?”
“We’re not talking for long. You might be some hotshot kid from a sect back on the mudball, but up here that doesn’t make you somebody. You want a job, you gotta do like everybody else and advertise.”
Zihan picked something out of the muck in the bowl in front of him and studied it before he tossed it into his mouth and chewed. “I was under the impression that’s precisely what I just did.”
The goblin snorted then glanced at TC as TC puffed his fume stick to life.
“Not here.” He said after a moment. “Never here. Got that.” He glared at TC, then turned the glare on Zihan. “No ones turning my place into a nest for criminal gangs. You want to scheme against the governor you do it anywhere else. This is a law abiding business with no use for riffraff. You want to do something illegal you take it elsewhere or find someone else to serve your drinks. I’m not serving criminals.”
He wiped something from the leg of a chair standing next to him then wiped his finger on the rag hung over his shoulder. “Will there be anything else?”
“No bartender. Thank you.” Zihan replied. “That will be all.”
TC handed the little man his lighter back and the bartender gave Zihan a last warning glare before retreating.
TC blew out a plume of smoke and studied Zihan through the cloud.
Yi Cao poked his spoon into the mixture in front of him and felt the spoon adhere to the semi-liquid. When he let it go it remained upright, quivering in the protein pudding. He nearly choked on his first bite when it stuck to his throat.
“He will allow it, you know.” TC said after a while.
“Of course he will.” Zihan replied. “Look at this place.”
Yi Cao looked around at the people occupying the tables around them. He didn’t see whatever Zihan meant. What he saw were machine augmentations. Bodies with the wrong proportions and pieces that didn’t seem to fit quite right. One woman, probably a woman, at the end of the bar seemed covered in fur, one eye larger than the other. A thick nob of bone curving from between her eyes in a horn that terminated at a straight edge where it was cut a couple of inches beyond her face.
“Your confidence is inspiring.” TC replied. “Not something I would choose to lean on, I think, but inspiring all the same.”
Yi Cao turned from the horror at the end of the bar and stuck another spoonful of the horror in front of him into his mouth. It took an effort to force it down his throat.
“He had to cover himself after your little announcement to the world at large.” TC went on. “If you were ever caught here with some companions in crime he might be convicted as well. Witnesses will make things easier for him in court. If it ever comes to that.”
“I can’t imagine that it would.”
TC snorted and took a hit from his fume stick. “Of course not.”
Zihan tittered and the two smoked in silence, staring at one another while Yi Cao ate.
Eventually TC stretched a languorous hand to knock ash from the tip of his stick. “If you are serious about finding trouble there are places you can advertise.” He said. “Virtual rooms. Information Networks. Bulletins. I can show you the places. Give you the codewords. The Governor knows all about it of course, but he is a liberal ruler. He doesn’t stop what he can watch, doesn’t try and wind up driving it deeper into forgotten places. He is not, as I understand it, as powerful as the system.”
Zihan took one last hit from his stolen smoker then flicked it away onto the floor and picked up his spoon. “Dear Ti Kowobold.” He said in mock horror. “I thought that we were friends.”
“Friends?” TC asked. “After a shift of revelry? Certainly. Friends, but not bosom companions.”
“Bosom companions.” Zihan insisted. “I even offered you a girl for the night.”
TC frowned. “A Kispuhru.”
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Zihan smirked.
“I’ve gotten enough trouble from those witches.” TC told him. “I’ll take the women of my own bloodlines thank you very much.”
Zihan pointed a spoon at TC. “Didn’t you claim to liaise for some sort of shady enterprises?”
TC looked nervous as he shrugged. “I suppose I did.”
“Then, why not offer us an introduction? You seemed happy enough to tell me all about them last night.”
TC took a hit from his fume stick and grimaced as he let the smoke billow around his head. “You just announced to the entire bar that you intend to do something criminal, and now you wish me to be seen helping you? It is risk enough to be seen sharing a fume with you. If you get into trouble it will come back to me.”
Zihan took a bite of the pudding and sat sucking on his spoon as he eyed an increasingly nervous TC across the table. The spoon popped when he pulled it out of his mouth and waved it in TC’s direction. “Introduce us.” He said. Ice in his tone and the glint in his eyes. “Introduce us to competent people and it will never come back to you. Or,” he added when TC still hesitated, “we can find trouble on our own and you can find yourself dragged into it either way.”
TC’s claws tapped on the tabletop as he took a pull from his fume stick and considered.
Zihan took another bite from his pudding and sat sucking on it while he waited.
“Just what are you offering?” TC asked after a minute.
“Offering?” Zihan asked. “To you, or to your clients?”
“Both.”
Zihan pulled the spoon from his mouth and stuck it into his pudding. “I’m an absurdly powerful cultivator.” He said. “On the cusp of becoming an immortal. Act as my agent in this and you can take a cut from my take.”
TC shook his head. “That’s…” He paused and eyed Zihan. “Just what can you do, with your advancement?”
