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teinedreugan and I went to Mary's and I ate lots of Chinese food fairly quickly. I still feel quite full of contents. (Kevin thought I ate quickly for me. I pointed out that I ate quickly on a general scale, which was mindbogglingly fast for me. He allowed as how i had a point.)
That is not what this entry is about. But if I put it there I don't have to dither about doing it later.
No, what this entry is about is . . .
When I left off last time we were sitting in these rooms with guards outside so we didn't go wandering off, waiting for the men with tattoos to come talk to us. And dinner. We got the dinner, eventually, so I left off poking around the windows and things looking for a way out. I didn't really expect to need to take the way out -- Karas can talk people out of mostly everything, even the things he talked them into -- but it's best to know the terrain and all. The windows were all solid and they weren't that big, but we could fit through them if we needed to. The food came, and Renn said she knew what all the plants were, so we ate food.
The first one of the men came in, the one with the marks up his arm. He was sort of . . . weird. Like he really, really wanted something. We talked to him about all sorts of things. I don't think I liked him much. He was trying too hard. He wanted to know how we got here. Adosar just said, "Dwarf ways," in that way he says things when he doesn't want to say things, where the words hit the ground like really heavy dropped rocks. And that was sort of that, wasn't it? That one wanted to know all about Alar stuff and things. I didn't tell him about the sword.
The second fellow was too clever for our own good. I think we told him more than we told him. He was always watching the words, like he knew which way they sliced. Renn spent a lot of time carving her block of wood for her knife and not saying anything at all, which was probably a really good idea. He wanted to know what we wanted and where we were going.
We learned that bards were. Bards are sort of like loremasters, except they're like druids. They keep the stories and remember things, but they're not part of the clans here, the baronies, they go and apprentice and then they're not these people, they're other people, and they're neutral except when they want to meddle. We learned that there were two other clans with territories next to this one, one with a sort of strange lord. We learned that this place makes jewelry, mostly, and buys a lot of other stuff, and the strange lord has the best smiths. We learned about a halfling town away to the north-ish, where halflings settle down. (Halflings settle down? Odd.) We learned that the tattoo-markings are magic things, like Renn's arrow-marks, that show people as being able to take on the powers of the spirits or something like. It happens sometimes among the Breveddi, but not really often. The people it happens to are supposed to be special.
We slept. Adosar and Karas bickered over sharing their bed a little. We got up, and ate, and went down to the court, where we talked to the chief. He wanted to talk trade, which was the story Karas spun, but since we weren't really saying how we got here, it was hard. He wasn't much interested in trading knowing-things. Even though knowledge is really, really easy to carry. Not like stuff. But he wanted stuff.
He let us go out into the town and wander around. With more guards. Renn went to talk to Hethian in the stables. We went around to shops and places, and I traded some of my extra herbs for things that they had here. Then the guards told us when the court was, and we went to that because we were curious. Karas had a lot of fun. We met a bard, a Master Bard. We went to lunch. Afterwards was more court, but only Karas went. Renn went back to spend time with Hethian, and Adosar and I went back into the town. The shopkeepers didn't much want to talk to him, but they'd talk to me, so it's a good thing that I went with him.
The elder wanted to talk with us after dinner, so we were sure to get there for dinner. Karas decided that we needed to get information from the women here -- funny soft things in fluffs and such -- and decided to play a little prank of getting them to take Renn and me off to do baron-women-stuff with them and see how it went. Renn fell over laughing, so that didn't work very well, but they took me off and talked at me a lot and took my hair out of its braid and . . .
. . . well, there was this dress. I wouldn't let them put the red one on me, or the white one. And they didn't have any green. But there was a brown one, a sort of reddy-brown one with red bits, and that wasn't too bad. And so that was that. And they were all fussy with me and talked, and I learned some things, so it wasn't a total waste. I learned about marriages and a little bit about where the fine things come from, and a bit, but not much, about how the caravans are having trouble, from the ones whose husbands were traders.
