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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Nov 19, 2006 12:13:51 GMT -5
Did I do that?! I don't even remember...*blush*
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Post by Deyla on Nov 22, 2006 7:41:43 GMT -5
Tonight, we are camped with three other groups near where the river runs out of the south end of Mirror Lake. We made our way today along the river, crossing it when we reached the road and there was a bridge. But other than the bridge, we were on cart paths all day, not really roads. I know that the main road west from Goldshire passes a garrison and then into Westfall, but this is not the route we will be taking. Apparently, Jamie's Uncle John lives in a very remote part of Westfall indeed.
In fact, from talking to the other people in the camp tonight, it sounds like most of Westfall is in horrible shape. I can't really imagine how Granma thinks that going to a place that appears to be full of burned out farms and mechanical horrors, not to mention more outlaws than have ever graced Elwynn . . . well, let's just say I can't understand how this can possibly be a good idea.
Apparently we have two more full days of travel left. Jamie prepared the wagon for our trip. I suppose I should describe it as it is quite different than the other wagons used around here. He won't say where he got the idea to build it from, but he did create it all, except for the wheels, because he is a woodworker, not a wheelwright.
Anyway, the main part of the wagon is made of a metal and wood frame through which axles are threaded. The main box of the wagon is suspended from this frame by a system of pulleys, springs and leather that confuses me just to look at it. Jamie says he can make the suspension "tight" or "loose" or anywhere in between. For this trip, it is fairly loose, since we are traveling on rough roads. In the front of the box are two bentwood frames, reinforced by springy metal. From these, leather straps support a seat. Therefore, the seat is well-sprung, indeed. I hardly noticed the roughness of the paths we followed along the river's shore today, which is saying something.
Although we had a good fall day for our trip, there is a retractable "bonnet", Jamie calls it, that can be set up over the seat to shield you from rain or too much sun. Normally, the box in the back is used to carry goods to Goldshire, which is a very short trip, even going cross country with a heavy load, so mostly the box is left open. However, we are traveling some distance, and weather is uncertain late in the year, so Jamie installed three bentwood arcs over the wagon. I don't know exactly how to describe them, but over the contents of the wagon, he placed a tarp, tied down carefuly. He explained to me that if rain falls on the tarp when it is touching something, that eventually -- like in an hour or two -- the water will soak through the tarp. To keep water off goods, you need a cover that is taut and does not touch anything. Well, that's what the three arcs do: they support an oilskin cover that is more or less the shape of about a third of a circle, braced up off the wagon box itself. Even if the box were empty, you couldn't quite stand up in the wagon under this roof, unless you were a dwarf, I suppose. But it will keep our belongings dry as we travel to Jamie's uncle's farm.
Jamie packed the wagon, but I packed the boxes to be packed in the wagon. The boxes with jars in them are lined with straw and every bottle is wrapped in straw and then cotton flannel. I'd say that if we hadn't had to pack them against breakage, we could have gotten twice as many jars in each box. The boxes are nailed shut. There are also sacks of dried fruits and vegetables, as well as some bolts of cloth and large amounts of spun wool, in various grades. It's all arranged so that the top is pretty flat, but also so that a person can lie down on the items and be relatively comfortable, which you will see is important.
There are outlaws in camps around Mirror Lake. which is why there are four groups camping all together. Each group has to provide one person to stand watch, and of course Jamie is insisting on doing it for us. They are standing watch in pairs, according to some convoluted schedule. We left this morning after a hearty breakfast that Miss Bernice made for us. As we left, she kissed me on the forehead and told me to take care of myself and Granma. I blushed.
We crossed over the river in the later morning, and after that, the traveling slowed down greatly. I asked why we could not go into Westfall on the road, which has to be faster, and then turn north to reach the farm we are visiting, but Jamie said I would see. Around noon, we stopped in stand of trees and got off the wagon to eat our noon meals. I had made meat pasties, with chopped beef, roasted potatoes, fried onions, and lots of black pepper in them. We also had cheese and apples. For tomorrow's lunch, I have similar pasties, but this time filled wtih mushrooms and broccoli and cheese, which we will eat with apples and pears. For the third day, I have dried beef strips, cherry leather I made in the sun, and hard cheese. I took Jamie's advice about what kind of food would travel well, as he apparently makes this trip once or twice a year, but he says that the food I made is better than what he usually brings for himself.
Anyway, we cooked rice over the fire for supper and ate it with a roasted rabbit Jamie cought in a snare. Tomorrow morning, I will make pudding out of the leftover rice, with two eggs I brought with me and some raisins and cinnamon. Jamie says he will catch fish for supper tomorrow, and I have dried bacon we can fry up for the last breakfast. I'm not a big expert on camping food, but I trust that Jamie has given me good enough advice that we wil get it right.
The stuff in the wagon is arranged so that the top of it is very level, so we are sleeping under the cover. Since it's too short to stand in, we have to crawl over the top of the seat to get back there, and it's very close indeed. But it's also cosy and warm, which is good, because there is quite a chill in the air. Since it's not really safe to wander into the woods in the night, Jamie put a honey pot over by the banked fire in case anyone needs it before morning. I suppose it will be my job to bury its contents before we break camp and leave.
I don't much like the other people we are camping with. I don't dislike them, mind you, but they are taciturn, perhaps even morose. They are all going to various places in the hills on the northern part of the border between Westfall and Elwynn, and they all seem as if they have been beaten down by their lives. From what they say, it does sound like Westfall is in a terrible way. I can't quite figure out how coming here is going to improve our provisioning, but Granma seems sure it will. If the farms are all destroyed or stolen by the outlaws, it's hard to imagine that Jamie's Uncle John will have anything to offer us in return for the jars of produce, boxes of dried fruits, and other things we brought with us. I guess we will see.
Jamie just gets a twinkle in his eye and tells me I will be surprised, and I suppose I will. Gramna has proven to be resourceful and brave, and I do trust her. But I stil wish I were back in my bed in the attic in her cottage, and not getting ready to bed down under an oilcloth canopy in a makeshift campsite with people who I don't really know.
Still, I've been a refugee, and this is better than that, even if we aren't perfectly safe, or terribly comfortable tonight.
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Post by Thelanya on Nov 22, 2006 11:08:18 GMT -5
((I have got to stop reading these installments before breakfast.
I hope Deyla is careful in Westfall -- I hear there's warlocks running around loose out there.))
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Post by Deyla on Nov 22, 2006 23:39:20 GMT -5
Last night was okay, if you like sleeping in cramped spaces with two other people and a bone-chilling breeze running through the length of your sleeping space, freezing your nose every time you poke it out from under your coverlet. Still, I slept soundly, straight through 'til morning, once I learned not to stick my nose out.
