No table mates. When life’s travails call for getting ruined to such an extent that you conk out at your table, you aren’t really in a headspace for being surrounded by mates. Lifting my groggy head out of the puddle of drool on the ale-stained table, I see that I’m at the same poorly lit two-top that I tend to grab. It’s too close to door out to the stables and smells like dung and more lost meals than one could count, so it’s always free for someone looking to fall off the face of the earth. The tankard’s empty, but the chair across the table isn’t: my feet are crossed on it. It’s good I can see that, because I certainly can’t feel ‘em. Business…did I have business here? It takes a few blinks to remember. Nah, I just came in to get a warm bowl of heavy stew and whatever amount of ale, mead, and whisky would get me to sleep. Used to be I’d come ‘round after finishing a job, celebrate with pals. The pals have moved on, and the jobs…well, there isn’t a lot of work out there for someone who got their back wrecked by a troll club. The healers at the temple can lay hands on you, close up wounds, knit bones back together, but it’s never quite the same. I knew a stoat who got his arm crushed loading barrels at the docks. The clerics did their heebityjibbity and it looks like nothing ever happened, but the nerves got fucked up. Took him ages to figure out which finger he had to tell to move to get another finger to wiggle. I’ve got my savings and a few odd treasures I could hock in a pinch. That ought to last me until I fall asleep for the last time and wake up wherever the hell people go when they’re done scraping by here.