Jan was walking around the harbour, looking for someone who needed more sailors but it seemed all under-crewed ships he found had people speaking foreign tongues; Bretonnian, or even from Araby. Dismayed, he went to the blacksmith with whom he often had a chat who could always us a strong young lad for help and thus got some pay after banging a few breastplates straight. It was enough at least, keep afloat.

After a while he went along aimlessly until he saw a paper on a lamp posting. He was not illiterate but he nevertheless wanted to ask around if anyone knew this Captain Florian. A large Bretonnian overheard him asking locals, and apparently knowing of him marched over to say that yes indeed, Florian was a good Captain; he had just bought a load of Bretonnian Cognac off of him and naturally had a good view.

Once he reached it, he sat down and ordered a small serving of ale, not being fond of alcohol and looked around. It was really hard to distinguish a Captain from other peoples. It surely wasn't written on their foreheads, and he doubted there was much to the idea that they all wore big wide hats with a plume in them. Thus, he settled for standing up, filling up his big lungs and simply asking out loud "Who here is Captain Florian?"

@Andreyich

Hilde moved quickly through the cluttered street of Marienburg. Although the sun blazed overhead, the streets were still wreathed in a thin layer of smoke. All around her came the smells of cooking meat, pork, beef and other less wholesome game, roasting over street vendors charcoal stoves. The smell was almost maddening complex, mingled as it was with spices, perfumes, unwashed bodies and the ever present stench of sea water and rotting fish.

Merchants of every stripe cried their wares. Candied fruit from Araby, Dwarven clockwork, Carlosburg sausage and other things that defied easy description in Hilde’s mind. She didn’t find it difficult to resist their entreaties, not because she was particularly strong willed, or because she was driven to her goal, it was easy because she was flat broke.

It had been a lean year for Hilde. She had been with a group of mercenary pistoleers in Averland, but they had come out on the wrong side during a local border skirmish down there and too many of them had been killed or wounded to carry on. Going their separate ways had proved expensive as caring for a horse between contracts was nearly ruinous. She had drifted steadily west into Riekland and the safer trade routes there where she had finally sold her damned horse. From there, all roads logically lead to Marienburg.

The tavern she was searching for was in a state of tidy disrepair. She compared the flier looking for crew to the almost unreadable sign bearing the taverns name. She hefted the pack, containing her few possessions and adjusted her weapons belt, trying to settle the brace of pistols and the sword comfortably across her hip. Working as a sailor wasn’t appealing, but she had put her time in on river boats to make ends meet. It was probably too much to hope they had positions for marines.

The inside of the tavern was warm and smoky. There was fresh straw on the ground which did alot to smother the stench of stale beer and old vomit. She was just about to start asking after Captain Florian, when a big man stood and called out for the Captain, apparently a fellow potential crew mate. Hilde started to move towards him and as she did so realised there was something familiar about him.

“Jan?” she asked, narrowing her eyes to better regard his face, “Jan Wiesen?” She dimly remembered him in an Imperial Marine uniform on one of the long ale fueled nights in Altdorf a few years ago. He and his buddies had been sucked into a brawl between mercenaries in the dock district, it had been a little hairy for a while there.

@Penny



There was various movement around the place, and a man even stood up but there was no reply, or indication of who the Captain he was looking for was, and just a little more commotion happened as someone mentioned his name. Jan's head turned in various directions as his mind quickly calculated where the sound calling for him was coming from. The lad squinted at the newcomer willing some familiarity to suddenly be notice. After a while he gave up and shrugged but then placed a palm to his forehead as clarity came. "Oh! What's the name, sorry it's err... Hilda, no wait, Hilde! Bloody 'ell, it's been...." he started before looking to the ceiling trying to recall when he had last seen the face, and lamely settled for "a while. So, how's it been? What're you doing around here?"

After a moment in which he decided to sit down at a stool of and nod to another patron that just sat down there, he looked up once more. "I've been looking for work. Can't really get anything besides the old stuff, so I get by helping out the smiths until something more permanent comes up." Jan scratched the ginger hair behind his right ear and looked down, speaking more to himself than the old memory that walked through the door. "Tell you what, city life's not quite what I thought of it. Sleeping in damn stables, spending my days sucking up to foreigners swilling vodka or wine, or having to bloody well bend over to even get a chance to carry some barrels for a few coins."

