IC Story Thread: Ch.1,Ad.1 - A Sensitive Matter

Duinhir is able to follow the man, who is inebriated and stumbling and not very aware, a short ways away to where he stops before the door of a ramshackle hovel, swaying slightly, and he begins to fumble in his pockets for something......

At the docks, things do not fair much better for Seonaid, Cirion, and Eothain... enlisting the street urchins seems like a very good idea, but perhaps they have troubles finding you all again, or perhaps they just ran off with your coin? It's unknowable, and just walking around the docks, looking, doesn't seem to yield the results hoped for early on. And so the three must push further and further into the evening to achieve their goal. At one point, you're all even accosted by ruffians - perhaps you were just in the wrong part of the docks at the wrong time, or perhaps they thought you looked like easy marks - and you had to fight.

By the end of it, the sun is well up by the time you all return to Onar's and are able to sync up your findings to know the location of the ship.

Easterly Rock was a sign you all saw in your search of the docks and you can even recall seeing a ship there and the layout of the dock - perhaps the name was obscured by crates or something else, and so you were unable to identify it then. But when the Tavern crew gives you the name and location they heard, you can all put the pieces together and begin to formulate your next steps.

Easterly Rock Area
Easterly Rock, docks - Storm-tide

The man is making no effort to be silent, so Duinhir is able to hear what little that goes on inside with little trouble.

No light illuminates the cracks around the door, and so the man stumbles around inside a bit, possibly running into one or more pieces of furniture, possibly opening a cabinet or two? There's some incomprehensible mumbling. Some shuffling of ceramic-ware. A bit of a silent pause. And then the resonance of footsteps upon some stairs before all sound trails out of range his range of perception.

...

It is mid-morning before Seonaid and Cirion make it back to Easterly Rock. And as they approach the small branch of the neighborhood and dock where they are to put on their fishing charade, they can see it's kind of busy here right now. Seemingly busier than a lot of the other neighborhoods or docks they can see or walk past.

The activity seems to mainly consist of ... it's hard to say, maybe people who are moving? Like out of their homes or stores? Because what the two see are workers, simple laborers or porters, stacking or carrying crates and sacks and pots and furniture and things...

There's enough of them about that Seonaid and Cirion even feel like they're in the way at times as they stroll toward their planned destination.

There are one or two porters, per collection of buildings, making aggregates and stacks of wares, coming out of the buildings. Placing it into piles before them, or occasionally taking something directly from a building to a wagon.

And there's porters also periodically taking things from those stacks outside the buildings and placing them into different stacks or into a wagon.

And periodically scattered about it all, there's seemingly a clerk of some sort every once in awhile, with a scroll and feather pen, checking a list or writing something down.

As the two pause to take in the scene more, they can tell that stuff is definitely being moved out, but there is not particular rush. Indeed there's a good bit of methodology and examination by the clerk figures. And this kind of activity was not going on in the other neighborhoods they passed on the way here, that they could see.

And as you both look around more, you also notice other folk about that are not workers - one standing in a corner over there, a couple peering down from windows, a couple standing in doorways - and mostly they do not look happy as they observe the moving activities. From their sea-weathered skin, and colorful sashes, and hard black batons and curved daggers... you can tell these observers are likely Corsairs.

Moving toward the dock and off to the side of the main corridor, plaza-like area, Cirion and Seonaid can get a view of the Storm-tide. And from this spot, they can see some sort of argument taking place between a clerk and a Corsair, at the gang-plank access point to the ship.