Seasons of Heroes: A D&D-inspired Adventure!

[The Laurent]

Seasons of Heroes: A D&D-inspired Adventure!

The continent of Vikalean is divided: between cultures, between vastly different people, between the surviving Sepult who had once united the continent in an Empire of steel and blood, and the humans whose world was shaped by its collapse, and between humans and elves in the Islands.

It is also a continent of adventure. An ever-changing continent of heroes, where adventurers explore lost ruins and shape the course of history, of Princes, Councils, tribes and Republics.

In this age of progress and violence, this diverse age moving towards new forms of living, the story of one such adventurer resonated, changing far more than a life or three.

*****

Welcome, Questers, to another The Laurent Quest. By now these might be familiar to you, so rest assured that I'll be throwing plenty of twists and thinking plenty about history, culture and society. Indeed, I plan to have a series of posts about the world over the voting period, or perhaps before it.

So, here are your options.

As a note, all of these characters are men.

[] The Runaway Princess She didn't regret the choice, perhaps that said something about her. But when the princess faced a political marriage north, with the Island Kingdom of Olund, she balked. Not merely because it seemed a clear prelude to an invasion of Eskind or Ires and an attack on the elves and their human allies, but because she couldn't quite imagine… marrying a man, or even marrying at all. It felt wrong. She killed a man, a prince, who so far as she knew was not particularly terrible. And she fled her crime. The Princess took on men's clothing and a man's name and fled to the island of Ires. There, she survived as best she knew how. She had the skills necessary, but the past three years have had their rough patches. She still hides the truth of her sex.. Even now that those hunting her have likely given up, a part of him rebels and screams at the idea of just... just. Becoming a girl again to the world.

He is a rather posh and composed young man, given to occasionally chuckling over puns, but seemingly otherwise rather serious. Those who know him would say that he was very precise, and almost punctual, enough that some accused him of thinking he was better than them. Among this strange and foreign people, in tune with the Fae and with nature, he sticks out, but he tries not to let it bother him. He thinks of the family he left behind, but less and less each year.

[] Stranger In A Strange Land: The Orime are a proud people, strong and tough, tribes spread out over the vast northern wastelands, and into the transitional lands. They were a hardy, stock, powerful people, whose skin color varied wildly, and who valued warriors of either gender and lived in a rather egalitarian way. They usually stood against outsiders. Usually. Sometimes a tribe was betrayed. As a young man, his tribe was left isolated, and was destroyed by the Kingdom of the Kurzachs. He was driven out by the cruelty of powerful humans, and he refused to join a tribe which betrayed his people. He made his way south, over a number of years, and discovered certain facts about himself along the way. For the last year he's found himself in Edele, a land far too hot, near an unfrozen sea.

This mercenary, drifter, and adventurer is slightly above average height for his race, which was to say that he towered and loomed at far closer to seven feet than six. He is viewed as strong and often silent, though he has grown more competent in Eddelish. Despite his quiet, he can be witty, and he has a rough, even crude, sense of humor. He has Eddelish clothing, though he finds it far too revealing, but he often wears the furs and jackets of his homeland, as a sort of advertisement. Exotic and almost entirely alone, with few other Orime around, he nonetheless tries to form fast friendships.

[] The Mysterious Orphan: She doesn't remember the woman who gave birth to her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't know her parents. She was raised by two farmers at the edge of the Ailsbeg Forest. They were good, pious people, whose worship of the Gods involved helping those in need as well, and they never treated her as a burden, not even when she grew up a tomboy, proper, polite, and deferential to her elders, but given to wandering the forest and uncomfortable in long hair and skirts. She loved the forest, and she loved her parents, and she learned to protect herself as a matter of course. She grew up, and she grew straight and tall, put on muscle working in the field with her mother and father, put on wisdom puzzling out how to read and write with the local priest, though she never was all that good at it.

Finally, at eighteen, she is ready to set out in the world. She wants to have a few adventures before she figures out what she wants to do in life, and with her parents' blessing and aid, she has taken off to see what the world has to offer. She isn't very experienced, and she is quite sheltered, but she's sharper than she looks, and stronger than one would expect. Some nights, she wonders just what happened when she was a baby, but it doesn't interest her nearly as much as what lays ahead.

