The Salt-Stained Tankard breathes warm, briny air and old smoke. Dice clatter somewhere in the gloom, and lanternlight shivers across wet planks.
Gamb'lynn Junior slips in from the street, small as a shadow, her keen eyes catching the dim corners and the nearest exits.
At a scarred table near the back, a thug hunches over a rolled parchment. His callused palm pins it flat like a secret he means to keep.
The Thug
You’re late. And the price just climbed.
The Thug
Guard are on the block already. If she wants the map, she pays fast, or this gets ugly.
His eyes flick to the tavern door. One hand stays on the parchment. The other twitches, half-hidden, toward a blade at his belt.
The Thug
City guard’s circling outside. Double now, or walk away empty-handed.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the map
“Slide the original payment across the table and demand the map now.”
SUCCESS (Good Willpower, rolled -1)
Gamb'lynn Junior lays the coin on the table and gives it a firm, sliding shove. It stops beneath the thug’s palm, right beside the parchment.
Gamb'lynn Junior
The map. Now.
The thug’s fingers loosen, then curl back. He snatches the payment, but his gaze stays sharp, weighing the room and her face.
The Thug
You’re bold for someone this small. Fine, take it before I change my mind.
He pushes the rolled map across the scarred wood. The parchment bumps against Gamb'lynn Junior’s hand, now hers.
The Thug
And that coin cost you my silence. If the guard asks, you never saw me.
A chair scrapes somewhere near the door, and the thug’s eyes flick that way again, jaw tight over the price he just accepted.
Quest Complete
Secure the map
+ New Item Acquired
Rolled map