Burk walked into the tavern and the first thing he noticed was the density of the crowd therein. The closest thing to an available spot was a booth with only one person in it that the rest of the crowd seemed to have left alone. The person was wearing a lightweight cloak with the hood pulled up over most of their face and a silky scarf covering the rest. Their gloved hands firmly gripped a steaming mug. This person seemed like they wanted to be left alone, so Burk chose to go ask around the opposite side of the room. As he walked, however, he felt his foot catch on something, causing him to trip. He landed gently, catching himself and rolling as he’d been taught, though his weight did still cause a slight tremor in the floor boards as he did so. His recovery wasn’t quite as elegant as the roll, but he managed to get to his feet and face the source of his stumble quickly and without running into any other patrons.
“My deepest apologies!” he exclaimed, placing his hands together and bowing deeply, his eyes tightly shut. He’d gotten into the habit of doing this after years of similar incidents at the abbey. However, this time it did not appear to be accidental.
“See, told you those brutes were clumsy,” one of the six elves sitting around the table said smugly. They were all slender with green or blue eyes, reddish skin from days in the sun, and long blonde hair. The one who spoke wore red armor while the rest wore tan or silver. The whole entourage burst into laughter.
“My apologies, I meant no harm, please, forgive my clumsiness,” Burk said in further nervous reaction after briefly looking up at the group and then averting his gaze again. They seemed so fair to him, while here he stood a coarse, green, heavy creature in holy robes.
“What are you even doing here, greenskin? Shouldn’t you be loading onto a boat with the others?” one of the other elves asked, a malicious smirk crossing his face.
“I don’t know to whom you are referring,” Burk replied, doing his best to retain some semblance of class in both his syntax and tone. “I’m from a group of adventurers seeking a crew of sailors to help us travel between the islands of the archipelago,” he explained. Then, rising, he asked, “Do you know of anybody who might be interested?”
After taking a sip of a strange, green liquid, the apparent leader of the elves, the one in red, asked, “What do you pay?”
“Huh?”
The table of elves chuckled at what they perceived as Burk’s stupidity. The one adorned in red brought out a gold coin and placed it on the table. “How many of these do each of your crew get per day?”
“Well, um, we were kind of planning on splitting up the loot from our adventures into shares, so-”
“Only pirates are paid with shares,” the elf leader said with a much more serious look on his face now. Had one of his eyelids not been slightly drooping due to his drunkenness, he might have even looked intimidating.
Just then, the heavily cloaked person tapped Burk on the shoulder and gestured towards the booth they had been in.
“Pf,” one of the elves in tan let out a derisive sound. “Yeah, figures she’d bail you out.”
Burk ignored this comment and followed the over-clothed woman to the booth as the elves burst into drunken laughter. He could vaguely make out the shape of pointed ears under the woman’s hood, but not much more was evident until she lowered her scarf to take a sip of her drink. Burk noticed that her skin was an incredibly dark shade of indigo and her lips were painted a softer tone of violet.
“You’re a dark elf,” Burk whispered. She put down her drink, paused, and then nodded before taking another sip. “What’s your name?”
She didn’t answer.
Burk sat awkwardly for a moment but then had an idea. “Do you want to get back at those bastards?”
She nodded.
“Oh waitress!” Burk called out as one of the many servers in the tavern passed. The halfling girl turned to look at the monk, and he immediately saw that she’d been on the verge of tears. He suspected that she was incredibly stressed by the rush and that the bunch of snooty pricks by the front of the tavern likely didn’t help her state. Her pretty red hair was disheveled and her lower lip was quivering. “See those jerks over at the table by the door?” Her lip quivered even worse. “I want you to slip these into their drinks,” he explained, pulling out a small bag with several chunks of dark, gnarled root from his satchel.
“What drink?” she asked, now smiling slightly.
“Light beer, and if it changes color, just tell them it’s a special brew called Root Beer. Oh, but don’t tell them who sent it. Say something about it being on the house.” He reached into his bag again and drew out five gold coins.
“It’s only a few silver for that much beer,” the girl said, confused.
“I know, but I feel like after what you’ve been through, you need this more than I do.” She smiled, gladly took the roots and the coins and proceeded to the bar. Burk smiled and turned to his new friend. “And now, we wait.”
Moments later, the diminutive girl came back out with a tray holding many flagons, heading towards the table of golden-haired sailors, placing one drink in front of each of them and explaining the situation in response to their bewildered and slightly suspicious glances. The already drunk elves shrugged off the oddity of the situation and cheered themselves, clunking the wooden mugs together and taking a swig of the dark brown liquid.
