Prelude: Port Peril - Formidably Maid

[Trogdor]

"Well, we have that in common," Maggie replies. "I just got away from the ship I arrived on. I've come to make my fortune, as they say. I know I have to start small, but I'm definitely going to start. Tomorrow I'm going to find myself a ship and hire on as whatever they'll have me as. I did a whole lot of shipboard chores at home, before I left. It was all on ships in the harbor. But carpentry is carpentry wherever you do it." Her eagerness seems to seep out of her like it's overflowing. "Besides, I did just fine with my working passage to make it here. I'll do fine on whatever ship will take me."

[Eilandor]

"Starting out small sounds like a fine plan. It would seem we have more in common than you think. I worked for my uncle who owned a shipbuilding factory in Riddleport."

[Trogdor]

"My father owned a trade good store," Maggie replies. "Right by the harbor. We'd service ships all day or night, as they needed it. Not all of them wanted to pay people like your uncle to fix their ships, either. So we'd help 'em with repairs too. We did a little bit of everything for them: fixing damaged ships, mending sails, even tending to sick crew. We had a few rooms above the shop that we'd rent out. And I ended up tending those crew that couldn't afford to see a healer. Got pretty good at it, after a while, if I do say so myself."

"So you see, while I haven't actually been to sea much, I know my way around a ship pretty well - well enough to get hired on, I hope."

[Vardaen]

As the pair talk they watch one of the serving wenches go over to a table where a man is sitting with his head down, chin on his chest. "Get ye another drink luv?" The man doesn't answer her, so she taps him on the shoulder. He falls over out of his chair to land on the ground with a thud. A stiletto shoved into his back sticks up glinting in the smokey light. The woman doesn't gasp, she barely looks shocked. "We got an'oter gutted fish 'ere!"

A few burly men come out of the shadows, bouncers that work of the tavern, and scoop the man up. For the new few moments, that table is open if someone wanted to take it....

Life in the Formidably Maid continues as if nothing happened.

[Trogdor]

Moving quickly, the sweet young girl that Toruk just met, rushes over and grabs the now-vacant table, tossing her duffel bag under it, and setting her drink on it. She takes a simple handkerchief from her belt and dabs off a bit of blood from the back of the dead man's chair, then sits down in it - still warm from him sitting there - and motions Toruk over.

"Bad luck for him," she says. "But good luck for us. I was hoping to get a bite to eat, and a table's much better for that than the bar." She seems to take it totally in stride that a man just died where she's sitting.

[Eilandor]

Slightly shaken by the sight of the man with a blade in his back, Toruk quickly realizes he is quite possibly the only one who is. It gives him additional pause noticing that Maggie saw opportunity in the situation at hand and he strangely likes her even more for it.

He makes his way over to the newly available table and sits down next to Maggie. "Good luck for us indeed, I was getting a bit hungry myself." Toruk can't help but smile at her, "Such is life in the Shackles, eh?"

[Trogdor]

"That was life in Ilizmagorti," Maggie replies. "Our enemies don't call it Scum Tide City for nothing. Between the pirates and the Red Mantis assassins, you never knew what the day was going to bring you." Then she tries to catch the eye of a serving wench to see if there's some food she can order.

[Eilandor]

"A friend of Ilizmagorti if I may be considered one, would call it The Black Pearl of the Tropics." He too attempts to lure a server to the table.

[Vardaen]

As the pair grabs the table (one large enough for a few others yet) the serving wench returns after taking the coin purse off the dead pirate. House rules state the wench that clears he corpse get's the coins. With a big smile on her face she jingles up to your table, "Get ye some'hin swabies? We 'ave some good clam chowder, fresh broiled haddock, and lots ta drink!" She takes the order from the pair and heads off to collect it at the kitchen. She won't be back for a good half a glass with how busy it is tonight.

[Trogdor]

Maggie orders the clam chowder, happy for something warm that hasn't been stored in a barrel for six months or more. Then she returns to her conversation. "Yes, the Black Pearl of the Tropics." She smiles. "The place does have its moments. And aside from the threat of privateer attacks and the danger of it being the headquarters of the Red Mantis assassins, it's a nice enough town. It has a wonderful harbor. And if you move a bit farther out from the main docks, it's actually pretty clean. I spent a lot of my youth swimming in that harbor. They say that my mother was part sea-elf."