When they first got to the city Brisa was overwhelmed. The tiny village of Twiddledale was long in her past and even Loudwater, huge by her standards, would be a pauper's town compared to Baulder's Gate.
Fortunately the letter given her by the mage on the boat had served as an introduction to a wizard named Hector, he lived in town who offered to take Brisa as an apprentice. Unfortunately Brisa knew she would need to make some money too, she couldn't leave it to the two boys to provide for them, they needed everything they could get and were stuck in town for the whole winter. Hector helped her get a proper job scribing for the city's clerks.
The hustle and bustle of a major port quickly grew to be routine, Brisa still didn't like large crowds of people but she had come to wall part of herself off so she could endure it. She had even been nervous settling in above the brothel but she quickly discovered that most of those who worked there were just someones daughter, sister, mother, etc...they were people just like everyone else and they were so helpful it was impossible not to respond in kind.
The boys often did repairs, heavy lifting, moving, security work, and the like for the brothel. Brisa took a different role. Thanks to the letter of introduction the mage had given her, she had quickly found work as a scribe, a rather elite and prestigious line of work. It paid well even though it was very tedious and boring. She was however able to make a decent living and work as an unpaid apprentice to the wizard.
From her first pay day she had taken some of her own money and purchased parchment, ink, and quills and her first project was to offer her services to the prostitutes. For many of them it was the first chance they had to send a letter to family and friends outside the town. Scribes were expensive and money could be put to better use, Brisa's offer was well received and she herself was surprised about how happy they were to get messages out. In fact she made it a point once every 10-day to ask if anyone needed scribing.
Her days were pretty routine; wake up early, head to the Scribe's office, work till well past midday, then head to to Hector's for wizard lessons, finally when the sun was setting walk home stopping by the market often to pick up some kind of fresh food to enhance their dinner.
She often found when she was walking home that it felt like she was being watched. It was an unnerving feeling. Her stops by the market helped her disappear into the crowd, she wasn't sure why but whomever or whatever was following her never seemed to follow her through the market.
She wanted to mention it to one of the boys but she was afraid they would think her silly and jumping at shadows. It became a daily thing and she was always tense when she came home, though unless someone was looking close they never would see it. She had become very good an concealing her emotions in this hectic city she didn't want people to know more about her than she could help. She finally told Hector who didn't believe her completely but he did offer to teach her a few self defense moves.
"A mage must always be ready to run, but sometimes we can't run" he always told her. She hadn't the physical strength that her two male companions had but she was fast and limber and she learned to use it. She only learned 5 moves, two with a staff, the rest just with bare hands, but Hector drilled them into her, adding them to her daily routine, making her practice every day, till they were instinct. She still couldn't hold her own in a face to face fight but the constant training meant they were as effective as an experienced fighter, she could react instantly and likely get away to either run or cast a spell.
She disliked the small space they lived in, it got crowded quickly and even though they had sort of come to a “personal space” agreement with each of the children having their own cot/sleeping space they were still almost on top of one another. The brothel had a large courtyard for cooking and even a massive washtub for laundry but it was always cold and the weather was getting colder by the day. Brisa tried to study out there, bundled up and looking like a giant pile of furs, but it was difficult. A new spell, taught to her by Hector, changed all that. The “warm” cantrip was perfect acting as if she was dressed in the warmest furs, and combined with her “firefinger” she could get a wonderful fire started in the cook pit in any weather. She was soon spending all her free time in the cook yard, cooking their meals, practicing her few fighting moves as a form of meditation, or studying her spells or the other books she had.
Today she was in a great mood, even the strange presence that constantly followed her around town couldn't get her down. Spring wasn't far away now and soon the first ships would be heading to Chult. She had purchased a bunch of fresh hot sausage pies for dinner for the three of them. Most importantly had finally perfected her first personally created spell, Camouflage, having tweaked it a bit with Hector's help. She was hoping one of the boys would allow her to test it on them when they came back, she just didn't know how to ask. She never could figure out how they really felt about having magic done on them.