Ustuck: Get Recruited by Troll Mafia [Closed RP]

You frown too. "Alright, if you say so. I'll be here to help, when it's all over."

You look around to figure out where you are. "Hey, I know this place. I think one of my regulars lives around here. Maybe he's heard something?"

 

You squeeze her arm. "Thanks."

You bark a laugh. "Alright. Do you need me to play bad cop? Or silent and disconcerting bodyguard?"

 

You giggle. "I don't know yet. Let's see how it goes. He's a pretty nice guy, he might just help us. Plus he owes me one."

You look around and orient yourself, then head off in the direction of Vansee's hive. You'd been there once before to make a delivery, which is why he owes you a small favor. Hopefully the greenblood is home and willing to let this count as your favor.

You arrive at his hive a few minutes later and knock on the door. Vansee opens the door in surprise. "Kezria! What're you doin' here?" He looks up at Iglora and blinks. "And who‘s this?"

"Hey. This is my moirail, Iglora. We're actually here because we need some help. Can we come in?"

"Uh, sure, I guess." Vansee steps aside and lets you two in. His hive is moderately sized and much more organized than yours. He leads you to the recreation block. "So what can I do for you?"

 

You follow Kezria into the greenblood's hive. You don't know his name, but then again you don't really need to. "There's a group of trolls around here that's been kidnapping lusii. What do you know about it?"

 

Vansee shakes his head. "Look, I know there are lusii going missin', but that's all I know. My dad's still safe and I wanna keep it that way. I don't wanna get involved."

You frown. "Are you sure you haven't noticed anything? Anyone acting strange or sketchy? Or maybe you saw something. Like which direction they headed in after taking someone? We're trying to track these trolls down so we can stop them. It's not right, what they're doing."

Vansee rubs the back of his neck. "Alright, now that you mention it, maybe I saw something. It was a perigee ago. I was doing one of my trash runs in the early dawn. I happened to see some trolls running into the woods on the northside, dragging something behind them. Now that's really all I know. Are we done?"

You smile. "Yeah, that helps. We'll get out of your hair now. Oh and we're even now. Thanks." You wave as you leave.

You lead Iglora back out onto the streets. "Welp. I guess we're headed to the northside. At least we have more of a direction than we did before."

 

> Keeler: Look around you.

A city! You're in a city! Logically, you knew this many trolls existed somewhere, and that a good number of them existed together, but knowing that is wildly different from seeing it with your own eyes. Before this trip, you would have looked at cities through pictures or camera lenses, but the fixed width of the mechanical eyes inherently limited the field of view and oh wow. You must have wound up in the market district because the stores have their doors flung open, and there are merchants with tables in between all of the buildings. You know you're spacing out a little but there are too many smells and sounds and colors at once and you just can't stop turning around in place.

Four cyanbloods brush past, chattering, and you stumble a bit as you try to get out of their way, backing straight into another highblood. You yelp and jump, sideways this time, trying to scrape together a bow while also trying to get a good look to see what their rank actually is. All you can really tell is that they're possessed of a pair of horns that would put the Grand Highblood's to shame, so you cast your eyes downwards until you hear them walk away.

As you straighten up, you manage to knock your right horn against a table, jarring the various haphazardly-stacked bottles, and your hanging screwdrivers swing dangerously enough to distract you from the glares of the shop troll.

You apologize and look around for Lukasz. Maybe he didn't notice your momentary clumsiness.

 

You absolutely do notice your companion’s not-at-all momentary clumsiness. She's really into the whole deference-to-highbloods thing, huh?

That could be a problem in a city like this, actually. There are a lot more highbloods than you would have expected. Ever since you moved, you'd been living in a mostly lowblooded part of town. You think you might have forgotten what expected deference is supposed to look like. Whatever it is, you can be guaranteed that Keeler is doing it wrong.

But, no. Your old strategy should serve here. Eyes down, head low. Don't look anybody in the eye. Don't give anyone a reason to look at you. Anonymity is your best and only friend.

Eventually Keeler slinks back and it occurs to you that your lusus is not going to rescue herself. Well, she might. She's very talented. But you can't rely on that, which means you are actually going to have to do some legwork here. "We should ask around if anyone's seen the lususnappers," you say to Keeler. "It's a busy night. Lots of trolls here. You could--" No. Bad idea. "I could--" Worse. You stop. "We are the worst trolls to be information-gathering, aren't we?" you ask.

 

"Nonsense! We'll be fine, we just need to...to..."