I was the first one up. Jamie ended his second shift as camp scout about three hours before dawn, and he had warned me he would need to sleep past dawn in order to be able drive us where we needed to go today. So I got up as the sun was starting to light up the sky. Without being told, I took the honey pot into the woods and buried its contents, then I put it aside to wash with the water I used for the breakfast dishes, after they were all done.
I blew the fire to life and started making breakfast. I had a large pot of water warming on the side of the fire, and some water boiling up for tea, as well as dried fruit plumping up in some hot water by the time Jamie and Granma woke up. When I heard them begin to scrabble around, I drained the fruit and mixed it into the pudding, which I then put on the fire, covered, to steam and so that the bottom would get all crispy, which is the best part of rice pudding, after all.
Granma came up next to me, and took the tea pot off the fire and put in the tea ball. She also got out the field kits that we are using to eat from on this trip. They are pretty cool, and if it weren't that they were leftover from the War, they would a lot nicer to have around. Basically, there's a metal plate, a knife, a fork, a spoon, a cup and a bowl, and they are all made so they cleverly fit together, so it's easy to carry a single person's utensils. Jamie says you can use the plate as a frying pan, too, but we don't have to do that, since we brought pots and pans with us.
By the time Jamie was out of the wagon and had gone down to the lake and washed his face off with cold water, we had breakfast served up. I sat on a stone not too far from the fire, so I wouldn't get chilled, and ate my breakfast. Jamie seemed to like the rice pudding -- he sure ate plenty of it! When he was done, he sat back with a big satisfied sigh and said, "Food never tastes as good as it does at a campfire." I think he's nuts. Food never tastes as good as when you eat it in a safe, warm place where you belong. Outdoors is nice for a picnic, but cooking over a fire is a pain in the neck and bugs get in the food and stuff.
Granma told me that it's nice to have someone along who knows how to cook, because when Jamie cooks camp food, it's not as good. He just grinned at us, and started washing the dishes. I'll say this for him: he knows how to do dishes pretty well. He washed our kits first, then the pots I used to cook, then he took the water and the honey pot into the woods and washed it, too. Which was pretty nice of him when you come down to it.
We'd saved a bit of warm water to wash our hands and faces, so it wasn't too bad as camping out goes, I guess. We struck camp, reloaded the wagon and climbed into the seat while Jamie hitched up the horses. It wasn't more than 2 hours past dawn when we were well on our way.
We followed along the south edge of the lake for most of the morning, but around an hour before noon, we struck northwest, up into the hills. At first, they were sort of roling hills, covered by the kind of woods I'm used to in Elwynn, but it wasn't long before the hills became a bit more sharp and the woods sparser. Instead of fruit trees and fir trees, there were aspens and hardy pines. The undergrowth died away, too, and the cart path became even harder for me to see. Jamie apparently knew right where we were going, though, because he never even stopped to look around.
After awhile, we came to a clearing in the woods, with a small pond near one edge of it. Jamie pulled the wagon over by the edge of the pond and put on the brake. He jumped off the seat and unhitched the horses and one at a time led them over to the pond to drink. Then he hobbled them in a grassy area and spread some oats around on the ground, too. I didn't know why he had done that, and it must have shown on my face. He told me that lots of travelers used this stopping place, and it was a courtesy to put down food for the horses so that they didn't eat the grass all the way away.
I must have looked really disbelieving, which makes sense when you realize that once we left the lake shore, we hadn't seen any more people of any kind. Most of the people we camped with last night had taken the direct west route at the edge of the lake, when we struck northwest, and the cart track looked rarely traveled, too.
Jamie took me by the hand and walked with me about 50 yards back down the way we had come. He pointed to the ground. "There is very little ground cover here, Deyla. It's much harder to see the traces of other travelers, but look at this, and this."
Sure enough, when I looked where he pointed I could see that the pine needles on the ground were broken up more than in the surrounding areas. When I looked closely, I could see that there were traces of at least three sets of wheels.
I thanked him for showing me, and went back to the wagon, where I got out the picnic I had packed for the second day's luncheon. Jamie got out two carafes of cool apple cider from this year's pressing. We sat on a flat rock, warm in the sun, considering the time of year, and ate our cheese and vegetable pasties, and chatted about nothing of much import. I watched two ducks swoop down from the sky and land on the pond's surface, where they swam companionably for awhile before taking flight again.
After lunch, we clambered back onto the seat of the wagon while Jamie rehitched the horses. I can tell you that I was getting tired of the trip, and we were only about halfway from the Stonefield's farm to where we were going. Anyway, after lunch, our path took us away from the pond and up more into the raggedy hills. They never really became mountains, not like the ones on the way to the dwarf lands. But they did get higher and more sparsely vegetated and the horses slowed down even more. A couple times, Jamie had me get out with him and walk by the horses, leaving them only Granma and the supplies to haul up a particularly steep slope or something. It was even sort of nice to stretch my legs, and then after the short, steep walks, nice to get back in the seat, too.
Eventually, the pathway flattened out, and we seemed to be on some kind of plateau. To the right of us was a high stone cliff, much like the one in which the Stonefield's secret storeroom is hidden, only a lot bigger. I amused myself by imagining a larger storeroom in this cliff. On the left, there were some small stands of hardy fruit trees, and some fields, too, not under cultivation at the moment, but then it's not cultivation season. The pathway we were on widened some and showed signs of a lot more traffic, and then we came around a corner, and there were actually a few people walking along the road. One of them appeared to be a peddlar, walking along beside a horse who was wearing quite full packs. The others, in smaller groups, looked more like people who lived nearby. I was startled to find myself thinking that -- this is the middle of nowhere, after all. And then a pack of small chldren ran across the road a bit in front of us, and I went from startled to bemusd. Apparently the "hostel" Jamie mentioned was quite a largish settlement, considering it had been a day and a half since we'd seen so much as a single cottage.
We kept on, and the cliff to the right remained there, brooding, looming over the road. I thought to myself that the sun must come up here later than down on the farm, because of the cliff getting in the way. But off to the left, more signs that in growing season, this land was used for growing thing, too. And then the roadway curved around the cliff to the right again, and I gasped. Ahead of us was a walled compound. I would say a keep, or a village, if I knew what the place was, exactly. I still don't. but it's pretty clear that tomorrow I am going to find out.
