The Overstreet Tea Shoppe appears as a tearoom like any other. In it's well lit interior nearly a dozen small, marble tables with a accompanying wooden chairs sit atop well polished floors. The décor may be said to be decidedly feminine with pastel walls and drapery, the three lithograph wall hangings, each attributed to a local Bohemian artist, are of a neutral tone.
There is a varnished wooden counter on the far right of the entrance separating the customer from the shoppe's employees. A pretty, young girl sits behind the till and walks out onto the floor to take the orders of whomever might wander in. Behind the counter sit a myriad of teas, sauces, spices and powders from all four corners of the earth on whitewashed oaken shelves. Further back into the shop lies the bakery and ovens of the kitchens teaming with the usual smells and sounds one finds in such tearooms. The front of the counter boasts the hangings of over a dozen newspapers from all of Fallen London. The Gazette and The Overstreet Underground are regularly on display, but often such periodicals as The Inquiring Enquirer, The Sunday Septentrional or The Circadian Circumlocution might be found.
This is where the Overstreet Tea Shoppe becomes quite a horse of a different color than any of the other eateries of it's ilk. The menus are often illegible and many guests who with something on which to sup simply order whatever it is they desire and are rarely informed of it's absence.
It is rumored, however, that the menu is a cypher, it's code is found in the papers of the day and that tea is rarely what is on the menu. What the shop truly excels in selling is secrets.
While the trading of goods and secrets is strictly governed by the Master of the Bazaar, it is said that one may go into this particular shop, decipher the menu and then buy or sell anything one's heart might desire. From brass & glim to the secrets of the mighty & tales of dread, The Overstreet Tea Shoppe is happy to buy, sell of trade them all.
After an agreement is reached with the shop girl, commerce begins. If you are paying or being paid with Echoes, depending on your custom, then the transaction of such currency is handled at the register. Your next destination depends entirely on that with which you come to barter. If your trade is physical, it's to the back alley you go to head down to the cellar. If what you ply is audible or literary in nature, then you will be headed to the second floor.
The Cellar
Few customers are permitted to travel back through the kitchens of the shop, and are instead asked to move round to the back entrance. This is for the sake of not only propriety, but convenience as what many seek to either deposit or abscond with from the the Tea Shoppe's cellars is often of such great quantity that horse drawn carts are required.
Once in the alleyway two Clay Men and a Rattus Faber will greet you, quite politely I might add, and open the enormous, black lacquered cellar door. You will descend down several flights of unlit stairs, past hanging larder and piles of wooden boxes mysteriously and indecipherably labeled. Once at the bottom of the cellar, your desired item, from boxes of moon pearls to a single frock coat, is gathered or deposited and you are escorted out. The silence of the cellar is both awe inspiring and frightful. They say it is guarded by a thousand well armed Rattus Faber, each black as the night which hides them. They say Mr Overstreet's prize winning lily resides at the bottom to eat would be thieves and vicars. They say Mr Fires itself calls the cellar home. All that is known is that even the most uniquely larcenous of Fallen London would be unwise to attempt to take from the cellar that which it is unwilling to part with.
The Second Floor
The second floor is a miasma of fog & mirrors, jet black curtains and unceasing din; and if you've come here to share secrets, that is exactly what you want it to be. When one is escorted upstairs, the smell of incense hits the senses like a wall, followed shortly by the thick fog it creates. The shrill tones of a piano can always be heard, drowning out any conversation which might be held more than a few inches away. The room itself is sectioned in a maze of thick curtains only navigable by your guide who is either a lovely young blonde girl of scarce more than fifteen if you are lucky or a surely Rattus Faber if you are not. One of these two will guide you to a small space encircled by curtains and mirrors. Sometimes the area contains a chaise lounge, others it is a table for cards and it is almost always dependent upon the type of secrets you wish to tell or be told. It is here you unburden your soul to a fellow, unseen confidant, sure of little other than your financial security and anonymity. It is a maddening and macabre confessional, but it ensures that whatever it is you traffic in, be it tales of terror, hints of the primeval or mysteries from across the Zee, it has it's price. The Overstreet Tea Shoppe will ensure this price is fair.
The Third Floor
A select few call The Overstreet Tea Shoppe home. It's third floor is a lodging house, with dozens of rooms for either the bachelor on a budget or the newly released from Newgate. The rooms are cramped and each has a bit of a draught, but they each have a warm feather bed, three hot meals from the kitchen included in the lodging rate and the security of solitude and a locked door.
It is said that some of the guests here are kept here not of their own volition. It is said that those with enough secrets to make them wealthy men store their vast hordes of madness in the minds of their fellow Londoners and keep them in such adobes until they may be cashed out like any other account. While this lodging house may not be the Royal Beth, it's guests are certainly singular individuals.
The Fourth Floor
The topmost floor to which Mr Overstreet has a lease is a series of lodging rooms just like the one below it, but with a quarter of the floor sectioned off for Mr Overstreet's office and another quarter allocated for his personal lodgings when he chooses to stay here. Such occasions are rare.
The shop is not said to keep Mr Overstreet particularly wealthy, but it is a constant grinding wheel of commerce in the Bazaar. People will always need a place to commit discreet trade and The Overstreet Tea Shoppe provides it and while it's take is little, it's service is invaluable.
Oh, and try the eel pie. It's resplendent!