[] Street Rat: In the slums, and on the docks, of the Eddelian port city-state of Styrmia, one does what one has to if it means survival. She has no mother, and no father, and has grown up wild on the streets, often a day or less from starvation and death. It has made her hardy, and it has helped make her a Qile, a woman who dresses like a man, and is thought to prefer the company of women. It hasn't hurt her, any, and while she operates on the other side of the law, she hasn't stepped over any of the invisible barriers that separate the merely criminal from the outrageous.

She's quick on her feet, fast with her mouth, everywhere she's not supposed to be, and having as much fun as she's had in her impoverished life. After years of work, it feels as if she is finally finding her place, comfortable in what she's doing and how she's doing it… at least, relatively speaking. But in the slums of a city-state, dark clouds are always on the horizon.

[] Wandering Adventurer! for Hire: The Sepult are a people long since fractured into three groups, the Sepult under the hills, the traditionalist Sepult under the mountains who mine and make great artifacts, and the Sepult who travel upon the rivers, the traders and wanderers, the people who live in the world of man, the Surflug, quite literally on-the-river. He is the scion of one such trading family, which has operated the same routes for years, marrying among the same sorts of families, and doing the same sorts of things. But he was never a traditionalist, always the sort ot push the boundaries, from being a son to being the sort of Surflug who gives them their names.

With his parents' eventual reluctant blessing, he has stepped away from trading, perhaps for good. Instead he adventures, making his living by his skills, his wits, and his stellar personality. Shorter than many of his companions, in travel and otherwise, he makes up for it with vigor, energy, and the right tools for the right job. It's stood him in good stead, this last year, still a young man of thirty-five, with plenty of life ahead of him.

*****

A/N: Another The Laurent Quest. Mechanics post will come out in the next few days, but it's going to be relatively rules-light? As in, probably more rules light then you're thinking when I say that. But anyways, yeah. Probably update weekly, but maybe not? Who knows!

 

[The Laurent]

Levels, Traits, Classes, and Races, Oh My!

Seasons of Heroes has a very simple system. There are classes, races, and levels, and all three interact with narratively but mechanically gained things called Traits. Put simply, a fireball spell (if it exists and would be available to your protagonist) doesn't do 1d57.9 damage, it instead is narratively a fireball, with all that means, represented by a Trait. Traits can be broad, or can be incredibly narrow, and Traits come in several different kinds. First, there are Common Traits, that anyone can take. Second, there are Race--Physical and Race--Cultural traits. As that implies, a human raised in an Orime village is, culturally at least, an Orime, and there are Traits out there that allow you to simulate someone born in and living in two separate cultures. Even humans actually have a wide variety of different Cultural traits, or at least that's the idea. Finally, there are Class Traits. Classes sometimes exist in-universe, and sometimes don't. On the one hand, Knights (none of the characters is one) are both a class and a social group in certain areas. But other classes, such as Bowmen, might be recognized but hardly can be said to be 'of a kind.' There are many classes out there, and because everything's narrative, they're at least reasonably balanced against each other.

You gain Traits at Level 0, 1, 2, 3... on and on until Level 20, but few people go beyond Level 10, at least typically. It takes a certain sort of drive to reach something like 'basic mastery' in a field and then keep on going. Adventurers, though, are going to adventure.

For Leveling, the costs are as follows:

Costs per level 10XP Base, with 4XP per level until 10, and then 6XP per level thereafter.

You gain XP not merely by fighting, but by facing tough challenges and triumphing.

Rewards per Adventure (difficulty scale)
Failing the goal of an adventure: -1 to -3 XP
Successfully completing an Adventure: 1 to 3 XP
Completing an Adventure with Style, or doing better than was expected: +1XP

Generic XP Questions (At end of an Adventure)

Facing, and overcoming, an easy challenge: .5 XP
Facing, and overcoming, a peer foe or solid challenge: 1 XP
Facing, and overcoming, a difficult challenge: 2 XP
Facing, and overcoming, a seemingly impossible challenge: 3 XP
Unnecessary Fights Or Challenges, especially when they harm the bottom line: -1 to -2 XP

Certain classes and races and characters have their own 'Questions' to ask at the end of a particular adventure. As can be seen, there's no such thing as grinding, not really. If you aren't facing peer foes or better, you're not going to get better. That, especially, is why leveling beyond ten is comparatively rarer (not that levels exist except as an abstraction.) You can't settle down to be the Royal Guard, or the academic magic-user in the tower, you have to keep on pushing, have to basically win and then keep on betting double or nothing hoping that you survive one adventure after another, each harder than the last.