We drove up to the gate, and Jamie greeted the guard there by name. They were all "Good to see you!" and "Long time, sucka!" to each other, and it was nice to see their obvious affection for one another. Then they had a short quick conversation in a language I did not understand, and we turned the wagon away from the walls of the place and started to drive around the edge of it that is not all up against the cliff wall.
It took some time, being as the compound, or whatever it is, is not tiny, and that the road was not empty. When we came to the other side, there was another guard, also known to Jamie. More "Dude! Long time no see!" and other similarly unenlightening conversation. Again, the quick exchange in the language I never heard before, and this time, Jamie had Granma and me get off the wagon. He unloaded our personal belongings and handed the wagon over to the guard. I was shocked by this, that he would just let someone walk off leading his horses, and his wagon and all our stuff. But he did.
Anyway, we then walked a bit farther along the wall and found a gate the size to let people (even elves) walk through it, but not wagons, so maybe that was part of the reason. We came to a place that even I could recognize as a lodging of some sort. There is a large common room and boards on te wall with chalk lists of foods for sale. It all smelled, good, I can tell you!. And Jamie talked to the guy behind the long bar, and then came over to us with three keys in his hand. He gave us each one and said he had ordered dinner for an hour later, and shooed us up the stairs. I walked up slowly, looking around, trying to understand where we were. Within the walls, certainly, but it had not escaped my attention that the only two exits were the one we came in through (which was in the outer wall of the place) and a locked on behind the bar.
Around the time I sorted out the upper hallways and found the room whose number matched my key, Jamie had found his, and clearly washed himslef at least in a cursory manner, and changed his shirt. He ran past me without even really recognizing me, heading for the stairs at a nice jogging rate. I watched him go by, wondering what he was so excited about and then went into my own room.
It was a small cell, really, with a slit in the wall to let in the night air, but not big enough to put even an arm through let alone a body. There was lantern in it, all lit and making it sort of cozy. The outer wall (the one with the slit in it) was the same grey stone of the walls of the compound. The other walls were smooth wood, some random color like oak or maple, perhaps. There was a bed in it, just the right size for one person, and a little table next to it. There was also a note nailed on the wall, telling me where the bathing room was. I threw my bag on the bed and hastily grabbed a clean shift and the towel on the bedside table, and my key, which I hung around my neck from its leather thong, after locking my door behind me.
I easily found the ladies' bathing room, and it was a doozy. There was a cistern of hot water and a pool of cool water, and lots of creamy soap. There were several wodden tubs and a fancy contrapton so you could fill each one with hot water from that cistern. There was a keg of warm water, not as hot as the cistern. There was a slatted wood floor and pictures showing how to "bathe".
I stripped to the skin (which was pretty grimy) and folded my things, putting them all in a cubby hole. Then I walked over and stoof on the slatted part of the floor. I got a pitcher and filed it with water. Then I used a large sponge and some yummy almond smelling soap to wash myself. When I ran out of water, I refilled the pitcher and used it to rinse myself. Then I carefully filled a large tub with very hot water, and threw in a handful of scented leaves, rosemary and mint, mostly. It was hard to get into, the water was so hot, but 30 seconds after I entered it, a calmness came over me that I can hardly describe. I sat sleepily in the hot, scented water for a good twenty minutes or so, and then I knew I was starting to get hungry, so I got out of the tub, and carefully pulled the plug and watched the water run out. I jumped in the pool of cool water, because that is what the wall showed people doing, and it was COLD! But it woke me back up. After that, I wiped myself off and put on my clean clothes and made my way back to my room.
Now here's what is odd about all that. I wasn't the only one there. While I was in the bathing room, half a dozen other women came through and did more or less what I was doing, only differing in the scents they chose for their baths (we all used the creamy almond smelling soap). And no one ever spoke. It was not a strained silence, either, but a very comfortable one, as if talking were not required or desirable, so we did not do it. I enjoyed it all very much, and felt much cleaner and more relaxed, but also more alert, than I had been after our long days of travel.
Soon, it was time to go downstairs, and so I did. I found Jamie and Granma seated at a table with one more chair, which was a welcoming thing. I sat down at that table, and soon the food came out. We had a thick creamy puree of zucchini soup with fresh thyme and lots of garlic in it, and toasted cheese sandwiches. I know lots of people think those are lunch food, but that's about my favorite supper in the world. The cheeses were a combination of something sharpish and something mild. Maybe some fine aged cheddar and something from the south, with a name I would not know. Whatever the milder thing was, it smoothed out the sharpness of the cheddar and made it melt beautifully. The outside of the bread was fried in butter, which I have never tried, but you can bet I will try it now that I have had it brought to mind. Toasted cheese sandwiches are good, but fried ones turn out to be better! Then we had cherry tarts and tea after, and my stomach was as happy as the rest of my body had been made by the lovely bath.
While we ate, Jamie teased me about the fried fish for supper and bacon breakfast that we don't have to have tomorrow. He said that this place is one of his favorite places, and he wanted to surprise me, so he made up the story about the fish and the bacon. And it's dried bacon, so we can use it on the way home anyway, which is true. The supper was so good, I would have forgiven him a much bigger deception, and when you add the bath, well! Anyway, we laughed a bit, but mostly the three of us just ate quietly, so we could enjoy the food as much as possible. I especially noticed how I felt comfortable with Jamie and Granma, not even the least bit alert to make sure everything was okay.
After we ate, a couple of guards came into the common room and greeted Jamie, who excused himelf and went over to sit with them and drink ale. Granma also excusd herself and went up to bed. She said, "The common room is perfectly safe, Deyla, but don't linger too long. We have a long day ahead of us tomorow." I nodded and sat back, quite replete and very content to watch the goings on with the other travellers in the room.
Eventually, however, my eyelids started to grow heavy, so I picked up my tea cup and took it over to the bar. I put it down and said to the woman behind it, "Is there some place I shoud put this, before I retire, mistress?"
She looked up at me, and as she did. my necklace started huming. Now, I have gotten used to my necklace purring (which is not actually a sound, so much as a silent vibration), or shocking me, or generally making a nuisance of itself, but I had never heard it make a sound. I looked down at my chest in shock, but the hum did not stop. The woman looked at me, and a look came into her eyes. She said, "What is that sound?" and even I knew she already knew it was my necklace.
Under the circumstance, I could not lie, and to tell the truth, my relaxed and contented mood inclined me to honesty anyway, so I said, "I think it's my necklace." I smiled a little bit. "It's never done that before."
She looked grim suddenly, and started to say one thing. Then she stopped herself, and put a hand on my wrist, not ungently. "Stay here," she said in a way that I could not have disobeyed, had I wanted to. With a flick of her wrist, she unlocked the door behind the bar and disappeared. Shortly, she returned with an older woman in tow. I mean that literally: she had the other woman by the hand, and seemed to be pulling her through the door.
