BEYOND POVERO: CRABCLAW Prelude

[steveflam]

The harlot smiles at Gertie.
''I think you want the sailor's special, yes?"
She makes certain strange hand signs until Gertie recognizes these as a local variation on the Cant and can reply with a sign of recognition.
The message is simple--does Gertie want something to do with thievery?

Gertie replies "For today, doll, I'll pass on the Sailor's Special. Thanks for the offer."

She replies to the message in the same manner -- Yes.

[ewancummins]

The harlot smiles at Gertie.
''I think you want the sailor's special, yes?"
She makes certain strange hand signs until Gertie recognizes these as a local variation on the Cant and can reply with a sign of recognition.
The message is simple--does Gertie want something to do with thievery?

Gertie replies "For today, doll, I'll pass on the Sailor's Special. Thanks for the offer."

She replies to the message in the same manner -- Yes.

The harlot turns her attention to ogling passing men and making suggestive comments, but she signals Gertie with her left hand, held low.
As far as Gertie can make out the meaning, this woman is telling her to go around behind the hut and wait.

[steveflam]

The harlot smiles at Gertie.
''I think you want the sailor's special, yes?"
She makes certain strange hand signs until Gertie recognizes these as a local variation on the Cant and can reply with a sign of recognition.
The message is simple--does Gertie want something to do with thievery?

Gertie replies "For today, doll, I'll pass on the Sailor's Special. Thanks for the offer."

She replies to the message in the same manner -- Yes.

The harlot turns her attention to ogling passing men and making suggestive comments, but she signals Gertie with her left hand, held low.
As far as Gertie can make out the meaning, this woman is telling her to go around behind the hut and wait.

Gertie nods. She whistles for Gem. "Here boy! C'mere Gem!" When the dog comes to her, she salutes the woman and leads Gem to where sh was told to wait.

[Adam]

Alfonse looks around, perhaps only now realizing he's just stepped into a strange port with a list of items with which he's unfamiliar, and the financial futures of his company rides on his success. He looks down at the peddler girl, holding the list out towards her. "Little girl. Tell me where the best places to acquire these things. Show us around, help us get a good deal, and I'll buy your whole cart-load of shellfish."

[ewancummins]

Alfonse looks around, perhaps only now realizing he's just stepped into a strange port with a list of items with which he's unfamiliar, and the financial futures of his company rides on his success. He looks down at the peddler girl, holding the list out towards her. "Little girl. Tell me where the best places to acquire these things. Show us around, help us get a good deal, and I'll buy your whole cart-load of shellfish."

"I can't read that, Master."
The girl shrugs.
"But I know my way around the city. If you read to me what things you need, I'll do my best to help you find them. The whole cart you said, Master?"

[Adam]

"Well, we'll see how well we do today, Miss..." he raises his eyes up, asking for her name. "In any case, I will make certain you are compensated fairly for your time."

He gives his coin purse a suggestive jingle to underscore the point.

[ewancummins]

"Well, we'll see how well we do today, Miss..." he raises his eyes up, asking for her name. "In any case, I will make certain you are compensated fairly for your time."

He gives his coin purse a suggestive jingle to underscore the point.

"Oona, Master. That's my name."

The girl bobs her head.

Oona asks about the list items, then sets out to guide Alfonse to where he can find suppliers...

[VAN]

Tom stays with Alfonse trying to avoid any eye contact with the woman that whistled. Sooner they get everything on the list sooner he can finally decide what to buy with his share and go take it. At his sister gesture he just nods. He knows that she can take care of herself and Gem will get to him if Gertie needs help.

[alhoon]

Fild looks at Tom frowning. "What kind of brother are you that you let your sister out of your sight in a port near the prostitutes?
Regardless, I'll buy a pony to carry my gear. I suggest you also buy one. They are small enough but still carry enough. "

[ewancummins]

Oona sniggers at the gnome's remark about prostitutes, but not so loudly as to interrupt the conversation.
She quickly recovers her composure and pushes her cart a little way toward the city walls.


ALFONSE, FILD, and TOM , guided by OONA THE SHELLFISH SELLER

The girl takes the party to a gate in the city wall, where they must pay a toll of a follaro each to the guards (Oona does not pay, but displays a wooden token she fishes out from her blouse).
A guard , leaning on his spear and squinting at a passing woman on the water side of the gate, informs Alfonse and company,
''You get tokens just like Oona. Show them to the guards and you won't have to pay again today at any gate in the city till we change tokens again, in two days. Gets you into all the markets."