Wiping away a drop of moisture that was indeterminably a tear or bead of sweat, Jan looked up much happier. "But this Captain sounds like a decent one, maybe I'll get something out of him. Anyway I've been babbling a lot, didn't even give you a chance to answer when I asked you how you are."

Hilde quirked a smile as she slid into one of the chairs trying as she did to determine which statement to address first. The scabbard of her sword bumped against the table leg and she adjusted the weapons belt with an irritable grunt. An almost ludicrously well endowed barmaid glided to the table and arched a questioning eyebrow. Not having the funds Hilde waved her hand in dismissal, eliciting a sour look from the barmaid. Hilde noticed she had a dusting of freckles across her nose and idly wondered if the woman was a local.

"I think it was two years ago back in Altdorf," she chuckled in memory, "I thought you were dead for sure when that Kislivite hit you with that chair." It was difficult to remember exactly how the brawl had started, not least of which because they had all been drinking that vodka they drank up in the north country.

"As for what I'm doing here, same as you I expect," she went on, producing the cheaply printed recruiting flyer from a pouch and laying it on the table. The ink was already slightly indistinct where it ran into the too porous paper. A she spoke a bear of a man with a filthy beard and the thick accent of Middenheim staggered up to the table.

"Can a big strong man by you a drink missy?" the man asked in slurred tone, posing ridiculously. Clearly he was showing off for his friends, he reeked of stale sweat and ale.

"Sure, if you know where I can find one," Hilde responded in an acid tone. A table across the hall erupted in laughter at the jab and the drunken man's eyes turned hateful, his face flushing with embarrassment.

"Bitch!" he sneered, but turned away, spitting on the floor as he did so. Hilde brought the hand that she had surreptitiously moved down to her weapons belt back onto the table. Maybe that hadn't been smart, she was thirsty and she really didn't need trouble. Life as a small female mercenary gave one a kick for the groin first and ask questions never attitude.

"There isn't a whole lot of work here for someone like me, I'm not really built like stevedore and lets face it," she made a generalized gesture to her physique.

"I'm not exactly built like a bully buck," she explained. In truth she had briefly considered going into business as a back street healer, but she would have needed money to get set up, and even in Marienburg that could attract too much Sigmarite attention.

@Penny
A smile came across Jan's face as some more memories were recalled, and he looked down the bottom of his mug. They were... in a way simpler, and happier days. "Aye, I remember." He said, slapping a fly that went on the counter; it was flattened right into the woodwork.

"Being a big lad helps, yes." he admitted, but then continued on. "Of course, they then assume you're also daft so you don't do nothing more than lighting a few boxes. They're probably right, seeing where I got myself to."

Laughter, earnest and delighted escaped Jan as the man accosting his friend got a kick. Still giggling he asked the bartender to fill up his mug once more and then of course he stopped to drink. Putting the mug down, he wiped off a little foam and then spoke again. "Well, I see not a thing has changed about you! Still the 'spicy personality' that we... err, others joked about." Looking up happily Jan would continue to recollect "old times," until a man approached them, putting his repeater pistol with it's bayonet on the counter and lighting up a filthy roll up.



Jan stood up, and started to say something to get peace for a short time but he too got a fist to the face. He got back up, shaking himself off. His nose wasn't broken attesting to the sheer toughness of the lad. But now of course what was to be a beatdown would be a tavern brawl. It seemed the man who approached Jan saying he was the Captain through a bottle in the face of one of the men who recoiled to smash a table behind him - the people at it were not too happy and gave the still-conscious man a kick or two, making the fight spread like wildfire....

Hilde had been about to open her mouth to agree to the Captain's request, at least once she established that food was included, when the brawl broke out. Alot of things were suddenly moving very rapidly, the volume in the bar rising like a great tidal wave. With a distinctly feminine squeak of panic she rolled under the table, a moment before one of the Middenheimer's companions bought a chair down where she had been sitting, smashing both to kindling with the enthusiasm of the blow.

There were different types of bar room brawls, in Hilde's unforuntunately extensive experience. There were those that were just a release of energy, as much enjoyment as altercation and then deadly conflicts fought between men intent on killing. Fortunately this seemed to be the former kind, at least for now. Judging that she was on Florian's side, by virtue of her nearly agreed to employment, Hilde aimed a vicious kick at the ankle of a passing attacker. The man went down with a curse as she swept his legs out from under him.

Bracing herself, she kicked off with her legs, using all her muscle and the leverage of her back to pitch the table into a trio of oncoming men. Another man caught her with a glancing blow and she staggered back towards Jan and Florian. Hilde wasn't big by the standards of the usual combatants in these affairs and her survival strategy was a simple once. Hide behind the biggest toughest son of a bitch she could find and kick anyone that came close enough.

