Black Market

## Architect

* Acey
* HyperSilence

## Accessible Via

Secret door in Blackbourne Pub

The **Black Market**, also known as the **Blackbourne Token Underground**, was a token shop located beneath Blackbourne during Dragonhollow's Fifth Era.

The Black Market exclusively sold items that could not be acquired anywhere else.

# Description

The entrance to the Black Market was located within Blackbourne Pub, which was itself hidden in an out of the way tunnel beneath Blackbourne.

To reach the Black Market, a lever disguised as the far-right beer tap behind the bar counter opened a secret passage across from the pub entrance. This passage only remained open for several seconds, just long enough for someone to pull the lever and walk through it. From there a winding cobblestone stair led to a gloomy subterranean chamber partially lit by a central end rod pillar.

The shop had an decrepit ruinous appearance, with cracked walls and floor tiles covered in moss, cobwebs, and vines. One wall had a tunnel grated behind iron bars that led to the entrance of the Dragon Temple and Blackbourne Harbour.

Items sold by the Black Market were displayed upon three walls with their description and cost listed below. They were organized in rough categories—armor, potions, masks, and miscellaneous. In contrast to previous Token Undergrounds the items themselves were purchased from villager vendors.

A token exchange existed near the shop's entrance but again differed from older currency converters in that it was also handled through villager vendors rather than physical signs.

# Items

This is a list of the known items sold in the shop, their cost in tokens, and the most efficient denomination used to purchase them. Note that the x25, x50, and x200 tokens did not exist at the time.

# History

The Fifth Era began without many of the usual staples of life in Dragonhollow. On the community board in Blackbourne, Acey held a vote asking her residents whether Elite Status or the Token Underground should be implemented first. They decided on Elite because it was too early to need or afford the top-tier items of a luxury item shop.

Some weeks later at the Blackbourne Harbour Sly Cat began selling a book entitled *The Underground* that supposedly revealed how to reach the Underground. This led to exhaustive searches of Sanctuary by Terry, Ky and Tox to no avail. Speculation centered around a gloomy subterranean chamber visible via the tunnel that concealed the entrance to the Dragon Temple but was inaccessible behind iron bars. The chamber featured partially excavated signs of civilization such as blocks of glowstone, stairs, and a fossilized tree, suggesting they were the remnants of ancient ruins.

With the addition of Blackbourne Pub, Terry suggested to Acey that the beer taps behind the bar would be an excellent secret method of gaining access to the Underground, but she dismissed the idea because she had other plans for both it and the Pub.

After an unexpected absence from Acey, her Archpriest HyperSilence took over development of the Underground. He solicited suggestions from the community for ideas on useful items. Tohbeh proposed a clan passport that would temporarily allow travel through another clan's portal. Terry wanted to be able to construct armor stands with arms so that they could be equipped with handheld items. And Tox requested an extra claim deed be available at a recommend cost of 1000 tokens. None of the suggestions were ever implemented.

    An early prototype hinted that enchanted books and a nether star were originally planned for sale.

On 5E:61 the Black Market opened for business with items of Hyper's own creation which could not be found or crafted anywhere else, many of which would exist for eras to come.

As with previous Undergrounds the location of the Black Market was a mystery. Retro and Tox were the first to discover a secret passage in the Pub and reach the item shop in the old subterranean chamber, revealing that early speculations about its location were ultimately accurate. Word quickly spread by word of mouth, though prices for the best items were too steep for the public at large.

Terry and Tox discovered that the initial version of the War Wings was faulty; rather than serve as an armored airfoil, the elytra provided no protection against men and monsters alike. HyperSilence first offered them a refund before fixing the production error and replacing both pairs free of charge.

Elite items for the Black Market were used as gifts for the Pandora Secret Santa.

The token exchange was a source of frequent criticism due to missing denominations and strange merging incompatibilities that often resulted in customers being unable to purchase a desired item despite technically having enough tokens to do so.

By popular demand, late in the Fifth Era HyperSilence reduced the cost of all potions from 50 tokens to 1.

After residents were evacuated to the Badlands to escape the devastation unleashed by the opening of Pandora's Box, Sanctuary vanished from the skies and therefore the Black Market became inaccessible. When it returned for the Seventh Era, several of the floating isles including Blackbourne were missing, leading the secret item shop to be replaced by Tortuga.

# Gallery

The Black MarketBlocked tunnel entrance below BlackbourneBlocked tunnel prior to Black Market's constructionChamber prior to Black Market's constructionSecret beer tap lever at Blackbourne PubBlack Market secret passage closedBlack Market secret passage openEntranceMasks wallPotions wallArmor wallMiscellaneous wallToken exchange vendorsBlocked tunnelAn early prototype with enchanted books for saleHyperSilence works on the Black MarketA member of the Dragonkin tries a Glowing PotionKy finds the Black MarketHyperSilence and Ky shop aroundHyperSilence tests a Glowing Potion as a Dragon RiderFlyingPokemon arrives at the Black MarketFlyingPokemon alone in the darkKy browses armor selection

# Behind the Scenes

*The following is out-of-universe information about the real world Dragonhollow.*

Acey had undisclosed plans for a Blackbourne Token Underground that were never fully revealed. After she took a leave of absence from the server, head admin HyperSilence took over development and design of the Underground, created unique items to sell there, and christened it the "Black Market."

Terry first proposed the idea of having the "beer tap" levers at Blackbourne Pub reveal a secret entrance to the Underground, but Acey claimed she had other plans and rejected it. Nevertheless, HyperSilence either used his suggestion or arrived at the notion independently because his Black Market was accessed the exact same way.