Café de Nuit

The knight's cool demeanor does little to calm the archivist's anger.

"Then clearly the best option is to knock the man unconscious, drag him to our OFFICE, and bind him here while you extract the information forcibly. Perhaps the authorities in Darkon do not prosecute for kidnapping, but I assure you they do here. I believe they're fairly stern about it, actually. And as much as I've always wanted to spend time in a Bastille, I prefer the open air."

He fumes for a moment, stomping over to his desk as he furiously rubs at the bridge of his nose. "I've just come from establishing a more formal relationship with the leader of this city. She is lending us her aid in our efforts. What will Madame Rennier think if she finds out about this?" He gestures at the still bound man.

He shakes his head in disgust, finally calming down. "What does this man know that is so valuable? I certainly hope it is worth all this trouble."

He stops, almost in mid-sentence, his head tilting to the side quizzically. "Wait, wait. Did you say half a year? Herr Cirdan, you have barely been gone three weeks?" His voice trails off further. "As a matter of fact, that in and of itself seems odd. Darkon is quite a long journey. How did you manage to get there and back in that amount of time?"

"Remember the man we killed on the boat, the one who'd taken Sancerre's girl hostage?" Dorgio rolls a cigarillo as he explains. "Apparently, what's left of his gang has a price on our head. Said he had one last bit of information, and asked for gold in exchange. Cirdan, he hesitated, so I stepped into offer the gold.

"The dwarf, I think he thought it was some kind of game. Decided he'd rather scare the information out of this man than buy it. Naturally, he wasn't too happy about it, so our lord in 'shining' armor," he says, darting his eyes toward Cirdan, "thought it best to knock him unconscious.

"Twice."

Dorgio lights the cigarillo and takes a much needed puff. "Now, we need to find out what he was going to say without him being so terrified of us as to tell his old bosses."

"And so, here we are. Or rather, here you are." He claps Benn on the shoulder, and gives him a look that says, you handle these idiots for a while. "I'm going to have a pint and a word with our stabby little friend."

With that, he leaves, stepping over his scattered gold, towards the dwarven tavern.

Alain puts himself into a position that allows him to observe the goings on and out the way/out of sight if possible on his way into the room after Cirdan . Oh, he picks up the 20 gold pieces on his way in . He is curious about what Cirdan plans to do . Thinking:Well at least I can use this gold checking the veracity of the information he may give us, and Dorgio is a fool for giving him that much money . What did he think he would do when he gave him more than a years pay for a trained hireling . But I think 5 silver would be fine for all the poor fellow went through/will go through.

at the Sign of the Brass Bees, AKA the 'Hive'-

The only dwarven drinking establishment in all of Pont-Museau is beneath a wainright's shop. It's actually in the cellar of the building. A sign decorated with yellow bees hangs above a side stairway leading down to an heavy wooden door.

Beyond the door, one is immediately aware of the smell of cooking sausages. It seems the place is a proper pub, with food as well as drink on the menu. It's a large room, big enough to hold a couple of dozen people in comfort. Light is provided by lanterns suspended from the ceiling with chains. The lanterns hang at a height approriate for dwarves to handle easily, so taller customers need to sometimes duck or move around them. The whole room is built of stone, the only wooden being the bar and moveable furniture. The bar is to the left and the space to the right is occupied by tables and chairs. The only decorations are carvings on the stone walls. These depict dwarves at work, fighting, and drinking.

The room is less than half full. Most of the customers and all but one of the workers are dwarves. The rest are human. No one here is dressed fancily. Many of the patrons are in work clothes, in fact.

The only human who seems to work here, a young girl of perhaps twelve years of age, approaches Norzak and Dorgio as they enter the pub. The dainty little brunette speaks-

''First time here? Ha, you've come to the right place for a good feed and some fine stout drink!''

Weirdly enough, she sounds a wee bit like Norzak when she speaks, only several octaves higher.

Your prisoner is strirring. He shakes his head groggily and moans. Then he begins to struggle, but he cannot get free, Cirdan has fastened him securely to the chair.

