He also sought to minimize the times they appeared together on the street or in public. Accordingly, they took their dinnersalted fungus, a stew sprinkled with rothé meat, and cellar-cooled mushroom alein pairs, each protected by a magical ward that Cale and Jak would have to periodically renew. Cale took his meal with Riven. They needed to plan. Sweating patrons thronged the Rusty Anchor’s common room. Cale hadn’t seen quite such a pack of rogues since his days in Westgate. To a man, all of the patrons wore sharp steel and hard looks: duergar slavers, human and half-orc sailors, mercenaries, even the goblin laborers squawking over a game of dice looked seasoned. No doubt Skullport had long ago culled the weak from the flock. The pungent smoke from the dried fungus that substituted for pipeweed in Skullport cloaked the room in a thin, brown haze. From time to time, Cale caught an acrid whiff of crushed mistleaf, a powerful narcotic, wafting up from the basement. Professional women were as ubiquitous as the smoke, all of them wearing alluring smiles and scant clothing.