Everyone else came up to get me eventually, and I told the women that we had an appointment with the lord, and they fluttered, but more importantly, they got out of the way. And I got my clothes and things, and came out into the hall, and Renn fell over again. My cousin is no help at all.
We went down and sat and talked about agriculture, which is just odd, and then the elder came, and he sat and talked. He didn't think we were there about trade, and was asking really edgy questions, and Renn finally asked him what about us worried him. And he said he'd seen us before, and we said, "Oh, a dream?" And he wanted to know how we knew. So we told him about our Loremaster's dream, which helped some, he seemed less all on edges. There wasn't anything new in his dream, though; it was all the same, just from someone standing on a different hill. He said we should talk to the bard, which was all right, because we were going to do that anyway.
My cousin is some use after all. She helped me get out of the thing.
The next day we spent all talking to the bard. He had lots of stories -- about Torvardi, about the bad Alar who killed him, about . . . and then there was this story about some people who came out of bad times and went to the World Peak and the times stopped being bad, which wasn't a story, it was a prophecy. Apparently it's been going around longer than the dreams. Generations.
This is not fixable by doing chores at all.
We spent a while there. Adosar did a lot of pounding on metal bits, making arrowheads for his funny bow. Karas spent a lot of time in the court. Renn spent a lot of time with Hethian. Sometimes I went to the court in the thing, the dress-thing, and it was like nobody could see me -- like I was a nobody like all the guards and things. Decoration. This is useful for sneaking, and so I have to remember it. Mostly I went out and talked to herbalists, and went and gathered things for them, and traded them for metal disks like the ones Adosar uses sometimes. And I got a bedroll to replace the one that the spider took, and another pot to replace one of the ones I had to drop. I gave them metal disks for them. Which was all right, because they wouldn't have taken herbs from me for them. We all talked to the bard some, I think. Karas explored the town when there wasn't court, talking to people. I think he was learning the territory.
Eventually, the guards went away. Karas talked enough that they figured we weren't going to steal their big stone house. Which was built by Alar, and Adosar said it had funny feelings in it, but we couldn't track them down anywhere, it was just like . . . I don't know what it was just like. I don't have the words, and it's not like a pulse, because pulses have centers.
After a while, we got done with what we wanted. The chief was sorry we didn't have an agreement, but he didn't seem really sorry, just saying it sorry because that's what one says when one's doing politics and not wanting to say that you think you know that the person you were making a deal with wasn't really interested in a deal at all. Face. But we went off.
They didn't ask for the dress back. I guess they were all proud of having shown the little barbarian girl their ways. I'm all proud of learning how to be invisible, so there's no sense in telling them that their ways are silly. It's big and poofy, but I kept it at the bottom of my pack.
We walked for a few days, and found a village. We asked one of the people there if we could trade work for some food, and so we did; Renn and Karas and Adosar went around mending things and we all cut thatch and Renn healed a few people who were hurt and everything, and they fed us and let us sleep there, and then we went off to the place where this place's chief lives the next day. They were having a bad year too. One of several. So it's not just at home.
We met another patrol. They said it was probably a good idea for us to talk with the chief when we got there, just in case there was trouble. So we went to talk with the chief, and went to his building, and it was full of music and people dancing and colours. We talked to the guards to say that the other guard had said we should talk with him, and they let us in, and he talked with us for a moment before going back to talk with a girl he liked. Just like Karas.
The halfling settlement is just a little ways from here. So I think this chief was raised by halflings.
teinedreugan and I went to Mary's and I ate lots of Chinese food fairly quickly. I still feel quite full of contents. (Kevin thought I ate quickly for me. I pointed out that I ate quickly on a general scale, which was mindbogglingly fast for me. He allowed as how i had a point.)That is not what this entry is about. But if I put it there I don't have to dither about doing it later.
No, what this entry is about is . . .
