Bolo
Bolo
Bolo is a halfling trader at Boareskyr Bridge — braids, big flagon (two hands), bigger margins — and, since Session 54, a Zhentarim asset.
The middlewoman
Bolo came up with her first caravan about eight years ago, saw a couple of good deals, and never left. She operates out of a decommissioned circus tent (no circus animals) and runs the bridge's market: caravans out of Elturel trade with her rather than cross the customs line themselves, she handles the taxes and customs, and caravans from the north buy from her on the other side. "Obviously, I take a little bit of a cut off the top, but, you know, that's part of doing business!" Her right and left hands for the last couple of years are the guards Shem and Blam.
She also keeps a concealed smuggler's cache under an innocent-looking patch of grass by the tent — spotted by Karma and Xanphina, confirmed by Shade's investigation, and given away entirely by Bolo's own guilty glance when Baelgrum asked about "buried secrets." Goods move out of it by night, to boats and wagons the taxmen never see.
The Zhentarim asset
Shade recruited her over a gifted flagon of ale ("I work in securities"). Bolo played the upstanding citizen right up until Shade named the Network — "Oh, I don't mean no trouble, Miss. The Zhentarim, they're always good in my book. What do you need?" Terms, cuts, and call-signs were settled off-screen; Bolo is now the Black Network's path through Boareskyr Bridge (see Zhentarim Instruction: An Asset at the Bridge).