Behind the bar the bartender drew forth a short barreled blunderbuss and pointed it uncertainly at the crowd of brawling men. Hilde couldn't imagine what he intended to do with the big coach gun. Maybe just to dissuade people from coming across the bar to loot his liquor. It was good that he had that restraint. Emptying a bunch of nails and glass in here wouldn't break up the brawl, but it would make it a hell of a lot deadlier as everyone went for steel rather than fists.

"Captain Florian!" Hilde shouted across the chaos, struggling to make herself heard over the chaos, even though he was only a few feet away. A thrown flagon struck her in the chest, coating her in ale and driving the wind out of her.

"If you throw in rations you have a deal!" she wheezed.

Jan himself meanwhile, was getting quite the ass-kicking from a man about his height but less bulky. However it came as quite a surprise to the Ostlander to find out that the opponent more than compensated in viciousness and had already smashed a bottle on his head, then sticking it right into a calf causing a yelp from the orange haired lad. However, this sadism opened the man's head for a head-butt which Jan also realized was not a good idea upon recoiling and seeing the mirthless grin of the enemy. However, the lad grinned when he bumped into a candelabra which he quickly grabbed and went on to hit the other man. He tried to block which another bottle but the decoration went right through it breaking his wrist, and sending glass into it. Capitalizing on his luck Jan finally went with an uppercut sending the man tumbling over. Dropping the thing with the satisfied if torn smile of someone that just had a job well done, he went over to Florian.

"Wot?" he said, yelping again as a horn hit him in a shoulder. Massaging the injured limb he tried to remember where the conversation had left off and what he had overheard and then went on from that spot. "So err, if we got rations, then that's sorted out?" he asked, and then seeing the approval continued. "Well, then let's bloody well get to the ship and away from all this!" he said, dashing for the door and motioning for the other two to follow.

Hilde limped along beside Jan. One of the Middenheimer's had managed to land a kick to her kidney and it hurt like hell. There was a little satisfaction to be gained by the fact that her knee to his groin had turned him a very pleasant shade of white before it collapsed him to the floor. Her companions seemed to have picked up a collection of cuts and bruises but no one was showing any signs of permanent damage.

The smell would be a problem if there wasn't some rain or a chance to bathe soon. Hilde had an unhealthy enthusiasm for bathing but the ale that had been sloshed over her clothing and hair would go rancid fast, and that wouldn't make getting along with the crew any easier. Speaking of the crew, by Shallya' bleeding tits they were a unsavory bunch. Men from all provinces of the Empire and beyond, were gathering on the ship. Here and there she saw the dark skin of Araby, even a few with more alien features that people claimed were from far of Cathay. Hilde didn't know that she believed that. Every man was armed and some were still wounded, bruises and cuts mostly bandaged.

"Looks like they wen't a round with pack of squig's" Hilde muttered to Jan as they headed up the gang plank. There weren't many of them, for all their diversity. Hilde wasn't an experience sailor but they seemed few enough to handle the big vessel. The crew watched the new comers with experession's ranging from good humor to contempt. One particular man, wearing the waxed moustache of Reikland gave her a long speculative glance, to which she returned a neutral smile.

Footsteps sounded on the deck and Hilde glanced over her shoulder to see a flustered looking halfling rushing up behind them with a nervous glance over his shoulder. The little creature wore a simple leather coat, along with an improbably large pack, festooned with cooking pots, and strings of cured sausage. A dozen knives and a rolling pin hung from his belt, the belt itself distressed over the halflings portly belly. He was still looking over his shoulder when he ran into Hilde. Forwarned, she avoided pitching into the stinking water of the harbor. The halfling might have gone into the drink himself if she hadn't seized him by the belt and yanked him back onto balance.

"Easy friend, no day for a swim," Hilde said, a slight chill coloring her tone. The halfling bobbed his head frenetically.

"Sorry sorry, just ah... eager to get on board, I'm Welf, the cook," he said in a rapid panicky voice, casting an eye back to the crowded docks. Hilde wasted no time stepping off the plank and onto the rough wooden deck.

"You seem a little..." Hilde began before she was interupted by Florian's booming voice.

"Ahoy you lazy curs, we got cargo! A hundred kegs of saltpeter headed for Nuln! Rig up a sling and get loading!"