The hum had softened some when she left, but not stopped, and now that she was back, it got louder again. The second woman, dressed in a green velvet dress that was more of a robe than anything else, and wearing a heavy insignia around her neck, stopped at the sound and stared at me. "Who are you?" she whispered.
"Deyla," I replied. "I have no other name."
"Well, Deyla." She grimaced for a moment. "Take good care of the necklace, pray you."
Then she disappeared through the doorway, and as the door swung shut behind her, I heard a metallic click that sounded more than a little ominous. The humming in my necklace immediately stopped, and its absence also frightened me. But mostly, I was tired, so I turned and walked out of the common room, climbed the stairs, and let myself into my little room, where I quickly prepared for bed. And now that I am done writing about my day, I will go to sleep. Tomorrow is meant to be a long day, as we descend from the hills into Westfall proper.
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Post by Deyla on Dec 3, 2006 7:55:37 GMT -5
((Aaaargh!! I wrote three new installments, and then somehow undid all the actions that had created them. Since I am using an unfamiliar computer with an unfamiliar OS and very limited tools, I lost it all. So I went to recover a saved version and somehow wrote the now empty file over the saved version. I'm gonna go soak my head in a bucket of cold water now. I'll try to recreate the installments. Only two of them had food in them, Celera.))
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Dec 4, 2006 13:53:15 GMT -5
((noooooooo!))
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Post by Celera on Dec 4, 2006 13:57:49 GMT -5
((Oh nooo!!! I hate when that happens. I make backups of most of the stuff I write now -- once I write something, it sort of goes out of my head and is really hard for me to recreate. Good luck! And don't worry about the food. I'm on a diet anyway, and this story is really not helping. ))
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Post by Deyla on Apr 25, 2007 16:06:12 GMT -5
((All this stuff about the encounter with the Refuge people is placed wrong. I need to remove it and deal with the Wastfall part of the trip first. The removed stuff will be back in a different form later on.))
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Post by Deyla on Jul 3, 2007 12:21:49 GMT -5
I don't think I like Westfall very much. The vegetation is sparse and more rugged than Elwynn. A lot of it looks tinder-dry, as if it could catch fire just from the sun beating down on it. The few stands of trees are solace to my eyes, but really, it's mostly a bit too desolate for my taste. Add to this the fact that the so-called Defias have trashed the place, and I'll be just as glad when we are gone.
We woke up early and went outsde the inn, where a number of travelers, including our group were beng reunited with their wagons and horses. As we hitched up the horses to Jamie's wagon, I watched the other people, too. There was a striking woman I had noticed in the common room last night. She had been sitting in the corner drinking an aromatic, bitter-smelling something and eating a berry tart. This morning, she was dressed for travel, with an enslaved imp bouncing around at her side.
Unlike Boswell, she wasn't letting the imp run the partnership, but she wasn't horribly mean to it, either. Just sort of firm and in control. As I watched, she mounted up on an armored ram, an oddity amongst warlocks. I recall when Boswell learned to summon his second and faster demonic mount, and I thought all warlocks did that, but this woman climbed onto a dwarven mount as if she did it all the time. Then she left in a cloud of dust, and I climbed up onto our wagon, so we, too could leave.
Thinkng of Boswell made me smile, especially remembering his attachment to those two demon mounts. He called the slower one "Tony the Pony" and the faster one "Florsie the Horsie", names that made Pipniff roll his eyes and laugh mockingly at his fellow demons, so demeaned by Boswell's cheerful names for them. I wonder what he and Pipniff are up to these days?
While my thoughts were wandering, Jamie started the horses moving, and our final day of travel began. You know, until we turn around and come back in a few days.
The morning started out fairly cool, largely because we were so high in the hills, but as we descended slowly along the banks of a small creek, and the sun rose higher in the sky, it got quite warm, especially considering the time of year. After awhile, Jamie stopped the horses and put the canopy up over the bench seat we were sitting on, and then we continued. The shade was nice, I admit.
After about four hours, we stopped for our lunch. Instead of the dried meat I'd planned on when I didn't know about last night's accommodations, we had sandwiches filled with a deviled egg spread and cucumbers. The spread was spicy and yet very smooth, and I noticed that Gramna liked it a great deal. I will try to figure out how to make it when we get home. There were more of the cherry tarts from last night, which made me happy, and the fresh water from the creek next to us washed it all down nicely.
As the afternoon wore on, we drove by three or four abandoned farms, buildings burned to the ground, and fields left fallow, with various farm implements rusting and rotting under the beating sun. Jamie growled as we passed the second one, and muttered about the outlaws and the damage they are doing to Westfall.
It's clear that in Elwynn, the outlaws are more of a nuisance, where as here, they are a danger. I say that, even after having spent a day under straw and then having to do the back-breaking labor of restocking the cellar from the secret provisions. We would not even be on this trip if it weren't for the outlaws. But then just as I get all outraged about them, I recall the ten days of "community service" at the lumber mill, and I know that being poor is just no fun, no matter what. People respond to it differently, some railing against the system and not noticing that they are becoming so much like what they despise, what with the "canvassing" for "contributions", and others knuckle down and work harder, hoping to remain safe and unnoticed. Me, I plan to escape the whole mess once I can afford to move to Stormwind.
Around the time I came to the conclusion that Westfall was all destroyed and abandoned, we came to a place where a smaller creek joned with the one we'd been following all day. Jamie turned the wagon to follow the little rivulet up the hill it flowed down. After another 30 minutes of slow going, we topped the rise, and before us, in a bowl-like valley, was a small group of farms, these ones whole and untouched by the devastation wehad witnessed earlier.
There are neat buildings, houses, barns, and storage towers, as well as a cistern for the whole lot of the holdings. The fields were all harvested and plowed, but in perfectly good order. In a couple pastures, a few cows and horses grazed as if they had no care in the world.
I wondered how these people came to be passed over by the outlaws, seemingly so hell-bent on destroying Westfall, when I noticed that the whole area was patrolled by big blue demons. And indeed, when we turned up a drive and made our way to one of the farmhouses, I also saw imps and the occasional felpuppy. Curious, but I suppose it would work. It would be hard for outlaws to overrun a compund protected by so much demonic poower, but it also suggested that the inhabitants of the small valley were themselves people to be reckoned with.
