The Sword and Crown Tavern
Summerlands, Rozarria

Penelo slapped her palm down on the shiny surface of the table before her, and the man seated opposite her jerked in his seat, momentarily dislodged from his drunken stupor. "Come on, Jiraj," she snapped. "You're down two. Giving up already?"

Jiraj blinked his glassy, dazed eyes, and glanced down at the two shot glasses that sat on the table, filled to the brim with amber liquid. Between the both of them rested a number of empty glasses, turned down over a thick wad of banknotes, and he seemed to be mustering his courage as he stared at them, watching the thin paper edges flutter in the sultry breeze that drifted through the open window. At last his jaw firmed and his meaty fist lashed out to clench around a shot glass. He steeled himself as he tossed it back and slammed the empty glass onto the table, reaching blindly for the second. The liquid within the glass sloshed in the clumsy grip of his fleshy fingers, dribbling over his knuckles and splattering the table.

Penelo had half a mind to cry foul just on the basis that almost half the whiskey had been spilled, but it didn't matter anyway – before Jiraj even managed to raise the glass to the vicinity of his lips, he wobbled in his hair and at last slumped sideways, crashing to the floor in a heap of limbs.

A rousing cheer went up; Penelo accepted the accolades as her due and smothered her victorious grin as she swept aside the abandoned glasses to collect the banknotes trapped beneath them, piling them into a stack and tapping edge of the bundle on the table to align the bills before she folded them neatly in half and tucked them into her bodice.

The crowd here was rough and unscrupulous. Money was safer when stowed next to the skin rather than in a purse or wallet, which were more likely than not to be lifted.

She stumbled as she rose–purely for show, of course; her shots had been watered heavily–and headed for the bar, where the innkeeper, Bartaan, stood silently, his arms folded over his chest.

And then she stumbled again, and that one had not been for show. She hit the floor hard, her palms stinging as they slapped the worn wood floorboards, her cheek aching where she'd knocked it against the corner of the table on the way down. There was the clatter of a chair and the clink of a solid iron chain.

A chorus of mocking laughter assailed her ears.

"Bartaan's little pet took a spill, gentlemen," crowed an inebriated patron. "You'd think she would've learned by now, but no – three years in, and she's still catching that chain on everything."

Penelo chose not to dignify the jeers with a response. Instead she thrust herself up onto her knees and gave the chain a vicious yank. The force of the pull dislodged the chain from where it had become tangled around the leg of the rickety chair, launching the chair in its entirety into the air. It took only a fraction of a second, hardly enough time for anything more than fleeting surprise to pass over the faces of the chortling drunkards as the chair began its descent, slamming into the lot of them, bowling them straight over.

Three fresh pints of ale were wasted along with them, slicking a floor that had been mopped too infrequently, turning the grimy floorboards soggy and streaking the collected dust and dirt.

Bartaan would have her clean it, of course. He always did.

An infuriated roar singed her ears. Shoving off the sprawled limbs of his idiot comrades, the foolish lout who had first mocked her climbed to his feet, his face burning a brilliant scarlet in mingled rage and humiliation. Malicious intent lurked in the depths of his ireful gaze, his mouth pinched and puckered into a disdainful scowl.

Penelo grabbed up a length of the chain, measuring it off swiftly as she rose to her feet, doubling it over in her hand. He lunged. She struck out, the iron links clanking as they connected with the side of his face. His lip split; blood poured, and he howled in pain.

Stupid man.

She got in two more good cracks before he anticipated the next blow, catching the chain in his fist and jerking. She felt the sharp bite of the iron cuff into the scarred flesh of her ankle. The room dipped and spun, tilting as her right foot was jerked out from under her. The breath whooshed from her lungs as her back hit the floor first, then a heartbeat later the world went temporarily black as the back of her head connected. A high-pitched ringing took up residence in her ears; she groaned and pressed her hands to them, and groaned again as the effort to breathe scorched her lungs like fire.

A rough, steady voice pierced the fog that enshrouded her mind. "That's enough."

"She cost me a pint!" a petulant voice replied.

"And she'll pay for it out of her earnings. Finest I carry." Bartaan's voice didn't carry far, but it didn't have to. The man was nearly seven feet of solid muscle, and rare were those who challenged him. And the ones that did never won.

This man was no exception. He dropped the chain and backed away, retreating to the table his cronies had taken themselves off to.

