Snake heads straight toward the room with the intent of finding a way to get his clothes dry.
Braddon likewise heads upstairs to dry off.
The men climb the stairs to rectify their bedraggled state, Harvey Read smirking after them.
Having wrung the weal from his wyrd, awaying the woeful wetness as they'd walked, Gristav was needless of their narrow room's refuge, and lingered without, wandering, if not warding, the hallway. (Though not moving overmuch, save in his mind.)
Tendal might make that dinner, yet...
I really could use a mending magic. Road-roughened is convincing on a courier, superfluous on a sell-sword, and worrying, on a wizard.
So, a lunch date, a dinner date... why do I get the sense someone will invite us to breakfast?
"Say, Tendal", Gristav says at the mage's closed door, "Going forward, I'll prepare prestidigitation, and might you maintain a mending, so we've both?"
"Mending...hmmm." Tendal muses caught up short by Gristav's suggestion.
"I had not thought of that. It seemed such a useless spell. My teacher used it mainly as a teaching exercise, not as a proper tool, straightening bent nails, repairing broken candles and the like."
"But as the spell is density dependent rather than object dependent, it might work well in this instance."
"Yes. Please prepare prestidigitation for future use, I will prepare expeditious mending, Mulhav's Torch, magical aura sight and read magical script tomorrow morning."
Tendal works on cleaning his clothes, the best he is able, then goes to find one of the kitchen staff or servants who can quickly repair his shirt before dinner.
Once Braddon is mostly dry, he heads downstairs again.
He makes his way to the bar, grins at the barman and orders an ale.
While waiting for it he looks directly at Harvey Read, grin still in place, before turning back to his ale.
By the time Braddon returns to the common room, it has grown more full than it was when the group passed through earlier. Harvey Read, however, is no longer there.
It costs Tendal some ferocious negotiation and five copper coins, but he eventually persuades a retired sailor, claiming a long history with mending sails, to produce a needle and thread and make the required repairs.
Braddon is happy to take up position at the bar and chat with the locals.
He asks about boats and jobs and groups and gangs. Sometimes he's a pirate from the shackles; sometimes he's a hero from Andoran helping slaves across the Chelaxian Border; sometimes he's a loner from the wilderness who revisits civilisation every few years. Always, he is Braddon and he is your friend. He buys most people who chat to him a drink, and a second if they don't question his tales.
But he also listens carefully to what others have to say.
Phillip is of introspective mood as their path wends back into town and towards the inn. He forgoes the natural instinct to move above to refresh, instead wallowing in his dampness and foetid ordure. Seeking a table or booth that puts his back to the wall and with a decent view of the commons, he seeks assistance in seeing himself served with a hunk of black bread, some sharp cheese and a bottle of tawny port. Drawing one of his own daggers to serve as a tool, he alternates shaving slices of bread and cheese - nibbling at the repast in between sombre sips of port.
The overt impression to a casual watcher is of a man at thought, churning over a matter in his mind in solitude. The truth is near to that, though he keeps a casual eye to the commons as well... and after the appearance of Braddon... at tangent to any that might be looking at the half-elf's back.
Phillip finds that his disheveled and dampened appearance attracts no undue notice in the tavern, full of men at least as rumpled and grimy as he. Staying behind in the common room while his fellows go upstairs, he notes Harvey Read's departure, not long after Tendal climbs the stairs. The man exchanges a few words with his companions, throws a silver coin on the table to cover their expenses, and swaggers out the door.
Having restored his appearance to the extent a cantrip and a retired sail-mender can accomplish the task, Tendal, with Gristav in tow, departs for the port-governor's mansion. The walk through the grimy streets of Roderic's Cove, and then over the stretch of open ground between the town proper and the house on the bluff, feels far more treacherous in the dim twilight than it did in morning light and makes Tendal even more uncomfortable about the prospect of returning to the Fish and Fortune later that night in full dark, but the pair arrives unscathed.
The welcome of the lighted windows is far more cordial than that dished out by Mr. Arrow when he answers the door, but he grudgingly shows Tendal through to the dining room -- which is the same as the breakfast room, though its now-dark windows are covered by velvet curtains. Governor Gildersleeve is not alone this time: Harvey Read is seated to one side of her place at the head of the table and scowls even more unwelcomingly than Mr. Arrow.
