Backstory

It was a bit hard to sleep having never been on a sailing ship before. It seemed there was a noise for everything. The bells constantly sounded and rung in the time and rhythm of watches. The dinner was a rousing affair of drunken pirates singing and joking, followed by the obvious sounds of sex and laughter. It all but rattled your royal sensibilities, yet they seemed like happy folk celebrating some victory.

Rested enough, you awake to hear the signals and calls from off ship. You gather your things and go on deck to see the First Mate Dukalu and Ship Master Poca with oil lamps making signals to a lighthouse which answer in similar semaphores in the dark early hours. The lights of a town lie beyond.

You go with Dukalu and Captain Kitsune into the city. It is still easy enough to find the central square in the dark before dawn, even if it by hearing the play of water where an aqueduct drops ice melt mountain water into various cascading basins.

As you reach the end of the street that empties into the square, you hear the sounds of hoops and howlers, as well as the clank of metal, and the sound of a very young girl crying in fear. Getting to the edge of the dim lit square, torches on the perimeter and the growing dawn approaching, your eyes confirm what you have heard. Five soldiers in plate mail and drawn long swords are pushing around a girl of perhaps 10 years old, who is carrying on her head a large pottery that she has filled at the fountain, the water spilling as she moves back and forth to avoid the men's swords set out to trip her in jest. You hear one of the men yell out in broken Maztica common, "Dance for us squaw!" You can see no one else is in the square and all the shop doors are closed. They are 80 feet from you and are at the center of the square.