Bartaan gave a huff of disapproval. Penelo heard the squeak of a rag pressed against the inside of a glass, wiping away the dust that seemed to resettle hourly upon every surface of the tavern.

"On your feet, girl. I'm not in the mood for any of your theatrics."

Penelo took a great gulping gasp of air, willing the stars flickering before her eyes to fade. Of course he would call it theatrics; he wasn't the one getting the wind knocked out of him twice a week whenever someone decided she needed to be taught a lesson.

In the past three years, lots of self-righteous assholes had tried to teach her various lessons. In return, she had developed a thin skin, a quick temper, a low tolerance for their mockery, and a mean right-hook. The chain was a handicap, of course, but she'd found ways to use it against her unsuspecting tormentors. If she got in even a few good strikes, they'd learn a lesson of their own – she wasn't weak and she wasn't helpless.

As the bright spots faded and her vision restored itself, she shoved herself once more to her feet, feeling the thin trickle of blood down her foot that told her she'd earned herself a new wound. The chain hissed across the floor as she approached the bar, tugging the wad of bills out of her bodice to slap it on the counter in front of Bartaan.

"Eighteen hundred," she said.

"Not bad," he replied. "'Course, the whiskey's gonna cost you. The chair, too." His gaze slid over the bar, scrutinizing the droplets of blood she'd trailed along the floor. "Bandage as well, if you want one."

"Come on, Bartaan, that chair was ancient," she protested. "It was on its last legs; you know it was."

He shrugged indifferently. "Family heirloom," he said.

She scoffed, folding her arms over her chest in disbelief. "How much credit, then?"

"Call it five hundred." He set aside the glass he'd been polishing, swept the bills off the counter and thumbed through them rapidly.

"Only five hundred?" she gasped. "That's ludicrous."

"A debt's a debt," he retorted. "Nothin's free here."

She ground her teeth together and said in a fierce, ugly tone, "It's not even my debt."

Another dismissive shrug. "Don't make no difference to me who pays it, long as it gets paid. 'Course if you didn't break so much 'o my furniture, you'd pay it off faster." He tucked the wad of bills into his pocket, collected a small book its hiding place beneath the counter and flipped the pages until he came to the right place. With a pencil, he jotted down the amount deducted from the debt and held the page up for her to see.

She made a disgusted sound deep in her throat. "At this rate, it'll be another six years before it's paid off."

"You'd cut that time in half if you were willing to–"

"No," she snarled. Once, just once, barely a week after Raen had offered her up to Bartaan in order to satisfy his debt, Bartaan had attempted to sell her services to an amorous patron. Though she had been deep in the clutches of betrayal and depression, she had summoned enough fury to strangle her prospective client half to death with the length of her chain.

Bartaan had never attempted to sell her again–violent whores were bad for business–but he had chastised her for her excess of pride, and explained to her that she could work off Raen's debt much faster on her back than she could on her feet, and that it was her own damned fault if she spent the next ten years in his service.

She had had quite enough of men. After Raen's betrayal, she had acquired a mistrust of the entire gender. And she had been here three years already, trapped with an iron manacle around her ankle. It had been years since she had felt the sun on her face, years since she had seen anything beyond the dull wooden walls of this tavern, years since she had been able to sleep soundly, without her back pressed against the door just in case some unwelcome visitor should try to take her unawares.

The worst of it was that in three years she hadn't seen a single familiar face. There was no one looking for her; she had burned the few bridges she had had. And even were there anyone looking, they would never find her. They wouldn't even know where to begin.

Because Raen clearly hadn't been who he'd said he was. He had been looking for a meal ticket, and he had assumed that he'd found one in her. And when he'd discovered that not to be the case, he'd abandoned her at the earliest opportunity.

No, not just abandoned – sold. He had traded her for the value of his debt and left her to work it off in his stead, with not a shred of remorse or conscience. She hadn't even known it was happening – when Raen had stalked out of the bar after a muffled conversation with Bartaan, she had simply assumed that he had forgotten something aboard his airship. A full ten minutes had passed before she had begun to suspect something was amiss, and that was when Bartaan had approached her and quietly explained that she had been abandoned. She had been so shocked, so much in a state of disbelief that she had mutely accepted Bartaan's offer of a drink as an expression of sincere compassion.