As we drove up, two men came out of the house, one of whom looked so much like Big Joe that I knew immediately that he was Granma's son. And he seemed happier to see her than his letter had suggested he would be, plucking her off the wagon bench and twirling her aorund in a big bear hug. Jamie said "That's my Uncle John," as if I needed to be told. He jumped down and hugged his uncle, too, with a look in his eye that I didn't quite recognize. I got down off the bench and was duly introduced to Mr. Stonefield, who told me I might as well call him "Uncle John", too.
While all this hullabaloo was going on, I hadn't noticed the other fellow who had come out of the house. This one was taller and thinner than Uncle John, and was wearing an apron that he was wiping his hands on fussily as he hurried out of the house to greet us. Granma said, "Well, Clive, and how are you doing?" and Jamie, shook his hand heartily. He told me to call him Clive, and to ignore the imp at his feet.
We immediately set to unloading our personal items from the wagon and taking them into the house. Well, Granma and I took ours into the house, as we are sharing a bedchamber there. Jamie is going to be sleeping in a bunk above the stable, I gather. In any case, he took his rucksack in there right after he unhitched the horses and turned them into the pasture behind the house.
Once our own bags were settled, we went back and started unloading the supplies we'd brought with us. Uncle John and Jamie carried all the boxes down to their cellar, and Clive and I unpacked them all, while Granma sat in the parlor with a cup of tea and a cat on her lap, occasionally calling out instructions to us, and teasing the men.
Clive was very impressed with the variety of canned goods we brought, and was even more impressed when I told him I had done all the canning myself. He showed me his own stores, which were mostly vegetables, since they grow well here. That's why we brought the fruits, after all, because they have no orchard or vines.
After all this work, Uncle John suggested that a "quick dip" might be nice, so we went for a swim in the pond, which was certinly refreshing and washed away the grime and sweat fairly well. After I braided my wet hair, I wandered into the kitchen, where I ended up helping Clive cook our dinner. Mostly, I just chopped vegetables and stirred pots at his instruction.
He had made two beautiful roasted chickens, with some kind of aromatic paste beneath the skin that flavored the meat with a lovely herb flavoring. There was also a lovely barley pilaf with tiny chopped vegetables, and a salad with a tart dressing. And for dessert, rhubarb crumble. It was nice to eat a family meal that I hadn't had to cook, and I have to admit he's a fine cook. I never ate with two imps underfoot before, but both Clive and Uncle John seemed to keep their familiars under control, so there wasn't much in the way of wayward fire, and nothing bigger than a few sparks, anyway.
After dinner, we sat in the parlor and the family exchanged news. Jamie was not very kind about Maybell (well, who would be?), but he said that Joey seems happy. Eventually, the conversation moved on to sharing news about more distant relations, garnered from letters and such, and since I don't know those people, I sort of lost interest. A grey tabby cat climbed up on my lap and I sat idly petting her while I thought about how odd it was to be in a family group like that when less than a year ago, I was just an orphan.
After awhile, people started to yawn, and we made our way to our bedchambers, Granma and I to the room with the two neat small beds, Jamie to the bunk over the stables, and Clive and Uncle John to their own room. I'm writing by candlelight as Granma snores softly in the other bed.
It was a long day of travel, but this seems like a fairly nice place. I'll be glad to get home, but so far the trip hasn't been that bad.
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Post by Deyla on Jul 3, 2007 13:35:50 GMT -5
((Thel, this is about food. Don't read it on an empty stomach, k?))
Woke up this morning long before Granma, and after lazing in bed for a bit, I decided to get up, as I heard the sounds of breakfast being made. I wandered into the kitchen, where Clive bade me pull up a stool and thrust a mug of hot tea into my hands.
He was making some kind of corn flatbread, just finely ground dried corn, salt and pepper, mixed with some water, then kneaded and rolled into little flat rounds, which he was cooking on a dry griddle and then immediately adding to a pile stacked under a damp tea towel. He called them "griddle cakes", a term I am accustomed to hearing as an alternate to "flapjacks", which these certainly were not.
Once the bread was all cooked, he set about half of it aside and then used the rest to make breakfast, a spicy concoction of egg, tomato, and hot peppers, served over the little flatbreads with some sour cream over the top. He sprinkled it with a green leafy herb I never saw before that added something else to the dish. Wow. The tomatoes and peppers here are so flavorful. Uncle John says it's because of the heat, which I guess makes sense. They have a garden with late tomatoes in it now, and fresh peppers, too.
After we all ate, Uncle John and Jamie went out to do stuff with the animals, and Clive and I set about doing more kitchen chores. There's an old comfortable rocker in the corner of the kitchen, too, which is a big old sunny room with the cooking space, a big table where they eat all their meals, and an herb garden in the corner window by the rocker. Granma sat in the rocker and knit away on some socks for Little Joe while I washed the breakfast dishes and Clive prepared what he says will be tomorrow's supper.
He tore the leftover flatbread into pieces, and chopped up the chicken left from last night's dinner. Then he made a creamy sauce with roasted green peppers in it and some new onions, all chopped up. He then layered the sauce, the chicken,the flatbreads, and some grated cheese several times, ending with a whole bunch of cheese. When it was all layered, he poked it all over with a knife and poured a little milk over the top, which drained down into the knife holes. Then he covered his dish and put in the cellar on a block of ice. I asked him how he had a block of ice, and he said that one of the neighbors is a mage who stops by every once in awhile and freezes up some water for them. It's handy, especially in this hot place, to have a way to keep food from spoiling. I bet it's nice in the summer to be able to put ice in your water, too.
I never really stopped to think about it, but one of the baby spells that the mage guy in Northshire taught me was a bolt of frost. It wouldn't freeze a whole block of ice like that, but I bet I could make ice cubes. If I worked at it, I could probably make enough to freeze up some ice cream. Now that would be a treat!
Once the casserole was "setting up" as he called it, we made bread and set it to rise. Once all that was done, it was getting to be time for lunch, so he had me chop up a bunch of vegetables which he sauted in an odd, deep, rounded pan, very fast over high heat with only a little oil. He added ginger, a little garlic, and some thick dark liquid that tasted mostly of salt. Right before he served it up, he sprinkled some vinegar over it all. We ate it over fried cakes made of noodles, something else I never had before. The whole thing tasted wonderful, but very different.
It occurred to me as we worked in the kitchen that there are all kinds of ways to cook. I think I am a pretty good cook, and I know how to make a lot of stuff, but that's three meals (if you count tomorrow's supper) where Clive made something I never even imagined. His cooking is more exotic to my taste than mine, but very very good. I said both things to him and he laughed and said that the canned goods and dried fruit and especially the fruit leathers we brought seemed very exotic to him. Maybe it's all about perspective.
