To be entirely honest, Damien had no idea if any of the well-dressed group was paying attention to their business reunion, but he expected that saying as much his question about them had good chances to be answered without a price being demanded. Sure enough, that happened. The surprise came from the fact that the colonist identified them as being devils. Maybe it was his Christian education, maybe the stories he heard about soul stealing, but the warlock was more than willing to take in the bandaged man. Good thing I asked, he thought glancing at the Hell ambassadors.

“For once in my life, I feel like doing well.” There was the possibility that the devils knew something useful, but also the risk of them demanding a price far too high. It was best to keep them in mind as one last, desperate, resource. “Well, I won’t importunate you any longer. Thank you for the dialogue and it was a pleasure to know you enjoyed the fight earlier.”

In saying this, Damien distances himself from the colonists and starts to reunite with the rest of his new partners in crime. To each one he confirms that the Undertaker exists, that its price changes and that it may have connections to someone holding the information they need.

“And the well-dressed group? Devils, so we better keep distance.”

Ezra approaches the Unfinished Men.

"BROTHERS. I AM JUST ARRIVED AT NEW NEWGATE. THE SOUNDS OF THE CITY ARE SO VERY FAINT UP HERE. MAY I ASK, HOW ARE THE SONS OF CLAY TREATED BY THE GUARDS AND OTHERS HERE?"

With a grinding sound, the clay men all turn as one, regarding Ezra with their grey, sightless-looking eyes. One of them speaks, its voice a deep baritone, like rolling boulders.

"WHEN AN ITEM IS ALREADY BROKEN, IT CANNOT BE BROKEN AGAIN, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU CRUSH IT. THIS IS THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE OFFICERS. MANY HERE ARE MORE UNFINISHED THAN THEY WERE WHEN THEY ARRIVED." It stops for a second, its eyes scanning over Ezra's body. "WHAT ARE YOU MISSING, BROTHER?"

"I TOLD THE RUBBERY MAN IT WAS MY SENSE OF HUMOR. I THOUGHT IT A VERY GOOD JOKE. IN TRUTH, I HAVE DIFFICULTY DEFIING WHAT IS MISSING. I CANNOT BE CONTENT. IN POLYTHREME I BLAMED IT ON THE SCREAMING AND THE WAILING. IN THE QUIETUDE OF LONDON, I CHAFED AT BEING RESTRICTED TO THE CLAY WARRENS AND MADE TO SERVE. I LEARNED TRADES, THE WORKING OF UNSCREAMING METAL AND STONE, AND GOT QUITE GOOD AT IT, BUT IT IS JUST SOMETHING TO WHILE AWAY THE TIME. I MADE DECISIONS THAT BROUGHT ME HERE, AND ALREADY THE QUIET I INITIALLY SOUGHT BRINGS LITTLE RELIEF. I FEEL AT TIMES LIKE A BIT OF STEEL, HEATED AND HAMMERED AND HEATED AND HAMMERED, SCALE FLAKING OFF, BUT NEVER FINDING A SHAPE THAT SUITS. OR A BLOCK OF MARBLED, CHISELED AT UNTIL NOTHING BUT RUBBLE WILL REMAIN."

"THERE HAVE BEEN ONES LIKE YOU BEFORE, WHO INSIST THAT THEY ARE UNFINISHED, YET LACK NOTHING. I WILL NOT LIE IN CLAIMING TO TRUST YOU BECAUSE OF THIS. WHAT DO YOU DESIRE FROM US?"

"THAT IS FAIR. I WISHED ONLY TO EXTEND GREETINGS AS ONE FORMER RESIDENT OF POLYTHREME TO ANOTHER, AND SEE IF THERE ARE THINGS I MUST BE AWARE OF TO NAVIGATE EXISTENCE HERE. I WILL BEWARE THE ATTENTIONS OF THE OFFICERS.", Ezra replies, nodding his head in a short bow, and not wishing to supplicate himself to secure their trust, turns and returns to his fellow cell block group.

(Do you have anything left you want to do, or are you prepared to end yard time? In the future, and this is probably something I should have established at the start, but whenever you're ready to move on please let me know, because I tend to give too much time to do things and end up slowing the game.)

((Ezra has reached his limit of socializing. He's probably talked more in the last hour than he has some months.))

(Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been very busy lately. If I don't have time to update today, I'll at least try to get one off around midday tomorrow)

As it has before, the bell rings, and the guards begin ushering people back into the mess hall. A number of prisoners, likely those who work in the kitchens, depart earlier to assumedly begin preparing the meal. You arrive and fetch your meals, which consist of a small bowl of zzoup and an incorruptible biscuit to dip in it. The zzoup is green, though not the green you know, and you can't tell whether it was naturally that color or if it obtained it after a long time on the shelf. The biscuits, while widely understood to never go bad, were debatably never good in the first place. A few have strange dents that one could call tooth marks. A few have strange lumps that one could call teeth. Croup is blessed with an especially toothy biscuit, which may have belonged to a tomb-colonist, before they gave up on gnawing at it. This is inconvenient, but whoever had lost the teeth was clearly familiar with the weak hold of their gums, because several of the teeth are made of rostygold, the blood money of the neath. (An occurrence! You now have 10x piece of rostygold!)