He then fetches the wooden medallions from a coffer set against the gate arch behind him.
He hands these out. Each is marked with a simple sigil and a splash of white paint.

Through the gate with their day passes, the party moves into a cross traffic of pedestrians, a few horsemen, and one or two sedan chairs. Soon through the press, they move further into the eastern side of the city within the walls.

This built-up neighborhood rises aslope a low hill and includes many two and three story houses of old stonework, some with ivy creeping up the walls. Bronze rails run along the balconies of some of the larger homes. Only narrow alleys separate blocks and buildings; awnings of tile and masonry cover a number of these shadowy passages. Under one such awning, a man and a woman stand toe to toe, kissing passionately, seemingly oblivious to any passers-by.

The sewers here consist of cobbled channels sunk on either side of the paved street (the outer quays area had only ditches spilling into the estuary). Sand, flower petals, and reeds have been scattered over the effluvium of the drainage channels, and heavy planked walkways allow one to move from house to street without stepping in the slime.
As Alfonse and the little group walk past one house, a man opens a second story window, shouts a cheerful warning, and dumps a chamber pot into the sewer below.

Oona points out a three story, high-gabled house that takes up a whole city block, with alleys on either end separating it from nearby buildings. Carved sea-beasts, ships, and figures of myth and legend adorn the lintels of the doors and windows along the long, stately façade. Footsteps sound dully from up high, and Alfonse's party spies a watchman patrolling a balcony that runs along half the street front, the top of the man's spear visible when he goes past.
''Master, if you want to start with the big, costly things you've told me of, like that mast--then you'd best start here. We must see the Unwynes. They build ships.''
Oona indicates a side door recessed into a wall along an uncovered alley. Not as fancy as what appear to be the main portal along the street front--a double door of dark hardwood banded in bronze-- this door nonetheless appears study and well-made. Its plain brass knockers shines at the rounded end as if polished there by many hands.
"That's the door where I deliver crabs sometimes. Tradesmen come here, too, for their business. Might be you can get let in the front, Master. I can't."

[ewancummins]

GERTIE
AND GEM THE HOUND



With Gem trailing her, Gertie goes round behind the harlot's hut and waits along a grimy boardwalk that runs between the quayside and the city walls.
After a couple of minutes, rickety shutters open in a window on the back of the hut and the harlot leans out. She motions for Gertie to draw near.
''I'll want a denier for my time and the stuff I'm telling you. And you'd better not be a spy for the Mummers' enemies. If you are, at least forget my face, okay?"
After Gertie hands over the coin, the harlot tells her,
"What you need to do is go to the west side, outside the walls. Hike down the road going south a little ways, till you get close to farms and pastures. You'll come to a roadhouse near the big boundary stone. It's at the roadhouse you can meet more of the canting crew, if you buy a drink for yourself and one you pour out into the nearest spittoon. If someone asks what you are doing at the spittoon, just say it's for your absent friend and then you bare your arse to the barman. No, I'm not joking. Really, show him your bare rump. Mummer rules.''

[alhoon]

ALFONSE, FILD, and TOM , guided by OONA THE SHELLFISH SELLER

Through the gate with their day passes, the party moves into a cross traffic of pedestrians, a few horsemen, and one or two sedan chairs. Soon through the press, they move further into the eastern side of the city within the walls.

Fild turns to Oona once past the gates. "Hey lass, can you write? Could you perhaps make a rough sketch of the city and write the names of the burrows or districts or neighborhoods? Perhaps add a few notes on landmarks so we could get directions etc?
If you cannot write, perhaps just make the sketch and tell me the names and I will add them.
I would give you a few copper pieces for that. "

[ewancummins]

ALFONSE, FILD, and TOM , guided by OONA THE SHELLFISH SELLER

Through the gate with their day passes, the party moves into a cross traffic of pedestrians, a few horsemen, and one or two sedan chairs. Soon through the press, they move further into the eastern side of the city within the walls.

Fild turns to Oona once past the gates. "Hey lass, can you write? Could you perhaps make a rough sketch of the city and write the names of the burrows or districts or neighborhoods? Perhaps add a few notes on landmarks so we could get directions etc?
If you cannot write, perhaps just make the sketch and tell me the names and I will add them.
I would give you a few copper pieces for that. "

''Write? No. But I know a man who sells charts and maps. He can give you just what you need, Sir Dwarf."

[alhoon]

"Great. Perhaps we should see this man." Fild doesn't correct the girl on his race.

[ewancummins]

"Great. Perhaps we should see this man." Fild doesn't correct the girl on his race.

''Will your master want to see the shipwrights first?''
She looks at the big house they stand just outside.