When I left off last time we were sitting in these rooms with guards outside so we didn't go wandering off, waiting for the men with tattoos to come talk to us. And dinner. We got the dinner, eventually, so I left off poking around the windows and things looking for a way out. I didn't really expect to need to take the way out -- Karas can talk people out of mostly everything, even the things he talked them into -- but it's best to know the terrain and all. The windows were all solid and they weren't that big, but we could fit through them if we needed to. The food came, and Renn said she knew what all the plants were, so we ate food.
The first one of the men came in, the one with the marks up his arm. He was sort of . . . weird. Like he really, really wanted something. We talked to him about all sorts of things. I don't think I liked him much. He was trying too hard. He wanted to know how we got here. Adosar just said, "Dwarf ways," in that way he says things when he doesn't want to say things, where the words hit the ground like really heavy dropped rocks. And that was sort of that, wasn't it? That one wanted to know all about Alar stuff and things. I didn't tell him about the sword.
The second fellow was too clever for our own good. I think we told him more than we told him. He was always watching the words, like he knew which way they sliced. Renn spent a lot of time carving her block of wood for her knife and not saying anything at all, which was probably a really good idea. He wanted to know what we wanted and where we were going.
We learned that bards were. Bards are sort of like loremasters, except they're like druids. They keep the stories and remember things, but they're not part of the clans here, the baronies, they go and apprentice and then they're not these people, they're other people, and they're neutral except when they want to meddle. We learned that there were two other clans with territories next to this one, one with a sort of strange lord. We learned that this place makes jewelry, mostly, and buys a lot of other stuff, and the strange lord has the best smiths. We learned about a halfling town away to the north-ish, where halflings settle down. (Halflings settle down? Odd.) We learned that the tattoo-markings are magic things, like Renn's arrow-marks, that show people as being able to take on the powers of the spirits or something like. It happens sometimes among the Breveddi, but not really often. The people it happens to are supposed to be special.
We slept. Adosar and Karas bickered over sharing their bed a little. We got up, and ate, and went down to the court, where we talked to the chief. He wanted to talk trade, which was the story Karas spun, but since we weren't really saying how we got here, it was hard. He wasn't much interested in trading knowing-things. Even though knowledge is really, really easy to carry. Not like stuff. But he wanted stuff.
He let us go out into the town and wander around. With more guards. Renn went to talk to Hethian in the stables. We went around to shops and places, and I traded some of my extra herbs for things that they had here. Then the guards told us when the court was, and we went to that because we were curious. Karas had a lot of fun. We met a bard, a Master Bard. We went to lunch. Afterwards was more court, but only Karas went. Renn went back to spend time with Hethian, and Adosar and I went back into the town. The shopkeepers didn't much want to talk to him, but they'd talk to me, so it's a good thing that I went with him.
The elder wanted to talk with us after dinner, so we were sure to get there for dinner. Karas decided that we needed to get information from the women here -- funny soft things in fluffs and such -- and decided to play a little prank of getting them to take Renn and me off to do baron-women-stuff with them and see how it went. Renn fell over laughing, so that didn't work very well, but they took me off and talked at me a lot and took my hair out of its braid and . . .
. . . well, there was this dress. I wouldn't let them put the red one on me, or the white one. And they didn't have any green. But there was a brown one, a sort of reddy-brown one with red bits, and that wasn't too bad. And so that was that. And they were all fussy with me and talked, and I learned some things, so it wasn't a total waste. I learned about marriages and a little bit about where the fine things come from, and a bit, but not much, about how the caravans are having trouble, from the ones whose husbands were traders.
Everyone else came up to get me eventually, and I told the women that we had an appointment with the lord, and they fluttered, but more importantly, they got out of the way. And I got my clothes and things, and came out into the hall, and Renn fell over again. My cousin is no help at all.
