RP:Loose Lips

Part of the A Line Drawn in the Sand Arc

The Whalers' Bar, Cenril

Assuredly The Whaler's Bar is a scarred, beat up bar, but to hear the locals tell it there is no better place for a drink after a long day in all the port cities in the land.

As far as places for a human-shaped kraken to lurk in the hope of gathering information, this bar is not the worst.. for who among this jumble of drunken sailors would find the scent of fresh brine an oddity, and who would peer too closely at the apparently poverty-ridden minstrel ensconced in a chair in a corner, providing background music that was barely to he heard above the guffaws and grumblings and abundant boasts of oceanic feats? Mcracken’s mandolin gave him all the reason he needed to sit on that chair, day after day… Just a poor rummy, playing for a coin with which he may purchase said rum, or a scant meal if he played well enough. The music itself was a disguise, too, in that there were subtle undertones and nuances to the tunes he played, siren-like spells of sound that coaxed men to spill their hearts even as they spilled their ale, to talk of secrets and shameful things, which had actually resulted in an ‘inexplicable’ string of bar-fights, so many that it seemed unsual, even in this rough sailor’s pub, and which had by and large been accredited to tensions running high in the city’s general air of turmoil. So that was why the gangly-framed, rag-clad hobo was never bothered by a soul who was not hassling him to play yet another shanty, or some soulful melody about the treacherous passions of the sea.

"I swear it was her -she went down to the beach and just waded right into the water, I saw it with my own eyes!" It wasn't particularly a loud exclamation, given by one burly and redheaded man to his more stout, less hairy companion -the latter with a distinct patch on the top of his head in evidence of his middle-aged balding. They looked more like farmers than hired hands despite that one of them had a sword visibly sheathed at his hip. Odds were in favor that he had never used the blade against more than a wooden stump in make-believe duels. "Just 'cause it's a drow, don't mean it's the one we're looking for," said the balding man to his redheaded compatriot, with his hand around the handle of a tankard that was halfway drained, "It's a big bounty, we have to be sure."

Mcracken had eavesdropped on many conversations, overheard untold dozens of tales, a plethora of secrets and confessions, but in only a few had the words and phrases stood out, like tripwires alerting him to something that could prove useful. He’d learned of Desparrow and the troubles the lycan had wrought, whispered tales of a far more terrible being that lately had haunted the city in guise.. The blather of these two yokels now tripped two different wires; first, the mention of a woman walking out to sea, and second, that said woman was.. a drow. Mac recalled the female of that race he’d met, as it were, in the local theatre, for she was the only dark-elf he’d seen (to his knowledge) since he rose from his abyss to wander the dry world. There’d been desperately quiet whispers of other drow glimpsed, in a city where they do not usually go.. Mac wondered whether they were all simply conflated tales of the one and same drowish female or.. not. The kraken started humming along to the tune he played, his voice wending through the melody like a sensual serpent of sound, entreating these men to whine and gossip and brag…. Whichever, just so long as they kept talking.

The two men didn't even realize that magic was being woven throughout the bar, though it was likely that nobody within the establishment did; other patrons, despite themselves and their personalities, began to boast various accomplishments to one another, only to whine and attempt to one-up their conversational partner. The kraken might not have even realized the strength of his mana, as one man bragged to another that he had bedded his wife, only for the other to try to top that brag by a confessional of fellatio from the first's mother. Rather than erupt into a brawl, this only seemed to light a blazing trail of gossip from one table to the next. But, fortunately, the redheaded man and his balding companion were relatively separated from that ordeal in both proximity and mentality; the former said to the latter, "I know it was her! What other woman -a drow, no less- could wade into the sea and vanish beneath its surface? Everyone knows Laezila was seen around that big ol' crab-thing." The second man bristled, and scratched the balding part of his head as he commented, "Ugh, that thing gives me the willies. -I- heard that she dyed her hair and wears make-up," such was the initiation of the one-upping.

Laezila! The sonic hooks the kraken had cast out into this sea of land-walkers had landed him a prize, indeed! His days spent inhaling tobacco smoke and sour, alcoholic sweat were all, with the utterance of that name, abruptly worth every stinking moment. For was not that same name uttered by “D’Artes”, instigator of the very curse afflicting his own flesh, and the Coral Keep? In its inflections, he’d sensed it for a lie but still.. it was a thread. Slender but strong, a line he may use to reel in some truth.. The unwitting pair of wanna-be thugs were a gift that simply went on giving, for they had also let slip that this ‘Laezila’ wore a disguise.. And where he had he seen a dark-elf, in wig and make-up? Two and two, it all added neatly to a sum providing the kraken with at least a part of the riddle. But his catch was not yet done… were they talking about Uyeer..? There was a line he could follow back to a source he knew.. The kraken gathered up the sparse coinage he’d gleaned from his songs that evening, and with a quiet word had the barman send a servant over to the bald man and the red-head, with two new ales and no word whatsoever as to the identity of their benefactor. Treading away from the bar, he took a circuitous route past the pair in case there were any further minnows of knowledge to be caught.

There wasn't much further information that could actually be of use, aside from the few tidbits hither and thither, such as the copper-headed and burly man speaking to his shorter, balder counterpart on the subject of how, exactly, he knew that Laezila was near. Needless to say, it wasn't a very concrete knowledge; it was more like a general and vague estimation. "I heard word that she's been livin' down there with the thing, so by the way I figure it, she'll be headin' back there soon. All we gotta do is play the waitin' game. Catch her unawares. Then we can bring her back for the gold-" The balding man quickly interrupted, "After we have a bit of fun, like the last mark we wrangled -her warrant says dead or alive, so nobody'll care if she's a bit bloodied-" Sadists. There's nobody innocent in the world.

Perhaps the most useful tidbit Mcracken got from this, was that locating Laezila was a time-sensitive quest – he had to find her before these or any other hunter did. And because loose lips sink ships, he had a good notion of where to start looking now. Pushing through the throng of overly emotional drunks –most of whom were now abashed of face, wondering why-o-why they’ve ever opened their fat mouths, and perish the thought, whether they ought to cut down on the rum or gin or ale— Mac beat a path for the tavern’s door, ignoring the few who called out or clutched his ragged sleeve for another salty tune to set their toes a-tapping.