Merchants of Elm (IC)

[Another_Poet]

Rustin:

You walk down North Avenue and through the neighbourhood known as the Bear. The Bear gives way to the closest thing Shanty Town has to a real market: a five-point intersection where the site of a burned-down building has come to serve as a commons. The bleached wood frames of market stalls line the streets and the triangular commons but there are few sellers and fewer buyers so early. About half the stalls are empty even during business hours, and many of the others are fronts for black market dealers. At least one haggard vendor looks sincere: a middle-aged man setting out his jars of pickled eel, pickled onions, and pickled hog-feet.

Before you reach the market proper, a tall heavy man on a balcony yells to you. "Ah, a beautiful spring morning dampened by a crappy city, but who comes along to brighten my spirits. Mister Rustin, would you step inside?"

Mikos Grawngor is something of a local boss, owner of the tavern/bordello from which his balcony so proudly protrudes and widely known as a loudmouth and a cutthroat bargainer. His jobs aren't always top-rate but he has a reputation of seldom double-crossing those he employes. He waves for you to enter the tavern and makes to go inside, presumably to meet you.

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Siblings:

((You don't hear Saker; the bungalow is way at the back of the estate, and between the rain and the distance it'd be hard to hear him even outside.

Your breakfast is nice though, at least for the modest fare you've come to accept. I'll presume a pot of hot lichen stew and maybe a few dense griddlecakes made with the flour.))

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Saker:

You get no answer but might be relieved to see no chains on the side-gate. It's just a little archway carved into the wall, less then six feet tall and two feet wide. It has a metal door, which at first pull appears to be locked; further inspection reveals no visible lock (the bolt may only be rusty). A pile of discarded chain with an unlocked padlock lies in the grass inside the gate.

A narrow path of heavily-trodden grass within the gate leads off into the estate, offering the hope that someone still comes in and out on a regular basis.

((I'm going to assume that fastidious Acanthe would normally take her job seriously enough to keep the side-gate securely locked, but that an inebriated Garrin stumbled through late last night and barely managed to bolt the thing after himself. If anybody objects just let me know and I'll come up with some other excuse for an unlocked gate.))

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Lonna:

As you head westward the rain lightens up a little bit. You notice a knife lying in a puddle, and several pigeons greet the morning with sullen chirping on the peak of a nearby roof. Up ahead on the left you see a small temple to Apollo, a corner building with its door (currently closed tight) on an angle. Small alcoves to either side of the door hold shrines that face the streets: to the right, a shrine to the Glorious Youth; to the left a shrine to His sister Artemis. Soggy flowers and a few small offering bowls adorn the shrines and the building is conspicuously free of grafiti.

Ahead on the right two men step out of a doorway. They are dressed in the sky-blue cloaks of the guard, and both clutch mugs of stew in their hands. They mumble to each other and laugh a bit as they step out onto the street, then one of them sees you.

"Hallo!" he calls. "A beautiful May morning to you, turtledove. I don't think I've seen you round here before."

His friend gives you a smile was probably meant to be charming, but comes off as more of a leer.