The young woman running out of Wraggins' shop slowed her pace, walking more slowly as she made her way to the Street of Temples and turned into Spoon Street, stopping in front of a run-down hovel of a building marked The Jumping Fish Tavern, marked with the fanciful sign of a haddock leaping onto an outstretched trident. The woman frowned at the questionable artwork before walking in. Ordering a simple ale, she sat alone at a table and waited, calmly sipping her drink and thinking about what she would say to her contact.
She did not have to wait long, as a wide, stoutly built man with a brown beard came to join her with an ale of his own. He grinned as he sat down. Richly dressed in robes of fine scarlet silk, he seemed very out of place in the ramshackle tavern, surrounded by the thugs, bandits and lowlifes that made up the clientele in most Blacksand taverns.
"I take it he suspects nothing?" the man asked. The woman shook her head.
"The glass substitute replaced the real diamond yesterday. Reddon was such a fool, leaving his key to the display case where anyone could snatch it for a night. I swear by Sindla, that man becomes more senile every year."
"Not senile enough to forget how much he enjoys squeezing your-" the man stopped, before the woman's scowl cut him short. It had not been difficult to convince her to help him with this burglary, the man knew, but she was still proud and sensitive, and he could ill afford to offend her. He nodded, as she took a pouch from her belt and tossed it to him.
"Four hundred gold dragons each," he smiled, referring to Blacksand's currency. "After which, of course, I will happily give Reddon a new smile, one he will never forget," the man answered, drawing his finger across his throat. He then raised his tankard.
"To us, then?" he prompted. The woman smiled and nodded, joining her tankard with his.
"To us," she answered.