Chapter 5

After settling their tab and leaving a suitably generous tip along with Theron's heartfelt apology to the barmaid for his "uncouth assholery owing to prolonged involuntary sobriety", the group made their way back into the city streets. The wide, cobbled road pointed them directly to the western city gate and the shops that lined it became increasingly upscale the closer they got to it. The trees that lined the road at the periphery gave way to the increasing density of urban life and winding alleyways took the place of sprawling boulevards.

The stench also increased proportionally. Rotting seafood mixed with sewage, animal musk mingled with refuse, and the entire bouquet took on the evocative hues of a whale carcass being hauled through a landfill by a team of especially flatulent horses. The CKG found themselves holding their breaths for longer and longer periods, to the point of getting lightheaded.

"Ugh...maybe tha' heavy stew wasn't the best idea." Theron intoned before burping into his fist.

"Yeah," Eya responded from the front of the group, "it gets better once we're through the gate."

Unseen by the cleric, the team following her each surreptitiously hid their coin pouches before they reached the gate. Sizing up the guards that stood there, Kael transferred a sizable amount of gold into his front pockets in anticipation of the standard "inspection fee".

Eya walked airily up to the one to the left of the gate, a red dragonborn, and greeted him warmly. The guard did not appear to return her familiarity.

"Hi Vorruk!" He nodded back at her.

"Sister."

She was undeterred by his brusque manner though. She leaned in subtly and grinned. "How's Syrivara doing?" The dragonborn's eyes darted to his partner at the other side of the wide commercial gate and back to the cleric. He leaned toward her in return.

"Four." The simple statement was accompanied by an expression of pride, wariness, and excitement that belied its monosyllabic delivery. Eya's eyes lit up and she covered her mouth, careful to keep from getting too loud.

"Four?" She asked and was met with another nod and increased pride. "Four?" She repeated and clasped her hands together. "Omigods four." She shook her head and immediately rummaged through her satchel again. A moment later, she handed him two medium-sized flasks.

"When she starts getting too skinny, have her take this one." She pointed and continued. "It'll keep her strength up." He nodded and pocketed them both, again glancing at his counterpart. Eya leaned in a little closer and lowered her voice further.

"And when they hatch, you keep the other one for yourself." She gave him a sly wink. "You'll need it, papa."

The dragonborn guard sheepishly nodded, an odd juxtaposition with his fearsome appearance. He thanked her quietly and she conveyed her best wishes to his mate before backing up. His eyes darted toward the opposite side of the gate and he cleared his throat.

"Move along, Sister. And...try keep out of trouble." She nodded solemnly and squared her stance. He then jerked his head toward the gate but the nictating membrane of his right eye quickly flicked closed and open again. She grinned and returned the 'wink' before moving on.

Walking lightly through the gate, she glanced back at her new partners.

"Well come on...unless you like how it smells out there?" Kael and Elara exchanged raised eyebrows and the group did their level best to follow with nonchalant detachment. Three of them were successful. Theron couldn't help but give the guard a wide, toothy grin and a waggle of his bushy eyebrows. Vorruk's slit pupils narrowed at the dwarf, but he did not respond further.

Entering the city proper was a literal and figurative breath of fresh air for the travelers. Eya wasn't lying when she said that the air quality improved in the interior, where the city infrastructure was actually maintained and not left to the residents to figure out. Still though, it was a port city with heavy trade in seafood, so it wasn't entirely free of odors. Once they were all inside, she turned to her employers.

"So...where can I take you?" She said brightly, awaiting their first destination. Liriel spoke up first, directing her comment toward the other three and not Eya.

"I'm in the mood to do crime. We need to start with the Chipmunk." The cleric furrowed her brow in response.

"Sorry...I don't think I know that place. Where is it?" Liriel smirked in a way that caused the other members to suppress their own smiles and look away. She turned back to their guide with a practiced sneer.

"It's not a 'where' it's a 'who', and that 'who' is in the Garment District." Eya nodded in understanding.