I'll outline the Traits gained per each level later, since it really isn't important, but that's the long and short of it? There's no mechanical restrictions on party, just the practical ones you might imagine. Once you really get to know someone, you unlock their character sheet to peruse. All five of the characters you have to vote on already have completed character sheets, so don't worry about that.

Finally: weapon choice has no mechanical effect, because what does, but obviously a person with a bow fights differently than one with a sword. Part of what Traits will hopefully do for voters is give them ideas of how to, more or less, stunt or think up clever plans or etc. If you know that your character can talk their way out of anything with a torrent of lies, then when you get caught by the enemy, perhaps you try to do that. That's the point, narratively outlining what one can do, while having a mechanical component for voters to argue about and use to improve their Quest experience and the overall outcome.

 

[The Laurent]

Since they're not one of the protagonist's origins, I'll share this bit of worldbuilding with you.

The Nelkaelands

Description: North of the Central Lands, as they are called, but connected by a somewhat thin land bridge, the Nelkaelands and its people, often known as the Nelk, have had a complicated relationship both with each other and with the larger world. They are a hardy people, of varying heights but with a habit of cultivating impressive beards. Their warriors once raided all across the known world, and traded equally broadly. They were once one people, who resisted, almost to the last, the Sepult-Edelian Empire with the help of their own Sepult rebels, radicals who stood behind their own Empire.

Then, when the Empire broke, they raided up and down the entire known world, wealthy and powerful. But they fractured, internally and externally, and one Empire became an Empire and a Kingdom, that of Neckland. Then at last, as the Kingdoms and groups of the region became better able to resist them, they were forced to deal with the fact that they couldn't survive purely on raiding, or on trading. The latter had dried up some too, as internal networks improved and other traders competed. So they turned away from raiding, and traded more broadly, and remade themselves.

Nelkaelanders are people who differ wildly, though they are divided into various Kingdoms, clans, and castes. The Undermountain Sepult still exist, reduced and decaying, and yet protected by treaties and the usefulness of their own crafts. Orime have their own 'Kingdom' ruled by a symbolic ruler whose only purpose was to negotiate on an equal level with the Kings of Eswae and Ketlar, and does fealty to these competing Kings in turn, to maintain their independence. Then, among the human Nelkaelanders, there are divisions between the dark-skinned Frozen, who believe they come from the center, that is to say the top, of the world, and the Snowborn, whose skin is bright, and whose hair tends towards the blond. All of these divisions make it a world balanced at the edge of a spear.

But if that's how the Gods have made it, then what is there to do?

Society: Each of the three Kingdoms, and all of the other peoples, have their own customs, but they do share a few things.

Local decisions are made by Things, usually of nobles, warriors, and reputable and honest (and often rich) traders and the like. The Royal Thing, on the other hand, is made up only of nobles and prominent warriors, and they are the ones who gather only once or twice a reign, to elect one of their own to be King. The exact specifics of it vary by place. The Necklands has had a dynasty of sorts, with the old King making his intentions towards a cousin, or nephew, or even son, quite clear. Recently the Thing has entertained the possibility of women rulers, as it once reluctantly embraced women warriors and traders. So Neckland, that land of crossings and trade between Center and north, has a Queen now, fierce and proud and quite ambitious.

The other two Things tend towards a little less ceremony, and a little less certainty.

Clans are important, and indeed they've only grown in importance as certain paths of upward mobility, via raiding and plunder, have been closed off. All clans enter the Thing together now, and stay together elsewise, which has helped increase divisions between the Snowborn and the Frozen, each of whom have very similar customs, but with some differences. The Snowborn were often thought of as better Blood Shamans, while the Frozen were better Shifters, though there are both sorts of magic among both people.

The average village is governed according to its whims, and pays the price to those above them and gets on with its life. The Nelks are a quite law-abiding people, as much as that might surprise those who assume rather too much. Their laws are very specific about crime and punishment, about who gets to do so (not the clans) and how, and for the most part, people follow them.

Culture/Life: There is so much variety that nothing concrete can be said that's true of everyone. But most people are farmers and fishers, all the same, and village life isn't the same everywhere, but at least everyone has to eat, however they can. People are given a name, and the name of their father or mother, and trained within the Clan, among the humans. They usually take the same profession, and while you can switch, after a few generations, it's hard to step outside the mold your ancestors have made. It's hard to want to, either.

