The Magdalene

After the Weekend War, every building along the Houette canal burned completely to the ground besides The Magdalene. Outliving the now collapsed marble of the East Newtport bank, the supposed eight hundred year old William Hotel, and the dozens of gambling houses and brothels of the West Stave, it stood alone. In the smoky smoldering light of Monday morning, the sun broke upon to reveal it, brick façade charred but not collapsed, the windows emptied of their glass, and the roof only black beams raising hands to the heavens, perhaps asking the gods why such a tragedy would unfold on the simple canal way.
The Magdalene waited, persevered, knowing it’s time had not yet come. It fought, as always, for those it loved.

Purpose / Function

The Magdalene is known to the folk of Newport as simply an old build housing a delicious cafe, the workers of who live above the shop. The workers are and always have been, women. All of them, not a single man has been known to sport their iconic mint aprons. 
They good girls, serving up even better tea and, on the occasion, coffee sold at a price the common folk can afford. Few look closely at the girls, they're just there to do a job, after all, but the occasional guest who takes time to notice might see scars, burns, fading tattoos of roses marking them as girls from the brothels, or the missing left earlobe cut out to signify slaves. 
Under the bright facade and excellent customer service, The Magdalene is a place where the lost, the scared, the desperate woman might find shelter in her time of greatest need. The building is enchanted to the point of being a near-living being itself, and it's rooms are always open to a woman in need.
For that is it's true purpose; helping any and all woman in need. A lot of them find the Home, the universe or the gods or fate bringing them to the doorstep. Others the women of the house go out and find. People pass in and out of Newtport constantly. It’s one of the unfortunate things about the country not having a strong and involved central government; no standing army to enforce things so, unless folk are watching, a lot of criminal activity happens.
Human trafficking is part of the Newport economy but it's dark. For the Aeridinian rich, there’s a market for elves and halflings, the more “exotic” folk. They're either kidnapped or sold by desperate parents to slavers along the Avann, and are shipped her all the way down to Newtport to be sold again. A lot of it is sex, but not all. Elven or halfling children are occasionally adopted into rich families— a curio for them.
Others are locals, somewhere in the middle, prostitutes from the West Staves, not exactly a salve, not exactly free, ready to escape to a new life but stuck in the cyclical poverty of their profession like their mothers before them.

Type

Cafe / Tearoom

Owner

Felicity Rose