Jamie and Clive are out fishing now, with the promise of fresh trout for supper. Granma is dozing in the chair by the kitchen window. Uncle John has gone out to invite some other people to a big party in three days from now, and I am sitting under a willow tree with my bare feet dangling in the pond, writing in my journal and thinking about how even when I spend part of the time working in a kitchen, maybe a vacation isn't the worst thing ever. If nothing else, I may learn a few new cooking tricks to use this winter.
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Post by Deyla on Jul 5, 2007 2:03:22 GMT -5
I had a disturbing conversation tonight. I don't like disturbing conversations.
Clive and Uncle John threw a big party for their neighbors today, starting around mid-day, and still going on now. Some people have already bunked down over the stables, and others have made their way back to their own farms, but there is a group of people singing together by a bonfire, and smaller groups of quieter conversations.
I spent the morning running around doing the things that Clive needed to have done. I even got to cook some of the food for the party, although most of the guests also brought food. So it wasn't a massive undertaking like the time Granma had the entire farm to breakfast. Instead, we provided two cauldrons of soup, and lots of nibbles. Most guests brought covered dishes, and one of them brought everything we needed to make ice cream, including a mage to make water into ice to line the churn.
Clive reminded me yesterday of my comment about how exotic his food is, and said again that he imagined that my cooking would be exotic to many of the guests, in terms of it not being what they ate every day. So I made an apple spice sheet cake with a simple browned sugar topping, and then I stuffed some dried apricots with creamy cheese from their larder. I made one of the pots of soup, too, a rich vegetable melange, with some of my precious sausage shaved into it for flavor.
Clive made all kinds of things I never ate before, including fried triangles of breaded cheese that he served with a spicy tomato sauce, and chunks of chicken marinated in heavily buttermilk overnight and then grilled in a very hot smoking oven until the outsides were almost (but not quite) burnt and the insides were tender and juicy and very strongly flavored.
In fact, most of the food was not what I am used to, again partly because they (like the rest of us, really) cook with what they have. For the most part, the flavors people created were strong and spicy, and very delicious.
Anyway, this was the first time I met any of the people from the other farms. I guess, based on the number of people who showed up, that there must be seven or eight other farms in the valley. It's an enormously self-sufficient group of people; I met a farmer's wife who is also the blacksmith and farrier for the region, and a midwife, and other people with specialized skills.
It's interesting to me, because it doesn't seem to be a communal setup, but perhaps necessity has driven them to rely on one another as much as they do. There's even a fellow who was a school teacher in Moonbrook (which I guess is a town in Westfall somewhere) before the outlaws destroyed the place. He now has a farm, but in the winter, I gather he runs a school a couple days a week for whatever children happen to need to learn. At the moment, there are only two school-aged children in the valley, a brother and sister. The little girl told me her older sister wanted to be a scholar, so when she was 13, she went to Refuge for more schooling. (Refuge, I learned, is the name of the settlement whose hostel we stayed in on the second night of our journey.)
Protecting the valley, though, is done as a group. There are several powerful warlocks in the community, and they have set demons to guarding the place. I'm told that when the entire valley comes to a party, extra demons are sent to guard the empty farms.
At first, the party made me feel shy, something I don't feel all that often, but then I don't usually get into a group of people who have all known each other for years. Everyone here was already known to Jamie and Granma, too, and it felt lonely to be the only stranger.
Then I noticed I was not the only stranger. There was another, the same warlock I had seen mounting up on the ram the other morning while we were hitching up our horses to our wagon. She seemed just as aloof and strangely self-contained as she had in the common room.
And she hates the outlaws. I walked behind a small group of people in conversation, and she made a comment about the activities of the group she called, in a sneering sort of voice, "the Defias", which is indeed one of the grandiose names they give themselves. Remembering Miss Bernice's bruised face, I could not help but think that's a mighty fine name for what amounts to a bunch of thugs. Still, things are complex, and so are people. Whatever I might think of them. the warlock's opinion is much lower. And while I couldn't tell you why I think it's so, I am sure that her vitriol is personal, as well as political.
She spoke of her opposition to their methods, and that may be so, but I got the impression that their politics and methods are not the only thing she resents. And Clive told me later, she is famous for her successful forays against bands of outlaws, that she has cleaned out many an occupied farm of what he calls "those vermin". And like I said before, it's much less possible for me to think of this as a difference of opinion between the government and the so-called "freedom fighters" when I think of the burned out farms we drove by on our way here.
Later, when I was replenishing some of the plates of food, she wandered up and refilled her own plate. She made some polite comment, and I responded in kind. But instead of moving on, or going back to the group she had been speaking with earlier, she stayed there and made inconsequential conversation with me.
When I was done with my task, I picked up my glass of water, which had ice in it. Maldora asked me where I got the ice, and I blushed. See, earlier, when they were churning ice cream, I thought again that maybe the little spells I learned could be used to make ice cubes, anyway. So I tried it, and sure enough it worked. I explained this to her, and she asked me to show her. She held out her own glass of water, and I suddenly did not want to do this. Still, I could think of no polite way to decline without drawing unwelcome attention to myself, so I held out one hand and closed my eyes and concentrated very hard. As I felt the power build in my hand, I opened my eyes and watched a tiny frost bolt leave my fingers and leap into her glass, where it froze a very small part of her water into a perfectly spherical ice cube.
She grinned and laughed, a sound that was surprisingly more girlish than her features or demeanor would suggest she could make. Then she clinked her glass softly against mine and toasted both our futures. I took a drink of my own water, and assumed that the subject would now be closed. Alas for assumptions.
That's when the conversation became disturbing to me. (And can I just say, through this whole disturbing conversation, my necklace lay quietly on my neck, indulging in not histrionics whatsoever. This makes no sense to me, because the thing practically screams when it thinks I should be upset. But if I am, it just sits there.)
Anyway, Maldora said, "I see you are indeed just learning, but even I can feel the power in your hands. I hope you have a very skilled teacher. Are you still at Northshire?"
"I am no mage," I told her firmly. "I learned a few cantrips because it was easier to learn them than to excuse myself from the lesson, but I am a seamstress by inclination, and a housekeeper by wage."
She seemed taken aback by this, and said to me, "I do not know why you chose not to study as a mage, Deyla, but it seems very dangerous to me. The studies of those of us who use magics of any kind do not create in us the powers we learn to express, Instead, these studies harness and control the powers we were born with."
