Cantina Business

[Coleman Trebor is OP]

Mos Eisley, Tatooine, Outer Rim Territories

The bug stepped into Mos Eisley's crowded cantina and struggles to find an empty table while a dust storm passing by the outskirts sprinkles sand throughout the city. Gizo Fac ignores the rest as there is no interesting galactic news being spread and focuses on getting the credits owed to him for his recent bounty.

"Damn junk dealers denying me for the small amount of credits owed to me, that moisture farmer better not renege on the deal." Gizo glanced around the cantina and notice someone who looked out of place for the desert world in the crowd heading towards his area. Concerned about the possibility of it being someone looking for escaped slaves or someone with relations to one of his completed bounties he thought of flying out in haste, but reconsidered as this person seemed far too eminent to be a simple Tatooinian slaver or hunter. Gizo waited with anticipation to see if this person would approach his table.

[Jak Bexel]

If there was one damn place in the damn galaxy Red-Eyes did not wish to people, it was Chalmun's Cantina. If there was one place filled with nostalgia and heartbreak for this stocky Gran that wasn't the newly-gentrified streets of Lower Coronet, it was "the Mos Eisley Cantina". 30 years since the fateful events detailed in every damn holodock on holovids in the off hours, Chalmun and Wuher made a mint on the new clientele. They even went as far as to clean the place up -- except allow droids. They would always be sentiest trash in Red's eyes. Still, he had business to tend to.

Shoulders broad and stiff, Red shoved his armored mass through the throng of wanna-be criminals and actual criminals and made a b-line for the man at the table. The only man in the bar who was sitting at a table that sat four people. Inconsiderate. There were whole parties of businessmen and women waiting for a table, and here this man goes. Also, it didn't matter. Red just hated the holy hell out of the place, and the spaceport, and this damn dry planet, and everything about this job.

"Gizo Fac," He declared, addressing the man at the table. Taking a seat, Red held his meaty mitts up to show him he was unarmed. He reached into a small coin pocket on his breast plate and threw down the bounty owed for Fac's services. "And for your troubles..."

Reaching back into his pocket, he tossed out a cobalt blue coin -- dark otherwise in the crowded cantina -- onto Giso's lap. "Also, now you're gonna have to release the prisoner."

[Coleman Trebor is OP]

To imagine that a place as inhospitable as the Jundland Wastes, a hub of Tusken Raiders and small time bandits who rather fend off the sand people than the inhabitants of Mos Eisley, could produce a bandit capable of catching the attention of Jak Bexel. When the Moisture Farm Collective posted a bounty for this Moz Rift after he rob some farmers near the Dune Sea and released some animals to use against some farmers that didn't hand over credits for protection I thought that he would just end up back in the Wastes after being released or on the streets of Mos Eisley. It wasn't even that hard of a job, all it took was a shot to the leg and he gave up.

And now I am face to face with Jak Bexel.

"Thank you for the payment and don't worry I will hand the kid over to you, he is getting some aid for the leg wound I gave him, but first tell me your reasons. Nobody important comes here, even the Hutts send their expendable men here. So tell me the story on this kid, who did he mess with? Did he take some Imperial stuff or is he one of these "jedi" that I am always hearing about in this cantina?"

[Jak Bexel]

"He didn't mess with anyone. He's one of us," Red, the Gran companion of Jak Bexel (who was not present for this exchange) reasoned. "Our organization has ears and eyes in every major spaceport in the Outer Rim. We have detected a rash of 'dowsings'. Public drugging. Someone coughs, someone sprays the air that our people pass through, and before you know it, things go sideways."

Without breaking eye contact, Red grabbed a pint of ale from a cocktail server's tray. He sniffed it, considered it, then took a big sip.

"Our field ops have been discovered drugged, running wild into the desert. The ones we don't catch, die of exposure or worse. You did us a kindness by sparing him," he noted.

Red patted his breast pocket, where the first round of coins came from. "There's considerable coin for someone who would be able to help us investigate these incidents -- removed from our affiliation. If there's one thing you should take home from his conversation you didn't have with me at a bar during peak business hours, it's that we take care of our own. In your case, you would be treated as such without the hubbub of recruitment, lest that's something you wanted."

[Coleman Trebor is OP]

Thinking about Jak's offer Gizo remembered some strange things about the Moisture Farm Collective bounties. "Some strange things have been going around in the Dune Sea. As you have said many are found dead from overexposure and some from blaster shots. The stories about the ones unfortunate to meet the sand people always seemed strange as the blaster points were far too accurate to be from the raiders."

"One of the hunters that went after a bounty issued by the MFC was found dead near the Jawa Mountain Fortress. On his last mission he did capture the target, but had to drop him in the Jundland Wastes when a Tusken Raiding party came after him. According to him he saw them take the guy, but whether he is still alive is unknown, but most die only after a few days. If I go out now I can reach their camp by night on my swoop bike and hopefully he is still able to speak coherently."

[Jak Bexel]

Red Eyes listened intently to the local gossip from Gizo Fac, long enough to not hear old man Wuher having a row with a new entrant into the cantina. Something about "droids not welcome" and and "keep your busted mouth shut, old man" followed by an exchange of credits over the bar. Suddenly, a white male hand clutched his shoulder. Red jumped as though he was about to be dowsed. Fortunately, it was the hand of Jak Bexel -- now present and accounted for. He kept his hand steady on the Gran's shoulder as he took a seat across from Gizo.

"My stomachs are in a knot," he trailed off into his beer.

"Forgive him, he startles easy in spite of being our demolitions expert..." Jak trailed off, leaning in with both elbows on the table to study Gizo. "Say, what's your idea of this? I only caught part of what you guys were saying. I have a hunch: these things happening to my men? Fully correlated to the uptick in Tusken Raider activity outside of Mos Eisley. Certainly makes sense. But why, Gizo?"

Jak studied him, unsure what to make of him but interested in the man's input. All of this was a test.

[Coleman Trebor is OP]

"In the past some people trying to hide a murder would dump someone near the Dune Sea or Jundland Wastes to place the blame on the sand people."

"And the bounty hunter also said that he found him delirious, possibly from exposure or from being dowsed, and rambling about somebody's plans and that it looked like he was already injured escaping from someone, but nobody else had accepted the bounty for him and didn`t look like the work of Tusken Raiders."


(OOC: Sorry meant to say Red not Jak)