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Adventures in Barsaive

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Corrin chuckles a little, "Ah yes. It might be wise of you to do that. You never know what some of those Windlings. Great people all around, but can be rather mischievous at times." he says gathering up a few items in a satchel. He stretches out once again, and as soon as you finish dressing and gathering all of your things he lets you leave first and locks the door to his place and makes his way towards the main street. "Well my dear it was more than a pleasure. Be sure to look for me whenever your in the city."
 
"Oh I might, I really like the way you conduct your massages ... "

I grin back at Corrin, before finally, after anover goodbye wave, turning my back to him and starting to make my way back to our tavern. As I traverse the streets I start wondering whether Vidin will actually be there, or whether he found himself some evening entertainment as well.
 
The walk back towards the inn your little cadre of individuals was to stay at, is a surprisingly long one. Not long in the sense of hours, though you are surprised at how long it does take to reach the complex. The inn itself is rather quaint. A building of moderate size and height, blending in with so many of the structures that are common from Human architects, at least as you are aware of.

Walking into the place itself reveals more of its facade of rustic character. It seems as if an attempt, though mostly a vain one, to appear as so many taverns do in small towns such as the one you grew up in. Rich wooden tables and chairs litter the right side of the main floor. Appearing at first to be chaotically placed, only to reveal its purpose as a form of artistic placement. The bar sits at the other side of the room, and the rich wood seems to extend and go on forever. "Taverns still closed. Though if you are here for a room in the mean time we have some available." the voice, surprisingly rugged and laced with gravel appears to come from nowhere at first. However it reveals itself fully to come from a dwarf as the male seems to step up to be seen behind the counter. The only other thing of note, being the staircase that leads up to the second floor.
 
"Actually I already have a room ... I think." I immediately reply while mustering the dwarf more closely. "Yaiil's the name, I arrived yesterday with the merchant caravan from Drenix."

Thinking for a moment, I also add "And I am looking for a windling named Vidin. He should have stayed here last night."
 
The Dwarf nods for a moment and walks over to one end of the counter and begins to flip through a rather large book. "Ah yes. Here you are. Room twelve." he states, before sauntering off, grabbing a small brass room key and then returning to slide it over the counter towards you.

The Dwarf chuckles a bit. "The Windling? Yes, he's in one of the Windling rooms. Number four. Careful though, since they are built into the wall I between rooms, the door can be a tad hard to spot." the Dwarf states before going back to running a rag over the countertop.
 
I accept the key with a smile. Finally a place to dump that bag I have been dragging around me. And so after a short "Thank you" I start to climb the stairs, following the inn keepers advice to keep my eyes open on the lookout for room number four.
 
The rooms are arrayed in the usual patter: two doors on both the left and right side of the hallway. The actual upper level seems to wrap around the actual building a bit, but it doesn't take you too long to tell that it doesn't take much effort to find room twelve. You almost miss it, but as you walk along you notice several small doors built into the conjoining walls between some of the rooms. Painted each door is a W, and a number. Once you realize that these rooms are at the very least hollowed out for the use of Windlings, being the small Namegiver's that they are, it doesn't take you long to find number four. The small door is shut tight, and has no rudimentary signs of being open for the past few hours.
 
I quickly drop of any unnecessary ballast - ancient greatswords do not count as ballast in that regard - in my room and lock it up nice and tight before returning to the segment in the wall that is supposed to house the room W4.

Since the door is still tightly shut I do the next best thing: Knock on it.
 
After several attempts at knocking, you eventually recieve n answer. A being from within seems to groan hard before shuffling against the floor. Vidin opens the door, his pants the only true form of clothing he seems to have on. "What time is it?" the lazy, nearly closed eyed Windling states looking out towards you. "It's way too early..." he says before rubbing his eyes a bit.
 
"Sun is up already..." I grin down at the small winged man "but apparently you did not go to bed right after we departed last night? Not that its my business." Well, I have done something else before sleeping as well "So you need to listen to your pillow another hour or two?"
 
"Sunrise?!" the Windling states, a strange appalled look on his face. "By the Passions woman... Why so early?" he asked still appearing bewildered.

"Oh no. I did indeed go to bed as soon as I got back. Sunrise?" he asked again. "Just let me get dressed." he offered in a somewhat defeated tone before closing the door a bit and shuffling into the room again. A few moments later he was fully garbed, though still brushing sleep from his eyes. "Alright. So, what are we up to today?"
 
At first I just shrug, before it occurs to me that that might not be what Vidin wants to see after such a rude awakening.

"Check out the town" I suggest "and find some way to earn money that befits heroes of our stature?"

In hindsight, the stature pun, though unintentional, might have been a bit tasteless.
 
With a slight yawn the Windling locks the door behind him. "Sure, why not. I guess we are up anyway." he states, the Namegiver started to walk towards the stairs, his hands resting on his neck. "Well. Our best bet for money is probably around the area that has the most taverns, or has the most in way of trouble." he suggested as he began to walk the steps down, and getting ready to exit the building and out towards the street.
 
"All right, let's go there then. You know the city good enough to get us there?" All I had seen so far was a few of the stands, the market place where the festivities went down, and Corrin's house.

As I see Vidin boldly walk out into the streets, I grow slightly concerned. "Umm, wouldn't you rather get back onto my shoulder. Just to avoid that someone might ... not notice you and ... " step on the little bugger, I finish in my mind.
 
Vidin shrugs, "Not overly well. But I did manage to find my way around for a bit last night before finally heading back to the inn. " he states before looking up. With less than a shrug as a form of response he flings himself into the air and lands on your right shoulder.