Funeral services involve burning, and weddings involving kissing an axe. People tend to eat a lot of fish, and grow as much winter grain as they can. Even so, winters are tough for anyone, anytime, and the villages stand together to survive them. It's a harsh world, and thus the Nelks are known for their hospitality, since to refuse it could be to leave someone to freeze to death outside.

The Sepult are a dark echo of the Undermountain Sepult, decaying even faster, but clinging even tighter to their traditions.

The Orime have been changing. Once, all the Orime gathered, more or less, or at least all the Councils and as many others as could, to elect the 'King'. But increasingly it's become more like a Thing, and that has created fears that their 'King' will become more like a real King. Certainly, divisions have been increasing, and the lifeways of the Orime are highly influenced by their human neighbors, in this case.

Mythology:

The Nelks believe in Gods who were once humans, in the ancient past at the start of the world, and by their deeds were inducted into the Halls of the Gods, where all drink and make merry and encourage and send aid to warriors and those in need, on the wings of dark birds and strange dreams, and blood, too.

They burn bodies, and believe that the honorable dead, especially the warriors, might yet become minor Gods. Their priests keep track of their ancient stories, and keep to ways that have stood them in good stead for many, many years, and look unlikely to change.

Religion is often seen as stability in an confused and muddled world.

History: In the beginning, people came to the Nelkeleands. Other than the rumors of trolls or other such monsters, monsters that are rumored still to exist, in fact, it was said to be empty of humans, or Orime, though not Sepult, who had always been everywhere, or so it was thought.

They only gained power and prominence as the Edelian-Sepult Empire began to spread, and then the Sepult of their lands came to them, offering them power in exchange for unity, and uniting the tribes and clans under one banner, which strove against the Edelian-Sepult Empire, contesting its control over the Center, and the islands. When the Edelian-Sepult collapsed, many thought it was the start of a golden age for the Nelk. Instead, within a few centuries, they too collapsed, and had rather less ability to govern an Empire beyond their borders than their rivals.

The divisions increased, and so did the war, and it was only three and a half centuries ago that something like peace was established. The striving Kingdoms still war sometimes, with each other and those outside, even, but the days in which violence was endemic and blood was all that mattered have passed, and many are glad that it has. There's enough trouble in the world as it is, with ambitious monarchs, with the Orime still standing apart, with Sepult who lust for the glories of a world that they haven't lived long enough to have known either. Much has changed, but far too much, truly, has stayed the same.

Classes: The Nelk Bearsarkers are rather different than the Orime ones. Instead of controlling themselves, they mimic their understanding of animals and go entirely out of control. They used to be useful, but as peace settled, the price for keeping their order together grew higher and higher, and the benefits lessened. It's one thing to keep on a Nelk Bearsarker in an age of war, even if he slaughters a peasant family in a fit of rage, one whose patriarch had offered insult. It's even possible to ignore or sweep under the river this massacre of that of villages… when they're villages far from where you rule. But eventually the foot was put down, and those Bearsarkers who remain are chained mad dogs, and those who do not submit to virtual slavery are hunted down and killed. They are not people, and unlike Shifters, they aren't *truly* animals either. A wolf doesn't slaughter for rage and joy. A horse bears burdens, a bear protects its cubs. A Bearsarker is like no animal. No, they're lower than that.

The Blood Shaman are most known for their power over the weather, but they do more than that, but always for a price. Their blood, and the blood of others, mingling. It has power, a lesson some suspect they learned from the Orime and advanced to the level of actual magic. Others think it might have been the other way around. Either way, you see plenty of old Shamans, but few who have both of their eyes, ears, all of their teeth, fingers, toes, limbs in general. The world asks much sacrifice, and yet to act right and proper means an eternal lifetime of feasting and drinking after, so Blood Shamans, who are usually quite religious, are quite dutiful in learning how to control the outside world. Blood Magic is not very good at controlling minds, except to whip them into a frenzy. It is quite potent, and very respected, though those abroad often view it as in some way suspect, for indeed Blood Shamans during the Empire once used less than willing captives. In this time of peace, Blood Shamans mostly use the blood of allies, fallen enemies, and always their own, and their pain as well.