When she had awoken the next morning, in addition to a devil of a hangover she had also acquired a solid iron manacle with an equally sturdy iron chain tethering her to the floor. Only then had Bartaan revealed to her that she had been surrendered to his custody to work off Raen's debt.

Trapped. In a sweltering, hellish tavern, amidst a sea of rough travelers overly given to violence and ill-equipped to understand the meaning of the word no, no matter how many times it was presented to them. Fully half of her earnings went towards paying for the drinks of those she'd offended with her refusals. And still more to repair the things she'd damaged in defending herself against them.

Of course, Bartaan didn't care what she did so long as she paid for it. In his eyes, she wasn't a person – she was collateral. An asset to be kept under lock and key until he was paid off.

And he kept his key ring tacked up behind the bar, perpetually out of reach for her...but always in sight, to remind her of all that was lost to her.

Summerlands, Rozarria
Two weeks later

Nothing. Not a damned thing. Not a single trace of her, high or low. It was truly as if she'd fallen off the very surface of the world. It simply wasn't natural; she'd earned a certain degree of fame years ago for her assistance in restoring Dalmasca's rightful queen to her throne, and the furor had yet to die completely down. That there was no news whatsoever of her in the past three years suggested something nefarious.

It had occurred to Balthier just today that, from what he remembered, Penelo was hardly the sort to hold a grudge. Even if she and Vaan had had as horrible a row as he expected they had, surely she would have posted a note to him at some point in the last three years.

So she was a hostage, then. Hidden away somewhere. But why? There had been no ransom demand, no threat of death or dismemberment. If there had been, it would certainly have been delivered to Queen Ashelia, who would likely have sent the whole of Dalmasca into an uproar of outrage.

He'd been operating on the assumption that she had willfully hidden herself away. Based on Vaan's recollection of events, it was the most logical assumption. It was, after all, the privilege of the young and naive to rush into monumental decisions – like running off to get married. But then to disappear entirely? Unlikely in the extreme. He ought to have realized before now, for he'd wasted time enough already.

Fortunately, he still had at his disposal a number of criminal contacts that could prove useful. Not so much in locating a person who had disappeared willingly, but certainly in the seedy underworld where people were involuntarily hidden away on a regular basis. If the right palms were greased, discreet inquiries could be made.

He had only to track down the right people. It ought not be so terribly difficult; each region's criminal elements tended to have their own ways of hiding in plain sight. An average citizen could visit a den of thieves and be none the wiser. Dalmasca's code was simple enough; they tended to use what would be perceived as tongue-in-cheek references to their conduct. The aptly named Thieves' Guild was just precisely that, after all. Archadia favored imagery over words; any shop whose sign boasted a white rose was invariably a front for organized crime. Rozarria had yet to catch up with the modern age and still used the tired method of naming their criminal establishments after bladed weapons. The Sword and Thistle, The Scythe and Crow, The Glaive and Wyvern – all guaranteed to play host to the lowest, filthiest dregs of humanity.

It would take hours to reach the next major city, but there was no real benefit to searching out an informant there. True, the city establishments would be more often frequented, but the outlying ones tended to house the looser-tongued sort, the kind of scum whose indiscretion might've gotten him blacklisted from the top-tier taverns. That sort always seemed to have an open palm, an unquenchable thirst for spirits too dear for his pocketbook, and a willingness to trade information for coin. And it was exactly that sort that Balthier required.

He pulled up the Strahl's Nav screen and punched in the most commonly used moniker – Sword. A second later, the screen pulled up a plethora of results, arranged in order of their coordinates, closest first. And just his luck, there happened to be a tavern called The Sword and Crown just half an hour's flight away.

It was a start, at least. A place to begin from, an out-of-the-way tavern where he could make a few judicious inquiries, establish connections, and hopefully pay off the right people well enough for them to point him in the right direction.

A minute adjustment to the Strahl's course, and he was well underway.

The Strahl began its programmed descent shortly after Balthier got off the Comm with Fran, having alerted her to his plan and suggested that she and Vaan do the same. Between the three of them, they'd exhausted all legitimate avenues. It was time, therefore, to explore the illicit ones.

Framed by a backdrop of trees whose huge, waxy leaves glowed a vibrant green in the light of the setting sun, The Sword and Crown was less tavern and more wayfarer's outpost. Its wooden sign was faded and cracked with lack of care and sun exposure, the silvery paint that had once decorated the wood-burned lettering had, for the most part, flaked away. Though the roof had been thatched many times over, it appeared that they had been slapdash jobs at best. Located as it was not in a town but midway between them, it would be frequented more often by passersby than regulars, and those unattached to the area would always be more willing to part with their secrets than those with connections nearby.