The port-governor, however, gives every evidence of delight at Tendal's presence and commands Mr. Arrow to set another place on her other side. Given her obvious pleasure at the new arrival, Read has little choice but to play along and make grudging conversation while glaring daggers across the table when their hostess's attention is elsewhere. Gristav, as before, is taken to be Tendal's manservant and is entertained in the kitchen by Mr. Arrow with a similar level of enjoyment but less pretense.
After dinner, the governor calls for wine and seems in no hurry to bid her guests goodnight. Read, likewise, seems intent to outwait Tendal and be left alone with Governor Gildersleeve; he is therefore taken aback when the port-governor suggests, "Mr. Deverin, I make no bones about the safety of a well-dressed stranger on the streets of the Cove after dark. You're welcome to stay the night ... and I can find a spare cot for your man, of course."
Tendal ponders this offer for a moment.
"Thank you Governor, that would be both prudent and companionable. I imagine that the streets do get a bit...rambunctious." Tendal answers. "The evening has also been quite delightful, thank you again for inviting me to dine with you."
"As there is no need to retire immediately now, would you like to play a few hands of Towers? Or perhaps Bounder?"
"Cribbage?", Gristav offered Arrow, hopeful hours had healed whatever wound his wastrel ways (a vain veneer over voluminous vulnerabilities, daunting duties... vanished friends) had harmed the headstrong houseman.
"Or whatever help I might render? No reason we ought to be a burden, each to the other, when we might be helpful...?"
"As there is no need to retire immediately now, would you like to play a few hands of Towers? Or perhaps Bounder?"
Governor Gildersleeve looks delighted at the suggestion. "A Bounder man! Do you carry your own dice, or will you trust mine? Here, Mr. Arrow! Clear all this away; we need the table for Bounder! Well... leave the wine, yes. Look lively, man!"
"Cribbage?", Gristav offered Arrow, hopeful hours had healed whatever wound his wastrel ways (a vain veneer over voluminous vulnerabilities, daunting duties... vanished friends) had harmed the headstrong houseman.
"Or whatever help I might render? No reason we ought to be a burden, each to the other, when we might be helpful...?"
"That's a cot to set up," Arrow remarks resentfully, "and extra breakfast to be cooked and cleared in the morning."
--------------------------------------
Harvey Read joins the game of Bounder with ill grace, but as the evening wears on and he no longer has any hope of waiting Tendal out, he eventually bids the port-governor a formally-polite but petulant good night, departing resentfully. His original groundless dislike for the interloper has clearly tipped over into jealous fury.
As the stories turn darker, Braddon shifts uncomfortably.
"Right, well, it's getting late so I'll be off to bed. Big day tomorrow. 'Night."
"That's a cot to set up," Arrow remarks resentfully, "and extra breakfast to be cooked and cleared in the morning."
"But an extra hand to do it, and magics beside.", Gristav cheered, but then worried, "What sort of cot? The rail-sided, cross-legged, drum-taut sort? History with those, is waking up with a leg or an arm, cast over the rail, settled there all night, and insisting on sleeping, when the rest of me needs be up. I suppose it's a truth, a man will rise faster from a floor than from a bed. This man, in any case. Or the ground of a camp or- say, you wouldn't have a hammock, by any chance? I slept well enough in the last of those, deep enough to dream. Until the call came to defend the vessel..."
Gristav presently pauses for a bit of breath, but surely fills any surly silence with wishful wit and willful good company, going so far as to wyrd-wash the first of the dishes brought from the high table before the last have come in, and to have shuffled and dealt the tableau of cribbage before asking offhandedly, "Do you have a board?"
"As there is no need to retire immediately now, would you like to play a few hands of Towers? Or perhaps Bounder?"Governor Gildersleeve looks delighted at the suggestion. "A Bounder man! Do you carry your own dice, or will you trust mine? Here, Mr. Arrow! Clear all this away; we need the table for Bounder! Well... leave the wine, yes. Look lively, man!"
"Your dice will be just fine Governor." Tendal responds, a bit startled by the sudden reaction, but quite pleased to be drinking and gaming into the wee hours of the morning.
The sun rises over Roderic's Cove. Braddon, Snake, and Phillip are awakened in the Fish and Fortune by the sounds of banging doors, heavy footfalls, and inconsiderate shouts. Tendal and Gristav are nowhere to be found and apparently never returned last night.
