Aiden can't get his blade deep enough between the doors to reach the bar.
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575 Looks at the noodles, his stomach and mouth salivating with hunger, he looks at Madge with something akin to shock when she mentions her price.
Though they smell superb
Both mouth and belly craving.
The price is obscene.
He shakes his head in disappointment, before returning to see how his companions are fairing at their investigation of the warehouse.
Boratio follows Reggie and Aquavius around the warehouse, waving for the others to follow.
The dockside entrances are both barred from within, the one along the west side of the building is actually boarded up and nailed from the outside.
The street to the south of the building is clogged with burnt and wrecked building materials form other structures mixed with similarly destroyed furniture.
There don't seem to be any other apparent entrances.
575 Looks at the noodles, his stomach and mouth salivating with hunger, he looks at Madge with something akin to shock when she mentions her price.
Though they smell superb
Both mouth and belly craving.
The price is obscene.He shakes his head in disappointment, before returning to see how his companions are fairing at their investigation of the warehouse.
"Oh, there's things might be cheaper and more obscene, but nothing's better than noodles in a silver tureen. Noodles! Noddles! Get your yummy-in-the-tummy noodles!"
The party circles the warehouse looking for the best entrance.
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The party circles the warehouse looking for the best entrance.
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575 gives Boratio an inscrutable look as the man seems incapable of being silent and the noise indeed starts to get very distracting.
For a moment, he manages to remember his time back at the academy in Nagajor, and focuses on the warehouse, his mind blocking out the strange human while he tries to spot another way in, perhaps something higher up they could climb to.
But invariably, his efforts fail, until all he can focus on is the Boratio's incessant activity.
There is a saying
Common among my people...
Silence is golden
"Agreed! let's come back later when it's dark!"
The jagged cobblestone street is lined with storefronts looted to the buildings’ bones. Entire walls have been hauled away, stripped not just of stone and wood but also the nails that secured them, and anything remotely valuable was picked clean years ago. One shop stands relatively intact, however—Torandril’s Finery. Its windows are boarded shut, though lights inside appear to shine between the planks.
"You see anything up there?" Aquavius notices 575 returning. "I'm getting bored. And hungry. I'll buy some noodles."
Aquavius sees if she can buy the bowl of noodles. "5 pieces of gold? I can do this." She pulls out her iron pot and grabs 5 gold.
"Coins!? What am supposed to do with those? How about you give me that mirror there and I'll give you two servings of my oodley noodles?"
"Here you go!"
There is a rumble of noise coming from inside from several burly-sounding male occupants.
The door flies open!
A man stands in the doorway. "What do you want?" he demands.
"Now now. The man looks like he wants to do some business. Let the necromancer in. We're open right now. I'm Cessia. I run things. What's your name stranger? And what sort of 'finery' were you interested in?"
The room beyond it is filled with a half-dozen men of low-character most of them involved in a game of dice being played on a beautiful antique desk. Besides the men every corner of the place is filled (literally stacked to the rafters) with the least worn items of value that the party has seen since coming to Pezzack. Beautiful furniture piled high, a cabinet filled with several sets of silverware, racks of fine clothing, a functioning water-clock, an open desk drawer full of decorative snuff boxes, many of them scrimshaw--the place is the Pezzack mint.
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Reggie rides Rowdy around the building with the rest of the Pathfinders. He doesn't have much to contribute when it comes to searching and, unless there's a strange smelling entrance, Rowdy's not going to be any more help.
"They're like rats in a cage, left with nothing to eat but each other," he comments sadly as he rides along, seeing just how gutted all the shops here are.
"There has to be something we can do to help these people," he says.
His eyes narrow as he sees the collection of decent, not even great, items here.
"I've never been to this shop, before. It's an impressive collection. How did you happen to get your hands on so many fine things?" he asks.
"Trade. Sometimes folks need things. I provide them for a fee. It's just business. That's for free. Any other questions will cost you something. However, I insist that all my trading partners have manners. It doesn't do to trade with riff-raff off the street. It's bad enough for the reputation to be seen with necromancers, but other scoundrels who won't even give a lady their names aren't worth my time."
