- A Blank Letter
- Gossip on the Round
- Never Misdelivered
Return to Sender
Corkwright Cliffbarrel, Corky to everyone at the Cheerful Pub, carries the mail along Briarbrook's old merchant road and has opinions about every letter in his pouch. A stout Aerynthian in a worn messenger's sash, he knows who writes to whom, which seals came open twice, and the fastest courier route between any two doors in town. He finishes his round, takes the stool second from the end, and begins.
What he begins is a fact. Corky collects them the way other couriers collect blisters: endlessly, proudly, and with very little regard for whether anyone asked. Some are even true. The regulars groan, correct him, and buy him another, because the pub would not sound like itself without him explaining something wrong at great length.
Under the bluster is a courier who has never once lost a letter, and a lonely man who keeps talking because silence might show how little attention people pay him once he stops.
- Unsolicited Expertise
- Feathers Full of Facts
- Postal-Grade Confidence
- Everybody Knows Your Name
- Cheerful Chaos Nightly
- Mead and Gossip
The Cheerful Pub sits a few steps below the lane in Briarbrook, so every guest arrives by descending. Inside it smells of spilled mead, wet wool, candlewax and old wood polished by a thousand elbows. The lamps hang low and amber, the floorboards creak in a tune the regulars hum along to, and the bar runs the length of the room like a long, lazy argument nobody wants to win.
The regulars hold their stools like small baronies. A barkeep with a ready grin and a careful eye pours generously and listens better, while a former coach barks advice nobody asked for, a tidy server with grand plans balances trays and opinions, and a gentle brewer and a sharp-tongued drinker trade insults as a form of affection. Flirting here is a sport with loose rules and frequent injuries, mostly to pride. Someone will always say something cheeky about the size of your tankard, and someone else will pretend not to laugh.
Players should care because everything in Briarbrook eventually passes through this room. Rumors arrive before the travelers who carry them, bargains are struck over the third round and regretted by the fourth, and a pixie with a proposition has chosen it as her stage. Come in for the warmth. Stay because the door has already closed behind you, and the chair has your name on it.