Supper passes without incident, unless of course you choose to create one, and you're soon shepherded back to your cells. Or, you would be, if another officer hadn't come up to you as you walked. Signaling to the Burly Officer, this new one pulled you away from the larger group. As you were about to question this, it raised its cap, revealing slit-pupiled amber eyes and a sharp-toothed grin. The Aberrant Ambassador is significantly less... amalgamous, now. It isn't quite so... long, and it has the right number of joints. It is still thin and tall, but its proportions are at least a little more reasonable. Its jaw is no longer split, though the place where it has fused together is still a little uneven, as if it wasn't perfect.

"I have had to expend a great deal of my resources for this," it states, voice still raspy and inhuman. "But it is my hope that my willingness to serve will win me the favor of the Braided One. Come, now. The Undertaker awaits."

Ezra leans against a wall or sits on the floor while the others eat. As they are pulled aside by what reveals itself to be the Aberrant Ambassador, he gives them a polite nod of greeting, ready to follow.

They kept their silence after he relayed the information about the Undertaker and the devils. Maybe his companions were, much like the warlock, rehearsing all the bits and pieces of knowledge they had amassed since their arrival. Maybe they were on guard on the case a new fight broke out. Either way, the time in the open area came to end soon and the same could be said of the supper, if one could call the meal they had like that. Two years back at the very sight of those things would give him nausea. Nowadays he was almost help for having it.

Damien was ready to speak to Ezra return to his attempts of finding a way out of the cells when a new guard took upon himself to guide the group. Soon enough it became clear they were not going back to their cells. Bloody Hell, he thought readying himself for a battle. Experience taught him that one had to be always ready for the worse, especially in the Neath. Before any attack was made, the officer revealed himself as the Aberrant Ambassador.

“A surprise, to be sure. But a welcome one.” The warlock said allowing himself a rogue smile. Maybe the colonists were wrong. Maybe the Undertaker know a way out of the prison. After all, the Ambassador could pass himself for a guard and even them he was subjected to this blade seller. “If nothing else you have our sympathy. Please, lead the way.”

The Aberrant Ambassador leads the group along, until they reach a heavy iron door. This one is similar to several others everyone has seen throughout the different areas of the prison, behind which a loud mechanical banging and screeching can often be heard. It produces a broken key ring, on which a few keys still hang, and sticks one in the lock on the door. It turns the key and with a heavy mechanical sound, the door's locking mechanism disengages, and it swings the door open. Inside is a cramped iron box, into which it ushers the group. It closes the door, locking everyone within the dimly lit elevator, and the box begins to descend.

"The Undertaker's not the only one who sells weapons here, but he has all the best ones. All the knives in New Newgate that actually do their jobs right eventually find their ways to him, so it makes sense. Shouldn't be long, now. I don't know what he did to get all the way down here, he's even lower than where I was originally assigned. And I assure you, I didn't begin so high up. Ah, here we are!"

The door shrieks open, the sound of metal on metal making everyone except for Ezra and the Aberrant Ambassador cover their ears. The clay man has heard worse, the stretched man just doesn't seem to be phased by much of anything. This floor is far more cramped than your own, likely because of the smaller area, being near the narrow tip of the stalactite New Newgate is set in. Next to the elevator entrance, you see the number '3' painted, so this must be level 3. There are far fewer guards here, and the ratio of gaolers to officers tips dramatically towards the former. There's almost a sort of eerie stillness to the area, none of the hooting and hollering and banging on bars that you hear above. The Aberrant Ambassador ushers the group along, stalking ahead of them, its gait still not quite human despite its more... compressed form at the moment. Eventually, you reach a medium sized room, from which the unmistakable scent of death oozes. The Aberrant Ambassador smiles, and gestures you all forward, evidently content to hang back.

"Don't be long, now. People will probably notice the missing officer soon, and might connect it with you lot being led off. Mysterious disappearances are, of course, rather run of the mill here, but people might start to ask questions when they realize the body still has a face. The officer in question will also almost certainly be quite cross if his items are not returned. I'm not above killing someone, but I wouldn't want to be rude."

Ezra is just glad the shrieking of metal is short lived, and doesn't form words.

If he has a chance to speak to Damien, he'll ask him, "WHAT DO WE WISH OF THE UNDERTAKER, AND WHAT WILL HE WISH OF US?" 

As they are ushered into the room, he'll duck in and look around, but his intention is to let some of the others who have gotten their group this far do the talking.

“I cannot say what he will wish from us, Ezra, but I have the inclination it will depend heavily on what we will ask of him.” Damien said to the less than discrete clayman and they keep in the way showed by the Ambassador. In the underworld, experience taught him, things usually worked in such manner. You ask for a favor, you give one about as heavy. “That said, do any of you think it is a good idea to ask about the note? It is not like the thing spoke of this place.”