-------------------------------
Mr. Arrow had been further aggrieved late last night by being required to open a disused bedroom for Tendal's use when the gambling was over. He set up Gristav's cot across the doorway of the room, and there the pair awaken this morning, the stump and rattle of Mr. Arrow's preparations in the kitchen just discernible enough to let them know that breakfast will be provided shortly.
Braddon mumbles something and puts his pillow over his head in a vain attempt to return to slumber.
Rising out of bed and glad to be wearing dry clothes, Snake gathers his gear. "Get up, bub. We've got another fun day ahead of us," he deadpans. Going through his morning ritual with Lucky, the visions come rapidly within his mind before locking themselves away until needed.
The tall man puts on his overcoat and pops it straight a couple of times. He then places his hat on his head, adjusts it, and then throws his pack on his back. Looking over at the layabout - Braddon that is - who refuses to get up, "Waitin' on you, bub. There's food down there," he tells him, pausing for some sort of reaction or simply movement. "Did I mention lots of food," he states boringly. "And women. Lots of women," he tells him, sounding as if it's about as exciting as eating paper.
Phillip wakens late, though with a mite more energy than Braddon is able to muster. The events of the previous day still weigh heavy on his mind... thoughts of what devil's bargain's been made and what might be coming their way... but nothing that couldn't be improved what hopefully might be an acceptable cup of kahve.
He proceeds to the common in search of the same.
...the stump and rattle of Mr. Arrow's preparations in the kitchen just discernible enough to let them know that breakfast will be provided shortly.
"I had sincerely offered help, so I'll go now to fulfill that hope...", Gristav says to Tendal, struggling getting a boot past the numbness of a calf that had draped on the cot all night. "I leave it your call, but please, do ponder, what truth we might owe our hostess, or her station."
Towing the cot aside from the doorway, Gristav stumps toward the kitchen, intent on being as good as his word.
Gristav wanders down the dusty hallway to the kitchen to offer his help to Mr. Arrow while Tendal studies his spellbook. He is greeted with the usual disgusted grunt, but the man doesn't actually order him out so he steps in to assist with the kippers and toast.
-------------------------
The coffee at the Fish and Fortune is mere dishwater compared to the Sargavan Red, the daily arrival of which at the Gold Goblin Phil thinks of wistfully. To get the same kick would require several cups of the coffee in Roderic's Cove -- or, as Phil notices being added to the mugs of most of his fellow morning imbibers, a hair of the dog.
"Did I mention lots of food," he states boringly. "And women. Lots of women."
Braddon gurgles something and drags himself upright.
"Do they have red hair and a cute smattering of freckles across her nose? Does she have creamy soft skin and a tinkling laugh that makes the bluebirds sound second rate? Is she good with knots and has a tattoo on her..."Braddon rubs his eyes and looks around.
"Forget that last bit. I'm coming."
He staggers to his feet and heads for the door.
"And the food is probably terrible too," he sulks.
"And the food is probably terrible too," he sulks.
"Probably." Snake follows the ranger out the door and to the common area, Lucky perched safely and out of sight within his pack.
Snake and Braddon join Phillip in the common room.
Rising from his sleep, his head swimming with the after effects of the night of gaming and drinking, Tendal blindly fumbles for his pack, muttering various unintelligible invectives under his breath. A few moments of fumbling later, and Tendal is able to empty a thimbleful of powder into his goblet, which fizzes violently for a moment, then quiets. Holding his nose, Tendal drains the goblet and shudders at the foul taste.
Within seconds, the foul pounding behind his eyes begins to ebb and his mind begins to sharpen.
Now to study... He snorts a small laugh. I don't think my eyes would have focused on the diagrams and formulae before my remedy.
After studying for a quarter hour, Tendal heads down to the kitchen, looking to break his fast.
Phil raises his cup to Serpe and Braddon as they approach adding conversationally "Not worth it unless you get a catharsis from the actions involved... Read's men were watching us last night... which is good and bad depending on what mood we're in."
"I'm in the mood to murder a decent breakfast. Since that seems unlikely, one of Read's men will do instead."
Braddon looks around.
"Where's Gristav? He's way too cheerful in the morning but usually makes up for it with pastries."
Tendal finds his way to the dining room, now a morning room once more, with the curtains over the wall of windows open wide to let in a rather smudgy-looking sunrise. He and the port-governor break their fast on a similar repast to that they enjoyed the previous morning, while Gristav makes do on the surplus in the less formal setting of the kitchen with the less cordial company of Mr. Arrow.
