The next morning, the trio of erstwhile hardy partiers stumbled down the Inn's stairs to the tavern, where breakfast was being served. It was brown sugar and maple sausages in a nest of gravy covered mashed potatoes. Served up in deep wooden bowls with matching wooden spoons, and little two-pronged spears for the sausages (which Plume thought was cute and ultimately senseless), it was a perfect breakfast for a hangover. They rallied quickly. Also, very quickly, they realized they needed to find a job. All three of them had just gotten there, and their funds were extremely limited. They figured that they had a week at this here inn-and-tavern before they were camping in the nearby forest, or working on one of those hell-forsaken trains of freight barges and wagon teams. 

Their server this morning, a dark haired and quietly friendly version of Avo near enough in face and body to make the three seated adventurers all blink a few times at first. When she smiled, the likeness was absolutely striking. "Hello," she said. Her voice was not quiet, per se, but it lacked any hint of brashness, "my name is Leopa, I will be taking care of you this morning. Shall I have the room made up for another night? That first night's a silver, but it's only five copper a night afterwards." She bussed the table quickly, Cryptic once again silently noting that this woman moved more like a tiger. Or a panther, perhaps. If Cryptic was sizing her up for a fight, which she was (she did with everyone), she would think twice about messing with this one, which she was (but she generally would not). That raised one of Cryptic's eyebrows, behind her beautifully sculpted fox mask. 

Without even thinking twice, Cryptic immediately found herself saying, "oh, ah, yes, another night would be wonderful Leopa! Hey, who made these bowls?" Cryptic winced internally, trying to tell herself, against all evidence and logic, that adults did not trip over their own tongues like that. Leopa laughed, though, and again the similarity to Avo, from the night before, was absolutely obvious.

"Hey, you wouldn't be related to that sheila from last night, would ya? Avo? Because she was lovely in that way other than looks. I will think of the word in common speech, gimme a minute..." Plume put his chin in his paw, elbow on the table as he thought. Hard.

Leopa smiled again and said "Chatksi kehkehkeh". Plume shot up, so surprised he knocked his bowl over. It was empty, but it was also on the floor. Plume did not notice.

"You speak Tabaxi?" Plume was flabbergasted that a human would ever know that his people even existed. Looking at her with renewed interest, Plume replied likewise, and a short conversation in a hissing, sort of chattering language, ensued between Plume and Leopa that had the other two at the table completely perplexed, but they were polite enough to keep it to a few sentences. One should use the common tongue among common lands, certainly. Leopa laughed a silvery little chuckle again and loped away much like a pursuit predator, noted Cryptic. Leopa's black leather pants were catching the light and using the shadow in very intriguing ways. The calf-high doeskin boots that matched her vest were well made, as was the white jerkin she wore under the light brown vest. A white tunic spilled out from under her vest, which was quite a contrast against her seemingly black hair.

Very few people have actually black hair. Usually, it is some form of dark brown. But Leopa's looked, truly, as black as coal. Her inverted braid kept the three of them fascinated for a moment, but they shook themselves and turned back to the table, which is when they noticed that somewhere between Leopa arriving, and them staring, a red headed human boy had slipped into one of the vacant chairs and eaten Plume's second bowl of breakfast. "Hi!" he said, brightly. The three stared at him. Hostiley. He took no notice, jabbing another sausage he had found underneath the mash with a "whoop!" of victory. "These things are the best. Igle makes 'em himself, you know." They, all three, narrowed their eyes simultaneously, which was quite a trick considering Cryptic's were behind a mask. Invoking the bar owner's name, though, even after only one night, gave them pause. Their first instinct had been to stab him with something sharp, but that may have just been post traumatic concerns from their time on the road.

"Ah, you must be the help," Pandora remarked wryly, throwing her pinky finger up in the air and eating a small piece of the (admittedly) delectable sausage, adroitly dainty and polite, despite the fact that she was wearing her hat at the table.

He looked her up and down, quite thoroughly. It was not creepily though, so Plume decided he would see where this led and let it continue. "You look like you're just fine. Why, do you need help with something?" He had somehow found another sausage.

Suddenly, a loud "hey!" was exclaimed from the table behind them. "Who took my sausage?" yelled a large woman with a curly mane of red hair that framed her head like a halo the devil would die for. The kid swallowed, smiled, and said "I'm Stevie. I work for the local Guild rep." This turned Plume and Pandora off immediately, having seen the local teamsters' guild in action.

"Yeah, mate, we're all set with guilds. Those drongo teamsters put my hackles up considerably." The red head kid looked absolutely horrified.

"Those thugs running the barges? Never happened! The real Guild. The Merchant and Sailors' Guild." Now that name meant something Cryptic, as a lifelong citizen and denizen of the Unified Kingdoms.  

