Urbs Magna VI: Nestoria Harbor Report

Setimadi, the 20th of Cirearius, 114 PR

We reached Quintus’s inn--which Justina had spoken of--just as dawn broke. It was none-too-soon as our barbarians in their guard uniforms and our barely conscious hostage, Georgios were beginning to draw attention. The barkeep thought we were there to shake him down, but Teleptyon rambled at him about being from out of town and deeply incompetent and his failure to recognize who the Black Roses and Shadow Snakes were, the barkeep relented. We ordered pasta and beer. Justina was right, the pasta was entirely unobjectionable, but I’ve pissed out better beers than we drank that morning.

As we ate, Georgias came to and became a distraction. We decided to have a private conversation with him in the alley out back, but before we did Theo reminded him that mercy was available for those who showed contrition for their past misdeeds. When Teleptyon, Asbjørn and I stepped outside, I made it clear that Telly and I had no wish to cause him further harm, but that Asbjorn was positively erect at the idea of breaking his fingers. Sadly he was more broken by the realization that Calixtus had not survived our encounter. He told us that an Alvi woman with big ears and dark hair had dealings with the gladiators and had paid to have us roughed up. They had only gotten a small fragment of their pay for the event and would be paid near the warehouse district when the deed was done. We asked him as politely as the circumstance warranted whether he’d be interested in helping us acquire the rest of the cash and once the matter was settled be on his way to start a new life. He sagged at the prospect of moving on without his beloved Cali, but was pliant when we led him back into the inn and fed him food blessed by Maya.

I asked the barkeep to tell me where I could find the Oameni in town and who the major players in town were. He noted that the town was caught between a mob war between the Black Rose and Shadow Snakes and said that the Oameni were south and east in the neighborhood of Xenikos. I slipped him a silver for the information and tried to figure out if I had enough time to head to Xenikos and get a better lay of the city.

Kegho was less than pleased that we roughed up the guy without him and Theo blessed his food and broke bread with him.

We took Georgias to the meeting point but nobody showed. He became very anxious that we would do him serious harm. We returned so that Justina could tell us what she had found. I asked Quintus where I could get legitimate business tools and he suggested it’d be easier for a freelancer such as myself to find such tools among my people in Xenikos rather than under the eyes of the Roses and Snakes. He suggested that trying to get anything untoward done during the Dance of the Silver Chalice would be hard. Justina returned and confirmed the big-eared, long-haired woman’s involvement. She had tracked her to several locations and seen her pick up a package from a merchant and deliver it to the gladiators. She took us to see a tailor who Teleptyon assiduously haggled down. Justina then took us to see the house that the big-eared woman had gone into.