In a terrified whisper, the man says-

''Hello? I can hear you breathing. Euh...please don't hurt me. ''

He gives Dorgio a sympathetic look as he steps towards the door. I've been there, Dorgio. Go and enjoy your drink. He reflected on the oddity that he, an educated man from a more civilized land, would find the most similarity of thought with a backwoods superstitious Barovian priest. He turns towards the prisoner, however, seeing him stir.

He flashes Cirdan a look that says, "It can wait." The archivist tosses his broken walking stick onto the desktop, stepping over to the man. "Guten tach, Herr." He says in a low voice, artificially twisting his tone into a deep baritone and laying the Lamordian accent on thick. "My fellows inform me that you have information we need. As you can tell, we have control of you now. You are not going anywhere, mien freund, until you tell us what we want."

He walks around behind the man, resting his hands on his shoulders and dropping his head close to his ear. "Understand, I did not wish to do this this way. I do not like hurting men like you. I'm sure you were only trying to do the right thing by coming to us. You fell in with some bad people that want to do some bad things, and you did it because you were perhaps desperate. You needed money, or got into trouble and they took you in. In any case, you knew they were bad news, and you came to us. I can admire that. But you made a mistake, you tried to run, and we had to act. Whether that makes us still friends or not, I do not care. Right now, there is one aspect of our relationship you need to understand. You are the man who doesn't know where he is, who he is with, or what we are going to do to you, and we are the men who hold the answers." He drums his fingers on the man's shoulders. "So what will it be, freund? Will you tell us what you know, and walk out of here a rich man? Or will you do something foolish, and make us...escalate this. Think quickly now, my friend in the armor is looking impatient, and the dwarf is looking a bit too eagerly at your fingers."

''First time here? Ha, you've come to the right place for a good feed and some fine stout drink!''

Weirdly enough, she sounds a wee bit like Norzak when she speaks, only several octaves higher.

Norzak smiles for once. "Aye lassie. Gimme 'n' me bud 'ere a pint to start with. I dun' think 'es had some dwarvish stout before, so only one fer him fer now. Aye, where ye from?.... Ye've got a dwarvish tongue to ye, me dear." As he speaks, the dwarf slides a few silvers across the table to the young lady. Dorgio will definitely notice that Norzak isn't at all surly right now. In fact he looks at ease amongst his kind and the workers.

He tries his best to put his anger aside and smile at the barmaid. "Ha! Yes, just one for now."

Norzak's change in attitude doesn't go unnoticed, and the Dawnbringer hopes that perhaps some reason can be talked.

He waits for the barmaid to leave for the drinks, then says, in a low voice, "The man at the gallows, he would have given us what we wanted without coercion."

tarlyn wrote:

''First time here? Ha, you've come to the right place for a good feed and some fine stout drink!''

Weirdly enough, she sounds a wee bit like Norzak when she speaks, only several octaves higher.

Norzak smiles for once. "Aye lassie. Gimme 'n' me bud 'ere a pint to start with. I dun' think 'es had some dwarvish stout before, so only one fer him fer now. Aye, where ye from?.... Ye've got a dwarvish tongue to ye, me dear." As he speaks, the dwarf slides a few silvers across the table to the young lady. Dorgio will definitely notice that Norzak isn't at all surly right now. In fact he looks at ease amongst his kind and the workers.

The girl smiles as she slips the coins into her apron.

''An it please you, I'm from Tempe Falls, up north in the Great Kingdom o' Darkon. ''

The girl darts off to grab a couple of pints for Norzak and Dorgio.

The red haired young man looks around at the other patrons of the bar, almost as if looking for someone. His eyes fall on Norzak and Dorgio. Then he looks away. The human barmaid approaches him, presumably for his drink order. The young man smiles and whispers something to the girl, who grows red and returns his smile. She departs then returns with a dwarven ale. The girl giggles coyly as she takes his coins. As she departs this time, the young mans demeanor seems to change slightly, as if he was less relaxed.
As the young man drinks his ale a strong looking, dirty dwarf approaches him smiling.

