He’d been inside the “club” for about an hour now, unenthusiastically throwing a dollar bill onto the stage every so often just to avoid suspicion. Amos wasn’t here to watch anyone strip, nor was he interested in paying anyone for their company. Tonight, he was there for information, anything that he could bring back to the force and convince them to put him on a proper case regarding the mafia for once. Gretchen Bletchley - he didn’t know much about her, other than the fact that he read in the files that she’d been the one to discover Eliza. Dead. Only really looking up when he finally saw the one he’d been waiting for out of the corners of his eyes, Amos pushed himself off of his seat and walked towards Gretchen, wallet in his hand.
“How much for a private dance?”
There were weird men who came to Nag’s, and then there were weird men. Gretchen had had the pleasure and delight in dealing with the both of them, and found it to be in her best interest to avoid those pleasures anddelights whenever she could. Of course she’d noticed him, sitting alone, disinterested, looking tired. She knew who he was - how could she not? It was his passed wife, after all, that she’d stumbled upon one dark night after work. She’d not told anyone, however, that accompanying that body was a figure with red hands and a murder on their conscience. Gretchen knew who killed Eliza Diggory, knew who this Amos Diggory would go after given the chance, and she knew that if she told him, she’d lose her favourite play thing.
So, naturally, she was not entirely eager to find him requesting her services. Crouching at the side of the stage, Gretchen took his face in between a thumb and forefinger, studiously turning it from either side slowly. And after a moment, “For you, love?” Her eyes locked onto his as she fought with herself to offer an outrageously expensive session, or to simply decline him, or… something. It was another moment before she let go of his face, slipped off the stage, and nodded towards the hallway with the back rooms before making off in that direction herself. “Depends on what you want. Handsy and dirty come at an extra price - but I can do whatever you like, babe.”
I have seen the Shadow-man since I was 4. For 31 years it has followed me, directed my life path, and made sure I have always done what the darkness wanted.
The worst thing I ever did at a D&D table was when our DM ran out of place name ideas and told us the name of the port town we needed to go to was “Bar Harbor”.
So I tricked him into roleplaying the slightly-too-helpful town guard into giving us directions to- Well you see, the party has been out in the wilderness for like a MONTH, we’re all a mess, the dwarf’s beard is out of control, so can you tell us- Where can we find the Bar Harbor Barber?
But we were not done. We each took turns, like a pack of velociraptors.
We also had Dryad in the party and a few of her branches got broken in a fight and now her whole canopy is unbalanced and it looks awful, but she really needs to see a specialist, is there a Bar Harbor Arbor Barber?
The Paladin also wanted to look in on a small church he’d heard of, that the city had a patron saint, who was boiled alive in a cauldron of ale, so where is the temple of the Bar Harbor Larger Martyr?
It was around this point that Chris started to tire of this nonsense.
The bard, naturally, wanted to go carousing, and he’d heard this town had some of the most attentive and welcoming Ladies of the Night on the continent, known by thier brightly colored stocking bands, so had he seen any of the Bar harbor Ardor Parlor Farber Garters?
Chris immediately escalated to threats of a Total Party Kill.
Unfortunately, I’d had time to prepare and-
“What do you want?”
“I just wanted to know if you’d seen my cousin.”
“…Your cousin?”
“Yeah, I know it’s a long shot, but he’s got a pretty distinctive appearence and you might have seen him around town.”
“Oh No-”
“Okay so he’s Welsh and the whole family used to be in the wagon-making business but he got into clothes manufacture until there was an accident with a lamp black dye and now he’s permanently stained a sooty color and that really turns heads, so now he’s got a job drawing in crowds for the city funded swap meet- no, not the Drow that also works there, I mean like the inside of a fireplace- anyway, he got tired of people mixing the two of them up so he started wearing this fancy armor with a magical +1 charisma bonus-”
“Gallus I swear to God I *WILL* Summon the Tarraqsue-”
“-So have you seen my cousin, Arthur Carter, former Sartor but now he’s the Darker Harker for the Charter Barter of Bar Harbor, the one with the Charmer Armor?”
Amazingly, we survived the Tarrasque.
You do realise Bar Harbor is a real place, right? It’s in Maine:
