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.
The real action took place upstairs in tiny apartments, or in gambling dens secreted in backrooms and basements, or in ostentatious drug palaces hidden within abandoned warehouses and factories. The Tsoo have been one of the most successful gangs in the past few years in Paragon, dominating the Asian communities and running the protection rackets and drug trades in their neighborhoods.
The Tsoo emerged on the scene in the late 1990s as a small but unified bunch under the leadership of Tub Ci, a brutal and calculating drug lord recently released from prison. Tub Ci claimed to have found his spirituality in prison – but it was the legacy of a warlord – and he named his group after a word that he defined as “the destroyers.” Independence Port and Talos Island were under the thumb of Hong Kong-born Triads at the time, who harshly exploited other Asian minorities in the area, but this wouldn’t last for much longer.
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