This sort of tavern was Balthier's very favorite, for the patrons always seemed to be swallowing more liquor than pride, and that surfeit of conceit and lack of inhibitions brought on by too much drink nearly invariably made for easy marks. Those sorts needed not be lured into unwary speech by coin; they could be bought off for so small a pleasure as a game of chance.

His was the only airship about, though ostensibly the clearing of packed dirt a hundred or so yards from the tavern was intended to accommodate them. As soon as the Strahl had safely touched down, he vaulted from his seat and into his room, rooting through his desk drawers in search of playing cards, dice, and coins. It had been an age since he had truly bilked anyone in a game of chance, considering that pirating was so much more lucrative. Nevertheless, there was no time like the present to ensure that he stayed at the top of his game and refreshed his skill set.

He selected his tools and secreted them away in the interior pockets of his vest, then strapped his holster about his waist, tucking his revolver into it. Not that he expected a fight to ensue, but the obvious display of weaponry would caution any of the more volatile sorts that might be lurking within against antagonizing him.

As he disembarked from the Strahl and approached the tavern, he realized that his initial impression of it had been flattering in the extreme. The view from the skies had camouflaged numerous faults: the rusty hinges upon doors and shutters, the shutters that were themselves only a stout wind away from full collapse, the thick layer of dust coating every plank, every pane. It was the sort of dust that clouded the air in the windy seasons, turning the world to shades of sepia, collecting in the lungs and every conceivable crevice. Insidiously fine, it took up residence and refused to do aught more than to be relocated, for even the slightest swipe of the broom would send it bursting back into the air, floating for hours until it finally deigned to settle once again.

The planks of wood comprising the stairs leading up to the door were worn to a silky gloss by years of feet trampling them, scuffing away the roughness of the wood until only polished smoothness remained. Nonetheless they creaked ominously beneath his feet, the nails groaning in their moorings. The entirety of the tavern seemed a whisper away from collapsing in on itself.

Bits of what might've been brass shone through the grime and dirt that coated the door handle. He was loath to touch it; he had always been fastidious to a fault in regards to hygiene, and he could not possibly know the state of cleanliness of those travelers that had come before him. Judging by the look of the handle, however, he could hazard a guess, and it would hardly be complimentary. But unless he wished to enter via window, which he did not, the door was the only obvious entrance, and so he steeled his stomach and tamped down on his disgust and at last wrapped his fingers around the handle and yanked it open.

The interior was dim. Stray beams of light struggled through the ancient shutters in rays made visible by the motes of dust swirling in the stagnant air. The ramshackle interior was littered with furniture in varying states of disrepair, each piece mismatched and eclectic, as if they'd been scavenged from a rummage sale. The air of pathos was stifling; the scant few patrons bent over their drinks, heads down, shoulders slumped as if the weight of worlds pressed upon them. A measure of disappointment rose up; these patrons were all far too dispirited to go in for a game. Coin, then, it would have to be.

Behind the bar, a great hulking brute of a man stood, hands pressed flush against the polished surface of the bar, mouth drawn into an uncompromising line as he scrutinized Balthier. And Balthier got the distinct sense that he was being measured, his net worth being tallied. A man like that, running a place like this, could probably determine a stranger's bank balance to within a couple of gil with remarkable accuracy.

"Welcome to the Sword and Crown," the tavern keeper said. "Name's Bartaan. What'll you have?" His gruff voice scraped out of his throat as if it had been thoroughly coated in the dust that floated in the air.

Balthier glanced at the bottles lining the warped shelves behind the bar. Though there were plenty of spirits on display ranging from rotgut swill to fine, well-aged liquors, the contents of each were a uniform color across the board. Like as not, the bottles all contained the same cheap whiskey – it was only the price that would vary.

The floorboards creaked beneath his boots as he moved closer to the bar. "Whiskey, neat. Your best," he clarified. "I only drink quality."

The flash of smug satisfaction that crossed Bartaan's face was fleeting. Balthier knew he was not well known in these parts; likely the man had taken him for a gull, someone who would be easily fleeced. Which was well enough for Balthier; if the man thought that he had the upper hand, he would be easily lead into divulging information.