It was Cryptic's turn to roast this lad. "So...what, you're a cabin boy? Are you offering us a job 'swabbing' something or something?" The kid raised an eyebrow, though, completely unbothered.

"Are you asking for a friend?" He replied.

Cryptic blinked. "Why would you ask me that?" 

He grinned a huge, sincere smile. "What kind of person would ask about having to swab something?" He was having a blast. So was Cryptic.

"Do you know what kind of person would beat a youngling about the head and shoulders with heavy objects until they fell unconscious?" Cryptic was starting to feel a little murdery. 

"Do you know such a person?" He was really rolling now.

"So what if I did?" She replied, checking the leg of the table to see if it would make a decent club. Plume was delighted with where this was going! He wondered if there would be tits. Cryptic discovered the table was too sturdy for her to be able to rip the leg off of it, but she spotted a rack of ship's belaying pins over on the wall. It was just another fine example of an authentic piece of maritime memorabilia, but Cryptic was interested for the length, heft, and weight.

"Do you know how to make a hundred Stilton Ounces of gold in three or four days?" He smiled at the surprised faces before him, but Plume was grumbling a little, deep in his chest.

"Could have just started with that. Bleedin' ankle biter." The little humans were always trouble. Plume snatched a sausage out of a passing serving tray and popped the whole thing in his maw. He chewed with his mouth open to show off his impressive set of teeth.

"Hey, the babies over at the whorehouse's nursery eat just like that! Neat. Is that a tabaxi thing, or is it a tic, or something?" Stevie really liked these folks a lot.

Plume was really starting to dislike this kid.

Pandora, though, brightened up considerably at the question. "Oooo, yeaaahh! 'course I do! Pssshhh." She looked mortified at the thought of someone thinking otherwise. "But I still want to hear how you would do it." She sat back, for all the world like she was interviewing the freckled menace. With an imperious gesture she bade him continue, which he seemed to find hilarious. 

He stopped chuckling and leaned in close, "Well, I was told by them who knows that it would be in my best interest to sign this contract right here." Stevie flourished a writ produced on, of all things, an expensive sheet of actual paper. It had a very official looking seal stamped into the sheet at the top right, and a watermark artfully crafted into the likeness of a ship at sail. Stevie tapped the expensive sheet of paper conspiratorially. 

"I bet I can get them to throw in a bonus if you can finish this up quietly, and in a hurry," the freckled teen lad said seriously. "I did rustle up a stipend for a gear and supplies," the look he gave their (admittedly shoddy) kit was less than impressed, "and as soon as you sign, I can give it to you." 

Plume had had enough. "Yeah alright," he scrawled something that looked a lot like 'Hardwood McSaggytits' on what he considered the appropriate line. Incidentally (and luckily) enough, it was the correct one. This time. 

The redhead laughed merrily at the signature, quickly signing it himself as the witness with what looked suspiciously to Cryptic like 'Balzaac Rinklebagg'. He swept the sheet away into the inner folds of his blue robes so quickly she just could not be sure, though, and Cryptic forgot all about asking when she saw and heard the heavy and distinctive clunk-thud! of a bag of tradebars being dropped on a table.

Pandora had that scooped up and somewhere safe before the sound had a chance to fade, but by the sound of things there was at least a hundred gold in there. That was a very good sign. Cryptic told everyone present about how her mom had always told her that 'well funded adventurers were living adventurers'.

Or, so she said her mother always said. Cryptic could not remember her mom ever saying that, and she really felt like she would have.

Pandora and Plume both gave her raised eyebrows, clearly not believing her at all, but the young human boy seemed satisfied. "Great!" he crowed, and jumped up like an overly caffeinated jack-in-the-box, startling Plume (who really did not like this kid). "Here's the map, the most recent one available." Stevie looked curiously at Pandora, asking, "do you know Cora Thornleaf, Pandora? She made these maps. Another halfling from Seraphinia, or thereabouts at least. Same age range, even..."

Pandora was nodding vigorously. "Yeeeaaaah, course I know 'er! She's that girl that did that thing that time, when the weather back home was  all rainy!"

Stevie nodded back just as happily, "Yeah, that's her! The one with the face and the hair. Anyhow, this map is brandy-spanking new..."

"Why would you spank brandy?" Cryptic blurted suddenly, her curiosity overtaking her manners. Not that she had many of those, to begin with. "Do they make special brandy bottles that look like asses, to make them easier to spank?"

Stevie smiled patronizingly, an exaggerated expression that would have been just perfect on a comedy stage. "No, my dear, they craft them all to resemble monkeys." He harumph!ed on his way out, as if he were a royal slumming amongst the plebes out here in the sticks. The last they heard of him that day was a distant, mockingly shocked shout of, "Oh, I say! That's my foot, old boy!"

