Still one more adventurer to wrangle (Colt)

"Hey, wake up."

Colt grumbled and rolled to the side. The resulting feeling of free fall was the way he really woke up - just in time to hit a hard, wooden floor. "Ow," he groaned.

"Y'know, usually I make folks pay for a bed if they fall asleep in my common room," the woman continued.

"Wha-?" Colt grumbled, rolling over and looking up. The tavern mistress was a beautiful woman not too much older than Colt himself, but with a look in her eyes that spoke of a worldliness that Colt couldn't guess at. She was slim, wearing a thick apron pulled tight around her feminine body, but her most striking features were her golden tan skin and her large, almond shaped eyes. Her looks were exotic compared to the usual mixes of Varisian and Chelish blood - if Colt was correct, he had to guess she was one of those few second or third generation migrants from Tian, that land of mystery across the world. They had settled in Magnimar shortly after it’s founding, and had been a rare sighting ever since.

"I said I should charge you for falling asleep in my inn, whether you used a room or not," she said.

"You have a lovely voice," Colt said, shaking the daze of the fall from his head before scampering to his feet. He began brushing himself down, pawing off the filthy sawdust from the floor that was used to sop up spills and dirt. "I'm sorry, I'm an actor. I just noticed-"

"Stow it, kid," the innkeeper said. It was a little off putting to be called kid by someone so close to his own age. "You stumbled in here last night and told half the tavern about how you'd just spitroasted a woman with her husband, who had moments before caught you cuckolding him."

Colt had the sense of decency to blush. "That is not how I usually conduct myself, Miss. I apologise profusely."

"No need," the woman said, turning and heading towards the kitchens. "Wasn't me you were talking about. I'd be careful walking around the Festival today though, rumours spread quickly in small towns like this."

"Fuck," Colt grumbled, quickly running his hand through his hair to straighten it. Then he gave chase, following the woman to the kitchen. When he entered, she had a butcher's knife in hand and chopped the head off of a large salmon with a single, heavy thonk. He gulped. "Look, Miss...?"

She glanced over at him with a cocked eyebrow. "You can call me Ameiko. This is my inn, kid, and I've got a shitload of work to do."

"Ameiko, that's a lovely name," Colt said, and flashed his patented grin. It faltered after a moment when she glanced up, registered it, and went back to her work. "Please, let me start again. Is there anything I could possibly do to thank you for your generous hospitality? Perhaps a performance this evening? I am a skilled entertainer and actor, I-"

"I've got two travelling bards and a half dozen locals vying for spots in the common room already," Ameiko said. She bodily lifted another salmon, seemingly fresh caught that morning, out of a barrel and slammed it onto the heavy wooden counter.

"Well then, perhaps another time? I'd be happy to provide you a sample, I'll be staying in the area for some time after the Festival today and-"

She slammed the butcher's knife down again, and another fish head spun away and slopped into a bucket. Thonk.

"Look, kid-" she started.

"Please, Colt Caudex."

"Right. Well, Colt, you don't need to apologise, I'm not looking for a performer, and," she glanced him over again, "To be honest, you're just not my type." She walked towards him, her presence forcing Colt to step back. "Now, as I said, I've got a shitload of work to do. You're welcome back at the Rusty Dragon whenever you'd like for a drink, a meal or a room. Just not in my kitchen."

Colt hadn't even realised he'd let her back him out of the room until she slammed the door in his face.

"Well, shit," he mumbled. He turned and took in the common room of the inn for the first time while sober. It was a large establishment, as rural inns went at least, with over a dozen tables and booths and a simple raised platform for a stage. Stairs wound up to a second floor where he presumed the rentable rooms were, and two big hearths had soft glows of embers to dull the cool of an autumn morning. The only other people around were a pair of miserly looking old men in a back corner grumbling to each other over bowls of porridge, and one dowdy looking merchant who looked tired enough to fall face first into his own bowl.

Colt checked his belt, finding his pouch still thankfully contained his coin, and then fetched his satchel from where it was tied to the leg of the stool he had been sleeping on. His silver chalice, the focus he had trained to use for his magic, was inside along with the few other possessions he had brought along with him. Including, thank heavens, his spellbook. Why Master Nivlandis decided sending him out to Sandpoint was a good idea was totally lost on him.

