Middle Docks District, Port Verge (evening) – Doral, Partash, Carver
The trio climbs the gentle slope inland a few blocks, in the general direction of both the Sail & Scepter and the Prince’s manor and barracks complex, before turning left and heading down a narrow yet still decorative street. They continued one for a little while, watching the middle-class commercial district slowly dilapidate and give way to a poorer working class neighborhood.
Still lined with businesses and shop-windows, the street narrowed and darkened still, and began to meander back and forth in a winding route as it channeled south into the poor half of the city. They passed the occasional drunk staggering out of a pub, one young couple wandering aimlessly, and an old man sleeping half-upright on a stone stoop.
Coming to an intersection with another main roadway, the companions were stopped by a man sitting cross-legged on the street corner. He was thin and filthy, and his arms were somewhat crooked.
“Spare ‘ny copp’r? Th’ poor litt’le un needs it bad…” Fearing their disinterest, he held up one arm to reveal a tiny scrap of fur nestled there, which proved to be a ragged kitten. “She’s too litt’le to kill rats… Th’ rats jus’ about killed her, that’s when I found ‘er…”
Across the way, two women stood at the side of a brick building, watching to see what the strangers would do. Presently, they stepped forth and crossed the cobbled street. In the lamplight their clothes, which were at once both elaborate and poor, as well as the very way they moved, made clear that they were what Carver had described as ‘women who hung out on the corners.’
“Good evening, gentlemen. And warforged.” She was smiling girlish way, though not un-flirtatiously. “We were afraid to come over and say hello, not many newcomers here that aren’t sailors…”
“You look more like Prince’s men than anything… But not nearly so rough-cut.” Her friend smiled also, and swung forward a little bit in Doral’s direction, gauging his reaction before righting herself and smiling politely to the warforged.
The first spoke up again, turning to Partash. “Normally we love a newcomer, y’see, but Mirren… He told Jisia”—a slight nod of her head towards the second girl—“tonight that there’s Blacksurf in the city.”
In what was seemingly the first genuine expression either of them had shown, both of their smiles weakened into brief frowns of concern and mingled fear. They recovered, though, and the first girl continued, stepping closer to Partash as if seeking reassurance: “But a Blacksurf wouldn’t even stop to look at a beggar’s cat, would he?”
Hearing acknowledgment of his presence, the man sitting on the curb perked up and turned his neck to face the girls, completely apathetic to their sharing the nightly money-making business with him, but his face nevertheless still full of curiosity. “What else di’ th’ Capt’in Mirren say?”
Jisia looked away from Doral, and replied in a more ordinary, much less honey-sweet voice: “Don’t go spreadin’ rumors, beggar. The spies are being taken care of tonight, I’ll tell.”
The beggar smiled, appeased. “Good, good… spies are worse than rats, y’know.” He said it almost as if trying to inform his cat, which he returned his attention to since it had woken.
