Cicadas buzz loudly in the trees and the sun pours down over the survivors who make their way to the inn.  Most of the townsfolk part away like the tide upon rocks, as if the living have brough with them the bad luck of the freak storm... survivors' shame, or superstition, who can tell?<br/><br/>Enterting the tavern, the crunching of broken clamshells under boots gives way to creaking, worn boards, the sanded planks echoing and sturdy before the imposing bulk of the structure.  The doors' pull-rings creak under Galacia's hand, and the heavy doors swing out on strong hinges.  Inside is so much darker than the glaring daylight that they are all blinded for a moment.  Twin fireplaces stand with empty mouths in opposite corners, their services not required in this oppressive heat, and light spills in through slats in the heavy wooden shutters along the walls.  There is an empty stage mid-room, a tableau of sanded boards in a rough circle.<br/><br/>Tables and benches of sanded, split logs fill the room, but only a half-dozen patrons are here, lucky enough to have leave to escape outside work in the midday sun.  Stalls line the main room where, apparently, traders can lease space by the day.   One fellow, brown-skinned and with gray, dark braids hanging from his head, glances up at the entering travelers from where he sits, the table before him covered in a spread roll of leather, with lumps of stone and quartz, small tools, rags, and the like before him.  Like the miniature carvings he works at, he looks as if he were carved from rare stone.  There's a rich odor of tobacco where a half-elven woman, perhaps in her late 30s,  smokes a cigar as big around as her thumb while she twists and rolls thick brown leaves into more like it, shaping and smoothing it expertly on one slim, exposed thigh the color of wet sand.  At another, a plump man with a bald head, long graying threads of hair hanging from over his ears, glowers up at the newcomers, a rag in one hand and a spoon for his huge bowl of stew in the other. Behind him are piled baskets of papers, piles of scrolls and books in awkward bundles. From his fine Continental brocade, it looks like he has, or once had, money... from its faded condition, one may guess that he does no longer.<br/><br/>From behind the tavern's bar, Galacia's question is answered by a tall woman, high-cheekboned with blue eyes, subtle crows' feet at the corners, and the ridge of her brow and jaw lined with pale blue tattoos of unidentifiable runes.  She looks at Galacia steadily, her wide mouth flattening into a look of gregret mingled with sympathy.  "Indeed, yon lady," she sets aside the pot of hard-shelled nuts she was working at cleaning, sliding from beneath the counter the heavy ledger-book of the inn, "privacy is a costly thing in this town, be warned, and not quite what it'd pass for on the mainland.  We've no private quarters... we've got reed walls for what resembles a room in the unmarried's row, and you'd be welcome to that for extra coin.  Jus', please accept no offense here, for none is intended... visitors are not accepted.  So..."  she flips through the ledger to a page where the ribbon holds a place, "if you can sign here.  It's five silver per week, board included."<br/><br/>She places a well and quill upon the bartop as well, then looks up to Brogan, Jin, and Calathes... "Divines be praised for bringing you here safe as you are.  Same as with the good lady, gentlemen... it'll be some time before a private room opens up.  If you've a desire for such, I can note your name on the list."  The door they had closed moments ago swings open again, and a couple of merchants enter... one was known on the ship for his gambling proclivities, and claimed he would be importing seed, yeast, and tools and hoped to export silk and sugar.  The other, a self-proclaimed schoolmaster, stayed mum the whole journey and often smelled like opium.  The innkeeper glares up at them, then back to the four at her desk with softer eyes.  "What is your business, if you don't mind the inquiry?"<br/><br/>