9th Day of Spring, 518 AV
The southern outpost was the gateway to Ravok, the city’s will projected out beyond the waters that kept her guarded and unto the distant shores where the fires of industry burned day and night to keep Rhysol’s sanctum sanctorum running as perfectly as those who ran it wanted everyone to believe. While Ravok was paradise, the lakeshore was anything but. Fueled by the labor of those who tirelessly worked the lumber yards and lily pad fields, the usual rules and regulations that governed the holy city did not apply here quiet so strictly. That gave rise to opportunity for those who were more… enterprising that others.
Kale's tavern was a good example of what such enterprising souls could accomplish.
Anywhere else in Syliras and it would have been reported, raided, shut down and -if the authorities were smart- burned down as an indelible stain best removed and forgotten. It's beer was either piss-weak or was likely to blind you. The whores were past their prime or nothing more than bait for thieves. And the basement, well... Kale boasted that more cripples were made on his premises than in the the dungeons of the Black Sun, which told you a lot about the man himself.
Men and often women beat each other senseless in the rough ring lined by spikes under the drinking floor. Petching on top, boozing in the middle, battle in the bottom. That was what Kale had set up here in the little fiefdom he'd carved out for himself. He put the word around that he'd host the fights; he had a couple of his kids work as bookies; then he had some of the local lumberjacks work the door and everything just... flowed.
No regulation, save for the weekly cut to the Ebonstryfe of course, but that was just the price of doing business, and in return, Kale got some extra clout just in case anyone wanted to welsh on a debt or tear up his place.
Ruthless. Amoral. Unstructured. Everything the city of chaos wasn’t openly allowed to be, encapsulated in one roaring, stinking shykehole.
For Elias, sometimes a reprieve from the stifling facades and intrigue of his home was as much a necessity to him as it was to breath. Every once in a while, he had to come up for air. This was where he did it. The pace of the tavern barely slowed when he stepped in. A few halfway-familiar faces turned to him and offered a nod, mostly other stryfers off duty and trying to relax before the next patrol sent them into the wilds again. In a few weeks, he'd be out there with them again. In the time being though-
"Well look who it is!”
"Kale, you fat petch, you miss me?”
Kale scratched under his stubbly beard and shook Elias's hand after squashing some wriggling thing his fingers had found. Hard brown eyes seemed to be searching that familiar, scarred face for some reason, as if Elias was some long lost family member come looking for a handout. To the swordsman though, Kale was almost like family, as harrowing as that was to consider. He’d known this son of a bitch even before his exile. Years ago he'd been a two bit smuggler back on the east docks when the stryfer soldier had been just a stryfer apprentice working diligently to curtail the criminals that befouled their city. By curtail, he of course meant shake down and extort, and Kale had always been a loyal confident and snitch in those days. In fact, he’d made enough coin selling out his fellow ne’er-do-wells that he could have afforded himself a place in the noble district if he had wanted. Instead he had come out here and made… this.
"Missed you like a miss a hemorrhoid, lad. What brings you back into my little slice of paradise?"
"Paradise?" Elias said as a tankard was placed before him by a serving wench with eyes far too old for her face. "That what you call it?"
Kale harrumphed and gestured around with chunky arms long of wobbling fat, taking in all above and below in the swooshing gesture.
"You kiddin'? Gash, booze, dice and brawling, all under the same roof. There's folk who'd think this was the petching' afterlife, boy."
"God help us if you're right. If this is where we go after we die, i'd better start repenting for all my sins now.”
"...you always were a clever cunt."
Nothing but a smirk greeted that challenge, and some nearby eavesdroppers were surprised... and disappointed. Nothing better than seeing a fight break out, and if ever there was a man more eager to have his pride wounded, it was Elias Caldera. Instead however, he swallowed Kale's bait without taking the hook, along with a mouthful of some of the worst petching booze he’d ever tasted... and shrugged.
"Feel like teaching me a lesson? Let me in the pit tonight."
Kale blinked a few time. "You serious?"
"What, you worried my pretty face might get banged up?”
Kale settled back into his seat by the fire, eyebrows atop his brow, mouth a little open, like he'd been told the world was going to end tomorrow. "Well, dip me in honey and throw me to the bears. Will wonders never cease. You’ve always just watched the fights before. Hell, watching is all you ever seem to do seein’ as you won’t even stoop to plowing one of my girls for petch sake, why the sudden excitement to get your hands dirty now?"
"I find myself in need of… release."
Kale could tell the kid wasn't going to give him anymore than that... and he'd learned hard over the decades that the less questions a man asked in this own, the longer he lived. He sipped his own brew -actual ale, not the horse shyke he sold the others- and savored it, thinking, plotting, planning...
"I might have an opening for you tonight."
"Don't play coy with me, you cheeky old tease, you'll get me a fight, you’ll let me put some money on myself to boot, are we clear?”
