The largest and most successful Inn and Tavern in Kingsport is the "Elder Beerman", named for the establishment's old owner. Recent events on the Golden Coast have become the topic of discussion among many of the patrons and perhaps have served to make a few new friends.

Maury is in his element, not to mention his local, sitting at his favourite table, drinking milk and eating the hottest meal possible.  It's hard to say whether it's a chilli or a curry or some other dish entirely.  Few disturb him while he's eating because he's eating with a knife and fork and he nce took a man's eye out with a pair of chopsticks.  "Delicious", he says to nobody.  "Mes compliments au chef."

 A humanoid woman with pale skin and dressed in dark robes and a wide-brimmed hat storms into the tavern grumbling to herself, or at least it seems.

"That blasted curse is going to hold back my plans by months, maybe years! And to topit all all, there's mud on my boots!"

 She waited for a few seconds and looked down at her shoes before speaking up again.

"Ahem! There's MUD on my boots!"

 Moments later, the boots seem to clean themselves and the mud appears to fly off her boots and right outside as if carried by an unseen hand.

 "About time, you invisible fool!"

 The strange woman then finds a table to settle at for now, avoiding any large crowds.

Behind the bar, a tiefling was laughing with the patrons, and passing out drinks. The drinks weren't the ones ordered, one was fizzling, one was smoking, but the tiefling didn't seem to care. She kept passing drinks around, until the bar tender ushered her out. She grabbed a bottle on her way and staggered a little as she crossed the room, bumping into the table. "Hey! wash wer yer goin'," she said to the table through liqueur numbed lips, and plopped down on a convenient chair.

Who's sitting at the table? Who's sitting in the chair even? I leave it up to you.

Maury sees where Brewzilla is coming from and puts down his knife and fork lest he get chili on her clothing.  He catches her as she sits down on his lap and says, "Hello.  Do you always sit down on complete strangers, dear?"

*SNAP* and a round of cheers go up as a copper piece sails across the room and lands somewhere on the floor "That's ten from you! Ten from you!" A human of medium height and somewhat stout build starts collecting wagers from some of the on lookers.

One of the serving maids yells at him "Oi! I thought we told you to put that away or go outside!"

"You liked it well enough last night, eh Darla!" He shouts back at her and laughs but he starts coiling his worn leather whip back up. "Tell ya what lads when I'm don spending your money we can go to the stables and you can buy me a drink for every copper I can hit in a row!" another round of cheers go up despite the apparent wager not making much sense.

The man, Leto, grabs his worn traveling hat off the table and heads up to the bar to buy a round. "Wait! Where did the horney bartender go!" he shouts apparently looking for the drink happy tiefling.

 At the end of the table with the others sits a small figure wearing a bird mask. Was this little halfling always there and somehow went unnoticed? He watched the goings on from the far end of the table, occasionally "preening" himself with the beak of the bird mask. Does he think he is a bird?

"Koo Koo loo..."

"Oh! Hello!" the voice coming from her chair brought her out of her reverie. "Not always complete strangers. Sometimes friends, sometimes cashual acquain'ances. Are you eating curried chili? You can't do that with someone on your lap!" she heaved herself up and plopped into another chair, this time checking to be sure it was empty first. "I'm Brewzy! Niceta meecha!"

"Well I'm pleased to meet you Brewzilla, I'm Maury," said Maury.  "I'm a poet by profession and I have lovely handwriting and I make books, which is all nice.  It means I can do the whole publishing schtick."

"Book? Books made from trees! I like trees! Koo koo!"

 The small bird-masked halfling spoke up, before settling back down in his chair like a little bird in a nest.

"So much noise and is any of it useful?"

 Nefaria observes this conversation at the rest of the table that seemed to fill up quicker than expected. Part of her wonders if she could use any of these fools for her own ends.

The witch looked up from her own bottle of wine at the commotion going on around her.  Her vibrant red hair clung to her as if she just got out of the ocean as it always did.

She laughed as Nefaria's point.


"Rarely ever is noise in a bar itself useful."

She took another sip of her wine.

"But sometimes its just fun."

As she spoke Feyis turtle poked its head out from her pack.

 Notices the turtle and looks at it with a big smile hidden under his bird mask headdress thing.

"Oh, who's this little friend? Koo?"

She said to Maury, "A poet and a publisher? nice!"

She raised her bottle and said, "Woohoo!" in agreement with Feyis, then took a drink.

Maury smiles at Brewzilla and then reassures Kookaburra.  "Sometimes books are made from trees but they can also be made from cows or pigs or stone or spiders' webs."

"I prefer the forms of writing that involves something dying..."

 Nefaria spoke up on the discussion, but seemed distracted with a scroll in her possession.

 "Speaking of dying, I wish I could rip the tongues out of those damned wizards and cram them somewhere unpleasant."

Leto gets his drink and overhears the party as he walks past "WRITING! This is a tavern not a library! DRINKING! is what we do here!"

"I'm not writing in here", said Maury reassuringly.  "I'm placing Brewzilla on a chair so that I can continue eating Greek Fire."

She watched Brewzilla raise her bottle and cheer at Feyis statement.  So Feyis did the same in kind, finishing off the bottle.

"Another Bottle barkeep!"

She yelled as she slammed the now empty bottle on the Bar.

Kookaburra's words registered to her and the witch turned to the Halfling and answered.

