Thwip snaps out of his reverie as the conversation takes a turn. As a young child he had been frightened by what he later came to know as the Church Inquisitors visiting his home and having a very intense conversation with his parents. After they left the crying boy came to his parents for an explanation and comfort. As was his habit, his father put his ink-stained hands on Thwip’s shoulder and grunted, “Son, your uncle Thwine would put his dick in a hornet’s nest just to hear the noise it would make.”
It took many years to understand what that meant. With mentoring under Eyegouger Thwip had grown to be fearful of the sound. He felt it was time to pull Eoin’s dick out.
Pushing up to stand aside the man, he interrupts. He tries to mimic Lord Aronn’s rumpty-tumpty way of speaking in the hopes an innkeeper’s habit of wanting to please people with money will take over from his growing buzzing.
“Mi good Sirah. Ifin yi haff t’ time later after t’ meal we’d love t’ hear more from yi aboot t’ troubles. But as yi kin see by mi arm we’ve met t’ wrong end off a roving band off…” Remembering some of Ranar’s confused looks he over-enunciates the word, “Ssen-taurs. I wouldt be greatly appreciatif ifin yi showed us t’ are rooms and then to t’ nearest healer once we’re settledt.”
He tilts his head back as Aronn would. Like a man who never has to keep an eye out on the ground because shit never sticks to his shoes.
Having got enough information out of the barkeep, Eoin ready’s to disengage from the conversation. The barkeeper’s reaction was not unexpected, considering the tension in the air. Businesses like his own were going up in smoke, and he was letting off steam but he hadn’t lost his reins yet. Simple enough to deal with men in that mood. Agree with them, and step out of the conversation. Something along the lines of ‘what’s the world coming to if’in a man can’t get a some relaxation in peace’ and a sorrowful shake of the head. But then Thwip interrupts with a player’s version of an aristocratic accent.
Oh God, he’s going to have to keep speaking like that for as long as we stay here.
Once they were shown their lodgings, Eoin stashes his pack and begins changing out of his armour into his street clothes. At the same time he floats some logistics past the group.
“If yer selling those weapons, yer going to want someone discrete. A regular merchant’s going to assume you knocked over some noble’s armoury, or raided a tomb, and that’s just goin’ to be trouble. If you want to go that way, then while your getting your arm seen to me and Hayu can probably track someone like that down between us. For a reasonable broker’s fee of course.”
“15 per cent’s fair in my opinion, less what we’re owing for the boat ride. And if my share of the fee’d cover it, I’d like the broadsword from that lot to replace my ol’ beater,” he says strapping his sword belt back on.
The Prince has to do something before we all fry in our beds.
While everyone is distracted by The Heathen’s brain fever Sasha takes out a piece of chalk and draws a complicated mark in an unobtrusive place in the bar indicating that a Warden Of The Fires That Burn In The Dark was staying here. It wouldn’t mean anything to anyone who wasn’t a Dwarf, but it made him feel better after the unsettling boat ride.
"It’s just setting things up, safety is simple. Dont’ go tromping in with too many armed folk, ya’ll look like part of a rival outfit muscling in. Don’t look clueless and weighted down with valuables, you’ll look like a victim. Look like you can handle yourself, and ya don’t have enough on you to be worth getting stabbed over, you’ll look like a customer. And no-one wants a reputation for rolling customers, it’s bad for business.
“The hard bit is finding the right people in the first place, and knowing how to speak their language. That’s were the girl and I earn our fee.”
Thwip listens carefully while sitting on one of the beds. Nodding as he tries to take the new information in. He’s tired in a way that will require the idea of PTSD to be invented before it can be named. Being in constant physical pain along with learning about life on the other side of the fulling mill is draining him mentally. He’s struggling to speak Anglish.
“I’dt like yi t’ take Ranar wit yi. I want tis becuss ifin t’ ennimy is among t’ local undterground I’d ratter yi come back witout a buyer ten not come back at all. He is trustworty so yi kin rely on him t’ haff yi back.”
He shifts to look at the window. He wonders if he should undo the latch to make it easier for Hayu to climb in to show off her skills like he expects her to. Maybe she’d resent trying to make it easier for her? He sighs.
“I’d ask Hayou t’ take Sashya wit her but her pride is prickly. Ifin she wants t’ go it aloon tere may be no choise but I’d ratter she didn’t.” Thwip frowns as he thinks of everything that could go wrong. He’s risking a lot on two strangers in a town that seems to be on the verge of religious violence. He deeply wishes that he had the time to approach both his own troubles and the troubles of the city more methodically, but life seems once again to be moving faster than he’d like.
