4. A Beautiful Mine

Bells has a plan, but still no idea where to find Sephek or Torrga. So she tries on her disguise and spends the evening touring Targos's streets.

The Trip and Shuffle is a rowdy tavern where Targon fishers blow off steam by trading blows and getting steamed. They take little interest in life outside of Targos, and no interest in anything beyond the source of their next sauce.

Next, Bells and her unborn cushion visit a backroom three dragon ante game. Bells' condition gets no preferential treatment here - if these cardsharps were interested in labour, then they wouldn't have become professional gamblers.

Bells continues her search in the west of Targos, where the houses are swankier and the servents might talk. She doesn't uncover any information about a serial killer. But they take pity on a woman who is 'with pillow', and after the bairn is born, Bells might be able to find herself a job as a scullery maid.

Looping around, Bells discovers a house where people with excess resources and who wish to negotiate short-term affection might find companionship with those who find themselves in need of financial... It's a brothel. Bells finds a brothel. The women make warding signs and at Bells, as though she's the frightening ghost of Simril future. The men don't know anything. At all. Not even their names, nor how they happen to find themselves in a house of such dubious reputation.

---

The problem with Icewind Dale is that people make a point of not knowing anything. Unfortunately for Bells, the people here have too many secrets to encourage would-be investigators.

Finally, our heroine hears shouting, cheering, and hard thumps from a large ship trapped in the ice of the frozen docks. Waddling up the gangplank, and still very much 'in the upholstery way', Bells sees light bleeding from the deck hatch. Opening it releases a mushroom cloud of tarleaf smoke, mead fumes, aerosolised sweat, cursing, and groans.

A rope net provides a climb into the hold and a bare-knuckle boxing den. Bells descends as gracefully as one can when carrying near-term padding. Two pugilists battle it out in a ring of ropes and mead kegs - kegs from which onlookers draw even as the fight continues.

The air is thick enough to chew. Every member of this crowd carries bruises and cuts like trophies. A fight club. That's fine. Bells doesn't care about the first and second rules, provided they don't prohibit talking about Sephek or Torrga too.

The crowd throws Bells glances as casually as they throw jabs, but with no follow-through. This pregnant wench is less interesting to them than the fight in front of them. So nobody pays her any mind.

...almost nobody. A half-orc goggles at her, his jaw slackens, the green drains from his face, his legs sag as though life had dealt a knockout. He squints through the smoke, trying to make out Bells' features. As she approaches, he sighs in visible relief, and he even manages an embarrassed smile.

The pugilist staggers over to Bells, and introduces himself as Grummond. His accent is pure Calimport sailor, his manners are unpolished, although he manages to varnish them with a veneer of cheeky charm.

He seems so drunk on his reprieve that he is eager to hear Bells' tale.

"What sort o' swivin' cove would leave a lass up the duff?!

O' course I'll help ya!"

Grummond doesn't know anything about Sephek or Torrga, but he knows "Just the ruddy bugger to beat it out of". With a "Wait 'ere luv, while I knock the shite out of a rat." Gummond ascends the net out of the hold with a deck hand's dexterity who has worked the rigging since he was pupped.

It's perhaps half an hour, perhaps an hour, they measure time in rounds down here, before Grummond comes back. His face sports more cuts and bruises since Bells last saw him. Breathing hard the half-orc makes his way over to Bells.

As Grummond approaches, Bells sees his green bruises fading back to grey - a regenerative gift of his orcish heritage. They say you can't keep a good man down. That may or may not be true. What's certain is that you can't keep a bad half-orc down - those bastards keep on fighting.

"Torrga? Her and her swivin' bandits are camped out on the crossroads north o' the Eastway just outside Easthaven. Near the old thieves' den. Leastways they ruddy were yesterday."

He breathes heavily and looks to the smokey hold ceiling timbers as if offering a prayer to repentance to some unseen god. Or if not repentance, then at least gratitude for temporary remission.