[center][h2]Skarsat[/h2][sub]The Faded Lantern[/sub][/center]

Oh, look! Lord Vargas could talk! So who was a simple Tork to bargain with such a noble man ? From Skarsat's point of view he had already achieved his goal and that had been to make that man not only open his mouth, but to actually produce something humble and reasonable with it: an apology! Five hundred gold sounded like a lot, but also really just that: It [i]sounded[/i] like a lot. He did not really [i]know[/i] whether this amount was adequate for the job at hand or not. However, so much one might ask in order to be fair, did Lord Vargas himself know what the job really was ?

Yeah. Thanks to Nora he had already picked up that it was about some kind of recently discovered ancient grave they should relieve of its riches, but that was not the point. The point was the bunch of people in here: The burly man looked like a sailor and gave a rather honest first impression, but all the girls in here ? Something back in his head told Skarsat that it could only be matter of days until the party would start suffering from... internal disintegration ? With that possibility in mind one could interpret the job description of 'make sure that this lot makes it back to make' in a much different way. Maybe this all was not about defending against overly enthusiastic competitors, but about giving the people here a whipping if necessary ?

It left Skarsat wondering why Vargas would put together such a difficult bunch of people in the first place though. Was one of the major leaders in this damn port running out of men ? An interesting thought, but again Skarsat found himself in desperate lack of real knowledge. He'd stick to Nora. If the woman had shown her true nature downstairs just before than they likely could work with each other. Anything else would be highly problematic anyway...

[color=darkgreen]"I have nothing to add."[/color] Skarsat responded to Y'Vanna's question. Then, after having glanced over towards Nora briefly, he thought twice: [color=darkgreen]"Oh wait! I ask for a hammock!"[/color]

He had sat on the chairs in the main hall, he had already looked at the kind of seat they had offered him here and with departure having been announced for eight in the morning it dawned upon Skarsat that the bed in his room might turn out to be the third item in a row of utter inadequacies. A hammock was much less prone to size problems and, if oriented properly with regard to the boat's course and the current winds, could also compensate for the swell and save him from being tossed out of bed again and again. No need to make a laugh out of oneself is a simple request could prevent this!

Hopefully Nora would not turn out to be an ex-member of some highly official army or whatever those Easteners tended to have around here in their kingdoms. Just by looking at their armors, one perfectly matching the other, one could already guess that being a soldier there involved a lot of highly valued 'standards' being rammed up one's butt. 'Standards' was something many travellers found an appalling lack of within Torkanian territory so he himself would not like any dictate about how exactly to do things, arrange things, eat things or whatever else could come to one's mind!

Neh'miah made an important point though: They'd all have to make sure they had proper equipment. If Lord Vargas had just allowed for all of them to go out over night this would not have been that much of a problem in a sprawling place like this, but now ? Could Percy really be trusted to do important business ? Neh'miah certainly believed so -- or he had just given up already.

[color=darkgreen]"Erm, Lord Vargas ? What if I need more arrows before we leave ? Percival probably doesn't know what kind of stuff I'm exactly looking for. Eight in the morning is a little early for buying things before departure, isn't it ?"[/color]