You realize you have absolutely no idea how to go about getting information out of other trolls. You've spent all eight sweeps of your life doing everything you could to be better at a career that would only require interaction with your captain, and limited interactions at that. You have absolutely no idea what you're doing. And Lukasz probably isn't much better, since he can barely string together five minutes of interaction without freaking out about something or other.

You wonder how long it's going to be before another troll inadvertently brushes against his precious hoodie and triggers another meltdown. After all, if even you've managed to bump into other trolls, the poor kid's bound to get absolutely trampled any moment now.

You resolve to do what you can to help put that off for as long as possible, because you really don't want to deal with the inevitable derailment of your quest that's going to happen when it does.

"Maybe we can find some helpful drones or someone in charge. They'd be bound to know the goings-on of the area, right?"

 

You turn to glare at her sharply. "I'm sorry," you hiss, literally. "I thought you were the one who didn't want anyone knowing about this less-than-legal enterprise." And yes, you are speaking softly enough that the nearby crowd can't hear. You're not that stupid.

 

"Well obviously I'm not suggesting we go around shouting about that bit." You're offended that Lukasz would think you'd just kind of blabber on about who hired you in front of just anyone. "But your lusus was kidnapped before this, right? We could say we're trying to find who might have taken her, which is both perfectly legal and true."

 

Does...does she think you can just go talk to a drone without any consequences? You start to wonder if Keeler might have had more of a sheltered upbringing than you did. You didn't even think that was possible.

So you try not to sound condescending when you say, "Look, imperial drones aren't helpful at the best of times. And they're not exactly fans of trolls who don't fit caste roles. I'm likely to get culled just talking to one." You frankly cannot conceive of any interaction with a drone that doesn't end with your blood spattered all over the end of its culling implement, and much as you dislike it you prefer to keep your blood in your body, thank you very much.

 

Well, now you've exhausted your list of ideas. Great. You cast around, looking for another troll who looks like they know what they're doing. "How about...that shopkeeper?" You realize you're pointing directly at the one whose stand you almost upended, and adjust your pointing by about 25 degrees.

 

You follow Keeler's finger--she's pointing to an oliveblood selling secondhand fetch moduses.

"Okay. Okay." You stuff your hands in your pockets and try not to freak out. "Let's talk to her together." Maybe between the two of you, you can manage not to fuck things up too badly.

 

You square your shoulders and walk up in a way that you hope is both casual and purposeful.

You're pretty sure you succeed.

"Hi! Have you heard anything about lusus kidnappings in the area lately?"

 

Eh, it's probably what you would have gone with, too.

You follow behind Keeler and take a stand about a half step back. Somebody has to watch the crowd while Keeler talks to the shoptroll.

 

The troll looks a bit taken aback, but rallies admirably. "I...what?"

Okay, maybe not that admirably.

"My friend's lusus was taken from his hive recently, and we were wondering if you might have heard of similar things happening to lusii in the area."

The troll peers at you. "Do I know you?"

"...Nnnooooooo? Not that I know of anyway. Hi! I'm Keeler! What's yours?"

Shit that does not work with parallelism. At all. Welp. Too late now.

 

Oh, okay. Now you may have to intervene. You definitely did not give Keeler permission to blab about your situation to all and sundry.

Keeping one eye on the crowd, you sidle in. "Not important," you tell Keeler, then tell the shoptroll, "We're just here for information about the lususnapping." You pause. "And possibly a fetch modus." You've got next to no money but maybe if there's something really, really, really cheap you can finally ditch the bag.

 

The troll looks relieved to be back on more familiar ground.

"Let's see... right now we have an Oligopoly modus, a few Median moduses, a Transportation modus, and an Operandi modus. They're over on that table, if you want to take a look." She turns to you. "And as for lusii going missing, I can't say that I've heard anything. Maybe try the meat store two blocks down? They tend to be pretty knowledgeable about things."

 

You slam your fists down on the table. "Are you suggesting someone sold my lusus to a meat store?!"

You might be yelling. You might not care. All you can care about is making this troll tell you what you need to hear.

 

You jump, and the shop troll doesn't look like she's any more comfortable with this situation than you.

"No, not at all! Duulst just happens to know a lot more about what goes on in the neighborhood than I do! And I can assure you he wouldn't buy lusus meat from trolls he doesn't know, so you most likely don't have to worry about your lusus being there."

You really can't blame her for being nervous. You've been on the receiving end of his temper before, and for such a small troll, he really can shout.