“Take t’ swordt. Tell Hayou t’ do vat she doz bisten yo…” He realizes that he slipped into Goblinese and shakes his head clear.
“When you see her ootsidte, tell her tat ifin she wants t’ take Sashya she shouldt come get him. I’ll stay here andt fix mi rifle andt wait for yi all t’ come back.”
He looks from the window to the others. “Does tis sound fair t’ yi all?”
“Sounds good to me,” Eoin says as he digs out the broadsword in question, and swaps it out for his old sword.
"This can double as a show piece, if we find an interested buyer."
Eoin moves towards the door and says "I’ll let Hayu know what’s what. Ranar, see you downstairs when your ready."
He sketches a quick salute to the group and leaves the room.
Heading out of the Sundered Horn, Eoin scans the street. He packs his pipe, and lights up a smoke, leaning casually against a wall on the opposite side of the street as he works out were Hayu is likely to be.
She’s not immediately visible out in the open. She’d probably want to get an idea of the escape routes in the area and be able to see trouble coming, so the alleyways are out. Limited sight lines. That leaves the direction honest folk don’t look to much, up. Probably on one of the roofs on the inn’s side of the street, he guesses.
He takes a punt and glances up, giving a quick, casual half-wave in a way that’d look like it was directly at any one of the roof-tops within a building of the Sundered Horn.
Just because he can’t spot her, doesn’t mean Hayu needs to know that, he thinks with a slight grin lifting a corner of his mouth.
In his plain greyish-brown civilian clothes, with his traveling gear stowed away, Ranar looks quite nondescript. A typical working-class surface-side dwarf, in as much as there is such a thing. After a moment of indecision over whether to risk a confrontation, he leaves his hammer behind with the axes and the rest and heads downstairs to meet up with Eoin.
But Eoin is nowhere in sight in the taproom, so he gets an ale and finds a quiet corner of the room to drink it. Feeling a bit anxious in a place full of strangers, that doesn’t take long. Soon he steps outside for a breath of fresh air and to get his bearings.
Spotting the rogue across the street, gazing up at the sky, he walks over and leans against the wall as well. “Birdwatching?”
Hayu drops down silently from the roof and sneaks quietly up behind the pair before speaking. “No.” Then Eoin gives her the bad news: their self-appointed leader expects her to take Sasha.
“Non, tabernac.” Her expression darkens considerably. “If he wants me dead, he can have the guts to do it himself. I said I would go to the meet with you. You know how to blend in,” though he’s still a little too nicely dressed for the kinds of taverns where you can find the best information, “but has everyone forgotten the part about trained assassins? Do you really think someone’s going to resist telling the story about how a beardless dwarf walked into the pub, especially if they think there’s some coin in it?” After all, if criminals were trustworthy, they wouldn’t be criminals. “Am I the only one here who even has the slightest experience at being on the run?”
Eoin takes another drag on his pipe “Relax, I said Thwip’d like you to take Sasha, not that he was coming. Thwip’s not pushing it so there weren’t reason to argue.” He pushes off the wall and starts walking down the street. “C’mon, I know a guy in the Islamic Ghetto that’ll know were we can get started.” He leads the trio north through the market square, winding through a relatively sparse crowd of shoppers and city folk. Past merchants hawking their wares, ignoring the varied calls and boosts of stall owners vying for their attention as he continues talking.
“Ranar seems solid, and knows how to chose his words carefully, right Ranar? But I don’t think this is his kinda world. Why don’t you fill him in with a few do’s and don’ts?”
With his rifle and kit laid out on his bed, Thwip looks at his tools. Then he looks at his broken arm and somewhat immobile hand. Then he looks at the waiting Sasha.
– No. He probably wouldn’t know the proper amount of torque to use.–
Then he looks back at his rifle, the damaged seal, the pump, and the delicate, fiddly, clever tools. Then he stares down at his arm and sighs.
“Sasha. I don’t tink tat she’ll be comingk t’ fetch yi. Wouldt yi be willingk t’ come wit me to t’ healer? I don’t tink tat I kin do tis wit mi arm as it is.”
Sasha watches Hayu’s indignation from the window with amusement.
“I do not think she has accepted her fate yet but it guides her nonetheless. I would not ask her to shore up an unstable gallery and I’m sure I would be as much a hindrance in her world.”
“Come, let us get your arm fixed instead and then you can tinker to your heart’s ease.”
