Day Six-Hundred-Ten: Bountiful

Um.

Hi.

I'm... not Dragomir.

I get the feeling this happens a lot.

Sooooo... to recap: Team Pubton has lost one of its members to the local constabulary, as they have mistaken him for an infamous thief - who is, in fact, a prince! Our brave party sets off in search of 'Mr. L', infiltrating a secretive black market to track him down and clear their friend's name. 

Unfortunately, things have not gone according to plan for the protagonists. When do they ever? What kind of story gives its sons and daughters a happy ending without first forcing them to work for it...?

Edmund and Grylock returned to our tavern hidey-hole this morning with good news: they'd successfully infiltrated Trademore's black market. Even better, it wasn't a membership-based enterprise as they'd feared. So long as you know where the entrance is, you can get in.

I'm not one for slinking into dens of inequity, so I decided to remain staunchly aboveground and conduct some more business while Dragomir, Libby, Edmund and Grylock went searching in the black market. Edmund and Grylock bade me farewell; Dragomir and Libby did their best to ignore me. 

I sense I am not much appreciated on this trip. Particularly since Libby described me as 'slutty' yesterday. Get some new adjectives, woman.

Trademore is positively crammed with foodstuffs, and though I had to drop more coin than I would've preferred I returned to the tavern this evening with a lovely store of ingredients. Pickled rabbit, gored ham, honey glazed porcupine, eggbert radishes, winterweed (not as good as Pubton's local stock, but not bad either),shepherd's tongue, lollygag fruits, diamondbacked jellyfish tartar... quite a haul, I must say.

So when I say that I dropped my groceries upon returning to the tarvern and finding Libby bloodied on the floor of her room, you can imagine that the resulting thump was considerable.

"Libby!" I shouted, dipping down to shake her shoulders. "What happened? Libby!"

Libby opened one puffy eye. "Egh... you... had to be you, didn't it...?"

Smacking my head, I ran to the bathroom, fetched a wet cloth, and used it to daub some of Libby's wounds. They weren't substantial, and she's mostly okay now, but she'll have a hell of a headache for a few days. "What happened? My god, where is everyone else?"

After crawling to a bed (and shunning my help entirely), Libby explained. She, Dragomir, Edmund and Grylock had searched the black market's questionable stalls for almost an hour, making discrete inquiries about Logan, when they'd been approached by a group of toughs - no less than bounty hunters. The largest amongst them, apparently a giant penguin, had swiftly IDed Dragomir as their target.

Things... things went downhill from there.

Libby's not sure how she managed to escape, though she's fairly certain that the hunters captured at least Dragomir and Edmund. She's quite ashamed of fleeing for her life, though it doesn't surprise me. Take one hit to the face from a large penguin and you'll probably be confused as a minimum. She also made the right call, despite her pride - had all four of them been captured, we never would've known how to enter the black market. Our leader would simply have vanished, with no explanation.

So... that's... something.

I've convinced Libby to spend tonight recuperating. The bounty hunters won't leave Trademore yet, not with the weekend on its way. That'll give us Monday to track them down, beat them up, and retrieve our missing friends.

Yes. Simple as that. It's always as simple as that.

Sincerely,

Bora the Bartender