David looks at Phineas as he places his hand on David's shoulder, before turning in the direction indicated. Seeing Savra head forward and Phineas moving to back her up, David wait a little ways back, doing his best to keep is eye's open for any trouble.

One of the bouncer's throws up his hands defensively, saying, "Whoa, lady. Don't take it out on us. Bokes is inside working the balcony level. Chew him out after the opera."

"Which section?" Savra asks with a narrowing of her eyes. "This girl is precious to me, I do not wish her to be alone any longer than is needed for me to take care of this." She would pull out coin for a ticket. "I'll pay for a ticket for which ever section is needed, but I will speak with this man now..."

"Easy, lady," the man says. "I ain't got no beef with you.  But there's no tickets sold after the show has started. You can chew out Bokes after he closes up the balcony level in...3 hours."

"Sorry." Savra says with a sigh, pushing some of her auburn hair behind an ear. She sighs again and gives the enforcer a nod. "You are right, and I don't normally go off like that." She looks to the other guards there. "Where would I be able to find him,once those three hours are up? And I hope you guys won't forewarn him, as I would hate for him to attempt to hide from me when that time is up."

David, watching from his position out of earshot, smiles at the look on the bouncer's face and his body language.

"She may be a little thing compared to the bouncer, but she's got him backing up, hah! With people like this in the group, this looks like it's going to be fun."

David grins, scratching his beard, before going back to scanning the area for trouble.

We're back! Sorry about the delay and thanks for your patience. The run up to the new term starting was a bear!

The guards look at each other, smirking. "And miss out on Bokes getting his ass chewed out? Not a chance!"

The guards all laugh, a couple of them slapping the speaker on his back. "Just catch him at the front entrance when they close up. Its the last door locked."

"I will do that." Savra says with a smile for the guards. She runs a hand through her auburn curls, mussing it a bit in apparent resignation at having to wait. She then gives the enforcers a nod of thanks and moves off. She would walk away then wait out of sight of the enforcers for her companions to join her.

David sees Savra head off and follows her a moment later, finding his way to her hiding place.

"So what did you find? This muscle, he working tonight?"

Three hours goes by quickly, with the help of a tavern down the road from Raven Hill. Nobody overdoes it, or lets Phineas overdo it, and when opera patrons begin to filter into the bar, chattering about what they liked and what they didn't, the group departs and wades against the flow of traffic towards the stadium. It is another 40 minutes before the staff begin to filer out of the stadium as well, looking tired and heading home for the evening. One of the guards nudges Savra, lifting his chin in the direction of a burly looking human exiting the building in conversation with an equally large half-orc.

"Good luck, lady," the guard says.

"There has to be a mistake." Savra says to the guard. "That is not the man I am seeking." She looks to the guard. "Are you trying to protect him? The man I am looking for..." She gives a detailed description of someone who is definitely not the person the guard indicated, and is not any of the other guards she has spotted, just a random person from the tavern they were just in.

David, who is waiting a little ways back from Savra, gives a curious look at Savra for her comment, but keeps watching the guard that was pointed out. David, doesn't want to let the target disappear, but he's now not sure if maybe Savra knew something more about their target or if more shenanigans might be at play.

Down at the riverside docks, a line of longshoremen haul barrels and crates between wagon and barge, the unappreciated movers of Foxshadow’s trading wealth. They tend to be big folk, and Amadow ‘Tug’ Rioux doesn’t stand out for his size here. Taller than most and less stout, maybe, but in the range. Tattoos are not uncommon, the remnant of a scar on his face would not be remarkable. Hair still shiny-black, but skin gone ashen over the years.

But if you know what you are looking at, his clothes are better quality than they ought to be. And why wear armor under your clothes to load freight? And if you could afford half-plate, why are you a stevedore?

Folks that ask don’t get much of an answer Family us’ta be better off he’d say, or Savin’ for summat Tug’s friendly enough, he don’t mind answering one question, but you learn not to press it.

Maybe you know, the Rioux family used to be middle class, kind of faded gentry almost. Until 25 years back, granddad lost the business gambling. Cheated is Tug’s commentary on the story. Maybe you remember a younger Amadow as a naïve tough, who spent time in the workhouse, left holding the bag in a robbery. Corruption, he says. He doesn’t seem particularly bitter, most of the time…

In a quiet neighborhood of Foxshadow stands a bookstore. Inside, sitting at a worn wooden desk, is a half-elf man. He has red hair and appears to be in his early twenties. On the rare occasion of a customer, he helps them, his every mannerism radiating boredom. Nobody would ever suspect this young man of being able to magically influence your mood or summon extraplanar beings to do his bidding, and that's how Aravor Eilthen, skilled enchantment wizard, likes it.

