The Travelers Guide to Aqualon continues. However, I caution you to take the following few entries with a grain of salt. As a fearless explorer, your trusty Thadeus Fletcher is trying himself at a bit of investigative reporting. Following the tip of a blighter den mother in West Arkatrash, the home of the so-called Sullied Ones, I am meeting with a dubious man who belongs to the Yamato Black Market to join them on their travels back to their homeland as a scribe.
In a shabby bar at the northern outskirts of western Arkatrash, I find him and several of his men sitting around a large table. I must say, my expectations have been subverted: The group is well-groomed and looks quite serious despite clearly having a good time. I introduce myself without any falsehoods. The man I was looking for is called Shen, though he asks me not to publish his clan name, a promise I intend to keep. He and his men are moth dust smugglers. Moth dust is a drug made in the Yamato Mountain Range from the narcotic dust of yarenma moths, a terrifying species of Yamato moths that is bigger than a grown man, can lick flesh clean from the bone, and scatters its dust everywhere, forcing unsuspecting wanderers into an irrevocable coma. Black Market workers refine the illegal substance into an opium-like drug also called moth dust.
I am a bit worried about getting tied up in illegal activities, but Shen alleviates my concerns with a smile: the product has been sold already; they are now returning to their homeland with expensive exotic wares purchased with the money they made from their venture; selling moth dust abroad. They need someone to write up ware registers and handle customs documents in Aquaris and Aerialis as well as compose and check receipts for future trades in those two great cities. I tell them I am their man. Being on good standing with the notorious Black Market of the Yamato Kingdom should open some interesting doors once I am there.
The deal is struck, and I even write up a contract for both parties to sign, making it official.
T.F.