The old man's face split into a leer, exposing holes and gaps and yellow, blackish and things that seemed to shrink from the light and hide in rotted gums. Elias realized with a start that the sound the wretch was making behind them was actually laughter.
"Oh ho ho ho! I’m going to enjoy watching you get your ass beat to a pulp, Caldera. We all will."
Kale's tavern was a good example of what such enterprising souls could accomplish.
Anywhere else in Syliras and it would have been reported, raided, shut down and -if the authorities were smart- burned down as an indelible stain best removed and forgotten. It's beer was either piss-weak or was likely to blind you. The whores were past their prime or nothing more than bait for thieves. And the basement, well... Kale boasted that more cripples were made on his premises than in the the dungeons of the Black Sun, which told you a lot about the man himself.
Men and often women beat each other senseless in the rough ring lined by spikes under the drinking floor. Petching on top, boozing in the middle, battle in the bottom. That was what Kale had set up here in the little fiefdom he'd carved out for himself. He put the word around that he'd host the fights; he had a couple of his kids work as bookies; then he had some of the local lumberjacks work the door and everything just... flowed.
No regulation, save for the weekly cut to the Ebonstryfe of course, but that was just the price of doing business, and in return, Kale got some extra clout just in case anyone wanted to welsh on a debt or tear up his place.
Ruthless. Amoral. Unstructured. Everything the city of chaos wasn’t openly allowed to be, encapsulated in one roaring, stinking shykehole.
For Elias, sometimes a reprieve from the stifling facades and intrigue of his home was as much a necessity to him as it was to breath. Every once in a while, he had to come up for air. This was where he did it. The pace of the tavern barely slowed when he stepped in. A few halfway-familiar faces turned to him and offered a nod, mostly other stryfers off duty and trying to relax before the next patrol sent them into the wilds again. In a few weeks, he'd be out there with them again. In the time being though-
"Well look who it is!”
"Kale, you fat petch, you miss me?”
Kale scratched under his stubbly beard and shook Elias's hand after squashing some wriggling thing his fingers had found. Hard brown eyes seemed to be searching that familiar, scarred face for some reason, as if Elias was some long lost family member come looking for a handout. To the swordsman though, Kale was almost like family, as harrowing as that was to consider. He’d known this son of a bitch even before his exile. Years ago he'd been a two bit smuggler back on the east docks when the stryfer soldier had been just a stryfer apprentice working diligently to curtail the criminals that befouled their city. By curtail, he of course meant shake down and extort, and Kale had always been a loyal confident and snitch in those days. In fact, he’d made enough coin selling out his fellow ne’er-do-wells that he could have afforded himself a place in the noble district if he had wanted. Instead he had come out here and made… this.
"Missed you like a miss a hemorrhoid, lad. What brings you back into my little slice of paradise?"
"Paradise?" Elias said as a tankard was placed before him by a serving wench with eyes far too old for her face. "That what you call it?"
Kale harrumphed and gestured around with chunky arms long of wobbling fat, taking in all above and below in the swooshing gesture.
"You kiddin'? Gash, booze, dice and brawling, all under the same roof. There's folk who'd think this was the petching' afterlife, boy."
"God help us if you're right. If this is where we go after we die, i'd better start repenting for all my sins now.”
"...you always were a clever cunt."
Nothing but a smirk greeted that challenge, and some nearby eavesdroppers were surprised... and disappointed. Nothing better than seeing a fight break out, and if ever there was a man more eager to have his pride wounded, it was Elias Caldera. Instead however, he swallowed Kale's bait without taking the hook, along with a mouthful of some of the worst petching booze he’d ever tasted... and shrugged.
"Feel like teaching me a lesson? Let me in the pit tonight."
Kale blinked a few time. "You serious?"
"What, you worried my pretty face might get banged up?”
Kale settled back into his seat by the fire, eyebrows atop his brow, mouth a little open, like he'd been told the world was going to end tomorrow. "Well, dip me in honey and throw me to the bears. Will wonders never cease. You’ve always just watched the fights before. Hell, watching is all you ever seem to do seein’ as you won’t even stoop to plowing one of my girls for petch sake, why the sudden excitement to get your hands dirty now?"
"I find myself in need of… release."
Kale could tell the kid wasn't going to give him anymore than that... and he'd learned hard over the decades that the less questions a man asked in this own, the longer he lived. He sipped his own brew -actual ale, not the horse shyke he sold the others- and savored it, thinking, plotting, planning...
"I might have an opening for you tonight."
"Don't play coy with me, you cheeky old tease, you'll get me a fight, you’ll let me put some money on myself to boot, are we clear?”
The old man's face split into a leer, exposing holes and gaps and yellow, blackish and things that seemed to shrink from the light and hide in rotted gums. Elias realized with a start that the sound the wretch was making behind them was actually laughter.
"Oh ho ho ho! I’m going to enjoy watching you get your ass beat to a pulp, Caldera. We all will."