The three of them looked at each other, paid, and headed out the door into town, Pandora asking (little more than half-jokingly) if they could go to a whorehouse. This caused a general consensus of opinion, and the first place they stopped was the Naughty Natter; a bright, clean looking place with jaunty music and befeathered people. Perfume was as thick as cigar and pipe smoke. There was laughter in every corner of the main room! 

Then, to Pandora's everlasting surprise, she noticed something strange. She turned to Cryptic, wide-eyed. "They have boy whores!" she whispered loudly. Cryptic was way ahead of her, already poking and prodding at a blonde man's biceps and abdomen like an interested cattle baroness. 

"Ohh, you'll do nicely, won't you?" She smiled up at him, showing him her sharpened teeth. Cryptic was fierce, Pandora thought with a pang of jealousy. "Grab your brooding-eyed friend there," Cryptic purred at the blonde man (she had not yet gotten around to his name), "and let's head upstairs, yeah? Just the three of us?"

Pandora's jaw was heavy as she picked it up off the floor. Cryptic's voice wafted back Pandora's way as the fox-masked vixen preceded her playmates up a set of stairs carpeted in a plush red velvet, "I promise I'll go easy on you, sugars...no marks, right? The rules I mean? I can't leave a mar..." 

At the moment, Cryptic was Pandora's hero. 

Pandora turned to Plume, cocking her thumb back the way Cryptic had disappeared. "Hey! Look, Cryptic got..."

Plume was gone. Instead, she was talking to a swarthy man who was simply glistening with healthy skin. There was an awful lot of his skin to see, and the whole 'thing' made Pandora so uncomfortable she found herself sitting on a couch doing a pretty good job of covering up the fact that she was hyperventilating.

Pandora's visit to Sylvie's Thoughtful Whorehouse and Pawn Shop that night ended up with a couple of the establishment's ladies fussing over her like mother hens once the bartender noticed her all alone and how young she was.

A large man wearing a suit posted himself nearby when he noticed the scene, scaring shady men who were a little too interested in a 'young lady' away with pointed looks. One man, too drunk to pay attention to his own self-preservation, tried to push past the giant of a sharp dressed man, but only succeeded in pushing himself backwards somewhat violently.

Plume was drunk enough to be passed out on top of the bar with people resting their drinks carefully on his forehead or chest in a matter of a few hours. He had been a real hoot the entire time, too! Right up until he just crawled up on the bar and went to sleep. Of course, everyone had cheered wildly, including Sylvie herself, who ran the bar now that she had paid her dues over the span of an entire career. Grueling, soul-crushing dues that she managed somehow to turn into sunshine and smiles for her guests and girls. Pandora found her way, alone, back to the Gilded Goose and snagged a bottle of wine for herself. She was far too young to have been at all comfortable at Sylvie's. She never would have admitted it, of course, but Pandora was entirely inexperienced.

Neither did she really see, nor had she ever met, any reason to change that. 

The friendly firelight and skillful music at the Gilded Goose really were entirely relaxing when one took the authentic nautical décor into account. That, and the friendly and skillful staff. A blonde girl and a black haired young woman seemed to run the place, with their father tending the bar. He had a monstrous beard, and habitually polished the glassware proudly. Pandora could tell he really loved this place. It was built of timber made from whole trees, which were plentiful enough around here, but none of them looked like this. Huh. She would have to ask about that.

In no time at all, she grew sleepy and was kindly shown to a room by the blonde girl, Avo. Avo was a real beauty, with a mane of golden hair and a glittering challenge in her intelligent eyes. She had a smiley, down-to-earth personality that Pandora immediately started trying to figure out how to leverage. But Pandora also, young as she was, had been around for a while now, and knew where to look. Sure enough, the hilts of slim daggers were evident strapped to Avo's legs and arms, under the billowing peasant's clothing she wore while working here.

Avo left Pandora in a room far larger than she had been expecting, and she immediately stripped down to take advantage of the steaming copper tub that stood waiting for her upon its clawed feet. She finally managed to soak the stench of the barges, and Boris in particular, out of her beautiful, beautiful skin and hair. Finally, she climbed out of the tub and stood looking at herself in a floor length mirror as she towelled off.

She was too muscular, she thought to herself with distaste. Too defined. Too boyish, if she were to believe what her parents had had to say. Her hair was thick and healthy, still! She had that going for her!

The Inn had offered a laundry service, so Pandora changed into a set of subtly basil scented bedclothes that actually fit her small halfling frame, really impressing the shit out of Pandora.

Now that was a real rarity, here. Anywhere on Pax, really; it was as if the humans here were trying their hardest to deny or forget that anyone other than humans even existed, despite obvious factual evidence in their everyday lives and literature. Pandora perked up, finally kicking the bad mood that had started when that oiled up boy whore had started hitting on her, earlier.

And with that, she fell into a deep, deep sleep, for the first time in longer than she cared to remember.