Shalelu smiles at Tac. "I was about to walk to the Rusty Dragon for a bite to eat ere heading out of town. Why don't you lot come with me? We can ask after a private room where we're less likely to be overheard. I doubt anyone in Sandpoint's in on a plot to uproot the town, but one never knows...better safe than sorry." Shalelu's smile deepens. "Plus, with the five of us and your cur, we're more likely to need a larger table such as what Ameiko keeps in the hind rooms."
***DM Liberty--moving the group to the Rusty Dragon***
Shalelu and the group, Sandstone beside them, walk down Water Street to the corner of Market and Salmon and enter a building opposite the Sandpoint Mercantile League where they'd earlier spoken with Sir Korvaski. The large structure housing the Rusty Dragon also serves as Sandpoint's largest inn. The establishment more than likely received its name from an exterior adornment to the building's roof, where an impressive but severely rusted iron dragon gargoyle looms, doubling as lightening rod and decoration.
Just inside the set of wooden double doors is a small foyer sporting a cloakroom and a corkboard bearing billets for work wanted and positions needing to be filled. Beyond the foyer, the taproom, which also serves as eatery, looks to be crowded and noisy and for good reason--the luscious smells coming from the kitchen hint at exotic and spicy fare. Groups of locals--merchants and workers, by their look--sit clustered in small knots at tables that are interspersed by more than a few tables occupied by foreign faces. A gaggle of four dwarves sits crowded close at a square table in the middle of the room, and to the right of the end of the bar close to the swinging kitchen door sits a man in a mud-stained traveler's cloak with a half-elf as his table companion. A very large and portly man (perhaps with orcish heritage if his tufted ears and wart-ridden face are any indication) with a tackle box and a large traveling pack at his feet is seated at a stool at the bar.
[sblock=Tac and Taran]Owned and operated for the past six years by the lovely and popular Ameiko Kaijitsu--daughter of the local noble Kaijitsu family who owns the Sandpoint Glassworks abutting the town's western sea cliffs--the Rusty Dragon is not only one of the town's most popular eateries, but also a great place to meet visitors from out of town, since most newcomers to Sandpoint come upon this inn first, the north Lost Coast Road being less traveled. It certainly doesn't hurt that Ameiko's exotic beauty is more than matched by her skill at music, and few are the evenings that pass without at least two or three songs by the talented woman.
Some bad blood exists between Ameiko and Cyrdak, and one never seems to miss a chance to badmouth the other, but no one in town really understands the reason behind their rivalry. Of greater concern to Ameiko is th elong-running feud with her family--leaving town to become an adventurer scandalized her family enough, but when she returned, rich and successful with a desire to purchase and renovate Sandpoint's oldest tavern, her family officially took to shunning her. Ameiko claims not to care, but becomes evasive when anyone asks her why she returned to Sandpoint when she was obviously doing well as an adventurer. Some believe she has a secret lover in town, while others theorize that something happened on her last adventure that took the bravery out of her. In any event, the Dragon is probably the most adventurer-friendly establishment in town, with its "Help Wanted" board near the front door and Ameiko's discount rooms for anyone who tells an exciting adventuring story.[/sblock]
Busy as the custom is at the Rusty Dragon, no one looks up when Shalelu and the group enter, but at length and by inquiry at the bar, Shalelu procures a room in the back of the establishment. Once seated at a round wooden table with each person comfortably ensconced in their own chair, a long wooden serving trencher sporting shreds of dried cured cuttlefish is laid at table, along with a flagon of winterdrop mead and five small clay cups. The barmaid who brought the cuttlefish and cups presently returns, rattling off the day's offering from the kitchen. "Minced pork and raisin pie, 5 coppers. Spicy eel bouillabaise and a trencher of bread and butter, 6 coppers. Roasted capon done in herbs and butter, comes with taters and greens, a silver mark--probably 'nuff to feed two. Now then, who's hungry?"
After the food is requested and brought--Shalelu asks after the eel and lays 6 copper coins on the table--the elf tucks in to her repast with vigor, asking, "Now what's this about bogus coins, then? You're saying the coinage taken from the goblins was false?"