A Man Emerges from Tarant

(Character is a mildly attractive tech-inclined male of low repute, fairly young, named Rannoch with a fairly uncertain past.)
I had just been mugged.
I hadn't a clue who the offender had been - I was not carrying much, never do when I'm in the Boil. And I wasn't dressed richly - cheap leather gloves, several layers of jacket, a grey hat of the sort you usually see on a teenaged pickpocket, and long miner's pants. But the slip of paper I had been carrying - that was important.
None would have known about it, however. None but my cryptologically inclined friend Brant from a farming community north of Tarant, whose number-key I had been carrying when I had been waylaid. The significance of the thing I knew not, other than that it had something to do with a dwarven machine he had stolen, and would tell me about when I delivered the key.
But without the key I am in trouble, deep trouble - if Brant and I were unable to fix the machine, the gnome family he was being housed by would kill him. Which isn't a concern of mine, yet if he finds out he may well rat me out to the gnomes.
God, what a mess. So here I sit, dangling my feet just above the muck-encrusted waters in a ruptured sewage area in the Boil.

 

After several hours of moping about I begin to realize that maybe I should seek some help, and go into a small tavern. I order a drink, then realize I am broke. He stops the tap and downs it himself.
"Then get out!" he yells, and so I leave.
I wait in the street for several minutes until a carriage splashes me. I reach for my pistol, ready to fire a blank to draw attention to their rudeness - then realize that that item was stolen as well. Fortunately it was only a cheap flintlock, rather than a nicer piece - but just the same, one gun less is never good.
I spend the next several hours requesting help from passersby.

 

Enter: Q'a

[ooc]Q'ay is an elvish woman of a mere 150 years, who appears utterly weak and defenceless. She always dresses extravagantly richly, in order to be a target. She is also very aarogant to everyone around her, and soon nearly anyone wants to put a dagger in her throat. However, everyone who has tried such a stunt has wound up very dead for reasons nobody nearby can see. So, she is pretty well able to piss off everyone around her, which she thinks is a lot of fun.[/ooc]

"Yeah, right, like I would help a worthless slob like you" she replies to the dumbass requesting help in the bad part of town, just outside of the boil. He isn't even telling people what he needs help with. Just "Could you please help me?" to everyone he sees. Q'ay is the first person to even look his way.
He immediately rushes towards her, despite her less than pleasant reply to his request.
She immediately begins shooing him off like the rich are always seen doing to the poor.