"Erm, well, that part might be Grandmother's fault actually."

"Oh?"

"So, I don't remember what I've explained already about the Rubbery Men, but they're the creations of the Flukes from the planet Axile for the purpose of interfacing with humanity. And the reason the Flukes are in the Neath is because the Bazaar made a deal to bring them there. The Flukes' side of the bargain was that they were supposed to suppress part of the Bazaar's brain--so Messengers have this brain part called the Claddery Lobe, and it does stuff like navigation and making them want to travel and deliver messages and stuff, and the Bazaar wanted it to not bother them while they were hanging out in the Neath collecting love stories for Grandfather. So it made this deal with the Flukes to temporarily suppress it until the Bazaar was ready to leave. Only the Flukes fucked up and the Lobe got infected and had to be surgically removed by a third party, which constituted significant brain damage, and the Bazaar got really really mad at them and the Rubberies by extension. I healed the brain damage and convinced Grandmother to forgive the Axiles but, uh, until the problem was solved they were extremely pissed off and this had effects."

"Oh dear. - how does the opinion of what everybody thinks is a building trickle down?"

"Through the Masters."

"Huh. What do they do all day?"

"Uh, mostly they oversee trade, but sometimes they...do other things. Like Irons teaching me to fight or Fires attempting to mind-control the whole city or Pages playing concerning card games or Veils just straight-up being a serial killer."

"What does 'oversee trade' mean? - also why was he trying to mind-control the whole city."

"He wanted the Bazaar to give up their quest for love stories and just hang out in London forever so he tried to mind control everyone in the city into falling in artificial love so that the Bazaar wouldn't be able to tell what love was real and what wasn't and couldn't collect any stories."

"...why did he want it to hang out in London forever?"

"Because he really likes London."

"Is your grandma going to destroy it upon departing?"

"Er, well, not as such, but they would destroy it on bringing in the next city, since there are supposed to be seven and London is number five."

"I... assume you've already mentioned that destroying cities is bad? Why do they have to be right on top of each other - or am I misunderstanding -"

"I have already mentioned that destroying cities is bad. They don't strictly have to be on top of each other but the place where all five so far have been is convenient for a number of reasons and, like, up until me there was nobody who both gave a damn about destroying cities being bad and who the Bazaar cared enough about to actually listen to about it."

"I see."

"Thwarting Fires's mind-control plan was actually pretty much the first thing I did when I could shapeshift into human form and go into London proper myself, it was fucked up in all kinds of ways even aside from, uh, the end goal, and actually storming up to the Bazaar to yell at him was how I met my grandmother."

"How many more ways are there for a plot to mind control an entire municipal population into being in artificial love to be fucked up?"

"Mmkay, so, the way the mind-control works is there are these creatures called Moon-Misers who hang out on the ceiling of the neath and glow, most people know them as the 'false-stars,' and they have this venom that makes the envenomed passionately obsessed with the first thing they see after they get bit. Generally this is not a problem because of the whole hanging out on the ceiling thing where people are not. Uh, people who aren't Moon-Misers themselves, Moon-Misers are a kind of people, but they don't generally attack each other or anything and there's no risk of accidents with random bystanders. But Fires kidnapped one. And kept it in the basement of a sketchy building called 'The Orphanage' and did horrible experiments to them. And did further experiments involving kidnapped humans. And decided that Moon-Miser venom wasn't subtle enough for the effect he wanted, so he decided to dilute it by getting a human woman pregnant with its hybrid child without bothering to get consent from either would-be parent first."

"Wow that is startlingly fucked up, congratulations to Mr. Fires."

"I know, right, he is definitely the second-worst Master and I was shocked when I found out Veils was even worse."

"Is that the serial killer? I don't know, if he holds it down to a low enough rate that might be better! Especially since people can come back down there!"

"That is the serial killer but the serial killing isn't why he's the worst! I mean it doesn't help, but the reason why he is the worst is because of the thing where he incompetently murdered his boyfriend and fed him to some people and now there are cannibalistic immortals and an angry death god with an evil cult."

"I guess that could be worse depending."

"It is a really awful cult. And I stopped Mr. Fires. I mean I didn't stop all the preliminary fucked-upness but it turns out Moon-Miser venom is curable, if expensively, so all his experimental victims have been rescued and the Moon-Miser and the hybrid and the hybrid's mom are all okay now."