The smell of alcohol and anxious sweat lingered in the warped wood and chipped paint, long baked into the cement floor under the heat of the incandescent lighting. Cutting through it all was a whiff of burnt chemicals from the autoclave, humming away to itself in the back corner. The walls were covered with yellowing posters of flash, the clichéd tattoo designs so often chosen by drunken frat boys and wannabe gangsters.

Lounging at the front counter was a large, burly Chinese man – the tattoo “artist,” chosen more for his abilities as a bouncer than any inherent talent. Found throughout Paragon, but especially in the neighborhoods of Talos Island, Independence Port, and Steel Canyon, tattoo parlors such as these acted as fronts and gathering points for one of Paragon’s most ambitious gangs: the Tsoo.