If memory served him right, the paper Herman received made mention of a cell in eighth level of the prison. Maybe there was a competitor for the Undertaker. Maybe mention of this could bring down whatever price the arms dealer would ask of them. Or maybe the arms dealer could warn them that those words were in a fact a trap waiting for the group. Just as likely it was the possibility that mention of note caused opposite effect. Not a decision I want to make alone, the warlock thought.

“I heard the Undertaker doesn’t know anything that can put us out of this place, but he may still have some information that helps in this sense. Maybe point us towards someone that can help us in a more… Definitive manner.” Damien looks at the rest of his companions. “Let’s go.”

 And after speaking he enters the room.

A chill hits everyone as they enter the room. Looking about, it seems just about the same as everywhere else on this floor, though significantly colder. Several tables lie in the center of the room, and three of them are currently occupied by corpses. Two are men, one shrunken with age, the other young and... well, as fresh-faced as a corpse can be. The other is a tomb-colonist of indistinct gender, the body beneath the now-unwrapped bandages too twisted, scarred, rotted and withered to tell. The tomb-colonist seems almost deflated, and there is an empty gap in its chest, as if its insides were just removed. It doesn't seem like the clean work of a scalpel either, more like the papery skin was torn and shoved aside. The old man is dressed in a suit and tie, and looks almost as if he's just laid down to rest. The young man is unclothed, pale skin visible in the dingy light, and a harrowed looking man stands over him. 

Piled up by the side, there are a number of coffins that appear to be empty. There is also another, separate coffin on the opposite side of the room, stenciled and franked, the word "EXPORT" carved into its front. A coffin with a purpose. There is also a hatch that leads unmistakably into an incinerator, from which an old, ashy smell can be scented. The man standing over the young man's corpse pulls something out of the corpse, something shining and stained with dark blood, and looks up. The Troubled Undertaker looks as if he belongs right there on the tables with his subjects. His lips are blue, his skin grayish. He blinks, slowly, as he regards each of you, one by one.

"To what," he groans, "do I owe the pleasure?"

Damian had not stepped to think what kind of people would be the Undertaker but if he had, an actual undertaker would still be one of the last things that would have crossed his mind. Maybe I spent too much time amongst criminals, he thought to himself while noticing how weak of an impression the presence of the corpses caused on him. Not even the Tomb Colonist, so particularly disfigured, made him impressed. It is hard for one to fear an image of death when one had met death itself.

“Forgive us the intrusion.” He said after watching a moment to see if any of his companions wanted to open the conversation. Their silence was his invitation. “We are but newcomers in this place and have heard from others that you are the right person to seek for trade in favors.”

It was a rare thing for Damian to meet someone as pale as him. At least on the last years. Yet the Undertaker managed to look even less alive than he did. Blue lips like those of a frozen corpse. Is he a walking one? Such thing was not that rare in the Neath, after all.

“While I can not speak for all the desires of all of my friends I am certain we share a particular intention to ease our stay. End it ,if you understand my meaning. It would be a pleasure to trade for something helpful towards those intentions. Like the schedule of the dirigibles.”

The Troubled Undertaker does not nod, nor does he shake his head. Damian doesn't even see him blink, though he reasons that he must just do so when the warlock isn't watching. After a while, he turns to a drawer and pulls it open roughly, with a clatter. Inside of it there are knives, of all shapes and sizes. Shivs made of chisels and spoons and bones of unknown provenance. Blades made of every material known to man. All sorts of curves and twists and arcs. They are all unique, and most are at least somewhat marred with the brownish crust of dried blood. The Troubled Undertaker gives the thing he pulled from the young man's corpse a cursory wipe, revealing it to be a sharpened chunk of scrap metal, and tosses it into the drawer.

"If you're looking for weapons, I have what you need, if you have something to pay me. As for ending your stay... the only way I can offer is in a box. People have taken that way before, actually. Can't say if they survived or not, though I didn't see them surface. I don't know about the dirigibles, though. No windows. There are others, however. I heard the Dapper Underworld Boss got a window installed. And he's been here for a long time."

"WHAT SORT OF PAYMENT INTERESTS YOU? WE MAY HAVE LIMITED OPTIONS AT THE MOMENT, DO YOU OFFER INSTALLMENT PLANS?", Ezra inquires. His preference runs to the heavier weapons, most is what's on offer would seem to be smaller, stabby things. His maul would be hard to conceal...

"HOW WOULD ONE APPROACH THE DAPPER BOSS?

The Troubled Undertaker pauses, ponders for a moment. He then pulls open another drawer, in which a few greenish candles lay. 

"My... protections are running low. I quite enjoy my face, and would hate to lose it. If you have any candles to spare, they would be much appreciated. I can also put in a good word for you to the Boss. He approaches you, after all. You don't approach him."