Why not both?
Player character has had some momentarily mundane jobs to earn a few gp.
Remember Pirate's Treasure? You collect bananas, pack em in a crate, get some GP. you can rinse and repeat as much as you like. You also get a brief bit of work as a shop assistant ... so you can get access to the backroom and steal the smuggled rum ... and not get paid ... but still.
However about with the Dwarves? You join a company, get tasked to do a few mining or smelting odd jobs and very quickly work your way up to meeting the director.
How about some of the quests we do? Cook's Assistant was a pretty basic fetch job. Grab 3 ingredients and there ya go.
For all we know, Ellamaria had worked up a really hefty bar tab and had to work it off (after procrastinating on it, or got into 1 too many bar fights ... which makes sense for an adventurer ... ) and so the bar made her literally work off her debt.
Maybe she just wanted to spend a bit of time as a barmaid and just so happened to do it when Roald was passing thru.
And just because you're an "adventurer", she may have had some downtime. Or do something that was slightly less dangerous. Maybe the "good" adventuring gigs were being dealt with so she couldn't get a decent quest so she got stuck being a barmaid till something popped up.
And have you met the Signature Heroes and some of the other NPCs?
I mean, she could be an adventurer AND a jerk.
So the WOM's description of her would be apt.
Did you also stop to consider the WOM was biased? ... slightly biased .... ?
I mean, to
other
people (besides the player character and WOM) she could be only mildly irritating. She just goes full on with the PC and WOM.
16-Mar-2023 00:02:14