"Oh, okay that's easy. That's a cute code name... Chipmunk." She began leading them into the central district, aiming toward the northern end of the crescent-shaped city. She picked up on faint snickering behind her and turned her head. "What?"

The rogue's dry smirk greeted her. "It's not a code name. More of an epithet, and it's not cute."

"Definitely not cute." Elara added. Eya's brow knitted again.

"Oh. What'd they do?" Elara gave her a dramatic shiver and shook her head, causing Kael to smirk and look away again.

"Nope, we're not talking about him. Let's just get the information we need and go on pretending like we don't know what he did." She said.

"Allegedly did." Theron added. Eya's eyes darted between the different characters she was escorting.

"No seriously, he did something to a chipmunk? What'd he do to the chipmunk?" Her voice rose as she searched them for some sort of hint. Kael finally looked at her, having recovered his bearing.

"Trust me," he said, "we're doing you a kindness. It's one of those things you can't go back to not knowing." Confused and horrified, she nearly tripped on a cobblestone. She walked in silence the rest of way to the Garment District.

•••

A natural extension of the city's role in trade, the Garment District grew from the northern end of the port. As raw and rare materials arrived from places like Marquet and Wildemount, they were crafted into increasingly fine clothing and immediately shipped back out to Tal'Dorei and Vasselheim or returned to Ank'Harel. While not exactly a house of high fashion, Marisfall was able to feed the desire for bulk luxury and finery that accompanied society having achieved some stability after the cataclysmic events of the past.

Entering this area, the group realized they had crossed some sort of unofficial border when literally every shop on both sides of the road bore racks of clothes and other textiles for sale or advertised laundering and alterations. The smell here was distinct but not unpleasant. It finally masked the port, owing to the mixture of detergents, flowers used for dyes, lye, and flowing linen caught on the sea breeze. The pedestrian traffic on their route and in the district was light, allowing for freedom of movement and casual observation. Eya explained that they had arrived toward the tail end of the sleepy, post-lunch lull before things picked back up.

"Smart," Theron commented, "we shoulda taken a nap too."

Upon arrival, Liriel took charge and led the group. She silently concentrated on way-finding without wasting time explaining her information. After leaving the main thoroughfare, she took them on a meandering route of cramped alleys and winding loopbacks. Her sharp eyes searched the increasingly seedy storefronts and ignored the increasingly seedy comments from those who loitered by them. When she finally came to a stop, it was in front of a storefront that looked too boring to fit the word 'nondescript'. Eya cocked her head while she looked up at the rudimentary, hand painted sign above its unadorned entrance.

"Huh." She remarked. "Never noticed this place before."

"That's the point, Cherry." Liriel dryly answered.

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"They probably don't have anything to actually do with clothes." Elara added, helpfully. Eya nodded and pointed up at the sign.

"No, I get that, it's just...oh. That's not his name." The meaning of the simple sign hit her.

"Taylor's"

Her shoulders dropped and she shook her head. "That's so stupid..." Behind her, Theron chuckled quietly to himself. He was clearly a fan of the lost art of the pun. The rest of the group followed Liriel inside.

This was her element and she knew the role well. Liriel did not take this opportunity to flex her stealthy or subtle skills. She kicked the door, not hard enough to break it but with enough force to generate a sharp bang when it struck the adjacent wall. Walking boldly into the space, she was met by the sight of four men huddled around a table. Three of them got up and the fourth pushed back in his chair to the corner of the small room.

What could have been a nasty, tightly packed scrap was quickly defused when she was followed by Kael's imposing frame and the muted menace of Elara with her machete in hand. When Eya and Theron finally entered, it was now cramped enough to convey that an outnumbered fight would not be in anyone's benefit.

"Hey Kazi, Merrock says 'hi'." The rogue dropped her voice at the mention of her informant's name and the message was very clear. The three standing men, a tiefling and two humans, immediately moved toward the exit. Liriel did not move to allow them space, so they shuffled uncomfortably around the group as she stared down the fourth with her arms crossed.

