[centre][color=fff200]"Two hundred gil!"[/color] The Al Bhed merchant spat from yellow teeth. The male stank of fermented fruit and someone else's sweat. He blinked behind thick, bottle-bottom goggle lenses. Solgun's tailed flicked back and forth like a riled snake. 

[color=00aeef]"One thousand."[/color] The Al Bhed reached for the scraps quickly, but not quickly enough and a clawed hand yanked the machina back off the counter. Solgun showed his teeth and the merchant flinched back into his stall. He knew if the Al Bhed got his hands on the scrap before money changed hands, he'd try to break it and then claim Solgun was selling faulty goods, then act like he was doing Solgun a favour for offering fifty gil. Or call him a thief trying to steal the merchant's scrap. Al Bhed as a whole were tricky, but their merchants could be real fiends.

[color=fff200]"<<Stinking beast>>"[/color] The Al Bhed switched to his native language, then back to Spiran. [color=fff200]"Where's it from?"[/color]

[color=00aeef]"Battle of Djose, where your people's machina weapon failed."[/color] Solgun held up the weapon to the light, smacked it on the side a few times and the lights began to shine. It looked like a smaller, handheld version of one of the weapons that had been intended to hold back a legendary beast. Even after all these years it still worked.

[color=fff200]"Feh, Djose. Every scrap hunter goes to Djose."[/color] The merchant waved his hand through the air like wafting off a bad smell. He was trying to haggle it down, Solgun knew, acting like it was something that the other relic hunters would have passed up as not worth the risk. The fact was that Djose was still extremely dangerous territory centuries after the battle, especially now that fiends were really coming back strong. Even the land worked against you, so many hidden holes and sudden currents. One wrong foot could lead to your death. Only someone with sure fingers and a knack for climbing could get safely into the really lucrative parts.

[color=00aeef]"One thousand. Or it goes elsewhere."[/color] Solgun's voice rumbled. 

[color=fff200]"Ehh.."[/color] The merchant tilted his head to the left and sucked his teeth, glancing over Solgun's shoulder to the mesh net that contained the rest of his wares for selling. [color=fff200]"One thousand IF you throw those actuators."[/color]

Solgun's paw dwarfed the merchant's hand and they left happy with the bargain they had struck. He hefted his bag of scrap and paced through the merchants of the bazaar, head and shoulders above the Spirans, Al Bheds and Hypello. The celebration had drawn merchants out of the woodwork like louses and every sort of stall imaginable had been set up, with vendors selling colourful foods and fragrant spices to merchants haggling over weapons and cattle and stranger things still. Some idiot had brought a shoopuff to set up for riding, but there wasn't a large enough water source for the shoofpuff to drink around here so barrels were being rolled in constantly. Solgun stopped and watched the creature pant in the midday sun, waggling unevenly as it took steps, causing the passengers in the seats on the back no end of distress. Airships coming in to dock, land-trains still bringing in dozens of people. As if there weren't enough already packed into this place. 

As he moved from one vendor to the next, he caught a glimpse of blue fur in the crowd. Another Ronso? The Calm Lands were close to Gagazet, but still.. He pushed on, past a crowd of young children and then saw the trail of pyreflies gliding lazily through the air. He was here, the ancient spirit. Tall, thin, like he had been gripped by the head and pulled skywards by an invisible hand, the spectre motioned silently, raising one spindly limb and pointing over towards the airship docks..
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