In Ascending both banks of the Gray River sway with green.  The blossoms of Resplendent Wood are shed and wilted, their remains washed away in Descending Wood's showers.  With water and flower gone the leaves and grasses stand polished to emerald, their shade deepening with the weeks as the world ripens beneath Fire's growing influence.  Traffic never wholly ceases on the Gray River, but in Fire the boats drift languidly down the floral avenue.  Planting season finished with Wood's end, and the year's first rush of harvest goods north to the markets of Nexus does not begin till Descending Fire.  Travelers on the merchants' roads lining either bank are mendicants and pilgrims, mercenaries and post-riders and caravans whose goods know no season: slaves, exotic trinkets, and the ten thousand raw materials hungered for by the manufactories of Nexus.<br/><br/>For a certain tea house, planted scenically on the banks of a spring-fed tributary to the Gray, Ascending Fire means an eclectic clientele.  Fire is the season of battle in debauch, when the countryside is freed from the backbreaking labor of planting and reaping.  On this afternoon, though, no troop of mercenaries halts by the road in search of drink and diversion; no pilgrim band stops to rest weary feet by the riverbank.  The house was nearly empty aside from the handful of locals willing to make themselves regulars, its mistress, and its peculiar staff.  The lull in business made the customer who arrived that afternoon stand out all the more, though she would've drawn attention in even the most tightly packed crowd.<br/><br/>A woman walked up the branch from the main road, towards the teahouse's front gate.  She was tall by any standard, broad-shouldered and wide-hipped, dressed in the sort of simple buff jacket for sale in any Guild emporium, its sleeves rolled up and top three buttons undone to vent the sturdy garment against the afternoon's heat.  She had the dark complexion of a Harborhead native and bright hazel eyes, a youthful face with full dark lips.  Her hair was long and wiry, ebon black.  Her temples were shaved, with flanks and back woven into beaded braids while the middle was combed into a wild arch of mohawk.  A quiver of yard-long javelins hung across her back beside a sturdy leather backpack and a wooden spear-thrower hung from her belt; otherwise she carried no visible weapons.<br/><br/>The southerner halted before the tea house's threshold, peering inside.  "Hello?" she called, her Riverspeak fluent but accented with Flametongue.  "What manner of place is this?"<br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">OOC</div><div class="spoiler_body">I've situated your tea house here (http://imgur.com/1L2Z8Zu), the blue circle off the east bank of the Gray River.  Nexus is a short trip away, should you want to travel; Great Forks is a ways further, north and east, but an easy journey by river.  The Ebon Spires of Pyrron and its surrounding shadowland are not far off to the west, should you want to have dealings with the dead.<br/><br/>Regarding your first customer, Investigation or Awareness would each be a valid Abilities to use for assessing her.  Perception+Occult in conjunction with Telltale Symphony would be the thing to roll to get a sense of her mystical elements, if any.</div></div>