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Well, Paizo being down lately has meant that I couldn't run my own games and therefore had time to pore over the Player's Guide some more and write a bit of a prologue.
Ariena rubbed some oily clumps into her rough shorn hair and hid her daggers, darts, and pouch of tools close to the leather jerkin under the stained, baggy robe she wore. “Moondark”, the beggar boy, looked back at her from the mirror. Just another Old Town wretch, she smiled faintly while stowing the mirror and grabbing her begging bowl. Move along. Nothing to see here, folks.
She had found that in this guise, most people would work assiduously to avoid eye contact and those that didn’t, quickly turned their attention elsewhere when she boldly presented her bowl asking for a copper or two for bread. Occasionally, she’d get a couple coins, but then there were others looking to take instead of give which is why she carried the daggers. It rarely took more than an unexpected flash of sharp-edged metal to change their mind. She also had a silver dagger just in case some imp had been dispatched to drag her off in fulfillment of her parents’ treacherous promise…
She had more to fear than the unlikely appearance of some servitor fiend though. After she ran away, it had been a lot of work to keep an eye out for some family acquaintance from the Greens that might have business in the harbor or a former schoolmate from Lady Docur’s acting most unlady-like by slumming it with some sailors. She quickly fell in with a small gang of wharf thieves that helped keep a lookout for trouble with their mate, Ari. Ari was the first alias she took. Not a particularly good one, she grimaced. Then the dottari nabbed Selkie Jim. She suspected her old boss managed to get a quick release with a promise that likely involved selling out his old gang. As soon as Three-Fingers Vik disappeared, Ari was south across the Bleakbridge and hadn’t been north side since.
She had had a rough time of it at first, friendless and forlorn in the unfamiliar south side of the city. She stayed well clear of the devil-born in the Redroof and ended up trying to scavenge in the Old Harbor. The beggar outfit wasn’t actually a disguise originally. Her attempts to find employment with the alchemists and masons there were rebuffed and she resorted to snatching apples off carts at the Farmer’s Market. Fortunately, the matronly halfling that caught her stealing hadn’t reported the hungry girl, but offered her a job instead. Now Moondark ran errands for Mother Muddlum for the odd coin and some of the vegetables that the halflings carted in through the Rust Gate to sell at the Veritas Market. Ariena couldn’t understand how they made any money after the new two shield Gate Tax, but she suspected smuggling halflings out in the cart helped make up for the loss somehow. She’d have to tell Mother not to bring any mint to sell at the market.
The new lord-mayor is definitely insane. Just look at those Proclamations. Not that they affect me: I won’t be offering the dottari a couple of dead doves for a pat on the head and a handful of copper pinches; won’t be wearing my ball gown or adopting some mutt either. Barking mad. She snorted and then realized that she was already at Aria Park. Her eyes worriedly scanned the crowd for a dangerous face from the past as she dug her fingernails into the base of her thumb mentally berating herself for walking too fast and not paying attention to her surroundings. Moondark slowed her gait to an aimless shuffle.
She didn’t expect anyone her parents knew would cross the Yolubilis to join a commoner mob, but then she had heard that the new management didn’t really give two pinches for the Court of Coin. That was sure to rile up the noble families. Likewise, Selkie Jim wasn’t political, but who knew how chummy he’d become with the dottari lately and there were plenty of dottari around today. She pressed a little deeper into the gathering crowd and wondered if this was such a great idea.
Well, she thought, if things do get ugly at least I can probably cut loose a purse and hamstring a dottari before I slip away in the confusion. She crouched down with her back to a tree so that her eyes were at purse level to look for a mark and anxiously wait to see what would happen.