-------------------------
As Braddon fears, the breakfast available at the Fish and Fortune isn't a patch on fresh-baked goods delivered to the Gold Goblin every morning, much less on the hearty breakfast whipped up by Lalie in the tiny kitchen of the Publican House his first day in Riddleport. Apart from the small group at their own table, the company is less sparkling as well, a room full of surly sailors and stevedores with hangovers.
"I'm in the mood to murder a decent breakfast. Since that seems unlikely, one of Read's men will do instead."
Braddon looks around.
"Where's Gristav? He's way too cheerful in the morning but usually makes up for it with pastries."
Taking a seat, "With Tendal. Any idea Read's interest in us?" Snake asks, switching the conversation to something more interesting.
Taking a seat, "With Tendal. Any idea Read's interest in us?" Snake asks, switching the conversation to something more interesting.
Braddon nods understandingly. Then pauses.
"Where's fancypants?"
"Met with some Governor last night for dinner. Guess he didn't come home. I'm thinking he's due for a good grounding. Gristav too." Snake scans the area nonchalantly for any possible 'watchers'. "Don't look like we're being watched now. I wonder if this Read fellow is part of team Marzo? I guess if he is, it won't be long before we know about it."
"Read works for the Port Governor," Phillip replies, "but that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have any other connections. Perhaps 'Magnimar' can tell us more about him when he returns. One of Read's men followed him out of here last night."
"If I promised you an hour of my silence", Gristav asks Mister Arrow, "Would you rejoice quietly?" The half-elf smiled, warmly but teasingly, with the best of intentions, but less perfect manners, producing from his pack an overlarge book and claiming an entire end of the kitchen's - of Mister Arrow's - table in its opening.
"I'll not ask you to pledge. Let's just... call it an experiment."
True to his words, Gristav neither muttered nor mused, as the minutes mounted, and the weight of wyrd wove within the bravo's brow, sorting from storm within, but surely silent, without.
"Read works for the Port Governor," Phillip replies, "but that doesn't necessarily mean he doesn't have any other connections. Perhaps 'Magnimar' can tell us more about him when he returns. One of Read's men followed him out of here last night."
"If one of Read's men followed him out last night, and he hasn't come back, shouldn't we go look for his body? I mean, Saul kinda liked him. Almost as much as the dwarf. Who's also missing."
Braddon frowns.
"Just Gristav. And we don't need to go looking for bodies, bub. Not yet anyway. Let's give them some time and see if they show up."
Having breakfasted and prepared spells, albeit in separate rooms, Tendal and Gristav depart the Port-Governor's mansion and head back into Roderic's Cove proper to reunite with the rest of the party at the Fish and Fortune and prepare for their anticipated luncheon meeting with Ishana.
Tendal is near irrepressible in his attitude as they walk along the muddy and rutted road back from the Governor's mansion, a large grin on his face.
"Well that was an excellent evening." he announces, stepping over a puddle.
"The Governor is an excellent host, and plays Bounder quite...enthusiastically. Also Gristav, I understand that you spent some of your morning plying your skills in the kitchen. If so, then I must say thank you. Your efforts were quite excellent."
"As to what we achieved here, I think that we have some small measure of goodwill that we can bank upon if necessary. Nothing that will put the Governor out with Riddleport, but we may be able to press upon her for information if necessary at a future time."
"Also dinner and gaming make an excellent break after tromping through the woods ", he says with a smile.
"You, she, and Mister Arrow, are all welcome to my efforts. A bit of flavor here, texture there, learned from long habit of an imperiled princeling, taught to favor and savor flavors... well, that a man camping out, does not have access to. Except, from memory, and magery. The slightest of spells, like the sharpest of razor, weildt with precision."
"As to goodwill, I agree your grace has gathered some to us, though it's difficult to read from the far room, and as for the room I was in, very little grace to be found, there. Still, that shouldn't keep one from trying."
"Did you relate to her, any of our adventure of the morning? If we meant to press her later, seems a fair forthcoming, paid forward."
"No, I did not relate our afternoon's adventures. I didn't think that it would be prudent until discussed with the remainder of our group, or some opportunity presented itself that was too good to wait on."
"In other words, I didn't feel that simply casting about in murky waters would be a wise course."
"You were not able to glean anything from Mr. Arrow?"
Tendal and Gristav arrive back at the Fish and Fortune and spy their three comrades seated at a table in the common room over a more meager breakfast than the one they enjoyed at the Port-Governor's.