The Shifters are a group that embodies many animals at once. While most well-known are those who take a single animal and take on its aspects, and eventually forms that combine it and humanity, there are those who pick multiple totems. What matters is that a wolf can hunt, a bird can fly, a bear can do all manner of things, a horse can run, and a Shifter is never without resources, even in the starving times, resources that human legs and human skills can rarely achieve. They learn from a young age, and often keep to themselves, half-outcast and half-deity, deeply respected and yet sometimes less than understood. There's a lot of honor in becoming so different, but it can be lonely. That is why Shifters often stick together. Even when they travel, they do so most often.

Traveling: There are plenty of reasons to leave the Nelkaelands. The Bearsarkers are barely wanted anymore, and traders and mercenaries slip out, looking to seek their fortune. Even Shifters and Blood Shamans can leave, though less often.

 

[The Laurent]

Peoples: Edelians, and Edelia

Description: Once the seat of the longest lasting and most powerful Empire in popular memory, they are now a band of squabbling, though not always warring, city-states. They are rich, they have affluence, sea-power, and they are divided and fractious. Dozens and dozens of city-states compete with each other, and with the various petty kingdoms, dukedoms, and baronies stretching up and upward until they, at their farthest north, were little distinguishable in character and kind from those of the Central Lands, except in their self-conception.

For the Edelians were proud. They had, it was said, the blood of Sepult ,which would certainly explain their smaller height. They were not astoundingly short, but they were known to be a short and slight people, by human standards, given to darker skins at time, for they traded far and wide. The city-states have a wide variety of governments, including the only Republics on the continent, pale shadows of the government that Edele was rumored once to have before the Sepult came and uplifted them with their artifacts and expertise.

While they all speak one language, there are many variations on it, and a traveler should be wary, for while mercenary wars have not happened in generations, there are still bandits, and hidden by magic and strange prophecies and Gods, plenty of dark holes to hide in. It is a land of ruins and lost glory, and yet it is also a land of the quick coin and the cutpurse, the sailing ship and the humble supplication to the Gods.

It is a land of crossroads, and one steeped in both tradition and radical change.

Society, Culture, Life: Their traditions include a very traditional relationship with society, in which individual families were the center of a lot of aristocratic and peasant life, and yet even this is changing. People travel far and wide, and bring their viewpoints with them, and enough centuries have passed that their Empire has become not even a memory, but more like a dream. The average peasant, and the average city-dweller, lives in a world where the Edelian Empire might as well not have happened.

Yet its marks are everywhere. In the countryside there are ruins, some hidden by magic, which often drive adventurers wild with ambition. In fact, in this chaotic and sometimes violent land, there is plenty of work, and adventurers are often cheaper than calling up a militia, or employing an army to deal with many problems. While more people were in the countryside than city, it is the cities, and especially the coastal cities, that come to mind when people think of Edelian culture. Bookbinding, primitive proto-factories, conflict between guilds, strange innovations in terms of sexuality and behavior, all can be found in an Edelian city, often in very different combinations.

Edelian women, the poor, the peoples of a dozen countries cast ashore… old men complain that once all knew their place in the world. But if that world ever did exist, it doesn't any longer, and Edele is a dynamic place to live, albeit a dangerous one. The cities are crowded and riddled with disease and crime, but also vibrant centers of trade, wealth, and culture, and the peasants have their own traditions and ways, ones which can change just as much in the city.

To live in Edele is to accept change and to be ready for anything, including the hot weather and the storms.

Religion: They worship their old Gods, a pantheon that predates their contact with the Sepult. They being traditionalists, but in no other country are there so many that do not on a daily basis engage with the Gods, or with any sort of deity or belief-system at all. But for those who do, they find the Gods vengeful upholders, or so the stories go, of sacred oaths and sacred hospitality. The gods are stern, figures to obey, not to love, as the traditional conception of Edelian parenthood mimicked. But even this sort of culture can be twisted and turned to support change, as can be seen in…

Adventuring/Class: The Edelian countryside is full of ruins, and just as importantly, there are many buried in the last days of the Empire, and many that are hidden by strange magical keys, or other means of concealing them. This, combined with the many potential employers and the wealth concentrated in a relatively small area means that adventurers flock to this place, and Edelians become adventurers in great numbers, driven in part by the power of their oaths. For an Edelian woman who makes an oath to achieve some goal, or to find some treasure, can have the ability to step outside of her expected roles for a time and became an Adventurer as much as a woman in their eyes. The opportunities all mean that there are many ways to live, and they have their own secrets. Thieves are thick in Edelian city-states, and it is rumored that they are more organized than they are in some lands. Certainly, they're more famous, and there is a God of Thieves, something that few other cultures can boast.