With some breathing room established, Eya could finally move around the larger members of her party to observe the scene. The room was small, with a counter facing the entrance and a few grubby looking shirts hanging on the wall behind it to give it an almost sarcastic facade of legitimacy. The walls were otherwise bare, save for a few burning lamps as illumination. The air inside was stagnant and she felt the cloying mixture of sweat, tobacco, and oil seeping into her clothes by the second. Past the end of the counter and wedged near the far corner, sat the round table that had been the center of attention until Liriel's entrance. Some sort of card game had been interrupted, and the abandoned hands lay where they had been dropped. A bowl of nuts sat in the center and their apparent contact was still in his seat, back to the corner and eyes wide.

This man was not nearly as imposing as the three who had left in a hurry. Although he was sitting, Eya estimated that he was no taller than she. His receding hairline, slicked back with either sweat or grease, and pencil mustache did little to compliment his frame. When he opened his mouth to spit a walnut onto the ground, she got a glimpse of haphazard teeth and overlarge gums that pushed his lips outward.

"Yeah?" He lifted himself out of his seat. "Tell Merrock I said 'hi' back, and feel free to add that he can go climb up his own as-" Liriel shoved him back into his seat as if it was an afterthought and sat down in one of the abandoned chairs to face him.

"Yeah I'll be sure to do that, anyway let's get this over with. This place stinks and I just got off the road so my patience is about as thin as that..." she gestured at the line of hair on his upper lip, "whatever that's supposed to be." Insulted, the man searched her face for a moment before deflating and sneering at her.

"So you're Galanthil." He said, his voice reedy and curt. She managed a tight smile at him.

"Good, we're off to a great start. That saves us a lot of time and threatening." She reached into a pouch at her hip and tapped three triangular, silver coins on the table with her left hand. "Saltwrights. Where?" His eyes went to the coins and then back to her.

"Never even heard of them. Hells, I never even heard the word 'salt' for that much, you stingy bitch. This your first time in Marisfall?" He sneered again. She cocked her head, looked down at the coins in her hand, and looked back at him.

"Oh. Oh I see, you thought this was some sort of opening offer. No." She deftly palmed the money and clenched her fist. The points of the three triangles jutted out between her fingers. "No I'm on the clock scumbag, I don't have time for your bullshit." Despite the extended setup, her left hook still came as a surprise to everyone in the room. Taking the vicious strike directly to the cheekbone, the man who was presumably 'The Chipmunk' fell to the floor in a heap. He scrambled up again but found that Liriel was already standing. She grabbed him by the shirt in her right hand, shoved him against the wall, and planted her knee just beneath his crotch. "Slavers, dipshit. No patience, remember?"

Eya gasped at the entire exchange. She was no stranger to violence on the job but the swiftness of the rogue's control was shocking.

Blood from three, tiny punctures flowed down the man's face and his eyes finally searched the others for a hint of mercy. Honing in on Kael's white hair and yellow eyes, the frightened 'business owner' tried his luck. "She's a lunatic, she'll get you all killed!" He said desperately.

Kael shrugged and shook his head, he didn't even uncross his arms from his chest. "I'm just here to hit you when she gets tired of doing it." The Chipmunk panicked now, his eyes landed on Eya and his breathing quickened.

"Sister? Sister you can't let her do stuff like this, right?"

Her eyes went wide and she looked at the other members of the party. Returning her gaze to him she pointed at herself and shook her head. "Me? Oh, no I'm not with them, I'm a subcontractor." His panic rose and she tried to helpfully add "B- but I can offer you absolution for a confession...or last rites, I suppose. Who do you follow, I've got a book here somewhere..."

She couldn't see it from her position, but her response elicited a quivering smirk from Liriel. The rogue hid her reaction by releasing her grip on his shirt, taking a fistful of his thinning hair, and slamming his head into the wall. She moved closer to his face and began shouting.

"Geh deine Fäustlinge holen, sie liegen unter dem Bett!" For emphasis, she made several cutting gestures with her free hand, ending with a hooked finger that mimed pulling something out of something else. "Wo ist deine Brotdose!?" Kael audibly winced and looked away, Theron gagged. Elara sucked air through her teeth and spoke up.

