The hottest part of the afternoon had passed when Barnaby and two crewmen from the Pickle Barrel emerged from a tavern beside High Tide, all three well on their way to being drunk.
They staggered through the streets of the Governor's Special District with their arms slung over one another's shoulders.
Though Barnaby's face was flushed red, his tongue was clearly much more nimble than those of the two Pickle Barrel crewmen beside him.
With one hand braced on a crewman's shoulder, he loudly recounted some past encounter with a giant octopus in the Storm Sea, throwing in a few crude island expressions now and then that sent both men into peals of laughter.
Clearly, the former pirate chief had charmed these newcomers to White Harbor with his eloquence, convincing them that he really was some wealthy, well-traveled gentleman.
Even Crooked Mouth's rather disreputable, lopsided face had become, in their eyes, a badge of valor earned in a battle against pirates...
Renato had not accompanied them. After the auction, he had returned to the inn alone. Now he sat beside his room's window, with a clear view over the low rooftops lining the street of the three men's crooked course below.
The swordsman's senses were keen enough to catch most of the snatches of conversation drifting up, even from this distance.
Yet the more Renato listened to their conversation from upstairs, the more speechless he became.
Hadn't I heard this same sort of boasting back in Brekka Town? Was this some standard script all swindlers used?
A first meeting yielded little information, and too many questions would only put the other party on guard. The seasoned Barnaby clearly understood that well.
Their conversation had therefore barely touched on the Pickle Barrel itself. His main aim was to build rapport, with