Now, now, he thought to himself as he hefted his satchel and headed towards the door. There's no point in lying to myself. Nivlandis was tired of father's complaints that the coin spent on my education wasn't being put to use. Studying ancient Thassilonian ruins back in the city had been alright - Colt could spend an afternoon sketching some vague carvings from walls of the Irespan, the immense and ancient bridge piling that Magnimar was built around, and then pay some scholar to look up the significances while he attended the latest play to open in the playhouses of the Naos district.

Out here though? Sure, Sandpoint had it's rural theatre. But it was still mostly filled with-

"Who is that?" Colt muttered to himself. He had just stepped out of the Rusty Dragon Inn and onto the cobbled street, eyes winced in the bright morning light, and caught sight of a bright red, thick mane of hair sauntering down the street. The dwarf woman's hair was like the deepest reds of a fire, swept back from a cute face with a button nose and smattered with peach freckles. Her travelling clothes were worn, but hugged her form, showing off an astounding cleavage. Colt watched her pass by, not even paying him a glance, and he blinked as he saw her firm, wide hips and thick dwarven ass.

The tough, warrior-type wasn't usually his favoured pursuit, but somehow the bundle of armour hanging from her pack and the heavy crossbow slung over one shoulder just added to her effect.

"Gods be praised for Festival day," Colt murmured, and he joined the flowing street crowd to trail after the beauty. As he walked, he tried to think of ways he should approach the dwarf woman - to be honest, most of the time this sort of thing was easy for Colt. Meet at a bar, say something impressive about the latest play, maybe give a little spark of display magic, and someone was usually interested. He didn't really just... approach women in the street. That would be strange, right?

A cart pulled off of a sidestreet and stopped in front of Colt. He tried shifting around it, but a family of five... no, six. Seven? How many kids do these people have!? Country people, UGH! A large family was in his way. By the time the street cleared and he wound through the town and up the rise to 'Uptown' near the Cathedral, Colt had lost the dwarf woman.

"Damn," he muttered, casting about the crowd of townfolk and visitors, all dressed in their best and brightest. "What are the chances I never see her again? It can't be that high, this isn't such a big- Holy shit!"

Big was the optimal word for the man who strode by and practically trod right over him. The man had to have been eight, maybe nine feet tall, and had a face like it was carved from stone. The crowd naturally parted around the half-giant, and he reacted as if it were perfectly natural - then again, crowds parted around carts for the same reason. They didn't want to get squashed. Unlike most of the festival goers, the man was dressed in the heavy browns and furs of a woodsman or wilderness guide or something, and his heavy cloak had the antlered symbol of Erastil burned into it, though it had faded and was covered in the dust of the road.

"No wonder he's so sour," Colt said with a smirk. Erastileans preferred their homegrown, community fairs and such. Even this provincial little festival is probably too much for the big galoot.

A boom rattled the nearby eaves of the buildings, like thunder despite the clear morning sky. The crowd quieted quickly, and Colt found himself one of many looking over towards the front steps of the Cathedral where a platform had been erected. A man of Varisian descent, middle-aged and heavily tanned and wearing bright blue ceremonial robes, had his hands up to draw attention. "My friends," he boomed, his voice carrying to the furthest stretches of the packed town square. "Your attention, please. To open this Swallowtail Festival, I invite our Mayor to the stage."

Thus began, for Colt, a string of highly provincial and utterly boring speeches. The Mayor, a perfectly reasonable seeming woman named Deverin, at least tried to open up with a couple of jokes. She wasn't particularly funny, though there were chuckles from the local rubes. Then came a big, bald man with the darker tanned skin of the northern Shoanti, whose dour frown would have marked him out as the local Law even if he hadn't been introduced as the Sheriff. Warnings about drunkenness and such came from him, and then a moment of silence to remember those that had died when the last church had burned down or something. What an absolute buzzkill, Colt quietly sighed to himself.

The next speaker, to Colt's surprise, was Cyrdak Drokkus - a man once infamous on the stages of Magnimar. Colt had heard rumours that the old patron and performer had moved somewhere, but hadn't ever connected that that might have been Sandpoint. This, he thought, just became a much more interesting place to be. Judging by his storytelling, recounting for the locals the trials and tribulations of getting the new Cathedral built, he still had a knack for the stage. If he had a hand in the local theatre, maybe a stint in Sandpoint wasn't going to be so boring after all.

Cyrdak handed the stage back to the clergyman in blue, Father Zantus, and the crowd was practically humming with energy again. Even before the priest had finished declaring the Festival open, the crowd chatter was booming and the festivities were under way.

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