The Phoenix is a non-descript building on Old Main Street, marked by a single sign: a huge gold and crimson phoenix flying like an arrow towards the sky. Any well informed visitor recognizes the Rising Phoenix Tavern instantly.
The tavern has been a Briarsville standard since the days prior to the trade roads when the town was a remote settlement on the edge of the vast, mysterious wood. Its name was originally less ambitious, but this tavern has somehow survived through every upheaval in the town's active history and its own tendency to attract patrons of the heroic type (who in turn attract every kind of trouble). The building has been built and rebuilt many times.
The building is furnished and arranged simply. Patrons only have access to the main room and the back room—everything else is open to staff and special guests only. (A more detailed description is available beneath the map.)
Mounted guests are greeted right away by capable stable hands who lead horses (and whatever else comes through) to the stable behind the main building and return with them when the patron is ready to leave. Everyone enters the building through un-preposing doors and a small entry way, into the front room.
The main room has a large, roaring fire even in the summer, though it is never uncomfortable. The room is filled with movable tables and chairs and has big, sunny windows, and low platform that can be re-located (or removed altogether) often serves as a stage for performers. There is a doorway on either side of the fireplace.
The smaller second room, reached through the open doorway on the right of the fireplace, is always dark and comfortably dingy, with a bar in the back and secluded booths lining the walls. The windows in here are always heavily shuttered. Though outer room is often crowded, the inner always manages to feel intimate. The dark, wooden bar gives the tavern its name, for it has survived fire, riot, revolution, mage craft, blizzard, flood, and petrification. Supposedly, the wood is from the Forest itself. Wherever it came from, it is impossibly heavy, and every new birth of the Phoenix includes the same bar. Behind it, there is a trap door that leads to the wine cellar.
This bar and this room are the real heart of the tavern, along with the current proprietress, a young woman of perhaps thirty with deep red hair, dark blue eyes, and something in her manner that signals that though she always wears a skirt, she's no conservative housewife. Everyone in town knows Rena Fenly, the most recent in a long line of Fenlys to sit behind the bar. Only her quiet air of authority signals that she is the sole owner of a highly profitable establishment which thrives under her close supervision. Less observant customers often ask to see the proprietor without realizing that she just served them their favorite drink!
The closed door on the left side of the fireplace leads past the stairs to the second floor to the kitchen, serving area, staff lounge, and the back door. (A second back door opens out of the "lounge" area.) There is also a secure armory. Everything through this door is off limits to customers.
The second story of the Phoenix was regularly open to patrons when the building was also an inn. Now, Rena has a private suite and a few employees (such as popular waitress Tiny and omni-present bouncer Nic) have rooms. Several chambers remain empty, and Rena occasionally accepts guests.
Out back, one covered walkway leads to the stables and another follows the back of the building. Between the stable and the tavern there is an exercise yard for horses and martial-minded customers.
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