Jorella picks up her shipment

Jorella arrives in the village of Pilla to collect her first shipment and meet with a potential buyer.

Our expert merchant rarely traveled outside the capital, the vast open spaces reminded her too much of that dreadful farm of her youth, which would soon prove very unfortunate for Jorella. Because if she had ever bothered to read about the world outside of the big trade centers, she probably would have chosen a different location for this meeting.

Pilla was rather infamous for its level of petty crime. It was known to locals as "Pillage" because of the sheer amount of thieves that gathered in the town.

Some say it had gotten the name because it was originally founded by a group of highway men looking for a less dangerous way to separate people from their coin. The story goes that they had grown tired of the danger associated with their profession and decided it would be easier to separate people from their wealth by opening an inn. Overcharging customers or 'losing' their luggage was a lot less dangerous than jumping someone in a dark alley afterall.

Others argued it got the name because its thieves have gotten so good at stripping and robbing the rich that come through (the standing record stood at 3 days for completely denuding a wealthy sucker by the name of Miss Margo Dellow).

Pilla's mayor insists both are untrue, but rumor has it few travelers emerge from the village without a significantly lighter coin purse and the occasional valuable missing.

Little does Jorella know, she's about to test those theories and maybe even set a new record for how quick it can be done...

She arrives in town with a smile, decked out in her finest clothes and jewelry, all of it bought on credit, riding a top a rented horse for which she had most certainly over paid. She even paid extra for the 'full liability' insurance on the animal, which meant for an extra 50 gold she got a free hanky and was now liable for anything that happened to it (Jorella never had been one for reading the fine print).

Jorella rode towards the center of town, a large sack of gold jingling from her saddlebags.