This gets a laugh from her men.
"Agreed! me name be Boratio... Boratio Fishblower at yer service! My my... 'tis the place ta be in Pezzack! look at those snuff boxes!! ye be livin' in style, my dear Cessia! my compliments to ye and yer fiiiine establishment..." says Boratio, bowing low and tipping his tricorne hat to her, offering to kiss her hand like a proper gentleman would.
“Well, if you think you're up to it, the thieves’ guild operates out of here, on Gold Street. Lots of information if you can buy it. You didn’t bring money with you, did you? Nobody takes money here. Maybe the Loyalists, but still, nobody worth spending it on.”
"What can I do for you, Boratio?"
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Aiden smiles at the woman. Now this was a Chelaxian he could work with. "Cessia, I'm Aiden. It seems like you've made out quite well for yourself over the past few years. The fact that your men are dicing on a vintage desk that looks to be made by Wiscrani craftsman Grantham Kelman speaks to either your wealth or their lack of discipline. A desk like that is probably over 300 years old if the legs haven't been remodeled. I think he stopped that style when his sons returned from the Everwar."
"You have good taste, Cessia, and you seem to know how the game is played. Mind if ask you some questions? Perhaps we could be persuaded to donate to your business. That is, if things remain discreet."
"Of course. Though what you call 'donations' is just the cost of doing business in Pezzack. What did you want to know?"
"Sure, I know about him, and it will cost you ."
Candledark continues haunting their minds in silent concentration....
"Of course, dear Cessia! we have the utmost respect for yer trade and would expect no less. You get what ye pay for, after all! We're no beggars knockin' at yer door, and we'll pay what ye ask fer."
Boratio sits and open his backpack, displaying some of his items. Looking at the rest of the Pathfinders, he says, "Come now lads and lasses! show her what ye got, and perhaps we can all chip in somewhat equally instead of one of us havin' to fork it all over fer the others!"
Boratio raises an eyebrow and watches who's being cheap and uncooperative in the party.
Boratio starts the negotiations...
"I got 2 gallons of ale - FROM THE OUTSIDE! - as a starter! bring yer tankards boys, same fer ye, Cessia! THAT, I provide to ye all fer free!"
Boratio taps the small keg and starts filling mugs, including his own, and drinks heartily.
"Fer my share, how 'bout I provide five quality daggers?"
Boratio begins drawing daggers from his left wading boots... and fishing deep, his trousers, underneath the wading boots... then at the bottom of his backpack... and then one from under his shirt, down the middle... and one... from... under... his hat!
One of the daggers has the coat of arms of Taldor, one has the wings of Andoran, two appear to have the cross of Cheliax and one... one is just strange, crude in style, yet functional, with an handle wrapped in elk-skin and probably from some Kellid tribe up north...
Cessia smiles at the other payment options but picks up the vial of magical potion and tips out a drop on her finger. "I need to know if it is the genuine article of course. 'Trust but verify.'" She holds the bead of liquid up to her eye, sniffs it and finally tastes it.
"Alright, you have a 300 gold piece credit on your account. Jaks Arunai, that two-bit poet who steals his best lines from books put out elsewhere in the last five years. I’d know, because I sold them to him. Still, he’s done enough to get into someone’s good graces as he’s got contacts in the Thistles that seem to protect him from the Loyalists. He’s got some event tomorrow at the Old Manukirt warehouse that I’ll attend just to see who he’s ripping off now. You've got 250 gold pieces left in your account.”
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Aiden frowns. "Not sure that qualifies as a real answer. I knew about the performance... Anyway, what about what's been going on around the warehouse itself? Rumors are a merfolk was seen diving there, but I suspect it wasn't really something so exotic. Do you know who it was and what they were looking for?"
“That's probably Jax Telandril. He’s been doing odd jobs around Bruck’s little fiefdom in Docktown for years. My associates claim he’s been scrounging the harbor floor in his spare time in hopes of finding something valuable enough to pay off his debts, though I doubt even that will work. That brings your total down to 225 gp.”