The Sun Shines on Fainsport

Monday, January 24

Today dawns the first without clouds in four days. It’s the rainy season in Fainsport, and the new sun reflecting off the damp surfaces makes the whole city look cast in metal. From your second story window overlooking Crocker Street, you can down to the docks, where workers are settling into the shipyards early. The sea is calm for now, but looks chilly and uninviting. Today is a market day, and Crocker Street is full of cows dragging wagons, people carrying wares, and beggars brandishing cups as they head down to the Blue Market. The air is a bit nippy, and a breeze steals in through the cloudy glass window of your room, but you suspect the day will turn warmer as the sun rises, and you might not even need a coat. The smell of fish, as usual, rides the wind, but accompanying it is an unfamiliar scent, a bit like burned hash, but sourer.

You’ve been staying in John Carvinghouse’s Inn for two weeks now, after having been kicked out of Madame Genine’s halfway home before that. Mr. Carvinghouse is a short, irritable man who you hear used to be a barrister before his practice went south and he bought this inn. He speaks little to his tenants, and spends most of his days reading enormous hardbound books with no titles along the spine, only numbers. Olives and chickpea mash are served with unleavened bread in the morning by Mr. Carvinghouse’s cook, a flustered woman named Joline, and should be waiting for you downstairs.

John Carvinghouse

Joline

You roll over on the hay mattress and shake out your coin purse. You have 16 gp, 5 sp, and a single copper remaining from the wallet your family gave you to keep yourself alive on the open road. Mr. Carvinghouse insists you pay for the coming night before leaving the inn every day, so you’ll need to have the 8 sp for tonight’s room ready when you descend.

What do you do?