Regeris remains stone-faced in the back, but jingles his money pouch a little.
"As my friend said, we just want to check in on her" Emi tells the man as she slides a couple of gold coins his way."
The clerk swipes the offered money off the table and turns a sign on his booth to 'Closed' before standing up.
"Might be the girl's asleep somewhere. Deri will check for you."
He leads you down the steps to the gambling floor. It takes a moment for your senses to adjust to the smoky interior of the vessel. Narrow port windows in either side of the hull cast beams of afternoon sunlight into the place.
Three men and a croupier toss dice at a table tucked into the larboard bow of the barge. A neglected card dealer lounges behind his table and taps his foot in time to the fiddle.
Much of the stern cabin has been converted to a bar and a couple more gents linger here, waiting impatiently for a new keg to be tapped. Deri turns out to be a little scamp of a boy who sits by idly, watching the barman work. In one dim corner of the bar a very inebriated man sits with a drink in his hand and a waitress in his lap.
"Boy! Go find the new girl and see if she wants to talk to her friends. And remind her she has a shift to work in one hour."
Deri nods his head and darts up the steps you just came down. The clerk nods, his promise fulfilled. "We don't encourage people to just linger here. If you stay very long, you'll be expected to play or drink, or both." He smiles, tips his hat and returns to his booth.
Regeris looks around the room. "I don't know her as well as you. I'm going to get a sense of the floor here and try to learn something. And keep those in charge happy by spending some coin."
With that he stalks over to the neglected card dealer. "Slow night? What's the game here? Show me how it works."
After Regeris heads off to the card table, Kayleigh finds herself alone with Nebbin a short distance from where Emi and Tassira are taking charge of negotiations. After an awkward silence, she quietly asks, "Do you think seeing all of here together will spook Carawyn? I think maybe she believes I'm too strict with rules and a big Goody-Goody. She might be scared of your size...but then again, she might feel safer seeing that you're here for protection...."
After another pause, she asks, "Should we stay here in plain sight or maybe move off a little ways? I'm pretty sure Carawyn looks up to Emi and likes Tassira's cat."
"Of course I'll explain the game..." the dealer says as he springs to his feet. He then goes on to layout the rules of 'Blackjack', a gambling game that takes its name from the legend that the hero of the same name never loses at it.
"You'll need credits to play. No coin at the tables here."
When Regeris returns to the booth he's annoyed to find the sign still turned to 'Closed' and the clerk not present.
A moment later Deri comes hurrying back into the room trailing Carawyn. The boy stands there beside Emileva holding his hat as Carawyn comes slowly down the stairs, passing Regeris with a sheepish look.
"Why did you follow me here?" she asks tiredly. "You're not my parents. I'm sorry I left without saying anything, but I'm old enough to pay my own debts."
She looks exhausted. A thick coat of makeup almost hides the dark rings around her eyes.
Tassira quietly asks the barman for a glass of wine before turning back to Carawyn as she enters the room, slipping him a gold piece.
She glances at Emi, wondering if she'd like to be the one to start. She knows her better than me, but perhaps I should break the ice first...
"Carawyn, we may not be your parents, but we feel responsible for you all the same. After all, we DID save you from a life of being a Lamb." Tassira glances over at Emi before turning back to her. "We're not mad at you--concerned, yes. But not mad. We're here to help now, and that's what matters most."
"Now, how'd you get yourself into this sort of debt anyway?"
Ravnos squirms in Tassira's backpack before peeking out and looking at Carawyn.
Realizing he's been taken for a ride, Regeris shrugs, saving the credits for later as he rejoins the group. As Tassira tries to speak to Carawyn, he simply watches the girl, trying to judge her reactions.
"I don't think seeing a bunch of friends is spooky," Nebbin replies to Kayleigh as he waits nervously, pretty sure he's not doing something right.
Should I look tougher? Smaller? This is all so confusing! I don't understand why Carawyn would come here.
"Spooky is like when you hear a strange noise outside the window," he continues. "Or stories of goblins coming to eat your children. That's spooky to me, at least!"
He looks around.
"I guess we could move somewhere else, but ... I don't really know where."
The big man stays where he is, anxiously watching Carawyn talking to Emileva and Tassira.
When Regeris returns chitless, Kayleigh's eyes narrow. "I knew it! That...chitmaster...is running off to get reinforcements, warn Barvasi, or both!" she hisses quietly to Regeris and Nebbin. Her hand goes to the hilt of her morningstar as her teeth clench.
