He’ll take the passage and move quickly. 

He’s mindful of how much time he is taking and whether the dusties will make the same inferences he has and send someone after the tobacconist for more info on the man who invaded their mortuary.

There are no pedestrians in this area.  The architecture abruptly changes a few hundred feet into the passage, becoming homes that seem decidedly more middle class than their surroundings.  The buildings are mostly brick.  There are mild stonework flourishes on the window lintels.

The street ends with a few hitching posts and an elevated curb of brickwork above the base level of stone in Sigil.  There is an alley barely large enough for two to pass that continues northward.

Affirmative. 

He picks up his pace and continues down the alley.

After fifty paces or so the left wall falls away from him, opening up to a rectangular courtyard.  The space is lined with two story dwellings, some having balconies with iron railings.  On the opposite corner of the courtyard, the alley way continues onwards. 

The courtyard is full of debris.  There are scattered pieces of furniture, lumpy divan couches stuffed with something coarse and fibrous that spills out from holes in the fabric, and pieces of a bedframe.  He also sees various wooden crates and tapped kegs, and evidence of a cooking fire.  There are piles of wood scraps and a broken piano, but enough of a clear path exists to suggest foot traffic at least occasionally passes this way.  There are no people present.

He does a quick check for any obvious tripwire or the like and proceeds through the courtyard through the passage at the far end.

As he passes a stack of crates he sees in the space behind it a rippling shimmer of a vertical plane.  It appears to be bounded by the outer edges of a large crate made of palette wood, standing on its side about five feet high.

It is one of Sigil's portal doors, perhaps whimsically opened by the Lady in a pile of trash.

Nope.

No adventures till he's met the tobacconist. Through the courtyard. Into the passage at the far end.

As he steps into the narrow passage at the end of the courtyard, he hears a voice behind him. 

“Hey mister.”

No good conversation ever starts in an alleyway. He keeps stepping quickly but will glance over his shoulder to size up the threat.

It’s a short man with a wiry frame.  

It seems he was sitting stationary behind one of the crates, for he is only just rising.  His hair is nappy and orange in a way that suggests artificial coloring.

The alley into which The Nameless One has entered is just barely large enough for two men to pass side by side.  Before he can flee much farther, a second figure emerges to block his path, stepping out of the shadow of a doorway stoop. 

This man is much larger, as tall as The Nameless One, but looking to be maybe four stone heavier.  He’s holding some kind of a battle axe with a cutting arc on one side of its head and a nasty looking spike on the other.

“Easy friend.  Slow down and talk.”  The voice is slower with a touch that makes The Nameless One wonder if the man is simple.

He stops and orients himself sideways relative to the two assailants, back to the solid wall.

He draws the scalpel from the loincloth with his dominant hand. He's positioned maybe three or four paces into the alley from the courtyard. If there are more of the gang planning to join in this attack he doesn't want to get outflanked.

The first man speaks again, approaching slowly with both hands raised in a calming gesture.

“That’s what I’m saying. Keep it slow.  Keep it simple, mister.  You’re walking known ground.  This is a known situation.  It is solved, see?”

He makes his face perfectly neutral. He looks at the smaller man briefly, then returns his gaze to the large one.  

No weapon drawn by the small one… and he trusts his own reflexes to be able to avoid any swing from that weapon.

He’ll wait out the one who is talking. He doesn’t see any advantage in speak first.

“There, there now.  No brains spilled on the floor.  No blood.  No guts.  Those don’t do us any good.  Let’s do introductions.

"I’m Landers.  And this corner of The Hive is in our keeping.  What’s your name?”

Can superstition work here?  Or should it just be brutality.

Anyone who lives long in Sigil has seen at least one strange and powerful being. Queer is good in this city. It begets caution, and respect, so as long as it's not transparently being queer for queerness’ sake.

He'll try a gambit,  and slay them all if it fails.

“This body has no name.”

“Nah?  That’s a shame.  Even a gutter rat’s got a name.  

"Well, Mister No Name. Where is it that you want to go today?”

The smaller man shakes his head in annoyance.

“See, here’s the thing.  We could kill you.  We do kill.  With some degree of frequency.”

He shoots a glance at his compatriot.

“But we don’t want to.  It’s not our most favorite way for this to go.  See, our most favorite way is that you leave here happy.  You leave here happy and we leave here richer.  And next time you come through, we make it even quicker.  Once we come to terms, it’ll be a breeze.  A regular thing.  Like dropping a few coins on the bar top for a cup of daffy in the morning,”

“This body has no coins. They do not serve.”

His face darkens.  He draws a long dagger.  “That won’t do at all, see.  You’re going to have do a lot-”

A feminine voice rings out, much louder than they have been speaking and accented with some kind of foreign patois.  “Would you look at the size of that prick?” she says, and then whistles.

A tiefling woman in bright red leathers steps into view from the courtyard, brushes past the smaller man and steps directly up to The Nameless One.

Her movements are easy and sauntering.  A tail a yard in length and resembling that of a giant rodent twists and curls behind her.  She has visible tattoos on the neck and forearms, and her outfit has clearly been chosen to accentuate a good figure.

Evidently the leader of this trio.

And there may be more of the gang on the perimeter to catch him if he slips round the larger man.

He prepares himself. Her forearms look small enough that he could probably snap one quickly. The sequence should be woman, then small man, then large man.

She paces back and forth in front of The Nameless One, scrutinizing him.  

“Bet he’s got a strong back.”

Then she smiles, and standing up on tip toes beside him, speaks into his ear.  “Here’s how it is, love. When we’re born, we’re very small and stupid.”

Reading some pre-movement intent in The Nameless One she quickly steps back, perfectly calculating the edge of his reach, and staying just beyond the boundary. She holds her arms akimbo at their sides.

“Then, we grow up.  Most of us get bigger.

“Some of us - also get smarter.“ 

Midway through the last sentence her hand makes an almost imperceptible movement and launches a small spike or dart, resembling a pen knife, into the Nameless One’s abdomen. 

It pierces the skin and remains embedded, quivering.

“And some of us don’t.  So I’ll explain it to you.  You walk out of here without paying, it isn’t about you.  In your eyes, me making an exception for you makes it easier.  But it costs me.  There aren't any exceptions. Someone sees you walk out of here unharmed and without paying… That’s a huge problem. That costs me dearly, as sure as you took from my own pocket.  It costs me in any number of bloods I have to paste into the paving stones just to maintain the reputation of a respectable lady of business in these parts.”