“Good work down in the pipes with that big rat Johnny. Nearly big as you was. Never saw a lad so small attack something so big like that. Your next pint’s on me!”

The dwarf claps the young man hard on the shoulder and walks toward the bar. The red haired man finishes his ale singing softly to himself;

''Lolly lolly, rags and bones,

down the pipes where ratters roam,

I found a hat pin in the muck,

now in my chapeau it is stuck…

Adam wrote: "So what will it be, freund? Will you tell us what you know, and walk out of here a rich man? Or will you do something foolish, and make us...escalate this. Think quickly now, my friend in the armor is looking impatient, and the dwarf is looking a bit too eagerly at your fingers."

''NO! Don't let him cut me, please! I...I...I don't know why you are doing this to me. I just wanted to make a little money. I...please.''

The man begins struggling violently to free himself from his bonds, bucking hard against the chair. He topples to the ground, still tied to the chair, almost knocking over one of the pails of water in the process.

"The man at the gallows, he would have given us what we wanted without coercion."

"Bah! Only one way ta gets infermashin. Threatin or hurt. Thas' two. I's figger as y'es ain' used ta me methods, threatenin' kinna be tha way. The galoot ran away. Ida followed 'n' stabbed tha fruit, then y'all'd of gone haywire on me. An tha elf, well never mind." Norzak takes a huge swig of his dwarvish stout. Slamming his pint down on the table he takes the time to look around and listen to little tidbits of conversation.

The girl smiles as she slips the coins into her apron.

''An it please you, I'm from Tempe Falls, up north in the Great Kingdom o' Darkon. ''

The girl darts off to grab a couple of pints for Norzak and Dorgio.

"By gum! I's be from Darkon too.. not far from there up in tha mountains, lassie! Whut yer dewin' here in Point Ay Moosow?Kinna far from 'ome. Tho I's far too. But I's a man 'n' yoos a wee lass."

As Norzak looks around, the dwarf clapping the young red haired man on the shoulder doesn't go unnoticed by the dwarf. Not hearing what they say, Norzak is curous as to what they are saying and being in rather good spirits, reaches into his pouch and removes a few silver coins. He looks at Dorgio pointedly, then to the red haired man and back to Dorgio. He catches the young girls attention and slips the coins in her hand. "Offer the red haired lad a few pints 'n' tell 'im 'es an invite ta our table. Oi, wass yer name lassie? I be Norzak, Norzak Darkender of Darkon at ye service." The dwarf bows to the young lady, clearly intrigued as to what a young lady from Darkon, with a dwarvish accent at that, is doing in Point a Museau.

''My name's Francesca. Ivar brought me down here- he's the boss. My da' sold me off as a 'prentice , you see. They all treat me just fine here, even though I aint a dwarf like them.''


The girl takes the proffered coins, saying,

''Sure. I'll see to it, Master Darkender.''


She goes over to the bar, orders the drink , and brings it to the table of the red haired youth.

ewancummins wrote:

Adam wrote: "So what will it be, freund? Will you tell us what you know, and walk out of here a rich man? Or will you do something foolish, and make us...escalate this. Think quickly now, my friend in the armor is looking impatient, and the dwarf is looking a bit too eagerly at your fingers."

''NO! Don't let him cut me, please! I...I...I don't know why you are doing this to me. I just wanted to make a little money. I...please.''

The man begins struggling violently to free himself from his bonds, bucking hard against the chair. He topples to the ground, still tied to the chair, almost knocking over one of the pails of water in the process.

"Tell us what we want to know, and you'll be paid. Continue to try my patience, and you will not, and my friends will do what they have to to make you talk. Now what do you know?" Bennedict steps in front of the man, squatting to bring his face an inch away from his, concealed behind the blindfold. "I assure you, freund, we can go at this all night, or you can just talk now and make yourself a little profit. Which will it be?"