You might think the Tavern on the Water was the place where the vagabonds went, and you’d be right, in a way.

The vagabonds, the delinquents, the gamblers, this was the spot they all were drawn to. But the Tavern on the Water wasn’t the place for them to be themselves, no, it was the place they went to be other than themselves, for them to be the people they wanted to be. When they were tired of the traveling, the vandalizing, the losing, they came here, to escape it all.

“You hear the latest?” one of the vagrants said to another. They kept to the back and minded to themselves, enjoying a moment before they had to rejoin the world and beg for scraps again.

“What?”

“They’re hiring.”

“Hiring? What, again?”

His companion nodded, taking a deep sip from his canteen. “Apparently the last one just left.”

In fact, the Tavern on the Water was a peaceful place that had no issue—except that it had terrible luck keeping on staff.

There was nothing wrong with the tavern, as stated, so no one was ever quite sure why this was the case. The hours and pay were fair, the work wasn’t too strenuous, as all of the regulars stayed on their best behavior, not liking to piss where they eat, as the phrase goes. In fact, if anyone was causing any issues the customers themselves would be the first to square the problem away before the staff even needed to get involved.

It was suggested that the tavern was cursed, but no one could quite believe it. It’s not as though the staff every turned up dead, or never to be found again. No, they all went on to be discovered later on as just having moved on with their lives in some way. Of course, all of them notably said they’d never intended on leaving the position; they’d simply gotten the desire one day to never return, and never had.

It was a spectacular mystery, but not one anyone particularly cared to solve.

Why? Well, that was obvious.

The staff who went missing were always assholes.

The first one who’d left had always overcharged; the another had insisted anyone who didn’t pass their inspection take their orders outside; this most recent one had the tendency to insult the customers, loudly, when they felt their tip was inadequate.

Altogether, no one particularly minded when these people didn’t show up for their next shift.

After all, the vagabonds, the delinquents and the gamblers weren’t just those monikers—they were people, and not always respected as such. They enjoyed this place like a second home—a first home, for others—and when these judgmental, nasty people left, it stayed that way.

Because the Tavern on the Water was the place where they went—they made the place their own, and they liked it that way.

And the ones who didn’t like it, well, they could just get lost.