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Welcome to ...inhale
Bremen's Bananas and Bones and Baubles and Bartering Bazaar!

A half-mile away from the entrance to Tunnel N along the wall you come upon a section of floor that has been surrounded by baubled gemstones and small plants, a few of which have started producing tiny blue flowers. Spaces in the semi-circle have been made for obvious entrances and exits and mounds of dirt have been piled up within, upon which various items have been put on display. Within this little 'shop' there is a single employee, a... well a hybrid thing that is currently resting on a very uncomfortable-looking pile of sticks mumbling to himself as he seems deep in thought. Should you venture closer you will find the following items stocked upon the dirt pedestals:

Pile of pristine bananas There aren't as many bananas here as there have been in the past. Has Bremen learned some restraint after all this time?

Mushrooms! This pedestal is little more than a compost pile for a sizable batch of mushrooms growing upon discarded banana peels. They are probably edible. Of course everything is edible at least once.

Rotten Banana kabob A single banana, long since blackened and rotted, skewered on some kind of black spike. If the spoiled fruit wasn't enough the spike has some kind of implacable ominous quality to it. Why is this even here?

Intricate shield A round metal shield with leather strap covered in pretty patterns and fancy painted colors. Works great as a hat or a serving platter!

Femurs Two classic-looking bones sit crossed upon the dirt pedestal. The dirt pedestal that seems to be humming...

Baubled gems Only about five gems remain from the original stock as they keep disappearing for one reason or another. It's probably getting close to time to start hunting down another source of them.

Catalyst was wandering.

Polaris was huge, and she was curious. Curious as to what it contained, what she might eat.

But she couldn't miss the mounds of dirt, nor the baubles. So she stalked over, walking through one of the openings.

The inside of the dirt circle was... odd. There were a pile of long yellow foods, and an ugly black one on a spike. Two bones sat on a pile of dirt, both looking the same. And there were glowing gems in a small pile.

She looked at the hybrid, sitting atop a pile of sticks. "He-l-o." she chirped out, not yet having grown used to talking. Then, nodding her head to the shiny colorful thing, she chattered, "Pre-tt-y."

The cat-sized hybrid looked up with a start, for once in his life seemingly surprised by the presence of a visitor. How silly of him, the shop was open after all! As eyes locked with the giant lizard Bremen couldn't help but tilt his head, thoughts immediately shifting from strategizing on how to make his bazaar better to wondering what kind of hybrid this new customer might be.

A couple seconds passed in silence as the shopkeeper racked his brain to try to come up with a good guess at their lineage. Perhaps a... dragon and an ostrich had a kid. Then that kid grew up and had a kid of their own with a gekko. That would explain why they were so big and why they stood on two legs but how they still looked mostly like a lizard of some kind.

Inquisitive expression gave way to silent pride as Bremen felt satisfied with this answer and hopped up off the stick pile. "Welcome to my bazaar, fellow hybrid." he piped up cheerfully, "My name is Bremen and I make sure that there's always useful stuff here. Are you looking for anything?"

---

’Thinking... thinking... thinking…’
"This is my voice, isn't it neat?"
Tags: @Catalyst

The reptile looked over at the hybrid, tilting her head with a 'cree?' What was it? She had never yet seen a creature like that, but then again, she hadn't exactly seen many creatures before.

Her head swiveled to follow Bremen as he jumped down, speaking up. "Hel-el-o, I-I'm-muh Catal-atal-yst. What-at is thi-is?" she asked, gesturing with her head to the surrounding bazaar.

@Bremen

Any thoughts Bremen may have had crowding his mind disappeared all at once as excitement took over. The visitor had no idea what he was doing here; it was a chance to explain what at this point had become his one major occupation in life!

"It's good to meet you then, Catalataleist!" he chirped out with head raised upwards at the larger creature. That was a long name though, hard to pronounce even for him. "Mind if I call you Catty?" Hopefully that would be fine, just rolled off the tongue.

"This is a place I bring all the cool things I find in the caves." not that he had been out exploring in a while, "Other gembound can come and show the cool things they find to and then we can trade cool things and talk and eat!"

With the last word the little creature turned and dashed at a full sprint to the pile of bananas reaching up to grab one with webbed paw. "This one is free, but if you want to trade I can give you lots more!"

Having no opposable thumbs Bremen would find it difficult to try to throw the banana to his new customer, but that didn't stop him from trying. With a twist of his body he wound up and threw the banana with all his might to try to reach up toward the ostrich-lizard's mouth.

Unfortunately his aim was too high. Much too high. Straight up in the air in fact. The fruit went sailing upwards before getting caught by gravity and falling straight back to its source. By the time the hybrid realized what direction the banana had actually gone it was already too late as he looked up and was smacked in the horn.

The store was now in possession of two banana-kabobs.

---

’Thinking... thinking... thinking…’
"This is my voice, isn't it neat?"
Tags: @Catalyst

The reptile observed the hybrid, bending down to sniff at it. It smelled of Gembound, but of not-food. She had long learned what was food and what was not-food, and this was not-food. Pity, but it was interesting, she supposed.

After all, she'd never seen anything like it before. But that didn't mean she could ignore it. After all, she wanted to see what it was! It seemed incapable of saying her name, and suggested that it called her Catty. She didn't mind, so she shrugged. "O-ok-okay." Her mouth wasn't much made for talking, after all.

However, this place sounded interesting! Trading for shiny and pretty things? Oh, she liked shiny things! And this hybrid had a lot of shiny things!

She stood tall as he threw one of the... yellow things into the air, turning her head in an arc to follow it. It went up, up, up, then down, down, down, landing clear on the hybrids' horn. The ancient cackled a laugh, bobbing her head.

Turning, she gestured with her head towards the glowing baubles. "What-what-what do yo-you wan-t?"

@Bremen

The little hybrid pawed up at his horn to try to get the banana off but his initial swats only succeeded in spinning the fruit in place. Obviously not the effect he intended, but it was enough to indicate that it would be able to slide off on its own with relative ease. This free sample was a dud anyways so Bremen flung his long neck like a whip over his shoulder and sent the destroyed banana over toward the wall. He'd have to pick that up later and add it to the composting pile- feed the mushrooms.

"Oh, you like the shiny gems? Those are my most popular items! I've been using them to mark the boundaries of my shop but the boundaries keep disappearing and I'm almost out." he rambled, his attention turned back toward Catty for the briefest of seconds before getting distracted in thoughts again. His eyes darted across B5 as an audible series of absentminded dolphin-like clicks sounded form his throat.

How to solve that problem? Perhaps if he had something else to mark the shop boundaries he wouldn't need the gems anymore? He did have the flowers but they weren't really obvious.

His mind racing a mile a minute as always, the little hybrid thought back to Orion and the structures there. There wasn't anything quite like that in Polaris for some reason, but perhaps they could start mimicking that over time?

Yes! That would be perfect. Much too much to ask just for a few baubles but just a start would be plenty! "Tell you what- you look big and strong. I bet you would be able to move rocks much larger than I could ever hope to. If you help me move big rocks in place to replace the little shiny rocks I'll let you keep some of the siny rocks that get replaced. How does that sound?"

---

’Thinking... thinking... thinking…’
"This is my voice, isn't it neat?"
Tags: @Catalyst