<div class="floatright">(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/a9/02/2c/a9022c7f2267ce96494814d5fc76f71a.jpg)</div>The Delvers certainly are masters of words unsaid and slaves of those they let slip out, like a whole mess of arguing, plotting Merrytongues. With tensions rising all through the journey it's perhaps not surprising that drinks draw them in so, even drinks of dubious sourcing. Years from now, locals will talk about this night where those rude city women came in and absolutely trashed their tavern, but the more honest ones will admit that there were perhaps forces beyond anyone's control. But that's still ahead; for now the Delvers are stuck in a town full of farmers.<br/><br/>Radja quite literally. For all of the small town drama that will come later, the townsfolks attempt to be helpful here. Marm quickly makes her way over to the enormous woman stuck in her door, adjusting her skirts at the impossible amount of cleavage on display. "Let's... Please don't- Ah yes, push from... Heb! Come help this kind traveler, would you?" Heb turns out to be the town blacksmith, a mountain of a man in any other circumstance with wide shoulders and a heavy brow that promises a darker glower than his eyes. He sets his shoulder behind hers and helps to bring a push as Marm apologizes profusely to Radja for it. "I told my husband, rest his soul, that door ought to be even just a couple inches wider, but that fool of a man wouldn't hear of it."<br/><br/>Once Radja is pulled through, Heb ducks his head a bit with widening eyes.  Clearly the top half of the giant was less intimidating than seeing her standing nearly twice his height. As he makes his way back into the crowd, there's no avoiding hearing him mutter out, "Damn me, what I wouldn't have given to be on the other side of that, damn me for certain." The man's dark eyes keep returning to Radja as the night carries on.<br/><br/>The flurry of motion from Marm and her couple of workers is impressive. The moment that the Delvers start ordering, they start fulfilling. There are two waitstaff working, a young woman with nearly white blonde hair and a mess of freckles and a slim man with a swaggering walk and a beard that nearly covers his face which is perhaps a blessing. Mazz's glass is filled time and time again with any of the three poisons she wishes, the slim man pouring a bit more and touching her shoulder or back as he does so. He's certainly not the only one admiring the Delvers quite openly, though most of them keep their distance to start.<br/><br/>As Nin makes her way upstairs, she is quickly approached by Marm walking next to her, "Here's the key to your room, dear. Lock it, mind you. I keep a safe house but it's full of drink and I wouldn't want some fool thinking he can slip into your room." As she says this, she glares at a nearby man who steadfastly avoids her eye contact. As Nin prepares the room and herself for sleep on the floor, she can hear the sounds of drinking and cavorting downstairs.<br/><br/><br/>The waitress, Aleya, ends up at Scarlet's end of the bar, offering little curtsies probably too often, but clearly interpreting the leather vest and skirt as somebody more powerful than her. Her face turns pink as she quickly brings her beer. "Another, no m'lady, no other tavern," she quickly assures her, "We're good folk and our young folk get straight on home." She pauses, Scarlet immediately clocking that as a lie; there's no other tavern, but young folk anywhere aren't avoiding fun. "Hard living, I expect. And not many women drinking in here."  She quickly excuses herself to go fetch those other beers.<br/><br/>Once they are slammed down, Scarlet finds the source of her information. He bumps into the stool and then looks to Scarlet with a surprised look on his face. "Um," he begins, perhaps not the best start, "Tem. Temvin. Tem's fine." His eyes drop very obviously to her breast before he brings them back up to hers. He has startlingly pretty blue eyes, a firm build, and while perhaps a bit rough around the edges an alright looking fellow. He, of course, focuses in on the important part first, "Never even met one before tonight, but I'm hoping to have had one before you leave town. Good to meet you." With his confidence restored, the man takes a seat at her table, pulled up right next to her, his hand ending up quite quickly on her knee, "The library? Diralisk's place? They say it's haunted, but I don't believe it. Got a buddy who went in, came out with a broken arm telling stories about women climbing walls and smashing stuff. That doesn't sound like a ghost. I think there's people living in there. Those books must be worth more than binding and paper, I figure spells of some kind?" As he speaks, his hand casually moves up her thigh.<br/><br/>Across the bar with drink flowing, the other Delvers have also begun to integrate with the crowd. Mirwen sits with Marm at the end of the bar. The barkeep has made herself a tea and looks extremely at ease, perhaps catching her alone has let some of the tension out of talking about Diralisk. "No, no... Deena was a troubled wretch. The whole family was. Yes, Deena Diralisk, can you imagine? Sounding like some kind of-" she trails off at this as she glances towards the rest of the Delvers in their various states of undress. "That's... kind of you. You'll pardon me, I hope, Deena talked about helping as well. And she did at first, I do believe that. Took in strays, people that needed help. But she... changed them. They got strong, but... somehow pale, looking like they were wasting away. Then they'd be gone and she'd tell us they left to the next town."  She heaves a sigh as she looks down at her teacup and stirs it idly, "Wouldn't see them again, but you still see something moving around in there."