"There is not so much a name, truth be told no one ever seems very interested in my familiar aside from myself.  But that is what they are; through them I commune with the powers of the Sea itself and through that gain my magic."

A maniacal twinkle lit up her face as she spoke.

"But you ARE a witch, are you not? Surely, the recent forced taxation on arcane magic has effected you."

 Nefaria could not seek her revenge on her own. She would need... help. This table's worth of fools may prove useful, if She could successfully recruit them that is.

"I propose we do something about it rather than just sit around and take it like passive Sheep. What do you think, Sister?"

Maury grinned.  "Oh my.  Well I'm not a magic user of any kind unless they started taxing sleight of hand in which case they could lollipop."  With that, said confectionary appears in his hand.

"That said," he continued through a mouthful of lollipop, "I have no desire to kill them, merely steal everything they have right down to the very thoughts in their heads."

"That's fine with me. I can do all of the killing and imagine the tremendous fortune they've already accrued from every arcane spellcaster worldwide! I could use someone with your talents and I can get you the opportunity to take everything they have and more."

 Maury seemed easy enough tow in over, at least at first glance. Quite mercenary this Roguish character seems, which works well for Nefaria.

 "I like turtles..."

 Kookaburra Smiled at the turtle a bit, but soon paid attention to the latest conversation.

 "...But I don't like how this is making everyone unhappy. Killing everything doesn't sound like fun to me, but stopping those nasty wizards from hurting people? I could get behind that."

Having fallen deep into his cups at this point Leto is waxing political "Taxation is base theft! Big government is the real problem! First it's the magic, next it will be swords, soon you won't be able to lift a mug of ale for fear you'll use it as a club!" He says to the halfling women at the next table over.

"I just wanna make my home brew in peace, and I can't do that with the wizards butting in." Brewzilla punctuated her statement by taking another swig off her bottle.

"Well that's perfect then! The strange bird man can join in to help make everyone happy again. You, Tiefling lady, can help us help your business. Then you big man can help stem the tide. We can rise up against this oppression, but we are three delicate ladies and a Halfling. We could use a big strong wall of angry meat, what do you say?"

 Nefaria is trying to lay on the charm, but She might not have all that much to start with. Still it seems like this is going pretty well s far.

Leto draws his whip and snaps it in the air "FOR FREEDOM!"

"I SAID PUT THAT AWAY" yelled the serving woman back at him.

"I may need to lie down first." his shoulders sag visibly under the weight of his shiny new armor.

Feyis lit up.

"Aye I am, and Aye these blasted wizards must be dealt with and harshly!"

She stood up at the same time Let started snapping his whip.

"He's got the right idea here.  Someone need to do something and we should do it!"

"Sounds great... Now what?"

 Kook doesn't have the best grasp of reality, but he still isn't sure what the group should do next.

Brewzilla echoed Leto's shout, "FREEDOM!" and took another drink.

Maury has an excellent grasp on reality and yet he said, "I'd have to agree with the bird.  What do we do next?"

"FREEDOM!" Leto shouts in reply as if the Rogue hadn't heard him and his companion the first two times.

"Going immediately will likely just get us killed. Perhaps we can find things to do on the way to prepare ourselves with better equipment and honing our skills. Maybe there are tasks to do around town or nearby?"

 Nefaria would absolutely love to seek revenge right now, but She is not an idiot.

 In part of the Tavern, on the wall, rests a bulletin board. Announcements and "help wanted" job requests are posted there and are available to view.

Maury peruses the bulletin board carefully, seeking some task that makes use of his skills.

The Sea Witch listened as the others chimed in.  Nefaria made an excellent point.

"Nefaria I like the way you think."

Feyis stood up and followed Maury to the board perusing it.

"I could go for dealin with some Goblins, anyone else?"

After a while, Maury says,"I love a good mystery and it rather seems to me it's been a while since scarecrows so dominated hedgerows. Let's look into that shall we?"

"I can get behind any of the jobs that could involve murder, but I have to admit pulling a heist on a magical vault also sounds fun, enticing, and profitable."

 Nefaria is pretty much fine with any of the jobs and thinks they each would benefit their plans.

  "I wanna play with the Scarecrows!"

 Kook seemed really excited and clapped a little. The bird masked little man was almost childish in his delight.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:32, Wed 01 Mar 2023.

Maury read further down the board and his eyes lit up like Kookaburra's... "There's a vault full of knowledge?  There for the taking?"  But he sighed and the light went out.  "I suppose I'd better learn to pick locks first.  After the scarecrows maybe." 

Brewzilla got up and sauntered over to the quest board, "You can burn a church, you can burn a scarecrow, you can always burn a witch," she chuckled at that. "You probably don't want me to burn the vault, and goblins just get into it when you try to burn them," she turned back to the others, "that bit's creepy."

Feyis laughed after everyone spoke.

"So its settled.   We all want to do different things!"

She thought this idea was absolutely hilarious and chuckled again.

"Though I think I heard more votes for scarecrows.   I am down for seeing what scares the bags of hay are getting up to."

At this point the drinks have caught up to Leto and he is sitting, resting his head on his arms on the table. "freedom... Goblins... Always know where you stand with goblins..." He mutters to himself.

"I'm up for whatever," Brewzilla said then went back to her seat, and popped down.