Suddenly I felt very angry, at her, at the world, at the circumstances of my life. "I don't care," I shot back at her. "I decided a long time ago that I would not let my life be controlled by circumstances beyond my control. I didn't choose to be an orphan, but I overcame that. And I didn't choose to be poor, but now I am not as poor as I once was. And I didn't choose to have 'magical power', but having it doesn't mean I have to be a mage. I don't want to be a mage, and I will not."
Her eyes flashed for a moment, and the imp at her heels jumped up and down excitedly, but then her expression gentled. "I hope the shape of your life allows you to make that choice, Deyla. But be careful. Great power of the kind I sensed in you earlier is a burden much more than it is a gift. And untrained, wild power can destroy more than you might imagine."
Before I could reply, she smiled sadly at me, placed the back of her fingers against my cheek for a moment, and wandered off, a subdued imp following along behind.
As she walked away, I felt a great weariness come over me, as the anger drained out of me. I sat down on my heels, and fought back tears I did not want to acknowledge were even there. And now, as the bonfire burns lower, and the singing becomes less raucous and more soothing to the ear, as the hum of conversation fades softly into the night, I am taking myself off to bed.
There are all kinds of things I don't like about my circumstances, not least some of the memories I carry with me, but the one thing I do like is that I am not a mage. Please the Light, I am not a mage.
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Post by Deyla on Jul 6, 2007 16:06:26 GMT -5
The day after the party, we got out of bed rather late and cooked up a nice hearty brunch to feed all the random people who were still around. By mid-afternoon, the guests had all wondered back to their various farms, and the four of us had finished cleaning up all the various party detritus while Granma watched and crocheted on some blanket for Little Joe.
Clive poured us glasses of cold ale, and as we sat in the shade and drank them, we discussed exactly what we would be bringing back to Elwynn with us. Granma stopped plying her hook and started making lists, and once they were made, all five of us began the work of sorting out and packing up the supplies we will take home with us. I was surprised to find that I am a bit reluctant to leave here. Clive in particular is very good company, and Granma seems happy to be around the son she sees so rarely. However, I will also be glad to get back to Elwynn, where the forest and farms are more to my taste, and where I can get back to work on my sewing projects.
That was yesterday, mostly a lazy day. Today, we packed up crates and bins and barrels, and loaded up the wagon. We refilled the boxes of canned goods with jars from Clive's cellars, mostly pickles and chutneys and sauces, much more heavily flavored than the things I make, but they will add variety to the meals I cook (and the ones Miss Bernice cooks up at the Big House; I don't believe Maybell knows how to open a jar, so I doubt she will use any of these things -- plus, she's afraid of new things, as if unfamiliar food might reach out and bite her on the nose or something).
There are metal bins with rolled oats in them, and a barrel of wheat flour. We have two sacks of dried corn, which we will have ground when we get home, as well as smaller sacks of dried beans. All in all, it's a fairly decent replacement for the stores we lost in the raid, and will make our winter meals better and more healthful.
Clive introduced me to some new flavorings, including things that won't grow at home because it doesn't get hot enough. He did give me seeds for the herbs that will grow in my window garden (like the green leafy stuff he put on the eggs the first morning we were here -- and did I mention? that casserole he made with the leftover chicken and cheeses was soooo good!) He also gave me a couple dried roots and a large selection of dried mushrooms, of types that are not found in Elwynn. I was go grateful for his gifts from his personal stores that I gave him one of my precious Redridge sausages in return.
Tomorrow morning, we are leaving what I have taken to calling "Warlock Valley", since the demons patrolling the place make it clear that there are many locks here, indeed. And that means that after two more nights on the road, I will be back in my little attic bedroom. The adventure will be over. I guess I'm not sorry I came, but I'm glad it will be over soon.
A quiet winter with the Stonefields isn't the worst thing that could happen to me at all.
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Post by Deyla on Jul 7, 2007 5:58:01 GMT -5
Home again.
How odd it seems to me to call this place "home" and mean something by it other than "the only place I have ever lived, except for the refugee years during the War". We arrived home mid-afternoon yesterday, and although the weather in Elwynn had taken a sharp turn towards winter in our absence, and it was much colder than it had been in Westfall, the house was stuffy and needed to be aired out, and of course, there was a great deal of stuff to be unpacked and put away.
Lucky for me, Big Joe put Maybell and Joey on unpacking duty. Both of them balked a bit, but a stern look from his father got Joey to working, as it usually does, and Maybell did a bit, even while maintaining an edgy whine under her breath the entire time. Near as I could tell, her whole complaint was "I didn't get to go on the adventure, why should I have to do any work related to it?"
Because you want to eat bread and porridge and beans this winter, you twit? Did she fail to notice that large portions of her family's harvest were stolen from them? Or that there simply wasn't enough of the right kind of food to get everyone healthy through the winter? Now that I wrote that down, I think, yes, she did fail to notice, she is that stupid and self-absorbed, and she isn't going to stop annoying me until that day comes when I never have to see her again.
In the meantime, I swept and aired the cottage, made up the beds with fresh linens provided by Miss Bernice, who had kindly washed ours with theirs while we were gone, and cooked a simple dinner for Granma, Despite her obvious pleasure at being home (and the patent enjoyment she had gotten from the trip, especially the visit with Uncle John), she was just as obviously exhausted, so I made a simple roasted tomato soup and some fresh biscuits with honey, and left it at that. Once she's her usual self again, I'll start experimenting with what I learned from Clive. I noticed Granma never had any trouble finishing his meals, the way she sometimes does with what Ma Stonefield calls "Plain Hearty Fare".
The trip home was sort of uneventful. Well, mostly uneventful and partly me skittishly avoiding potential events. When we got to Refuge and I came down to the common room for supper, all clean and still a bit damp around the edges, I noticed that the woman behind the bar recognized me and was watching me closely. She was clearly trying to see whether I still wore my necklace, which of course I was, since the darned thing won't let me take it off.
When we finished supper (tender chicken fried in a spicy batter and served with mashed potatoes and pan gravy -- another simple but wonderful meal from those kitchens), I saw her start for the door behind the bar, and I had this sudden certainty that she was off to fetch the robed woman I had spoken to the first time. I really didn't want to revisit that conversation, so I let Jamie and Granma know I was oh, so tired from the trip (which was actually true), and tat I was going upstairs to try to get an early night (which I actually did; I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow).
In the morning, I rushed through my breakfast and hurried outside to help get the horses and wagon ready for us to depart, which we did, in very good time. As we drove off, I saw Maldora come out of the inn, too, and I wondered briefly why she keeps showing up where I am.