Emi waits for Tassira to say her piece
Then she says to Carawyn "do you know why I'm alive? Because the last time I used shiver it didn't kill me, although it was a very near and lucky thing. Instead I woke up a long time later so weak I couldn't leave my flat to get more. I could hardly move for about a week. I was lucky there was enough water in the place, otherwise that might have killed me."
"It was just enough time laying on my floor, and it scared me enough, to be able to stop. Just enough. Tassira and I both know what it's like. Do you know how I payed for my shiver? Sleeping with a dealer and protecting him while he sold it. There was one time when, if Tassira had done the wrong thing when she was buying some, I was waiting close by to beat down, maybe kill her. That's how I found her afterward, I'd seen her buying from my "boyfriend". You have nothing to be ashamed of."
"You need to understand that you can't pay off your debt here. The house is stacked against you. It stays in business by keeping you and others in debt. You don't need to see that for yourself, or go through what I did. Just come on home with us and we'll figure the rest out."
Tassira shifts uncomfortably as Emileva recounts their own experiences with shiver.
...and I never noticed you were there all those times.
Nebbin gasps as Keyleigh swears ... then realizes she used a different word than he thought (which is good because he didn't really know what she meant by the naughty word he thought she used, though obviously it was nothing good).
"But they let us in here," he whispers back. "I don't think they need to warn Barvasi if we're just talking to a friend. I mean, if they were worried, wouldn't they have just gotten him and not her in the first place?"
"Perhaps," Kayleigh answers Nebbin, though she's still a bit taken aback by Emi's ruthless revelation regarding Tassira. "Or maybe they'll make a threatening show of force to try to reinforce that Carawyn is their property...or associate...now."
Exhaling, the priestess releases her death-grip on her weapon's hilt. Smiling up nervously at the big man, she adds, "I'm glad you're here to back us up." Then the smile fades and she whispers, "But if it's violence they want, I won't be striking just to disable. I'm beginning to understand what it means to serve a goddess of uprisings: If one continues to leave the wicked in positions of power and allow their acts to go unpunished, things will never change for the better."
Regeris raises a hand while looking at Kayleigh sternly. "This is a business, and openly attacking people well-armed people is bad for business. Stay calm. This is about path of least resistance for them. We're going to be known to this King of Spiders regardless. If they consider Carawyn their property, we buy her debt. We're here to strike a deal, not to get in a fight."
Kayleigh nods grimly at Regeris. "I'll keep to the plan...until things go south."
"You don't understand," she groans in reply. "I had to come back here. My debt here is large."
She steps closer to Tassira and Emi and lowers her voice. Her breath smells like shiver.
"I was here before. Before Lamm's. I traded something, well the right to something" , she flushes in red embarrassment, "for shiver. Then I gave that something away to a boy I liked, and they found out about it."
A tear streaks down her face. "And I never saw Padrick again, and I thought they would kill me and I ran away and got scooped up by Gaedran Lamm."
"I just know they killed Padrick. And they'd do me too when they found me if I didn't come back and pay my debt somehow. I couldn't hide in that Temple forever."
She turns around at the creaking of the steps behind her (and you). Three thick-necked guards escort a small man wrapped face-to-foot in crimson robes and veil. The face above the veil is chestnut brown, the eyes chips of onyx. He speaks with the musical lilt of Vudra.
"Gambling is what we do here, yes?" the vudrani man announces as he comes to the bottom of the steps. "Cards and dice and chits. Play the games my friends and win your fortune!"
One of the dice-throwers at the table laughs in agreement and calls for an ale. He has an enormous pile of chits in front of him.
Carawyn wipes away her tears - a gesture the vudrani man catches. "Why do you make my waitresses cry?" he asks. "Playing and winning is what we do at the Tiger's Tail. Not crying! Carrie, isn't your shift soon?"
Carawyn nods slowly her gaze locked on Emileva. "I have to go finish getting ready."
Tassira flinches slightly as Carawyn's shiver-breath hits her, but she remains resolute as she explains the circumstances she's in. She can read between the lines well enough--well enough to understand that whatever debt she's been saddled with, odds are there was no way of repaying it without drastic measures.
She turns as the vudrani owner of the Tiger's Tail makes his presence known, giving his brawny entourage a cursory glance before turning her attention fully to him. "Ah, you are the proprietor of this establishment, yes?" Her tone is businesslike; any warmth or understanding that may have been in her voice is gone.
"We are not here to gamble. We're here to discuss Carawyn's debt."