Zihan popped one thumb up from the spoon he used to stir his bowl. “What fire can do.” He said as the thumb burst to light. “I can do.”
TC stared at the wavering flame on the tip of Zihan’s thumb for several moments. Then he shook his head and looked up at Zihan. “Not much fire can do on a station.”
“Nonsense.” Zihan stuck his thumb into the bowl of goop to extinguish it then looked at the molten slime adhered to it in disgust. He flicked it to try and clean it, indicating in the same motion the outer wall of Te’klub. “I could burn a hole straight through that wall. All of them as a matter of fact. All the way to the outside.” He shook his thumb and wiped it on the inside of his half cloak.
“You’d die.” TC replied.
Zihan grinned, his eyes twin chips of ice. “I think that’s besides the point, don’t you?”
TC drummed his claws on the table and rubbed at one temple with the fingers he held the fume stick in. He seemed to realize he was still holding the fume stick and stuck it into his mouth to regard the Young Master.
Yi Cao took another spoonful of goop and tried to chew the gelatinous mixture while the salt in it soaked up the spit in his mouth.
“Trouble is like a Kispurhu.” TC said after a while. “Go looking for her once and she’ll find you again, only, the flavor won’t be as nice on the second taste.”
Zihan leaned back in his chair. “That’s why I hired technomancers.” He said. “Speaking of which. Ladies.”
The blonde girl from his room pulled out the one remaining chair and sat, pulling her companion down to sit in her lap, one arm wrapped around her neck as though they were the real lovers who’d just invited Zihan to join them.
“Yi Cao. Meet Bealtiel and Kalemal.” Zihan said, waving to the girls. “Bealtiel is a level three whore while Kalemal doesn’t have a level but charges more.”
Even fully dressed, the girls weren’t wearing much. They turned to Yi Cao as they were introduced and the blonde girl showed her teeth.
“Hi Yi Cao.” She said. She snuggled into the dark haired girl perched on her lap. “You look like fun.”
Yi Cao flushed and turned his attention back to his food while Zihan tittered.
The dark haired girl on the blonde’s lap turned back to Zihan. “I’d be a higher level if I stayed.” She said. “The system stopped tracking me when I left.”
“Don’t you worry my dear.” Zihan replied. “Neither of us,” he waved between himself and Yi Cao, “would know the difference if you were level three or three thousand. I only know about the system, not how it works.”
“You’d know the difference.” Bealtiel replied. “If you ever met one of the system’s chosen that was…” She trailed off and the grinning blonde underneath her gave her a poke in the ribs.
“A whore?”
Bealtiel gave her a short glare. “Yes.” She said. “A whore.”
Kalemal smirked and turned to Zihan. “Zihan, baby, I’m hungry, and I think you still owe us money.”
Zihan waved a hand for the bartender and pushed back his chair to pull Bealtiel out of Kalemal’s and into his own. “Sure, sure.” he replied, giving the girl on his lap a kiss. “After breakfast.”
Izzi dropped down from the bar and started to make his way towards them as Zihan turned his attention back to TC and raised a brow.
TC cleared his throat but didn’t make eye contact with the young master. “I… might… know a few organizations that could use your expertise.” He conceded. “But they’ll want to see you in person. In action, possibly, before giving you any work.”
“Excellent.” Zihan said. He waved a hand to shoo him away. “I’ll be free tomorrow. Don’t come back until then.”
TC sucked in the last of his smoker with a put upon expression then flicked the butt onto the floor before he stood, spooning the last bite of his pudding into his mouth.
“Young Master.” He said, nodding. “Ladies.”
He left.
Izzi scooped the butt of his smoker off of the floor with his usual look of effrontery and hopped up into the chair he’d vacated.
“Breakfast for the girls.” Zihan told him. “And more tobacco for myself.”
The girl in his lap made a face and ran fingers through his shortened hair. Of the two girls she looked the most like home, raven black hair and dark eyes. Silver clips embedded into each temple were her only marks as a technomancer while long tattooed vines of thorns ros from between her fingers along the too pale skin of her forearms. “You’d taste better if you didn’t use those things.” She told him.
Zihan pinched her and she just raised an eyebrow at him.
He smirked. “I’m developing quite a taste for them.” He replied with a smirk.
“Of course you are.” Izzi muttered as he dropped from his chair. “They’re made for addicts.”
“Bring me three then.” Zihan called to the departing bartender.
He turned to Yi Cao. “The girls are going to be taking over for TC for the day.” He said. “As guides.”
Kalemal raised an eyebrow. “Is that so?” She demanded.
Zihan gave her a cool look. “You will.” He replied. “I’ll even pay you for it.”
“How magnanimous of the young master.” Kalemal replied, but Bealtiel rolled her eyes and slid off Zihan’s lap to commandeer TC’s old seat.
“After breakfast.” The level three whore told him. She swatted the hand that went for her ass, then raised a finger. “And after we’ve been paid.”
Zihan smirked and settled into his chair as the Goblin returned with two more bowls and the three smoke sticks.
“Whatever you say.”