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[b]//A4 - Harrison's Fjord[/b]
Though the adventurers of Oratorio did not belong to a single collective banner, they nevertheless congregated where one expected them to when there was nothing pressing to do. After making it out through the concentrated misery and barbarity of the Underpass, Meisa’s gaze was directed towards the larger dining establishments present in the bustling Adventurer’s District. With bright blue roofing and cedar-red walls, the Harrison’s Fjord looked to be about as promising as any other tavern to stake out adventurers who may be willing to take a day off from treasure-hunting and monster-slaying to do a guard detail instead.

It helped too, that the elven princess hadn’t eaten anything the night before, and the smell of freshly-baked bread and boiling milk was quite enticing for one who had only recently been subsisting off of hardtack and dried meat. The shitshow with the Blackhand Butcher, and Firenze’s own attitude after the fact had made any promise of a well-cooked, well-seasoned dinner off the table. If Meisa didn’t get anything proper to eat, her stomach was liable to collapse upon itself.

But she wasn’t here to fill her stomach, was she?

Pulling open the doors into the tavern, she was greeted with the chatter of adventurers and day labourers, the aroma of cooked food and spilled beer. Conversations of the weather, of the increasing price of delving gear, of a crazed wraith leaving a veritable trail of monster corpses in her wake within the Abyss last night, of someone kicking up the hornet’s nest that was a syndicate, could all be heard through the open, multi-floor space. Fresh-faced adventurers were most liable to talk about themselves, hyping up each other for another day of risking their blood and bones for a pittance, while more experienced delvers sat at tables on the higher floors, watching the happenings with a mixture of nostalgia and superiority.

The Harrison’s Fjord was perhaps at only half-capacity, and the morning crowd, while talkative, hadn’t yet devolved into raucous merriment. But they didn’t have much reason either to heed a single elf walking in, did they?

It was up to Meisa to grab attention, to find trustyworthy and capable sorts.

Or perhaps it was enough just to get impressionable, young cannon fodder, who’d be easily roused to action by stories of injustice and the potential for heroism?
[sub][@Click This][/sub]
[hr][b]//A3 - The Plaza at Morning[/b]
A poisonous mercy and an infuriating retreat.

The bond between Blood and Void only festered further, but the boils had not yet popped. The first time, Elys had not been able to commit to murder in plain daylight. The second time, Theodore had sought to leverage the mercy he had shown for future gain and had been nakedly refused.

Where would the third encounter land?

Neither Ichor-Blessed knew, but both sought to enrich themselves, knowing that any further weakness could not be afforded.

…

[b]“You want this repaired?”[/b]

The portly man examined the blade before him as his apprentices hammered away at horseshoes or raked the coals of the furnace. It was a sorry thing, an old, battered thing. The wrapping was frayed, the edge was chipped in far too many places, the point was blunt, and the blade itself was bent out of shape. That, combined with how [i]cheaply-made[/i] the weapon was to begin with, made it clear to any blacksmith with half a mind that the money spent in getting it back to usable shape could’ve just gone to a new sword instead.

But there was something off about the woman before him, stinking of blood and death with a blindfold over her eyes yet a precise understanding of the space around her. He raised the sword up to his eye, looking at what material remained to even work with and frowned further. It had been repaired plenty of times before, an edge coaxed or ground out while more and more material was lost in the process. And every time that happened, it became a touch more fragile in the process.

[b]“Listen, I could take your money and fix it up, but you’re an adventurer, aren’t you? Better to get a new one. Way things go, this one will just keep getting battered up faster and faster until it snaps when you least need it to.”[/b] She was a sorry sight, really. Looked like she could hardly stand straight. It made him give an offer knowing fully well he’d be getting nothing out of this. [b]“Sell this one to me and I can knock off some of the cost of a new sword for what scrap metal I can get out of this.”[/b]

...

Food, water, blade oils, rope, tonics, blankets, firestarters, tents, leather packs, boots, monster-warding incense, hammers and pitons, knives and axes, there was [i]much[/i] that Theodore had to purchase and consider, even without thinking about proper armor and weapons. Plate armor or a sturdy shield could protect him from blade and bite, but the immobility may mean that greater beasts would just crush him flat. Magical implements, especially when one of his followers had been a witch, could offer a source of self-sustained sorcery, but that'd mean he had to procure materials and reagents too. Bows and arrows could protect him from those flying monsters that he thankfully hadn't had to handle before, but every arrow that snapped was value that was lost.