We went down and sat and talked about agriculture, which is just odd, and then the elder came, and he sat and talked. He didn't think we were there about trade, and was asking really edgy questions, and Renn finally asked him what about us worried him. And he said he'd seen us before, and we said, "Oh, a dream?" And he wanted to know how we knew. So we told him about our Loremaster's dream, which helped some, he seemed less all on edges. There wasn't anything new in his dream, though; it was all the same, just from someone standing on a different hill. He said we should talk to the bard, which was all right, because we were going to do that anyway.
My cousin is some use after all. She helped me get out of the thing.
The next day we spent all talking to the bard. He had lots of stories -- about Torvardi, about the bad Alar who killed him, about . . . and then there was this story about some people who came out of bad times and went to the World Peak and the times stopped being bad, which wasn't a story, it was a prophecy. Apparently it's been going around longer than the dreams. Generations.
This is not fixable by doing chores at all.
We spent a while there. Adosar did a lot of pounding on metal bits, making arrowheads for his funny bow. Karas spent a lot of time in the court. Renn spent a lot of time with Hethian. Sometimes I went to the court in the thing, the dress-thing, and it was like nobody could see me -- like I was a nobody like all the guards and things. Decoration. This is useful for sneaking, and so I have to remember it. Mostly I went out and talked to herbalists, and went and gathered things for them, and traded them for metal disks like the ones Adosar uses sometimes. And I got a bedroll to replace the one that the spider took, and another pot to replace one of the ones I had to drop. I gave them metal disks for them. Which was all right, because they wouldn't have taken herbs from me for them. We all talked to the bard some, I think. Karas explored the town when there wasn't court, talking to people. I think he was learning the territory.
Eventually, the guards went away. Karas talked enough that they figured we weren't going to steal their big stone house. Which was built by Alar, and Adosar said it had funny feelings in it, but we couldn't track them down anywhere, it was just like . . . I don't know what it was just like. I don't have the words, and it's not like a pulse, because pulses have centers.
After a while, we got done with what we wanted. The chief was sorry we didn't have an agreement, but he didn't seem really sorry, just saying it sorry because that's what one says when one's doing politics and not wanting to say that you think you know that the person you were making a deal with wasn't really interested in a deal at all. Face. But we went off.
They didn't ask for the dress back. I guess they were all proud of having shown the little barbarian girl their ways. I'm all proud of learning how to be invisible, so there's no sense in telling them that their ways are silly. It's big and poofy, but I kept it at the bottom of my pack.
We walked for a few days, and found a village. We asked one of the people there if we could trade work for some food, and so we did; Renn and Karas and Adosar went around mending things and we all cut thatch and Renn healed a few people who were hurt and everything, and they fed us and let us sleep there, and then we went off to the place where this place's chief lives the next day. They were having a bad year too. One of several. So it's not just at home.
We met another patrol. They said it was probably a good idea for us to talk with the chief when we got there, just in case there was trouble. So we went to talk with the chief, and went to his building, and it was full of music and people dancing and colours. We talked to the guards to say that the other guard had said we should talk with him, and they let us in, and he talked with us for a moment before going back to talk with a girl he liked. Just like Karas.
The halfling settlement is just a little ways from here. So I think this chief was raised by halflings.
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He was always watching the words, like he knew which way they sliced.
I do like these descriptions of words. Much tangibility of words ... I ponder that it would be a useful incluing sort of thing in a world in which words have near-tangible magical purposes; I may want to borrow it for such, but meanwhile it's just neat.
I also like your character's descriptions of politics and stuff; understanding a lot, and quite frank about it (at least in the journals).
One ponders wondering how many hills there were in the dream; if anyone remembers it well enough to count. It's an interesting concept of a prophetic dream, having the people involved as observers seeing it from hilltops, but different hilltops. Interesting, in the sense of "Ah, yes, that's perfectly obvious that it should be that way; I would never have thought to do that in a thousand and three years...."
- Brooks
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At some point I should write her bio.