"Oh, whoah, if you break the handle off then our poor healer will have to go in to get it." The ranger's admonishment interrupted Liriel's tirade.

Eya spoke up from across the small space, suddenly looking nervous. "Wait, what am I doing?"

Theron shook his head solemnly. "Ooh no no no, we dinnae pay her enough for tha'."

"You haven't paid me anything yet!" Eya pointed out. Theron shrugged and shook his head again.

"Even worse. Ya may not want to watch this next part, lass."

On the verge of passing out from hyperventilating, the frightened man finally began talking. "Crooked Compass! Crooked Compass!" He shouted. Liriel sneered.

"That your safe word or something? Make sense." Seeing that she was deescalating, he gathered his nerves and began explaining.

"It's a pub, near the wharf. This one guy that runs with the Saltwrights likes to go there." Liriel remained close and let a low growl percolate in her throat. "Garven. Garven Duskridge. Ask around, everyone thinks he's one of them!" The rogue's voice lowered but did not lose an ounce of malice.

"He wear a fuckin' name tag or something?" She rolled her eyes at his confusion. "Description. Use small words, pretend that I'm stupid and enjoy breaking noses to relieve my anger." She hoisted her knee up into his crotch for emphasis, lifting him onto the balls of his feet.

"B- black hair, average height...wears a lot of grey and b- brown?" Liriel started to growl again. "Scar!" He added, suddenly finding the memory. "He's got a scar over his eye. Ri- no left eye!"

The half-elf's eyes did not waver from his for another uncomfortable few seconds before she scanned his face and finally released him, seemingly satisfied. She held up her left fist with the pointed coins still jutting out of it and he flinched at the sight. Instead of striking him, she palmed the coins again and slipped them into his shirt pocket.

"Pleasure doing business with you, ya sick fuck." Liriel turned toward the exit, but in the cramped space she needed the rest of the group to move first. When she gestured for them to go, Eya found her voice again and spoke up.

"Hang on! I have a question too." They all turned to look at her and Kazi groaned in anticipation. "What did you do to the poor chipmunk??" Elara snorted and excused herself out first. Their informant just looked back to Liriel incredulously and shouted after her as they all ushered the cleric out.

"What did you tell her? Hey! I have to work in this city!"

•••

Winding their way out of the Garment District, Eya walked next to Liriel with wide-eyed appreciation. The rogue noticed and glanced sidelong at her.

"Nice touch with that 'last rites' bit, Cherry. Gotta admit, I thought you were gonna pass out in there." She chuckled darkly to herself.

"Oh...I was being serious, I thought you were gonna kill him." Eya sheepishly straightened her robes while the awkward silence was only interrupted by the rhythmic tapping of her quarterstaff. Finally, the rogue offered an eye roll.

"He deserved every bit of it, trust me. If you knew what I know you'd have slapped him around a little too." Eya seemed to accept this and nodded before speaking up again.

"What language was that? You almost scared him into wetting himself!"

"Zemnian." She said, detachedly. "My dad was from Wildemount." Eya gasped.

"What's that like? I've never been off of Issylra."

Liriel just looked at her sidelong again. "I know, you said that already. My dad was from Wildemount. I'm from here." Eya looked down.

"Oh...well what did you say to him? Was it some kind of Zemnian curse on his family? Or- or did you threaten to disembowel him? Elara said something about a handle...?" She enthusiastically mimicked the hooking gesture Liriel had made. A loud chuckle from Theron immediately behind them interrupted her guesses.

"Yeah Daggers...what'd you tell him this time?" He suppressed further laughter with a smirk and a bitten lip.

Liriel sighed and rolled her eyes up to the sky. "I said 'Go get your mittens, they're under the bed' and 'Where is your lunch pail?'." Eya's jaw dropped. "Most of the Zemnian I know is stuff my dad used to say...but it's more than that mook knows."

Eya missed a step and fell behind as Theron sidled up next to Liriel. "Not going to lie, that's got to be one of our best bits. Top five at least." He chuckled.

A moment later, she snapped out of it and hurried to catch up, whispering under her breath. "You guys are so cool."