Not a minute passed before the first of them rose, visibly distressed, and started making excuses to his companions as to why he had to leave immediately. Then another of them rose to go, and another. As the entire company stood to leave, the one in red was stopped and asked to pay off the tab before he left. In that moment, a large, brown stain became visible on the fabric of the elf’s cloth under-armor. He quickly pulled a bag of gold from his side and tossed it to the man who had stopped him. The bag clearly contained far more money than was necessary, but the elf had more pressing matters to deal with.
“What do you think, was that an alright punishment?” Burk asked his cloaked friend.
“As a punishment for being assholes, you exploded their assholes,” she murmured in a smooth, low voice. “I can respect that.” She pulled back her hood to reveal her white hair, incredibly thin face, and red eyes. “My name’s Vicorra. Who are you?”
“I’m Burk,” Burk replied with a grin. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“Did you say you were looking for crew?” She asked, leaning in a bit.
“Yep! The ship I’m on now is a bit too big for just a dozen people, so my admiral sent a bunch of us to town to find other people who might want to join our adventure.”
“Admiral?” she asked, puzzled, “so you’re form some kind of military fleet?”
“What? No,” Burk said, furrowing one brow and raising the other in confusion. He was not aware of the usual naming conventions sea-faring folk as he had spent nearly his whole life on an island and had rarely conversed with sailors. “We’re just adventurers.”
“Well, I’m not sure I need any more adventure in my life,” she said cryptically, “but I’d also like to get off of this island as fast as possible.”
“We can do that, too,” Burk explained, “We take all kinds of jobs, I think.”
Vicorra was a little concerned by his use of the phrase “I think,” but she needed a way off this rock as soon as possible and wasn’t particular on who provided her that ride. She affirmed that she would, indeed, go along with Burk.
At that moment, a human and a halfling came into the crowded tavern, talking in loud, agitated tones.
“I didn’t know it was going to get us kicked out,” the Halfling said, shrugging defensively.
“The sign very clearly said no touching,” the human replied, glaring down at his companion. “We didn’t even get a chance to look for crewmates because you got ‘curious,’ and let yourself wander.”
“Whatever, let’s just see if we can find Burk,” the halfling said, wanting desperately to change the subject.
Burk, hearing his name, turned away from Vicorra, who seemed intent on ignoring the commotion of the rest of the tavern, and towards the voice. Zib and Carl were standing just inside the doorway, intently scanning the establishment’s incredibly dense crowd. The monk turned briefly to his newfound friend and rapidly explained, “Those are a couple of my friends now! I’ll bring them over.” And, before Vicorra could protest, Burk nimbly wove his way towards the familiar faces. “Hey, guys!”
“Oh, there you are,” Zib said flatly, still apparently thinking about how he might make reparations for his actions.
“Guys, I found a new crewmate!” Burk said, excitedly hopping from one foot to the other. “You gotta meet her, she’s great!”
“Her?” Carl asked, shocked that the green one found a female companion before he did. Burk then led the group over to the booth where Vicorra had once again covered herself up with her scarves. She lifted a gloved hand in a sign of greeting.
“Dark elf?” Zib asked.
“Dark elf,” Carl concluded. “Though there’s nothing wrong with that!” the mage blurted out, flustered by the sudden realization of how that might sound to someone who didn’t know them.
“My name’s Vicorra,” she said in response to the reddening human. She pulled down her scarves to once more reveal the lower half of her face. She didn’t need to cover herself in the presence of three who knew exactly what she was and didn’t care. “And you are?”
Carl was in awe of her deep, smooth voice, so Zib was the first to respond. “My name’s Zib. It’s lovely to meet you,” he said in an exaggerated but stilted tone. It was clearly insincere, but he was not being openly offensive, which was as close to a good first impression as he could get.
Carl, jolting from his stupor, bowed deeply, replying to her greeting by saying, “My name is Carl. I’m the ship’s mage.”
“No you’re not,” Zib said bluntly. “The only people who have titles are Nessa, Doc, and Athastar.”
“Athastar?” Vicorra asked, sounding out the name and raising an eyebrow.
“Yep, that’s our admiral!” Burk exclaimed excitedly.
“And… his name is Athastar?”
“Yep!”
“That’s a ridiculous name,” she quirked her lips to one side to further express her opinion.
“Right… Athastar is the weird name here,” Zib said, looking between Burk and Vicorra. “Whatever, let’s see who else we can recruit here.” He pushed through the crowd, moving between legs and around heavy wooden stools. He made his way up to the bar and managed to snag a stool just as a rather large, very hairy fellow rose from it. As he did this, his friends near the front of the bar were somewhat taken aback by their diminutive companion’s ability to vanish into a crowd.
“Maybe this is a job just for Zib,” Burk said, unaware of the mishap Carl had just witnessed Zib cause at the last building where he took charge. “Let’s see if we can go find some of the others.”
Comments (0)
See all