On the other hand though, what of spice bombs or alchemists' fire? Powerful enough to deter monsters when he was in a pinch, and especially useful when he could safely presume that the monsters would be dogging him and his flock in great numbers? Would caltrops or weighted nets accomplish the same? Yesterday had been profitable, and today could be even more profitable if he played his cards right. He hadn't encountered any other Ichor-Blessed within the Abyss as well, and the only other one he knew was utterly alone, a pathetic, deranged lunatic blinded by the dream of divinity...but that didn't mean he could afford to take it easy either.

The Abyss called him to its depths, and [i]she[/i] certainly possessed the madness and martial capability that would allow her to plunge into such depths faster than he, even disregarding her fledgling Ichor.

The coins in his pockets felt at once heavy and light as the Ichor-Blessed of Blood strode through the plaza and examined the wares. He could not afford to fail, to falter, to make a bad choice and squander the advantages he currently had.
[sub][@SilverPaw][@Estylwen][/sub]
[hr][b]//O11 - Communal Well[/b]
The adventurers that were present hadn’t really made a mark on the Abyss themselves, but any kind of attention was positive attention for the starved and the incapable. And naturally, the most willing conversationalist that Talia snagged was that bare-chested orc who had taken it onto himself to do all the water-hauling for the neighbourhood, at least so long as his party mates were still trying to make themselves look presentable when they headed to the Adventurer’s District later that morning. He had introduced himself as Rajat Ol’dakka, and answered Talia’s questions to the best of his limited capabilities.

From him, as well as the occasional shouted remark from others nearby, the Queen of Pirate/Thieves could roughly estimate that the First Layer would be safe enough for her men to venture into, so long as they were armed with proper weapons and equipment. That, however, was the catch: weapons and equipment cost money, and maintaining both when one could only venture into the First Layer was almost completely unfeasible. The Second Layer was far more dangerous, however, in that even experienced adventurers could encounter a bad roll of the dice and find themselves in dire straits. Rajat’s own group, indeed, only ventured into the Abyss every other day, forced to make ends meet by taking on odd jobs during their days off as they slowly gathered experience.

He was confident though! Next month, they were going to finally give the Second Layer a shot, and if things went well, they could finally become full time adventurers! Maybe even move out to a small apartment in the Adventurer’s District!

The prostitutes that Talia accosted were fine with shooting the breeze with a new face too, so long as she helped out with their laundry. Though none of them looked as fresh and bountiful as Talia did, they still held the mannerism of those whose work involved seduction and invoking arousal, and as a result, there was a [i]lot[/i] that they could say. A lot of it, however, ended up flying over her head. An arrow volley of names and predilections scattered out with no particular rhyme and reason, while there were plenty of good and bad stories to be said about the madams of the three brothels that the prostitutes came from. Still, some factoids and rumors stuck out to her.

Trouble stirred up with the Outer Layer merchants on the other end of the city, something about some precocious girl picking a fight with the gangsters that ran that part of the city. Then there were rumors that the recent deaths in the northern portion of Oratorio were being covered up, perhaps because the perpetrator was some sadistic bastard from the Royal Road. Some hoped that the Bladerights would do something about it, but others shot those hopes down as it wasn’t their territory, so they all ended up just hoping it wouldn’t spread. What was spreading, though, was the prevalence of spicethicket through the homeless of the Outer Layer. No one was quite sure who was manufacturing it, and ordinarily no one would care too much what the impoverished used to take the edge off of their pain, but in this case, the need for the drug had caused an uptick in violence, in the poor metaphorically eating the poor in order to scrounge up the coinage for the next hit.

Though, being the Outer Layer, an uptick in violence didn’t mean too much, so the majority of those that Talia listened to ultimately decided that this too would pass.

That, indeed, seemed like a prevailing attitude towards what happened in Oratorio.

Whether the Ichor-Blessed of Thievery could find any opportunity within what she heard, though, was dependent only on how creative she could get.
[sub][@OwO][/sub]