While he may appear to be using roughly 5% of his mind, the other 95% is occupied simulating various plans and calculating each one's chances to get to that evil man Curtis Dron, murderer of Aravor's beloved sister Alyfine. By day, Aravor is a bored store clerk. At night, he is researching everything he can about Dron, sending his familiar on reconnaissance missions, and studying ways to bring back the dead.

On this particular day, he is sitting at the desk, writing out the monthly sales record. Meanwhile, in his head, Revenge Scenario #1522 is spectacularly failing. He sighs and moves on to #1523.

Seriously this one is a complete novice, Sharvon thinks to himself.  

Sharvon had been up town disguised as hired help at the estate of Lord Roycroft. His daughters coming of age party,  and the perfect chance for Sharvon to wander the grounds and plan his next burglary. 

But on his way back to the city docks he had forgotten to change his disguise, and now a young pock marked human with a rusty knife was trying to mug him......

Maybe I am acting the novice Sharvon though with a smile.

The human mistook the smile and slashes with his knife. Sharvon ducked the blade, and drove two stiffened fingers into the point along the peracardium energy channel between his attackers  bicep, and triceps. The pain makeing  his arm go dead for a moment, long enough for Sharvons left two fingers to drive into pressure points on the lung energy channel at the attackers chest causing him to gasp for a breath.  It's hard to tighten your stomach when your gasping for a breath, and sharvon steped back and shot a side kick into his stomach driving the wind out of him and leaving him panting on all fours. 

As Sharvon continues to walk by he dropped a good coin in front of the man. "Best find a different line of work."

As he walks he dispels the illusion his hat made, his hair goes back to its deep blackness, his eyes back to their normal hazel. Only standing just over five and a eight  feet tall he doesn't stand out much, people tend to notice big guys, not modderetly short ones. Adjusting  his now wide brim hat to better keep the sun out of his eyes, and pulling the now plain grey cloak over his shoulders he continues down the street.

Time to see what Tug is up too.

New hat? You look taller Sharv Tug says his sparing friend shows up at the end of the dock Takin' a break, boss he calls out. They don't really care much - they stop paying when you're on a break, and there are plenty day laborers in the pool to take a turn on the load line. Times is tough, jobs is hard to come by. Tug is more effective than most, but the shift boss wouldn't know a good worker if it bit him in the butt. Learn anything good? This question has passed back and forth more times than are worth counting. Nobody has learned anything that will really help getting even, getting ahead, getting anything. Punching each other takes the place of punching the unpunchable Dron

Sharvon can't help laugh at the joke, it's been one of those days when everything just seems to make him laugh, even the crap he got on his boot a block back.

"I learned the Roycrofft family spends way way to much gold on their daughters coming of age ceremony, and they spend even more gold securin their vault. Been a bust of a day. But I got my health, and my looks so I am one up on most people around here." Sitting next to Tug Sharvon continues "I don't know Tug I feel like any day our luck will change, feel excitement in the air. What about you learn anything good?"

Wilfer Nicklecreek strides through the streets with purpose, leaving yet another 'celebration' of his 'glorious' victory over a nest of vampires, settling firmly into a foul mood. Wearing his usual field uniform, flatly refusing to wear the more decorative uniform suggested by the events organizer Dron. Ha! 'Organizer', I wonder how those fools who praise his name will react when I finally manage to reveal just how much of this he'd organized. Sending him and his entire unit into a nest of vampires, telling them it was a simple group of bandits, knowing that they'd all die, just to get to his commander's young pretty wife. At least she managed to avoid the fate Dron'd had in store for her, though its always a shame to see a young person like her to end their own life out of grief. And since I survived, now I'm a hero for him to parade around and show how much he supports the city. He shakes his pale bald head and lengthens his stride, wondering how much of his foul mood is his own, and how much is a result of how he'd survived. He thinks back to how it felt for his sorcerous blood spilling on that ancient altar, the surge of power racing through the caverns, ripping the vampire apart and sending its essence into him. Wilfer looks around, wondering if this contact will really be able to help him settle the score, expose Dron for his sins, and pull him down low enough to be destroyed the same as the lives of those in his path. He smiles as he brings his hand up to the vial around his neck, containing what appears to be blood and ink, flowing around, mixing, but staying separate at the same time, relishing that his enemy's actions will bring about his own downfall, Justice.

