What. Why is this nonsense happening.

"Should we not be finding a room? With a table?"

"What do you need a table for?"

"To... write? Take notes?"

Abadar save him from ignorant sailors who are apparently clerics.

"Then go ahead and get a table from somewhere. It's a beautiful day."

Josep looks around a little helplessly at the other members of the committee.

"If you're such a bookish sort maybe you have a book you could write against."

Josep throws up his hands and stomps off to find a servant who can, apparently, fetch a table.

Lucia comes out and looks with distaste at the bright sunlight. Then she summons up a little cloud to shade her head, sits down, and looks smug.

He probably shouldn't be surprised the priest is a sailor, and he isn't really sure what he was expecting instead. Damn that meddling Erecuran insisting on including people with no real interest, this will be tricky.

"I suppose we can meet here if you insist, but this kind of policy is complicated work, we'll need a great deal of writing if we're to do our job properly."

"I have merchant marine experience which I suspect is relevant and six hundred people breathing inside of four walls threaten to suffocate me, so we're meeting here. You're welcome to take all the notes you need. What a lovely cloud, is it friendly or would it zap me if I touched it?"

Lucía is always happy to be flattered. "It's friendly if I want it to be! You may touch it! You're a sailor? Have you been to Halmyris? It's my city!"

"We've anchored there, yes!" Pet pet the cloud. "On the Dutiful, if you've seen her, though I seldom tended to go ashore myself. Jofre Espaillat, cleric of Gozreh."

Lucía bobs her head. "Condesa Lucía Velacruz i Montemayor, Lightning Sorceress, and recently the Contessa ever since they executed my uncle Rodrigo," she says with a happy smile. 

(Josep comes back with a pair of servants and a table, and is not pleased to see Lucia. Why is the girl here too!)

Ignasi Cisterna bustles up. He's a comfortably prosperous man, but not one who looks comfortable now.

Priest... unwashed peasant... fellow merchant... fellow merchant... noblewoman.

Ugh. He hates them all. He should probably suck up to the noblewoman even though she's a fool. Hopefully she's a fool a long way from home.

"Your name, please?"

"Ignasi Cisterna, sir." You say sir to priests, even priests who used to be scruffy sailors, if you don't say more.

"Roger Texidor, of Corentyn."

"Josep Roig, of Blackridge."

"And I'm still Jofre Espaillat. Well. The good news is that a some ports that wouldn't admit a Chelish ship were specifically opposed to the Infernalness and will now accommodate us and our wares. Anyone have bad news that we should figure out how to recommend on?"

Lucia waves her hand. "Yes! there are pirates, bandits, and bad enforcement of internal and external passport control. Many of the richest merchants have fled and taken their skills beyond our use, or have been executed with the same result."

"I too am against pirates and bandits - do you actually like the internal passports? Why's that?"

Lucía shrugs. "It is easier to enforce taxation, if we know who is in the county, and who has left."

"I've been at sea since I was a boy, and seldom went ashore, can you say how that works?"

Lucia grins. "Taxes? Well, it is like port fees, but for living anywhere in the county."