Black Shark Tavern

The Black Shark Tavern, more commonly called Dead Eyes, is a rundown bar tucked among the warehouses near the port in Valparia. If there was a list of the worst taverns in the city it would be near the bottom. The furniture is cast-offs or cobbled together, the floor stained with blood, bile, ale, and stuff unknown. Occasionally the owners will toss down straw to soak up mess and then shovel it through the trap in the floor.

Although the tavern is not owned by Eliskinder, he controls what goes on there. It serves as a front for his crew and a hideout when necessary. There are hidden doors and two different escapes into the bay that runs below. It may be a fire trap, but it is designed that way. Bribes are paid to constables to look the other way when bodies are rolled out.

The food is greasy stews from catches that did not sell and heavy bread. It will fill a sailor up for very little coin. Whores and thieves prowl the common room and anyone not watching themselves is likely to get cut. Those who purchase protection, shown by a silver cup on their table, are off-limits to any thieves and even whores move to other patrons unless waved over.

The name Dead Eyes comes from the strongest drink in the bar. A clear liqueur that is bought from traders brave enough to travel to Xian. When its decanted into bottles a single shark's eye is dropped inside. They only sell it by the bottle and the eye must be eaten, those that refuse will get a knife in the eye (or so the rumor goes). More than one death has been attributed to drinking an entire bottle of Dead Eyes in a single night. Only a very few can keep an entire bottle down.

If you don't blind the shark, the shark will blind you.

Dead Eyes

The tavern is three floors although only the bottom two floors are usable.

The ground floor is fully open from wall to wall, except along the west wall their is a bar that partitions off a small section. All cooking is done on the stone hearth along the north wall, typically only a stew pot. Behind the bar is a trapdoor that leads to the washout that runs below the docks. Sturdy logs hold up the most eastern edge of the warehouses; although it noticeably sags along its length. Eliskinder has notched some of them that run below the Black Shark in case he needs to escape and pull things down behind him.

The second floor are private rooms for Eliskinder and his crew. Each room has its own bolthole outside allowing everyone in the crew to escape from nearly any raid. Each room can be bolted and barred from the inside. The interior walls and doors are made from heavy wood and in the case of the doors, iron-bound. Ceiling beams are low enough that most would find it difficult to walk upright. Any raid reaching the second floor will find the area difficult to move.

The third floor is mostly collapsed with makeshift wood and slate compromising a roof. The roof is set to collapse unless someone knows where to step. Eliskinder's personal room also has a hidden door that goes into a collapsed section of the third floor that only he knows about.