The man in red bows, then unfastens his veil revealing a thin, middle-aged man with a heavy black mustache and very white teeth.
"My name is Anpugit, and yes I claim the Tiger's Tail. And I insist that Carrie owes no debt to this establishment, except to be here for her shift coming up." His smile turns to an exaggerated frown. "She is not a gambler, she would be bad at it. She has poor fortune. She's smart enough to know this, though, yes?"
He laughs and his guards laugh, and Carawyn makes a snide fake smile that would be hard to mistake.
"I think her debt is with Madame Halvara, and probably with Bezzeraty as well if I'm not in error."
Seeing some blank faces (looking at Nebbin), he tries to help. "The brothel and the pothouse, man!"
"Pothouse?"
Nebbin's face continues to look blank.
Regeris lets out a long, slow breath as Carawyn spills her story to Tassira. "Let's speak with her creditors and let Anpugit run his business."
Though Tassira's tone doesn't change, she offers a simple nod of acknowledgement. "Very well then. If you would be so kind as to direct us to her, we'll be on our way and let you go about your business, sir."
"The drug den," Kayleigh explains to Nebbin in a whisper, standing on her tiptoes to get close to his ear. "The place that likely got her hooked on that damnable shiver."
Then the priestess makes eye contact with Carawyn, nods and gives her a reassuring smile. She doesn't even acknowledge Anpugit and his entourage. Turning to the others she suggests, "Let's speak with Bezzeraty next, shall we?"
As Carawyn explains the circumstances that brought her to Eel's End, Emileva's jaw tightens. It is so much worse in every way than she had expected.
She struggles to keep her expression calm. She's angry, not at the girl, but at the place. She can't explain that right now though, and it's important Carawyn see nothing she might interpret as disapproval.
"Don't give up on yourself yet Carawyn. We will work on a solution."
Emi avoids eye contact with Anpugit. Again, she doesn't want to betray her thoughts. She says only "thank you for the information" as she passes him on the way out.
Regeris moves out, looking more than a little irritated. "This got more complicated than I was hoping for. So she works for the casino, and she's in debt to both the brothel and the drug den. Eel's End is an elaborate means of owning people. My only hope is that Carawyn's idea of heavily in debt and ours vary considerably."
He pauses to look at the others. "Not to get cute, but we're already in a spider's web. She is tied from three directions. Like it or not we're political players in this city now, and the King of Spiders is going to want us in his pocket. I see this getting more complicated; not less."
Nebbin looks unhappy that things are going to get more complicated.
"Oh. So who do we talk to, then? I mean, I don't think it'd be right to go to a brothel, so maybe the pothead person?"
The guards part to let you by, watching as you pass close to Anpugit. The proprietor bows again as you leave the casino.
"You must come back and join a game some time."
Back on deck you find that there's a walkway that crosses directly from the Tiger's Tail to the Dragon's Breath. This one slopes up from the river scow's deck to the bow of a small caravel. A sign by the walkway says, "Pass into the Dreams of the Dragon".
A stairway amidships leads below deck into a reek of sweet intoxicating smoke where soft lamps provide the only light. The entirety of the deck is partitioned into "rooms" by hanging veils. The rooms have couches, chairs, rugs, tables and several patrons. Here and there a groan or laugh draws the eye to the vague shadows of the partakers. A hint of whispered conversations creates a soft background buzz.
That buzz is shattered by a cry from astern.
"Get Smoked!" a very small man declares as he wheels a small cart in your direction. "Admission fee is 5 gp per head. Ettin's get half off. What's your pleasure ladies and gents? I have just about every fix under the sun at my fingertips, and offer a comfortable place to enjoy it."
"Oh, we're not here to partake," Kayleigh says. "We'd like to speak with Bezzeraty regarding the debt owed by an acquaintance of ours."
"You're lookin at him," the little man says behind the smoke of a cigarillo perched on his lip. "Who's your acquaintance?"
On hearing Carawyn's name Bezzeraty winces. He removes his hat and wipes sweat from his brow. "Truth is," he continues, "she's got no credit left with me. She owes me 250 gold crowns for product and she's getting nothing more until she pays me some of what she owes already."
"Oh, that's good!" Nebbin says happily. "We don't want her to have anymore. We thought this was going to be bad, but it sounds like we agree!"
He nods, satisfied.
"Now we just need to go talk to, um, Madame Halvara. Can we see if maybe she wants to come here?"
