“bushwacker joe„

Look up magical realism in the dictionary and it'll describe a literary style incorporating fantastic or mythical elements into otherwise realistic fiction. Baltigo is where it began. And anyone who spent any real time here knows why. It's a place where the bizarre and the inexplicable meet on a daily basis. But just like in the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marqueez, the weird shit usually pops off at certain critical moments.

That brings this story to an importer of shady wares. Rumour was that the sunlight didn't shine upon these alleys. It was a metaphor for what this place was; a black market. This was the only place on this planet where you could get a marine uniform, pirate uniform, revolutionary uniform all from the same stall. These types of markets mainly dealt in contraband. Three stereotypes dominated much of the street here; first-timers, regular customers, specialists. Now the first-timers were typical, they took their time browsing the stalls - asking lots of questions. Usually the regular customers have a look of "I know what I'm doing" on their face, and they do for most of the time. Specialists are the most annoying. They ask very specific questions about wares, and ask more questions based on the answers. Most of these stallowners didn't know minute details about their goods. "EIGRP is an advance distance vector routing protocol, and OSPF is a link state routing protocol; get your facts straight" Nobody really liked these types. Some were recruited and met a less than fortunate fate.

Our main character is a first-timer. He bare to witness all these different types of lowlife. Social contracts, etiquettes - they were foreign here, that's how the locals could pick the tourists out of the crowd. People familiar with these areas didn't stick out - they knew better than that. Nothing's worse than being seen as prey on a black market. The stall owners charge more, see what they can get away with - besides also going against all the odds of making it out, you also become a target for conmen. The folk definitely didn't seem friendly. Deep cut scars embedded in their faces, marking the beast they must've taken down.

His first purchase was a plastic small baggy of reefer dust, packed in a large brown bag. One you would use to carry your groceries. Sure, being a virgin in this place wasn't easy - but at least his virginity taken by drugs. The shop owner was happy to tell the bearded man the lay of the land, after having sold his goods at a five-hundred percent markup. So, sure enough, he went out and started to explore in a more discreet manner.

reference: https://strawhats.rpg-board.net/t2533-god-is-dead-voyage

The second person he had introduced himself to on this island was a mercenary. Hired guns - the true neutral guys that joined the most paying side. This group in particular worked with a group of other organisations. Money launderers, political bribers, all these parties were vitals - but the true MVP behind the scenes was the person who set up these parties together and behaved as a mastermind behind a large operation. Things were definitely interesting when money was involved. The mercenary told our main character they'd been looking for new people to join. Not necessarily become one of them, but become an involved contact within their ecosystem. Spook couldn't trust someone by just meeting them, and neither could these mercenaries. They wanted to test Spook, and if he came through, they'd reward him with some quick cash and use his services for more odd jobs should there be a need. What they needed was an underground inspector - a detective.

A task in the form of a test, perfectly capable for a rookie to handle - given that the rookie has enough brawns to solve the task. The mercenary told our main character that he wasn't going to be the only one being tested. So far, three other people had signed up. This wasn't something that Spook was afraid of, he didn't needed the money - for him, it was about the challenge. A great puzzle needed to be solved. He got a time, and a place.

NOODLE STALL 9th AVENUE
23:00 TOMORROW

Odd, it felt like a trap. Perhaps that was the test? Maybe the whole process was being monitored. From the time that Spook left the mercenaries, until tomorrow at the described place. The bag of reefer dust has made him too paranoid. Eventually, after a night of anxiety and a day of clarity - four people had lined up next to each other at a noodle stall in 9th avenue. Tall, short, old, milf - these four people differed each other in simple ways.

They were given twenty-four hours to solve this 'puzzle', not a whole lot of rules were given. No talking about the puzzle, no violence against shall be permitted against all involved parties(pride among thieves or something like that). No details mentioned about using teamwork to solve the crime. Spook wasn't going to ask many questions. Any question the other participants he'd hear as well, since they weren't going to whisper. That'd be odd. So, naturally Spook began to case the joint. He knew nothing about this place. While the four began asking questions, Spook investigated on his own and overheard some interesting details. A man, with an average height - light brown hair. This man described himself as a deity. Sold the merchant an idea, and the merchant bought it. Turns out that this deity was a conman, he'd have conned merchants of a certain faction one too many times. Turns out, the other merchants didn't notify the honcho that this was happening due to the shame of being conned - but since another merchant had notified the honcho the others felt more relieved to also confess. Which resulted in this sad story. A traveling holyman, a book collector, 'real estate agent', and lastly a fake charity to find a missing neighborhood dog. The merchants think it was a ring of con men, since they each described the appearance of the conman differently. Different voice, physique. The one that this merchant met had brown hair, and another with light gray. How peculiar. Spook wasn't sure what to make of it.

A quasi insurance scam from a group of merchants seemed like a bad idea. Could these merchants be scheming? Maybe the people they described where their competitors - and they've set this up? Either way, Spook wanted to get to the bottom of this. The old guy, he seemed to want to lead this investigation. This was made obvious when he started assigning tasks to teams he had made up in his mind. The rest of the group didn't seem to disagree to his suggestions. Old man paired with milf, and tall guy paired up with short. Spook was against the idea. It was in no order that he should be paired up with the milf. A small squabble ensued, and the group had split apart. To no wonder to Spook of course, he had seen this coming - he already was in a relationship anyway.

He realized that the reason why there were four of them, they wanted to pick the best performing one. Should he have departed and let the three of them group up, the chances of them finding the solution faster than him was infinitely greater. This way, they all had an equal chance. Now everyone had leads, certain things that they wanted to check. Spook sure as hell didn't, but he did devise a plan. While he watched the three leave, he stayed. His strategy was pretending to be one of the mercenaries, an agent on the inside.




The man didn't seem to respond to Spooks inquiry. Shoot, his plan didn't work. After a loud sigh, he headed for the exit. Since he was new on these streets, he didn't have any contacts. This was a weird job for him to do. This shop had two entrances, the front-entrance which he just came out of. And the entrance through the side alley, the employees entrance. Since Spook didn't have any solid leads, he decided to check out the side-alley. No clues were found there, other than a torn cloth and a squished Dr. Mepper. The cloth was white, most likely a part of a robe. It would help him identify the culprit later in the story. Definitely a coincidence, that the conman had left some cloth behind though. This described con man definitely knew what he was doing, new identity - some other occupation he fulfilled. Leaving behind a torn piece of cloth like this wasn't in his MO. Meanwhile the other three had found some other suspicious leads - though those leads were only suspicious if you pieced them together. The culprit definitely had some mysterious power -- if there was a culprit at all. Either some parlor trick magics by the use of a slight hand, or a mysterious from a devil fruit. Spook was still skeptical. Cat 'n mouse wasn't a game he liked playing. Especially with dealing with a fictional enemy.

Spook had devised a strategy. It was time to test this merchants integrity. Spook headed back in the store, asking if the Holy Man wore dark blue stuff, explaining that he found a tattered piece of dark blue cloth in the alley. The merchant nodded, confirming that the Holy Man indeed wore dark blue clothing.




Another nod. At this point, Spook was sure that this guy was a phony. After leaving the joint he met up with the mercenaries and told them the entire story. He was rewarded with some beli, and they told him to contact him more often if he wanted these kinds of jobs. There had been participants in this test that had cleared it faster than him, oddly enough - so they chose to not hire Spook unless they really needed him for some reason.