<br/><br/>At a nearby table, Mazz is deep in her drink and Heb has returned to talk with Radja. After a handfulof drinks, he's gotten nearly as boisterous as any Delver, a guffaw of laughter coming from him as he nearly shouts, "Fuck me, but I've never met a woman like you, Radja Ridgeguard." As the night has progressed, his brogue has started to come through more in his voice and he's leaned further in towards her. Somehow he's ended up moved onto her bench and an arm comes around her waist, the blacksmith's heavy calloused hands stroking over her bare stomach. Heb is not a subtle man nor is he hiding his interest, the front of his pants bulging with it apparently without a care in the world. "Trinkets? I'll go myself to find you finer trinkets than Diralisk's. There's finer things than what Diralisk's got."<br/><br/>Aleya, the freckled waitress, returns with another couple of drinks for the two of them, "Heb... I don't think you should be..." She slams another beer down in front of him nearly hard enough to spill it on him, "Acting in this way. And don't lie to them, you aren't going into any old house and there's finery aplenty. Diralisk's got the finest jewelry anyone in this town's ever seen and a mirror you can walk through and a knife that can't cut skin."  Her irritation turns to Radja and she quickly says, "Heb hasn't got any sense and if you aren't careful he'll have you undressed."<br/><br/><hr/><br/>This extremely dire warning aside, there's a Delver who's heard something even more concerning. The sound of scraping nails crawling up a building. Nin jumps into action, pulling herself quickly together as her window suddenly shatters and three bodies crawl through. The three people who crawl through are lithe, wirey humanoids with pale skin a black eyes.  Their forms are hunched and clothed in only black rags showing smooth white skin beneath. One of them, a gaunt man with slick black hair snarls at the other two who jump into action. With an incredible leap, a pallid woman with a mess of red-blonde hair hurls herself onto the bed, long black claws on her hands ripping it to shreds before looking up with confusion on her face. The third was once a man with darker skin with a shaved head, but the pallor remains clear, skintone ashy.<br/><br/>Nin faces off against the two who aren't shredding the bed, hissing and snarling before they leap at her, the shaved man jumping to the wall before coming at her from a different angle. The jump off the wall leaves thick claw marks and denting in the wood as bared open mouths and ripping claws come her way from two direction. With no Delvers responding to the sound of crashing glass, it may be that Nin is going to have an interesting night.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Of course, below things also are beginning to heat up. Mazz's shouting at the folks below has finally occurred and all through the crowd it's clear she messed with the wrong ugly twins. Tem reacts quickest, taking one of Scarlet's hands, wrapping an am around her waist, and trying to pull her towards a backdoor of the bar, "Come on, this could get ugly. Those two are bad news." Heb quickly is attempting to get to his feet, but between his drunken state, his entanglement with Radja, and his hard-on, he mostly ends up tangling up with her, his hand groping at her chest as he tries to get over to where the conflict is going on. Marm winces and says to Mirwen, "Do you think you could get your friend to- Oh, too late for that. Come M'lady, we can adjourn to the back room. Those two are exactly the sort who Deena brought in. Heb will handle this."  She begins to bustle towards the back.<br/><br/>The two hauntingly ugly men look between each other, their sunken eyes and gaunt features mirrors of each other (and confirming to Mazz that they are indeed two people).  Then with lightning fast speed, they reach forward and grab onto her, pushing her back to slam her body against the bar. The wood cracks with the power with which they slam her into it, though their own bodies likely hit the surface harder than hers did. One of the twins grabs hold of her arm and twists to get control of her, but the slippery body of Mazz isn't as stiff as a human one. Grabbing to try to get a better grip, he pulls the front of her dress down as the other grabs hold of a bottle and begins to swing it at her face.<br/><br/>Upstairs glass breaks.<br/><br/>Downstairs the brawling begins.<br/><br/><strong>Delvers!  Things were going so nicely!<br/><br/>Mazz, you've got a bottle incoming, if you or an ally don't stop that from happening (with a Defy Danger (https://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/moves/#Defy_Danger) roll) then you're gonna take that hit! <br/><br/>Delvers downstairs, this could devolve further and Mazz is definitely in trouble!<br/><br/>Nin, nobody is coming to help you. For now, you're on your own. What do you do?</strong><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Mechanics Help</div><div class="spoiler_body">So combat! The way Dungeon World works is with moves! (https://www.dungeonworldsrd.com/moves/#Basic_Moves) Each move is a little bite-sized set of rules that use the same 6-/7-9/10+ setup! For getting around and by regular townspeople, you don't need to roll anything for now, so if Scarlet wants to get away from Tem, Radja wants to get Heb off her, or Mirwen wants to punch Marm in the face for some unknown reason, you can just DO it. <br/><br/>The twins and the three upstairs are a different story. Hack &amp; Slash is the core way to fight, though some of you may also have a playbook move you want to use! Magic, for example, is all on the playbook side. I can help you understand those moves if you need. Defy Danger is used to avoid bad things from happening (I'll usually ask you to make that roll, you don't need to assume it unless you know you're doing something dangerous).<br/><br/>So yeah!  We're in business! ;) </div></div>