Not the ass end of nowhere, but close enough to smell it.<br/><br/>The half-elf troupe master never bothered with his manners when he wasn't putting on a show, and let his small band of five plus one know it when they stabled the carriage horse and unloaded the few valuables they had.  Blackacre had all the problems of a boomtown and a forgettable border fort rolled into one.  A series of ramshackle slums and shanty towns formed a maze of winding streets radiating out from the governor's manor in the middle, and the only straight road with some kind of order was the main market street leading from the walls right to the governor's doorstep.  The troupe chased the seasonal festivals however, and this month Blackacre played host to dwarven merchants selling baubles and trinkets at ridiculous prices, only getting away with it by assuring the gullible Taldor minor nobles these were real artifacts dug up from under the old ruins, fought over by armies of hobgoblins, and a steal at 1,500 gold pieces!<br/><br/>"Hey, short-stacked!" called out the gruff old troupe master with a tuft of silver hair tucked behind his ears.  He might have been a soldier with a stick up his arse once, and still was trying to hold this business together.  Wiping the sleep from his eyes he pointed at the newcomer, the plus one they'd taken on in the last town before getting run out by a drunken mob.  "Get your ass moving, we're not staying for free!  We impress the owner or we sleep outside again tonight!"  He flicked his ear again out of habit, their edges foxed and cut up long ago from battle or a bar room fight, but he didn't miss his pointy ears much.  Scratching his dark beard he looked carefully at his motley group of misfits and a pair of half-orcs with suspicion, making sure they didn't pocket anything.