Another Stray

Dear Diary - Found a sweet little bird today.
 
Gry and I were hanging near the Gate, killing time and keeping the business open, you know? Mostly just the usual run of folk fleeing Reticence, but an airship came in from Galeland. There was this winged elf, the Avariel I think they're called? Poor thing was so fresh she might as well've taped a "scam me" sign on her wings.
 
Was thinking we might try to land her work, somewhere safe, if she didn't have plans, when Veil of the Sun showed up and dragged her away.
 
That MANGEY little hairball. They've been tricking newbs into signing indentureship contracts. Terrible ones. They KNOW better than this! I'd wring their stupid little cat neck if I didn't imagine they'd be been manipulated into doing it by someone else.
 
Ugh. Maybe I'm not being fair. Veil's just...well, kind of an idiot.
 
Anyway, we got the Avariel out of there. Her name is Alba. Brought her to the Stag, wrote her some papers. I was really just going to do the normal job this time. Maybe give her the papers for free, to make up for Veil's shittiness, point her in the direction of a decent job, and forget about her.
 
Anyway, now she's asleep in my bed, so obviously that went well.
 
Gry wanted to look into it more. And Alba wanted to look into it more. Sooo I let them twist my arm. I definitely wasn't already wanting to dig into it on my own. Nope. That would be foolish and dangerous and I have already picked up enough strays.
 
I should really stop lying to my diary.
 
We went back to the warehouse that Veil had took her to. There were some scumbag cronies there. They didn't know anything, really, but pointed us to The Blue Wench. Warehouse also had a fake boat full of cages that had clearly housed slaves, a bunch more indentureship contracts, and a coded ledger. The contracts were made out to give ownership to...Rashey Crustfully? Rasher Crestfurry? Something like that. I've got the contracts in my bad I'm just too tired to go check.
 
Off we went to The Blue Wench, where we found Veil again. All we learned there is how to decode the ledger, and that Veil was being paid by the Wench's barkeep, a dangerously handsome redheaded human.
 
Alba, it turns out, is surprisingly capable. I mean, she's danger. She's too innocent for her own good. She'll probably get us killed. But she's sweet, and Gry seems uncharacteristically attached.
 
So...now we have a little bird. Who can talk to rats, by the way. And also a mystery. A shitty, horrible mystery.
 
I just wish Gry hadn't seen those cages. The look on her face broke my fucking heart.