The Windling manages to give you decent enough directions for never having been within the city before the both of you arrived. With several minutes of walking you find yourselves within the more common living district. The street itself is a bit busy, filled as every corner of Bartertown seems to be, with merchant stall after merchant stall. The individual merchants selling goods of all varities: shells, spices, weapons, novelty items. The air is pungent, the aroma of vast sums of people wandering all around under a fairly hot sun hits you nostrils every few steps, only to be mixed in with various other scents of the goods for sale. Ths particular area seems to have no set design philosophy, probably due to the wide diversity of people who make Bartertown their home.

The street corner seems to be littered with taverns, and a few individuals seem to seek these places out to start their days bright and early. One such tavern that sticks out is the called the Gnarld Boulder and it sits just on the edge of the street. A building of suprisingly modest size, and seeming to be carved out of stone. Though upon closer inspection, it only has the appearance of fine stone, indicating that someone of decent skill played a part of its construction.
 
"That one over there looks nice ..." I remark towards Vidin as I extend my arm, pointing in the direction of the Gnarled Boulder. "At least it looks different."

As I direct my steps towards the indicated inn I continue to converse with the windling "So how are we going to go about this? Just walk inside and ask the inn keeper whether he knows of anyone willing to hire us?"
 
Vidin shrugs, "I suppose that's the best way to go about it." the Windling states as you reach out to open the door.

Making your way inside, you notice the shift in appearance. While still lavish in nature, part of the walls seem to be etched with obsidian. Though it is more than likely more of a visual trick of some kind of dark, glossy stone. The actual tavern itself is surprisingly crowded for the early time of day. A surprising amount of noise ringing through the modest sized establishment. Several individuals of varying different races have seemed to align themselves around the bar, and several groups of people seem to have gathered in a few of the tables.

An Obsidiman, and a barely noticeable Dwarf are stationed behind the bar. The pair seeming to be rather busy even given the hour. As your eyes travel across the whole of the tavern, you notice a small wooden board stationed near the actual bar. The board seems filled with parchment of various different sizes.
 
"We might actually be able to skip the conversation bit" I tell Vidin with some mild enthusiasm as I point towards the message board.

And since there is no reason to reign in my curiosity, that immediately becomes my target, shifting and weaving between the tables and the patrons in an attempt to not bump into anyone before I reach those collected advertisments. Hopefully there's more to it than just someone looking for his favorite pet dog having gone astray.
 
The board is a bit drab in comparison to the rest of the establishment. The thing also looks rather unorganized to boot. Pieces of parchment, of varying sizes and levels of degradation are spread up on it. Amongst them are several wanted posters, mostly for one bandit or another. A few are also regarding the various lost animals that may or may not still be missing. And yet others seem to be tailored for other kinds of jobs: courier missions, escorts, and other such work for hardened adventurers. It appears that the field appears rather open for the taking, and with each of the various parchments placed up front seem to have been recently placed.
 
"Ahh, let's see, some of them might be for us...."

And with that I begin to leaf through the last category of advertisments, the ones for the adventuring types. I am rather open to the exact kind of the job. Preferably the payment should be good, but that is about it.
 
Most of the advertisements referring to needing help from adventurers tend to lean towards things like wanted posters, and escort jobs, even many of the message courier jobs seem to have their descriptions set for hardened adventures of one kind or another.

One poster in particular that looks very new in its placement is looking for a small band of individuals willing to gather some information for them. The details seem rather vague, but the money is surprisingly good: 200 silver pieces per individual, as well as offering free passage to and from the desired location. The parchment tells you to meet a man named Tybolt outside of one of the merchant stores near the front of Bartertown. The parchment giving you a description of a human male in his early thirties, of average height, and with tanned skin that only a possible shipping trader could posess.
 
"This one ..." I point straight at the advertisment from Tybolt as I turn my head to look at Vidin "Likely there is some catch, but 200 silvers apiece does not sound too bad, what do you say? To me it seems at least worth inquiring..."
 
Vidin shrugs a bit. "Your the Boss, boss." The Windling states with as little enthuseasm as he can muster. "We will probably have to move a bit quickly so as to catch this... Tybolt fellow." He says, only the slightest hint of a groan heard within his voice.

The meeting place isn't at all hard to find. Just as instructed within the advertisment Tybolt waits outside of a merchant building. In fact, the man is quite literally yelling some of the details of the request out to anyone who even seemed to feign interest. As you approach, the Human doesn't waist any time it seems as he approaches the two of you. "You two seem like hardy adventurers. Please, you must help me and my employer. I can promise that my employer will most handsomly reward each of you for your trouble."
 
Hmm, now this changes things. Apparently the man is quite desperate. So maybe as long as we pretend to not have read the notice in the tavern we might be able to negotiate an even better deal. Or at least little silver tongued Vidin might.

Hoping the windling's wits are as quick as mine I therefore turn to face the supposed Tybolt, trying to feign a bit of surprise at being approached so directly. "You mentioned a handsome reward? In that case we might be interested. Why don't you tell us a bit more?"
 
"Yes, a handsome reward for the both of you. I unfortunately cannot divulge the specifics though, for that you will need to talk with my employer. He wants to stay rather hush, hush about the details for posterity sake, we don't need too many folks hearing I'll rumors now do we? All I need from you is to commit your interest, and you can go right inside and get the full details." the human bows his head slowly as he responds.

Vidin seems to understand what you were getting at, but offers you a look at the news given by the man. His expression seems somewhat blank for a moment before giving a shrug of his shoulders. "I guess we need to haggle with his boss if we want more money."The Windling states, leaning a bit towards your ear to keep it a little quite.
 
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