Eyvind:
The ogrun nods to your question, making no move to stop you from getting up.
"My name is Bruntor, human, and I am a follower of the Mother of Earth. Your kin brought you to me to receive her balm."
The ogrun priest shifts in his seat, and extends an arm to throw something to you. You catch it against your chest, and feel the heavy, cold weight of the iron earring you kept in the bottom of your pack. It was an heirloom from your father, given as a luck charm, something he and his brothers took from the body of an ogrun they slew when you were still tied to your mother's apron strings. It's a thick, smooth pair of iron rings, one large and faintly eteched with a runic knotwork pattern, the other small and meant to pierce the lobe. In truth, you'd forgotten about it.
"Can you explain this?" Bruntor rumbles, his face set expressionlessly, his voice cold as death.
Tyra
In moments, you are swarmed by hawkers and merchants, offering to read your palm, fit you for a poncho, or offer a hundred other, often inexplicable goods and services. After several minutes of browsing the stalls, you find a few that might be of interest.
* A chubby, jovial gobber whom introduces himself as Koromokorobbo sells ammunition (amongst other things, including spare watch gubbinz, broken steamjack pressure gages and engineering charms); though made of salavaged casings, they appear to your practised eye to be in workable condition. He has three charges to suit Lady Rose, which he offers for nine crowns apiece, plus something he calls a 'hellfire shell', which he treats with extreme caution.
* A square-jawed boggrin woman squating on a plaid rug, surrounded by glass bottles, clay jugs and more, full of fragrent herbs and spices in various states of preparation. She claims that these are highly effacasious herbal remedies, fresh form the swamps. Oddly, she seems to assume this is a good thing. Small pouches of healing poultice sell for one silver shield, and she also has bottles of some kind of elixer for 2 crowns.
Dark
The gobber turns his eyes to you for a moment, regarding you cooly.
His voice then hisses form dessicated lips
"The thread leads to death. But this was never in question; no thread escapes the shears. It leads though filth and wood and ice, into iron and above the clouds. It leads to a book, and a choice." He leans forward sharply. "Right or wrong? Where does you money lie? Right or wrong?"
The gobber taps his pipe against the desk in front of him, and turns back to his customer. "Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted..."
But you saw it, before he turned away. A glint in the eye. A light in darkness.
He is exactly as insane as you.
Gavyn Dundrake
The gobber sorceror and talismonger called Richmond turns back to you, seemingly dissmissing the tall, bony lunatic. For a moment, the two had screeched at each other in a strange tongue that you could make neither heads nor tails of; it sounded like no tongue on the face of Immoren, to your knowledge.
"Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted... show me this medallion, and I will tell you if it is of value to me." His voice is cultured, urbane, with the precise pronounciation of a Caspian aristocrat. Which is of course, impossible.
Reaching into your pocket, you produce the large, octagonal crystal with it's platinum chain. Even in the dim light, it glitters brightly, and many greedy gobber eyes turn speculativly your way. In some ways, you are loath to sell it; it serves as a pleasing reminder of a delightful night spent in the company (not to say boudoir) of a visting gentlewomen to Corvis. Still, your pockets are getting frightfully light, and the pilfered gemstone will surely fetch a fair price. The fact you're sure it is enchanted helps, too.
Originally, you had tried to sell it to a man named Gleiner; a frightful oik, but cunning. He refused to deal in an item both 'hot' and ensorcelled. He did, however, point you to one of his rivals, despite his loud claims of "I can't be doin' this sort of fing regular...", and that is how you came to seek out Richmond.
You drop the gem into the goblins little grey, withered paw and he pulls it to his face, squinting through his spectacles at it.
"How fascinating..." he murmurs.
Kneecap
The gobber maiden beckons you towards Boss Zog's chambers, a seductive sway on her hips. She pushes the bead curtain aside with a deep bow, showing you the way in.
Boss Zog's audience chamber is as splendidly over decorated as ever. What's the point of having it, if not to make an impression? Exotic animal hides cover the walls, some orange and black striped, some green and scaled. Bamboo furniture, imported from Menoth knows how distant a land. Various weapons serve as ornamentaion, and an emergency armoury.
Zog himself is a fat, wily little gobber, dressed in a red silk lounge coat as he sprawls on a long bamboo couch, his spindly fingers on the end of his spindly arms holding the pipe of a hookah. Dark eyes glint with malign cunning in a fleshy face, studying you as you step nervously though the beaded door.
His addiction to scoobomba is clearly as strong as ever; one of the drug's side effects is causing the camoflage pigmentation in gobber skin to become erratic, so waves of colour a human would find nauseating roll over his face. Sweat studs the ShadowSkin guildmaster's forehead, and you have to admit the room is rather warm and close, fragrent with incense and traces of scoombomba smoke.
Behind the couch stands his bodyguard, the intimidating Kreech. Exceptionally tall for a gobber, topping four feet, he wears mail armour and a heavy helm sits on his head, deep runes on it's surface flickering purple. His hand rests on the hilt of a sword, minus a couple of fingers, and he gives the impression of instnat readiness. He wears a necklace covered in small, white, conical objects; rumour says they are the tusks (lower canines) of gobbers he has killed in the course of his duty as the ShadowSkins enforcer. Whether or not this is true, you don't want to get close enough to check.
There seem to be an awful lot of them, though.
"Ahh, Thrillgrogullassonorrombola, son of Rikkitinesheshieloffo, welcome back, welcome, welcome." Boss Zog smiles, his high, musical voice slightly slurred by the drugs.
"Please, take a seat... may I get you anything?"