Bartaan pulled a bottle at random from the top shelf and plunked it down on the bar. "Cost you six hundred fifty," he said.

"For the bottle?"

"For two fingers."

"That's preposterous," Balthier said. "I could purchase an entire bottle for half that in the city."

"Then you should've bought one in the city. This far out, good whiskey's hard to come by." Bartaan retrieved a glass from beneath the counter, wiped the dusty interior with a rag, and set it on the bar. "If cost's a concern, I've got some mid-grade."

Balthier affected an offended expression. "Cost is never a concern," he sniffed disdainfully, digging in his vest pocket for a wad of bills, making a grand show of flipping through them, peeling off enough to cover the cost of ludicrously overpriced whiskey. Bartaan measured out a pour of liquor into the glass and slid the across the counter to Balthier in exchange for the wad of bills, which he tucked beneath the counter out of sight.

"You're not the usual sort we get all the way out here," Bartaan said. "What brings you, then?"

"Business," Balthier replied. He lifted the glass, took a sip, and only just managed to mask his distaste. A far cry from the smooth, warming liquor he was accustomed to, this swill stung his mouth and tasted foul besides. It was fit, perhaps, for stripping rust from metal, but certainly not for consumption. Belatedly he realized that Bartaan was observing his reactions, ostensibly to ascertain whether or not he was a man with more money than sense. He braced himself for another sip, managed to feign an approximation of satisfaction, and gritted out, "As I said, only the best."

Bartaan went back to cleaning glassware with swift swipes of the rag, a sliver of a smirk lingering about his mouth. "What sort of business?"

"Looking for someone," he said. "Or, at least, looking for information about someone."

Bartaan's hands slowed, his grip tightening on the glass in his massive fist. "Depends on who you're looking for. 'Course, nothin' comes for free."

"I didn't expect it would." Balthier reached back into his vest pocket and extracted his money once again. "I'm looking for a girl," he said. "Blonde hair, blue eyes, appalling Dalmascan accent–"

The door of the tavern burst abruptly open, and a shaggy-haired man burst inside, his chest heaving as if he'd run a great distance. "Oi, Penelo!" he bellowed. "I got the cash; I want a rematch!"

"She's still sleepin' off last night," Bartaan said in an aggravated tone. "You come back in an hour or so, Jiraj, and I'll make sure she's up to it."

Jiraj slammed his fist on the counter, rattling the glassware beneath. "Ain't I a payin' customer, same as anyone else? She works for you; you get her out here! What sort of tavern are you runnin', Bartaan?"

"The sort that'll see you tossed out on your arse if you keep up your caterwaulin'." Unruffled, Bartaan grabbed up his rag and swiped it over the smudge Jiraj's dirty fist had left on the table.

A door creaked open down the corridor, and a familiar voice shouted, "Will you all kindly shut the hell up?"

Balthier's brows winged upwards in surprise.

Bartaan heaved a sigh and set aside the rag. "Now you've done it," he snapped at Jiraj. "She's in a fine temper. I'd suggest you make yourself scarce; she breaks things when she's riled, and I'm not due a fresh shipment 'o goods until next month."

"So?" Jiraj sneered. "She's gotta pay for what she breaks–"

"You know she's not on until five. She'll break things over your damn fool head if she catches you here 'fore then." Bartaan leveled a warning look at Jiraj, who promptly reconsidered his position.

"I'll be back in an hour," he said, and beat a hasty retreat, just as the door down the hall slammed.

"Now," Bartaan said to Balthier. "You said you were looking for a girl?"

Balthier tucked his money back into his pocket. "Was," he said. "I was looking for a girl." He turned towards the hall. Shrouded in shadows, the silhouetted outline of a woman stalked angrily towards the main room. She shaded her eyes with one hand as she entered the room, as if even the dim lighting hurt them. A scowl was etched upon her face, her blonde hair mussed from sleep, tangled down her back.

Five years older, ill-tempered, and bedraggled, to be sure...but absolutely, definitely Penelo.

She made an aggravated sound in her throat, and dropped her hand from her eyes. "Bartaan," she snarled, turning towards the bar, "I want–"

As she caught sight of Balthier, her voice died away into silence. Her jaw dropped, her eyes went impossibly wide.

Balthier fought a triumphant grin and pushed his glass of whiskey back across the bar towards Bartaan. "I believe I've just found her."