[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][table][row][/row][row][cell] [h2][color=FF6C5C][i][b]Marita Bärbel[/b][/i][/color][/h2][i][b][color=FF6C5C]Human, Cleric, Level 3[/color][/b][/i] [color=FF6C5C][i][b]HP:[/b][/i][/color] 18/18 [color=FF6C5C][i][b]Armor Class:[/b][/i][/color] 16 [color=FF6C5C][i][b]Conditions:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=FF6C5C][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] Avonshire Township [color=FF6C5C][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [color=FF6C5C][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] Drinking [color=FF6C5C][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A [/cell][/row][/table][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] Marita's head felt like it was about to burst. There were so many things that needed doing at the exact same time that if she were a less disciplined woman she would scream. Although she had in actuality been doing the job about as well as could be expected of someone starting it up for the first time during peak season, from her perspective it was as if she had stepped into the center of a tornado and had to untangle the winds from each other by shouting at them. Which made the miracle of all the customers being temporarily sated all the more astounding. Marita looked around the public house, double checking to see if anyone required servicing before she noticed Lea and her silent invitation for food in the kitchen. She made eye contact and nodded, hurrying off into the kitchen without a word, as if letting her voice out would alert the customers at the fact that the staff were not currently swarmed with work and needed more to do. Once in the relative safety of the kitchen Marita let out a sigh and began to eat as quickly as one could while retaining a dignified appearance. It was only a matter of time until they were needed again, and chances were there wouldn't be another chance to eat until after the public house closed. Lea sat on a stool and had another one free for her newfound coworker, but the cleric's arse still being covered in ale kept her from taking that offer. The stew was not to her taste, mutton was rather low class after all, but it would have been more surprising had it been. And regardless of personal preferences, this was the first meal she had since breakfast, and her third meal in two days so she wasn't in the state of mind to be overly picky anyways. When Marita had finished most of her stew she felt confident enough to start a conversation even if they suddenly needed to get back to work. [color=FF6C5C]"You've been having to deal with [i]that[/i] by yourself this whole time?"[/color] [color=darkgray]"It's not been as bad as tonight, but yes,"[/color] Lea replied pouting. She stopped eating to shoot a glance towards the kitchen doors. [color=FF6C5C]"And Bob hasn't done anything to get some more help? I know I'm here now, but I went up to him and volunteered."[/color] Lea scoffed. [color=darkgray]"It's partly his fault why we're in this situation in the first place."[/color] [color=FF6C5C]"What do you mean?"[/color] [color=darkgray]"Up until about a week ago we had another girl working here, Audrey. W[i]ell,[/i] some nights before that started acting really paranoid. She would keep looking at doors and windows like she was being watched, and eventually Bob had a word with her. He said she was making the regulars anxious and that she was just being silly. They argued for a bit, but I guess in the end she did decide she was being silly. I said goodbye after a long shift and when I came back the next day she was missing. I haven't seen her since."[/color] [color=FF6C5C]"No."[/color] This entire situation offended Marita for a myriad of reasons, but the worst one was when an employee of his suddenly became worried about her well being, instead of at least trying to see if there was any merit to it Bob's first move was to make her stop acting like it. If the story behind every missing person ended up being just as avoidable, she had a feeling that she would end up snapping sooner rather than later. [color=darkgray]"Uh huh, so now we're stuck in this mess. Before you showed up I wasn't sure how we were going to make it through this mess."[/color] Daisy, the Halfling cook back in the back room, nodded in agreement with Lea, and silently offered Marita another helping of fresh bread and a glass of wine cut with juice. She pulled up a seat and joined the two on their break. Marita turned down the bread but accepted the drink. She took a sip silently wishing it was the Zinnoberrot instead. This was going to be a long night.