The voices seem to concur with me on the subject of getting a hold of some more drinks, more precisely buying a round for the remaining dwarves over at the table. Brewster breaks into a big grin as I make the order but while he is off filling up the mugs one of the voices worries about our currency's value. However the payment works just fine except for Brewster managing to drop all of the coins in overly dramatic fashion.
I walk over to one of the vacant chairs at the table but as I sit down Esmar stands up and says-
- Ehy Snotbeard, nice to meet-cha but sadly we're leaving right 'bout now. (her voice was quite "raspy")
- Uhmm...hey...why are you leaving? (that wasn't very smooth...)
- Huh? Oh yea, that'd be 'cause I'm all outta coins heh. (seems like we're all poor 'round here...)
- Cmon let me buy you guys a couple of beers then. (either that or I'll have to hang out with the wierd guy at the back.)
- Can't say no if you're gonna be like that heh, right Nor? (phew...)
- Pfff if you say so. I'll get going soon though. (She leaned back and crossed her arms without looking my way)
*I take a chug from my beer and before I know it I'm starting to feel strangly relaxed, guess I've been sober for too long.
-Soooo Snotbeard have'nt seen you 'round 'ere before, new to the pub or the fort?
-Both I guess...
- Don't really recognize that many people 'round here heh, travel a lot you see.
-Liason?
-Nah, nothin' as boring as that heh, some call me a thief, others a mercenary but I like to call myself an adventurer.
-Sounds kinda dangerous...
The discussion went on for quite some time and I managed to salvage some interesting pieces of information.
The military seems to be split up into three major groups, the military commanded by the nobles, the garde and the peasant militia both commanded by the warden. However the wardens rule is overridden by the noble with the title of militia commander during the event of full scale war.
There seemed to be a split amongst the non-military dwarves aswell, Esmar simply explained it as three groups-the nobles, the guild members and the migrants. The rules applying to the different groups were worlds apart, the nobles were completly freed from any physical work and got payed through taxes while the migrants worked for no pay at all. For every kind of labor there was also a guild- a stoneworkers guild, a farmers guild,a woodworkers guild and so forth. However to join either a guild or the actual army one had to be accepted by the guildmaster, this was apparantly quite a challange and it wasn't rare that migrants tried to befriend or even marry guildmembers to get accepted.
Furthermore she explained that most of the people that ended up down at the Brewstery either- did not like the society, wasnt part of the society or had trouble fitting in generally.
Esmer is just staying at the fort for a couple of weeks before she'll move on again. Norede has apparantly been discharged from the military but the cause is unclear. Noone really knows the guy at the back but he apparantly sells
anything.
____
When you finished your drink Norede had already left, but then again she wasnt much of a conversionist anyway.
-Aight, now that there's no more drinks there's no more reason for me to stay heh. Thanks Snotbeard...what's your name btw?
-...
Good question...amongst many other things it was lost as I fell into the pits of insanity...
Pick a name aswell as our next move.