Tug and Sharvon:

A cool day turns chilly as the breeze blows along the river, buffeting along the fish shops and warehouses that line the dock. Unfurled flags snap as the breeze occasionally surges, causing the dock dwellers to pull their coats tighter. One such dweller seems unbothered by the chill as he sits on a post and watches the river boats coming and going. The tiefling, for that is what he clearly is, doesn't belong here. His clothes, his mannerisms...he is clearly a tourist to the docks. The man shrugs off more than one look his way for this reason, as if being a tourist was any more intrusive than the gulls or cats circling the docks for an easy meal. Eventually the dockhands get used to him, though, just as the do the gulls and cats. "He isn't in the way," they say. "He isn't bothering anyone." Besides, they have more important things to do if they are going to earn their silver today.

When he is finally forgotten, the tiefling turns his attention to the workers. He is invisible to them now, a fixture sitting quietly atop his perch like the figurehead on the ships. His eyes do not stare blankly, though. He eyes Tug and Sharvon as they come together in a discreet conversation across the street out of the wind in an alley not yet shaded by the shifting gaze of the sun. The tiefling is to far away to know what they are saying, but he knows what the conversation is about. And he can read body language as well as anyone. When he sees the big dockhand's shoulders sag slightly, a curl alights on the tiefling's mouth. He nods approvingly and hops down from the dock post and cross the street. He shoves his hands in his pockets and hunches his shoulders, as one should in the autumn cool along the river. He turns at the tavern to follow the street, passing by the alley that Tug and Sharvon stand in.

"...I feel like our luck any day our luck will change, feel excitement in the air. What about you learn anything good?" says Sharvon and the tiefling stops.

"Optimism?" the tiefling says, catching the eye of the two men. "In these times? That's a rare thing."

The tiefling holds up his hands placatingly. "I just overheard as I passed," he adds with a jaunty grin. "But I share your optimism, sirs."

The tension at the intrusion into their private conversation is palpable. Before either one can speak, the tiefling continues. "Garrol Vansic," he says and points down the street. "I own the White Flamingo, just a skipped stone from here."

Both Tug and Sharvon know Vansic's reputation. He's a charmer, a troublemaker, but for all the right people and all the right reasons. A light pink scar on the side of his neck provides proof of the other rumor they have heard about Vansic: He was excommunicated by Curtis Dron.

As Vansic sees Tug and Sharvon's expressions soften, he smiles in that disarming way for which he is known. "What gives rise to your optimism, friends?"

Aravor:

The tinny jingle of the entry bell to the book shop cuts short. It isn't broken, it was just annoying. Now it services a single tink and then falls silent. That's the way a good book shop should be.

It is a especially quiet now as the day is drawing to an end and there are no customers milling about. The new entrant is a tiefling man, dressed in a long coat and hatless. The man waves away any offers of assistance and sets about perusing the stacks of books. He looks in the cook books and the autobiographies and the scholarly naturalist tomes. He does not seem lost. He seems to be looking for...well, that is hard to say, really. Another offer for help goes completely ignored.

As Aravor begins to light a few lamps around his counter, he offers a lantern to the lone shopper.

"No, I have it," he says.

The tiefling emerges ten seconds later with a book in his grasp. It is a history entitled The Revenge: Thirty-three Years of Terror at Sea, which recounts the sordid details of the three captains of the nefarious vessel that ruled the southern seas for more than 3 decades. It is not especially valuable, nor is it terribly interesting or well-written for that matter. From what Aravor has heard, it is not terribly accurate either.

"My dresser lost its leg," the man says, as if this had any bearing on his purchase. "The book...it's the perfect thickness."

On the one hand, the book is not especially worthy of the paper it is printed on. On the other hand, using a book as a furniture leg is nearly sacrilegious. It is enough to give one mental whiplash. Still, it is probably a worthy fate for a book such as this.

The man lays down the appropriate coppers and a single silver coin, worth far more than the book is. Aravor notes that it is heads-up and the portrait stamped into the silver is positioned properly for his viewing. These are not useful observations but such things come naturally to him often. He looks up and notices something else. The mirror of this coin in pink, raised skin on the tiefling's neck. It is the Silver Scar and marks the man as one who has fallen from grace, if one could truly call Curtis Dron "grace".

"It didn't hurt as much as you would think," the man says. He leaves the coin on the counter and picks up his book. "Not that I would recommend to to anyone."

The tiefling has an easy smile and he also has Aravor's full attention. "I thought you would have me pegged before now," the red-skinned man says, as if Aravor has already determined who this person is.

It comes in a flash. Curtis Dron only ever had one tiefling in his inner circle. This man, Garrol Vansic. The easy smile, the quick wit, the Silver Scar...it should have been obvious. But Aravor had been so lost in his own plotting...

Another flash strikes the young wizard. Garrol can see this one on the mage's face and he grins a lopsided smirk. "You know," he says, summarizing what Aravor was thinking. "The Revenge took an entire crew to fly those crossbones. No captain sailed her all by himself. I think that is what made her reign of terror so successful. She had the right crew..."