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He can tell instantly that the sound does not match that of a garbage bin’s contents being unleashed from above. Whatever the source of the noise it is heavy, and rather dry for Sigil trash.
The man spins quickly on the heel of his good leg and scans the area. It must be something coming from behind that mound there.
He takes two steps forward and then stops. He spies a pale foot and ankle visible around the side of that mound. The old man narrows his eyes.
There is the sound of a second thump, similar to the first and coming from the same place.
The man raises his hand and mutters something under his breath while making a few precise, cabalistic motions. After a moment, his whole body takes on a shimmer. An observer might describe the result as many ghostly images of the same man, occupying similar but not exactly identical spaces and each commanding a slightly different posture and position of limbs.
It looks to be around the time of lunch hour.
He makes good on his plan of greeting pedestrians and inquiring for Flint Court. Once there, he starts asking around for a tobacconist who owns a shop in this neighborhood with a yard.
His cover story, should he need one, is either 1) He is a courier tasked with picking up an order from the man or 2) He had some excellent Bytopian shag in a pub near Clapper and is seeking out the source. The former is a better default for merchants and the latter for tramps.
The Nameless One struggles to get positive responses while walking around in a bloodstained vest and brandishing a battle axe. If he persists and doesn’t have any run-ins with the Harmonium, he’ll eventually end up squarely in the heart of Flint Court.
After a handful of false starts, he comes across this half-sized unfortunate drinking from a stable trough with a clay bowl.
He approaches the man and lays the axe down gently a few yards from the trough.
Stooping to untie and retie his bootlace he says, “Hail, old timer.”
He raises the bowl above his head and lets the water fall over his long hair.
He seems equally content to drink the standing water or use it to make his toilet. “Hail yourself. Ain’t no old timer.”
“My mistake.”
After a pause to see if more mollification is needed, “I am unfamiliar with this quarter. Will you take coin for good information?”
“I share freely with my friends.
I need to find a tobacco shop. There is a human man of middle age who owns one in this quarter. The shop has a large yard. Do you know it?”
“Any leaf worth the light comes from Pauvine. She got a cart near the sign of the fool’s cap. Wouldn't take none from t'other.”
He retrieves his coin purse and begins counting out coppers. He nods gravely at the creature.
“That may well be. I cannot attest to the quality of his product.”
He slowly stacks coins one at a time on the rim of the water trough. He pauses at five.
“Nevertheless I have business with the tobacconist with the shop by the yard. Where is it?”
The tramp’s eyes stare unwinkingly at the coin stack. When The Nameless One withdraws his hand, he wrinkles his nose.
"Here. In the Court."
He shakes out a dozen or so more coins into his hand. There look to be about a hundred total in his possession.
The silvers are a little too large to be one-ounce coins if they’re the pure metal… so he has what, 6oz silver and a hundred commons? Certainly enough to lodge somewhere in The Hive for a few days, but his wallet may need to withstand several more such exchanges.
Enunciating his words slowly and precisely he says, “A tobacconist. Has a shop. With a yard. He is a human male.”
His eyes quickly scan the coins in his hand.
“There are fifteen commons here. I vow that if you can lead me to a place in Flint Court that fully passes that description, I will give you these coins in addition to that pile. Do you accept my terms?”
The tramp shakes his head violently from side to side, spraying water on The Nameless One.
“Aye,” he says.
“Kiss your pecker for another twenty?”
Whether because of the words or because of some disturbance in the air caused by the shaking of the creature's long hair, The Nameless One just then catches a whiff of his own bodily scent, and the odor triggers an involuntary upward curl of his lip in displeasure.
He reaches behind his head to pluck at the seams of his vest where they itch the skin. He feels the dampness of sweat there.
“Not today,” he says.
He closes his palm around the handful of coins and gestures for the creature to take the stack of five.
“The rest when we arrive. Show me the way.”
This part of The Hive seems to have been built all in one go, perhaps on the whim of a planner who very much fancied red bricks and right angles. The streets are narrow, and they’re bordered on either side by an uninterrupted line of two-story square structures. There are sewer grates every hundred feet or so, and the streets seem to alternate from pure unsigned residential to 80% mercantile with colorful, if weathered, signboards. The Nameless One glimpses one that says “Moonmaiden Shoe Repair” above a poorly drawn caricature of a female face with brown complexion and long white hair.
They cross a plaza with a row of pop-up merchant stalls and a stationary caravan full of wagons packed with something loose and bulky held under cloth.
On the other side the tramp leads them behind a line of townhomes with narrow individuated courtyards. The shared outer wall of the yards is of wooden pickets and stands maybe six feet tall, with periodic masonry fence posts to demarcate the homes.
“One of those there,” the tramp gestures upwards when they’re halfway down the line. “It’s a yard, yes?”
He squares up against the fence on tiptoe and peaks over.
What can he see of the two or three nearest yard sections?