Emi is somewhat reassured by Bezzaraty's reply. The sum he cites isn't insurmountable, and he seems uninterested in anything other than recovering what he's owed.
"We would like to take Carawyn with us. We believe she will never realistically be able to pay her debts to you or others working at Eel's End, so we are exploring other solutions. We are speaking with all the concerned parties at Eel's End, to see what agreements we can reach."
"Would you be interested in negotiating a settlement?"
Kayleigh lets Emi and Tassira take charge of the negotiations. Like Emi, though, the priestess is a bit skeptical. After being toyed with by Anpugit (who was surrounded with bodyguards), Kayleigh's suspicious that this small, helpful fellow without any backup is who he says he is...or is being genuine in his dealings with them. She'll definitely be insisting on some sort of receipt if Emi and Tassira pay the man anything!
"Yep! I'm interested in squaring her tab, for certain. Are you going to do that?" he asks dubiously. " If so, we can go to my office and settle her debt. And if not, ye should pay me the head fee of 5 crowns for the contact high." Indeed, the haze is potent down here.
Tassira blinks. It'll take more than that to get me high.
"Let's go to your office."
"Five crowns??!! Didn't you say five sails when we first entered?"
Despite initially sounding offended and outraged, Kayleigh ends her questions with an out-of-character girlish giggle.
Tassira closes her eyes and quietly sighs. "...oh, dear."
"We've heard Madama Helvara may also have a claim against Carawyn. Do you know if that's correct?"
The den's fumes don't cloud Emileva's head, although they do tickle her throat and make her wish for a drink.
Nebbin sniffs.
"It smells horribly in here," he whispers to Kayleigh. "Why do people come here?"
He follows the others into the back office.
Regeris doubles over coughing, completely unused to the smoke and when he rises he's more than a little out of sorts. "Your office," he squeaks, unable to get much more out. "We'll sort out her debt.
Looking around at the ridiculousness of it all, Regeris suppresses a hoarse snicker.
He turns his cart and leads you aft to a rear set of steps. Leaving the cart with a shadow-dwelling guard, the little man climbs the steep steps and leads you into the stern cabin. The broad stern windows are all cast open, filling this room with afternoon sunlight and the smell of the Narrows. The ceiling is low and the taller amongst you have to remember to duck beams when moving around in here. There's an armed guard by the cabin door (the one that presumably leads out to the deck).
"Two hundred and fifty crowns is the fee," he says, turning around behind a small desk and wiping his hands.
"We are prepared to pay you 150 crowns on the spot if you call the debt settled."
"That is considerably more than you can hope to recover from Carawyn herself. Have you seen her? I doubt she has more than a couple of months worth of work left in her. And is it not true that Madame Helvara has a claim on her earnings as well? 150 crowns in hand is a much better proposition than the slender hope of more from her in some distant future."
"And it is a sum we can easily pay. 150 Crowns now is better than working an innocent girl into her grave, on the slim promise of more later."
Regeris is about to speak up, but quickly clamps his mouth shut as he realizes Emi is bartering.
"Hey now! If I agreed to lose 100 crowns on every client I'd be a very poor man, wouldn't I? 225 is as low as I'll go!"
"OK, but you still won't sell her anything else, right?"
It's not quite clear whether the big man is asking or telling the drug dealer as he reaches for his money pouch and begins counting out coins.
Regeris' stiff posture keeps fading as he wobbles around a bit. He then clumsily fumbles at his money pouch. "Here... here, I'll get half."
"It smells horribly in here," he whispers to Kayleigh. "Why do people come here?"
Kayleigh intends to answer Nebbin's question about why some folks like to get high, but having never taken drugs herself she needs a little time to formulate her answer. Then she gets caught up in checking out the ship-turned-drug den. Having never been on a ship before (not counting the casino), the priestess idly wonders what it would be like to be a pirate.
"To escape from their boring lives and everyday problems," she eventually tells Nebbin in a faraway voice as the others start gathering funds to pay off Carawyn's debt.
"Remember to get a receipt!" she tells Regeris with an out-of-place smile, as though the group's buying some off-the-rack clothing that might not fit and would need to be returned.
Emi coughs up enough gold to bring whatever the others muster to 200. She's carrying exactly 200 crowns of Orisini's gold, but she thinks maybe the paying should look more difficult than simply plunking down the coin in neat little bags; just in case word of their payment somehow reaches Madame Helvara before they do.
"So, Carawyn's debt with you is permanently settled. Correct Sir?" she asks as she extends her hand to shake Bezzaraty's.