There are a few entrances to the Pit’s sewer home through the streets of Trailsend. Enna went ahead and took the password off the doors though. Now there are bouncers, who serve the dual function of asking the old clientele for the password (making them more secure in the illusion that the Pit is still a thieves’ bar) and tossing out any motherfucker who gets too rowdy (which didn’t happen previously and was why the Pit was voted Trailsend Weekly’s three-time winner of the Bar You’re Most Likely To Get Shanked In award). Fuse just tells everyone the enchantment broke, and most of them don’t know enough about enchantment to dispute that. The bar’s main room is pretty big. It is a roughly octagonal chamber about two stories high, all built around the large arena in the middle. There are two entrances coming in from the sewers, with an aforementioned bouncer at each. The former animal pens next to the arena have been converted into dressing rooms for the prizefighters. They have tunnels leading in from the outside so that the fighters can get in and out without being mobbed by fans. There are various tables all around the floor area which Enna recently had to rearrange to keep it up to fire code. She also had some VIP booths built along the walls that can be rented for the night to conduct private business in. A few of them have tunnels connecting them to the back area behind the bar, so that she and her friends can hang out without the clientele freaking out about the thanes of Trailsend being in their hive of scum and villainy. The bar stretches along one wall of the octagon, the one furthest from the two entrances. It has a door behind it that leads to the back area. In the back area there is a kitchen, a larder, a general storage area, and an office. There is a password-protected back entrance in from the sewers that comes directly into this back area. The kitchen has been the subject of the most remodeling in the establishment ever since Enna took over. Since the previous cook was a) bad at cooking and b) a member of the Brotherhood, she had to hire someone new during the week immediately after killing Xonault (the pit was shut down so she could figure out how the fuck to run a bar). During that week she also installed all-new magical appliances and even a magically-refrigerated storage area. The larder is where the perishables are kept, and the extra storage room has a secret passageway leading to the web of tunnels that surround the bar’s main chamber, which means it’s good for dramatic wrestling entrances. Enna uses the office to hold meetings with the fighters, go over potential storylines for the prizefighting tournament, and conduct whatever business would potentially involve other people coming in. Her more private business happens downstairs. The lower floor is the former Brotherhood base. Originally it was a sleeping quarter with bunks for low-ranked members and a few officer’s quarters, a few washrooms, a rudimentary kitchen/dining hall, an alchemy room, and the mortuary/golem construction room. Enna’s first order of business was to get a dwarven cleaning crew specializing in mining accident containment to scour that nasty mess within an inch of its architecture. Her second order of business was to get whatever clerics Felix knew to cleanse it of all remaining bad vibes. Her third order of business was to turn it into a nice base of operations for her friends. This area has a password enchantment like the one that used to be on the front doors of the Pit, except hers changes every so often and you can’t solve a riddle to get in. She’s been on a real run of using horse breeds as the password lately. One of the officers’ rooms has been turned into her main office, where she keeps her vault and her financial records (she will never learn how to read but she knows how numbers and tally marks work and she’s figured out a neat little pictograph system for her inventory and wage documents). The alchemy room has been converted into a meeting room for whatever Harper business needs to happen in private. Enna got an enchanter to install a hot bath room big enough to accommodate a frost giant, just because she had the cash. The mortuary is used as storage, and is not visited often. The kitchen was improved to include the latest in alcohol storage, and the sparse dining room became a comfortable living room. The bunk rooms were completely remodeled into ten individual bedrooms, one of which is currently occupied by Reynald. She has claimed the remaining officer’s room as her own master bedroom, and has been having a lovely time picking out tasteful wall hangings. Getting the king-sized bed down there was a bitch and a half, though. Underneath the base is the undertunnels. Enna hired several up-and-coming bands of first-level adventurers to clean them out. She filled most of them in, but kept the ones that led to Xonault’s chambers. She’s spent a lot of time mapping those out and making sure that in case of crisis they could be used as a well-stocked stronghold that could easily hold twenty people for months. Given the way things are going currently, she’s been feeling more and more like that was a good decision. She hasn’t told anyone about it yet, but when the time comes she’ll be ready.