Otherwise, the trip was three long days of slow driving, camping with strangers at the foot of the lake again, and silences between the three of us that were not the least bit fraught, as if we had now spent enough time together that lack of active conversation didn't make us anxious anymore. When we finally arrived, I leapt off the wagon bench and stretched my legs and back, which were starting to stiffen up from the combination of sitting still while Jamie drove and the constant bouncing around (although of course it's not as bad on Jamie's fancy wagon as it is on many farm carts).
The sky is lowering and it will certainly snow before morning. Unlike the sprinkling of snow we had about six weeks ago, which barely covered the ground, and which was well gone by noon, this is going to last I think. It would appear that the last gasp of autumn is over and we are about to be grasped by winter, which I daresay will not let us go for months.
I'm glad to have a pile of dead people's cloths, and a dress project for Her to keep me occupied while I am not cleaning, cooking, or paying attention to Granma. Sometimes I think that the real value I bring to them all is the companionship for the old woman they all love so well. Because loving her doesn't mean they don't have a lot to do, and the need to do it now (because gravid cows won't want, and stuff). I'm useful. I think one of the things I learned her this fall is that one way to carve a place for yourself is to be useful, so that someone knows his life will be poorer or more work if you are gone than if you stick around.
I see now that work of the right kind build one a place, even in a situation where there was no place for me to start with. I expect this is a lesson that will come in handy.
But even if there is a place for me here, even if I do call it "home" for now, I want something of my own, something that is my home because it is mine, not because I use it as a home.
When that day comes, things will be better than they are right now. But that doesn't mean they are bad right now, because they are not.
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Post by Deyla on Jul 16, 2007 20:08:30 GMT -5
The winter is passing away, and I am fairly bored. It's not bad boredom, exactly, not the excruciating kind of boredom that makes me want to rip my head off. I have tasks to keep me occupied that I find interesting, and pleasant enough conversation with Granma. I receive occasional massive infusions to my gold collection when I send a dress to my employer. I've been occupying myself experimenting with the spices and other goods I got from Clive, and my cooking repertoire is significantly expanded. But basically, nothing ever happens.
I find this frustrating, even though for most of my life, "something happened" was usually bad news. Having to flee Stormwind in the War, the time that the bears attacked the refugee camp, having to leave the orphanage, the stupid heroes disbanding . . . eventful times are not my favorite. I was talking to the fellow in Goldshire who cures headaches, and he told me in his hometown, the most horrible curse you could lay on someone was "May you live in interesting times."
I see his point and all, but I do live in interesting times. I am subject to all the disadvantages of such times, the food shortages, the attacks by outlaws, and what have you, but I have very little of interest in my life. And while I sometimes go days at a time in a state of activity and contentment, I am often bored, and wishing for a bit more excitement.
The other day, the snow had all melted for a bit, and we were having a relatively warm stretch of weather, so I went to Goldshire for the afternoon. Even the adventurers are fewer and farther between than they were in the summer or the autumn, as if they have all taken off for warmer places to do their retrieval tasks for people. I mean, I assume that there are job boards in other inns, including inns where there is no snow on the ground.
It was a nice change of scenery, and it was pleasant to have a meal someone else cooked and cleaned up, but the inn was quite empty compared to its usual summertime crowds. There was no faire, no cluster of adventurers, no young girls trying to get the attention of the young men. I struck up conversation with a few people, but none of them were in the mood to tell interesting stories, so it was more of the same: pleasant conversation, but nothing to take my mind off the fact that while I am securely settled for the winter, it is not a permanent solution.
A permanent solution would be something that belonged to me. A farm? A business? A family? Even a solid plan, I guess. At this point, I am saving my gold (and spending a few coppers here and there on a non-home-cooked meal to break the monotony of my winter days) and hoping for better times.
For example, in the inn, I had conversations with the innkeeper (an old friend of mine at this point), an older couple who were on their way to visit their daughter and her family in Westfall, a solitary farmer with a very sharp sword by his side, and a couple of local roust-abouts. Thing is, this time of year, even the local roust-abouts are pretty subdued. Or maybe the real hardcore ones have moved elsewhere for the season, leaving these fellow behind to pretend to be what they are not.
I won't pretend to be what I am not. I am an orphan who has found a secure place for the winter, useful work to do, and an income stream that may one day change things for me. All good things. But somehow, I never expected my first winter out and about in the world to be so, domestic, I guess is the right word.
Still, cold or hunger or pure unadulterated poverty would all be worse than this.
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Post by Deyla on Jul 18, 2007 11:35:59 GMT -5
Another afternoon in Goldshire to partially ease my boredom. I wandered the shops, not seeing anything interesting enough to justify parting with coin to buy, but it occupied a couple not-entirely-unpleasant hours. Then I took myself to the inn for a meal of mushroom pasty and ale. It's a good meal, and one that is a little heavy for Granma's tastes these days, so I was pleased that the pies were on the daily board.
As I finished up the last spoonful of mushrooms and gravy, I noticed that my friend from last week, Harald the farmer with the sword has come in and was sitting at a table, waiting for someone apparently. As I was considering whether to go over and say hello, the front door to the place opened again and in walked Maldora.
Now, I'm not sure how I feel about her. I don't suppose she meant any harm in Warlock Valley. In fact, perhaps she meant well. But I was disturbed by our conversation, and I can't quite make myself forget what she said about wild power. Nevertheless, I am going on with my life as I had chosen before she spoke to me, and so far, all I am is a little bored. As well as busy and earning money.
Anyway, while those thoughts were flitting across my mind, she wandered over to Harald's table and sat down. The innkeep came and took their order and then sent the barmaid scrambling to fill their table with an array of fruits and cheeses, some bread, and a carafe of white wine. I sat in silence and watched them eat for awhile, and finally decided to make my way home. It gets dark early in winter, and as the ground was damp, I wanted to be home and in bed before the nighttime temperature drop froze any puddles of water in my path and made the walk home treacherous.
So I got up and went to the bar to pay my tab. Joshua was as chatty and friendly as ever, quizzing me on the quiet evening I had spent, after the more boisterous ones he'd seen me enjoy earlier in the year. In his usual friendly way, he commented on each of the few patrons in the place as he counted out my change. When he got to Maldora's and Harald's table, he said, "And those two, obsessed beyond belief with the outlaws. Well, each has good reason, I suppose, and there's no denying that cleaning out the nests of bandits is only to the good."
Well, if nothing else, I suppose it's good to know that my intuition did not fail me -- that Maldora does indeed have something personal against her "Defias".
And that's what I've come to, nothing to write about save a little gossip with the innkeeper. I remind myself that I am well-housed, well-fed, and making a decent income. Because otherwise, this would seem a lot worse than it is.
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