Ranar nods at Eoin, glancing around at the crowds of people, trying not to get distracted by their noise. “Aye. This is far from my … huh- lan- … ah, place. It’s yer show. I’m here t’ back ye if ye need support. Just be tellin’ me what I should be doin’, an’ how you’ll signal it.”
On the inside, he hopes that these two really do know what they’re doing. Eoin seems to know his way around and they both can certainly put up some bluster, but it remains to be seen whether the locals will fall for it. Dwarven merchants that he’s known could see right through a shady act. But this is not Zarak.
He’s also dubious as to how well they’ll haggle when selling gear that they neither made nor fought for. But perhaps it’s for the best that negotiations be done by someone who didn’t watch their companions die while acquiring the loot.
With mixed feelings about the venture, Ranar trudges on, taking note of his surroundings so that he can find his way back if need be.
Getting directions to the cheapest healer from the barkeep, Sasha ventures into the streets with Thwip, his evident happiness the polar opposite of the misery of his previous few days. Whistling a jaunty mining tune, he stares around at the bustle of a human city.
“So, Heathen, have you given any thought as to what we do after your arm is fixed?”
Thwip’s mood, while not exactly the opposite of Sasha’s, isn’t anywhere in the same neighbourhood.
Thwip gives his deep thought frown that he is never aware that he makes, and mulls over it before answering. Being in the company of dwarfs tends to make him forget to guard his words around someone who is still a stranger.
“I’m not rilly certain, t’ tell t’ trut. What I needt t’ do is spendt some time in a library or a wizard’s book collection and research and I don’t know ifin yi all kin wait tat long. I want t’ look fir anyting about t’ magical artifacts off t’ past. Elven magic and the killers that use it. Banestorm history. Wars wit al-Wazif. Aronn himself…”
Thwip is lost in memory for a few seconds before continuing. "He was too close wit his seekrits. A simple plundter off an oldt ruin turndt oot t’ be a live and deat fight over an unknown power. He seemedt sick from a curse yet had considerable magicks. I didn’t trust him and… "
– And I was planning to kill him if it turned out he was a mad elf with an artifact of evil power I helped him gain.–
“Yet he gave his live t’ safe mine.”
Thwip turns away and looks carefully at the people around him, using it as an excuse to hide the tears that are welling up. He looks at the tension in their faces. Their confusion over seeing a goblin and beardless dwarf walking together. The distrustful and fearful looks they shoot at the guardsmen like everyone who recognizes those in power. The distrustful looks they shoot at each other. He smells the lingering haze of smoke. Hears the mummers. Recognizes the desire to have life go back to normal as soon as possible.
The second his eyes dry something turns over in his head. Later he would variously describe it as the clack of a clock, the popping of a deer’s eye soup, and the swearing of fear giving up.
He then turns his attention back to Sasha.
“But right now I want t’ help tese people get tere life back t’getter before they let teir fears destroy it all. Let’s poke aroond after mi arm is healdt.”
“No talking,” she says. “I’m serious. First key to success in a new town is keeping your ears open. Kind of places we’ll probably end up, the last thing you want to do is say the wrong thing. Second last thing you want to do is sit with your back to the door… or at any open space you can’t see in a mirror. Also, try not to look like you’ve got too much money. That’s just teasing.” Not that they look exactly un-poor. “I hope you left the bulk of your money somewhere safe.” She’s got just enough for a couple of pints on her, just enough to look like a customer and not a spy. Most people think illegal deals are made in alleyways in the dead of night, but a surprisingly large number are in plain sight at the pub. “As for it going south, we won’t have to signal. You’ll be able to see it, if it happens.” She looks him over. “You got that? Good. Now tell me to get lost before people start wondering why you’re letting some beggar harrass you this much.”
Ranar conceals a smirk. Keeping his mouth shut is something that he’s particularly good at, his natural state really. He’s not too worried about having some coins on him, nobody’s getting them unless he chooses to spend 'em and he certainly wouldn’t just leave them somewhere. But he’s definitely not wearing them on his tunic either.
After a brief moment he puts on an annoyed face and holds up an arm, palm toward Hayu, and looks away, straight ahead. “Begone wit’ ye! I got naught for ye. Ye’ll find luck elsewhere mayhap.” He continues forward, pointedly not looking back at her.
Following the barman’s direction to the healer, Thwip and Sasha head across the old market to the south of the square.
The square is busy with commerce during the day; mostly food and trinket vendors. More established businesses line the square. The food is notably less multicultural than what Thwip was accustomed to in Tredroy.
The healer’s office is a small storefront to the southwest of the square. A bell rings over the door as you open it; a young man pops out of a door in the back of the waiting room in response.