Two door bouncers plus a floater who goes through the bar and is generally imposing- they rotate shifts every few nights, with four people working peak nights and everyone getting some time off on weekdays. Drogan is a half-orc who is real tired of Dorgan the Hammer because every time the fighter’s name gets said he thinks someone’s calling for him. Kester is a human who tried their hand at prizefighting but decided that they liked the “looking intimidating” part more than they liked the “getting beat up” part. Adalbrecht is a remarkably philosophical dwarf who Scrogg recommended as “a friend who used to make sure that nobody tried to disrupt Scrogg’s social justice meetings, but now that Scrogg has huge metal arm Scrogg no longer need his services.” Cinzia is a human who beat Enna in an arm wrestling contest and that’s all the resume she needed. Fuse was the first bartender she hired, and he appreciated having a job more steady and less dangerous than thievery. As his role in the bar expanded to include prizefighting announcement and refereeing, Enna hired a second bartender, Belgor, an elven mage. Belgor is also in charge of special effects and lighting for the prizefighting matches. They switch off nights and both work during peak hours. Initially Enna only had one cook, the human woman Ilmas, who she hired on Roth’s recommendation (she had quit the Frostmaiden’s Tit due to anger issues, but Roth swore up and down that she was the best potato spicer this side of the Wastes and thought she might fit in better with a more contentious clientele). A few weeks in, Ilmas heard one of the clients saying he could roast a better haunch with his eyes closed and his hands up his ass, and she came very close to going full Sweeney Todd on him. Fuse managed to defuse the situation, but it gave him an idea that he brought to Enna. She liked it, and the Out-Cook the Cook challenge was born. A challenger can sign up a few days in advance and come in to compete against one of Ilmas’ signature recipes in a public cooking event emceed by Fuse. A panel of judges, tasting blind, usually made up of whatever fighters are in favor plus one lucky random audience member, rates the dishes (which are made in the middle of the arena on nights when there isn’t a fight scheduled). If a challenger’s dish wins (and they rarely do, because Ilmas is very good at her job) then they are considered for a position in the kitchen. The actual hiring decision is made by Enna, with input from Ilmas, who is surprisingly gracious in defeat as long as she feels like the challenger earned it. Thanks to the show, Enna has hired two new cooks who can both keep up with Ilmas in the kitchen and give her a break once in a while. Felwin, a bitterly sarcastic man with gnomish ancestry from a village west of Trailsend, beat Ilmas with a stew so flavorful it moved the audience judge to tears. It’s hard to tell whether his barbs at Ilmas are due to genuine antipathy or if that’s just how he shows appreciation for constructive feedback, but they seem to work together alright. Ona, a relatively young elven woman (only 121 years old!), had never been a patron of the Pit before she signed up for the challenge, she just wanted to prove herself as a cook and get a job somewhere that wasn’t her father’s silverworking shop. Her hot chicken pie had Jeren swearing that she was going to marry her just to get that recipe (a proposal which, for the record, Ona never actually rejected). Anger and sarcasm run off the cheerful Ona like water off a dragon’s back, and neither Ilmas or Felwin feel comfortable being rude to someone so genuinely nice, so her arrival in the kitchen was the beginning of an era of better attitudes all around.
The Pit was always popular, but before Enna took over that was mostly because you could do whatever you wanted there. This old guard has either moved to the worse and more dangerous bars or they’ve stayed at the Pit but decided that complaining about how it’s managed nowadays is their new favorite pastime. Thankfully, their complaining has tapered off a lot ever since Enna managed to channel that energy into arguing over prizefighters. New customers have been coming in thanks to word of mouth, drawn by the rumors of improved food and booze and the promise of sick prizefighting. Most of these new customers are Fuse-level criminals, not really respectable enough for regular bars but not willing to take a chance on the worse places. Enna pulled Dav and Klara from this crowd, and she keeps an eye out for other promising candidates. She’s thinking about holding open auditions after the current championship storyline wraps up.
The Pit is open from 7 to 1 on weeknights and from 6 to 3 Fri-Sat-Sun. Most prizefighting happens on the weekends, but there are a few weeknight shows on Monday and Wednesday nights. These shows are usually low-stakes and amount to basically filler episodes, but they bring in the fans all the same. Out-Cook the Cook only happens when there are challengers, but it’s pretty consistent now that it’s popular enough for people to want their five minutes of fame, so it happens every couple of weeks. Enna has encouraged Ilmas to vary the menu every few weeks, rotating out dishes and keeping old favorites as necessary. The booze list has steadily been growing as Enna has made more connections with [those clerics who make the blueberry wine], and it’s amazing how orders pick up when your alcohol tastes like something other than dirty dishwasher. Previously, the Pit was mostly a hive of scum and villainy that people went to because it provided good cover for clandestine meetings and the like, but now the patrons actually order multiple rounds and enjoy the food, so it’s really turning a profit. The profits have mostly been going to the increased overhead, the renovations budget, and wages for the staff, so Enna doesn’t materially profit from it at all. She’s having a good time, though, and being a Thane who just killed a turbo-rich beholder means she doesn’t so much have to worry about paying herself. She’ll worry about that when she retires, but that’s a long way off yet. Maybe Madison could even help her run it! As friends! As totally platonic buds.
Author's Notes:
Written 8/19/19.