The Pig's Foot Tavern. 17th of Summer, AV 514.
The tavern was packed to the rafters tonight. To be fair it was pack most nights with patrons eager to drown their sorrows, rest their wary bodies, and spreads rumours that rippled throughout town. Thick plumes of smokes erupted from crude pipes as the patrons burnt cheap tobacco and down watered ale in a vile concoction that only in Sunberth it would be loved. The sun had just slipped under the horizon, casting a bloody shadow across the sky while firelight took over its duties of illuminating the tavern in a warm, flickering glow.
Loghan slunk into his usual stool at the bar, her rough hands sliding across the bar as they traced the crude etchings that had been birthed in a patrons' moment of boredom. "I'll take an ale" He ordered to a complacent Merv who stopped from wiping down the counter with a dirty rag than made the problem worse for a moment to fill up a rough tankard with his cheapest ale. "What the fuck happened to you?" He exclaimed as Loghan peeled off his coat before dropping it over the stool as make-shift cushion to reveal bloodstained clothes.
"What? This?" He asked, pointing at the streaks of blood decorating his top while he was jostled by more patrons entering the already full tavern "Was down the pits earlier, some little cunt thought a tattoo and a rusty sword made him the next champion of the Pits" He explained with a devilish grin, revealing stained yellow teeth before adding "You can see how it turn- What are they arguin' about?" He exclaimed suddenly.
The argument had long been brewing in the tavern, burning through topics like kindling for a fire until it either fizzled out or a it erupted into a full blown tavern brawl, something every the gruff old bartender would have trouble putting out. "Gods know" Merv could only mutter as he handed another patron a tankard of ale before turning back to Loghan "It started out as them deciding whether Ruby's or Brega's had better whores..."
"Well Brega's are dirtier in both ways, depends how much coin you've got to throw around" He replied instantly, as if he had given this matter considerable thought (Which he had for it was a common topic in this tavern).
"That's what they agreed on, but they're an irritable lot. All of them are liquored up and sleep deprived, those fucking wolves on the Ridge kept most of us up all night. You hear 'em?"
"Yeah I heard 'em..." He muttered, his hands wrapping tightly around his tankard for comfort as he recalled the relentless howling from the night before "Gods know what got 'em riled up but I don't want to know, half expected them to come down on us while we tried to sleep."
Another roar erupted from the table in the centre, grimy men and women encircled the table in their droves. Most of them weren't even sitting down around it, but all of them were drinking like there was no tomorrow. "Now they're talking about that Charoda in the Majestic, you seen it?" He asked but Loghan simply shook his head and swallowed another mouthful of foul ale. Nearly forty summers he had seen yet his eyes have sparsely looked upon the stranger races of this world, when he first saw a Charoda he thought a monster had walked out of the sea and he was not eager to relive the experience. "Yeah, well half of them think it'll be bad luck to keep it locked up so we should release it, the other half thinks we should gut it right now and the other half just wants to look at it."
"Yeah well..." Loghan slowly replied, looking back at the rowdy table as the tension in the tavern grow ever more greater before continuing loudly "Ain't nuthin' good can come from those creatures, I say we cut its head off and throw it in the sea. Tell you what though, give it another chime and you'll have a fight on your hands and one stray punch come my way... They'll know about it."
