Jigu Bardcreek sipped his ale, sat in the pub, eyed the usual patrons, and waited for something to happen.

There was no guarantee, of course, that anything would, and often when it did, “something” was only vaguely amusing.  But if one was patient, and one had had enough ale, sometimes “something” was worth waiting for.

To be honest, “something” had a pretty low bar to clear.  Roderic’s Cove was not exactly a center for, well, anything.  There wasn’t much crime.  There wasn’t much culture.  There was a fair amount of  commerce, thanks to the docks and the fact that Roderic’s Cove was the closest seaport for anybody living upstream on the Chavali River. It was that same commerce that had kept Jigu employed for several months now.  Deliveries, on an irregular but relatively frequent basis, had been sufficient to eke out a living. It wasn’t a guarantee of elevenses every day, but it made it possible more often than not.

He had been in Roderic’s Cove for several months now, even though he’d originally considered his stay “temporary”.  He was a favored courier, because he had a reputation for honesty and trustworthiness.   His keen ability to appraise items on the spot, had more than once saved an employer from being cheated.

He was pretty sure that nobody in town knew he had also studied spells and wizardry.  It was not particularly a secret, but it just didn’t come up in conversation, and he didn’t really know enough to consider it a profession.  It’s not like he was some sort of bar magician, sawing people in half.  His spells tended to be utilitarian—for a courier, like dancing lantern or, in a pinch, vanish.

Jigu was most recently from Korvosa, nominal home of the Sihedron Hero Trask Feltherup.  Trask’s father has a home and business there, but Trask himself has yet to truly settle down.  Jigu had some theories about how sorcerers and wizards are more similar than many think, and his investigations and research have led him to conversations with Trask himself on a couple of occasions.  In fact, Jigu had managed to work magic in a way, according to Trask, that few if any have done before.   He found Trask impulsive and less…disciplined than Jigu likes his world, but  he was still a source of both inspiration and information.  In fact,  it was Jigu’s consultations with Trask that led to Jigu’s  fascination with things Thassilonian.  The tsunami wave at Magnimar’s shores a few years ago convinced him that the Thassilonian past was still a clear and present danger.

He believed he could learn more about Thassilonia and Thassilonian lore by visiting Magnimar and visiting with other experts.  Travel takes money, though, and he’d paused here in Roderic’s Cove longer than he’d expected.  A one-way job with a delivery caravan had brought him here, certainly off the beaten path if one were going to Magnimar, but…it’s the kind of place, he mused, he wished he’d grown up in.  He’d kind of got stuck here, but really, he didn’t mind it so much.  It wasn’t a bad place to be stuck. Plenty of time yet to head south through Sandpoint—an interesting Thassilonian place in its own right.

But not tonight.  Not just yet.

He ordered another pint of ale, because his observation was,  the more ale that was flowing, the more likely something interesting would happen. And there were no deliveries tonight or tomorrow that would make it a bad idea.  So Jigu Bardcreek sipped his ale, sat in the pub, eyed the usual patrons, and waited for something to happen.