Witches are common as well, a broad category of people whose magic is based on sleight of hand, strange traditions, odd brews, and dark rituals. They are not well understood, and yet their abilities are little in doubt.

Less doubtful are the skills of the sailor, the privateer, and others whose nautical adventurers are the stuff of legends and tavern tales. Either way, as a place to start (and as a place to end) one's adventure, there are few as thrilling, as novel… and yet also as dangerous. It is a place of old secrets, and old secrets can, at times, be rotten to the core.

 

[NemoMarx]

Peoples: The Orime

Description: The Orime are a strong race, known as much for their appearance as their way of life, and indeed they are subject to legends, lies, and rumors as to their nature. The Orime are a tall people, with builds that tend towards the broad and thick, often with both muscles and fat aplenty, to survive the cold climates and provide them with the strength and energy for living as they do. The average male Orime was 6'8 feet tall, the average female 6'7 ½, and an Orime was thought dreadfully short if they were under six feet, and there were healthy Orime whose heights surpassed eight feet, though too far beyond it and health problems began to be evident. The skin of Orimes varies, with different tribes and lineages having different tones, which grey being the most common. But one variety is known for their grey-blue skin, and another for their dark green skin.
Either way, they have strong teeth, with several teeth that seemed to be made for tearing, rather than grinding. Their eyes varied as much as their skin did, but red was not uncommon, and neither were gold or silver eyes.

Their size came with considerable strength, and the kind of endurance that allowed them to work longer and harder than most humans, and survive more, though they, like humans, had their limits. This strength and stamina are usually considered in the context of war, but Orime farmers had little trouble breaking even the frozen ground of their native lands, and the blacksmiths found the simpler than it might be, though also rather too warm.

Orime men and women are physically closer than human, with a more similar bone structure and facial structure, and only minimal height differences. This can make it somewhat difficult for humans to tell them apart, especially since Orime tend towards egalitarianism, and thus merely being a warrior doesn't necessarily demonstrate that they are a male Orime.

Orime tend to live longer than humans by some years, due in part to their physiology, and in part to their culture.

Society: As a people, they are divided into 'tribes' of sorts, among which there are different villages, each of which has alliances within and without their 'tribe', which often describes impossibly extended kin-groups with shared history. Where Confederations have come into being, they tend to be the local governments and systems writ-large, and the ever-shifting alliances, feuds, and disagreements conceal a unity that is only sometimes broken.

Villages and tribes are run by councils that consist of different groups. A representative of the warriors, of the Skalds, of the farmers, and so on, each of whom is equal, and has an equal voice. Only in times of war is there a single leader, and then only briefly, and this council itself makes the day to day decisions, rather than all decisions. Within the various professions (such as warrior, or farmer) more than a few decisions are entirely individual, or chosen by vote, and for the truly contentious decisions, the entire village might gather to argue it out and vote.

The Orime do not have slaves, nor even bound servants, and any captive taken into the village, or any who lives in an Orime village, is by definition an Orime, whatever their origin. While some tribes have, at times, tried to get around the religious prohibitions that lead to this, such as by temporary locations outside of the village, or by selling off captives of war to other humans, these are highly disreputable acts, and are liable to be punished by other tribes when they are found out.

Orime warriors have a code of honor and a sense of their own importance, but are also taught that their needs and desires should be subordinated to the good of the village, and that they shouldn't think themselves better for their prowess. This is reasonably effective, though many young fools, men and women alike, tend towards reckless behavior to try to prove themselves.

The Orime do not have priests, as well be discussed below, instead they have Leritel, or teachers, of religious doctrine.

Culture/Life:

An Orime's trade and life are certainly partially determined by those of their parents. But tradition and religious law requires children to be exposed to other trades, often in short 'apprenticeships' of a few days or a week, and thus there is a good deal of mobility between careers, as well as a greater willingness to marry outside of a trade.

Orime tend to raise people partially communally, with every child having many aunts and uncles, as it were. Everyone was responsible for everyone else's child, should the need arise, and while this sometimes led to debates, and disagreements, it was habit and custom.

Should two Orime disagree, or one Orime be accused of misdeeds, they would be put before a collection of other Orime, guided by the Leritel in outlining any necessary laws or precedents to them, but no more, before they made a decision, which had to be conclusion.

When an Orime reached sixteen years, they had a ceremony in which they were lightly bled, and in which the whole village turned out for a celebration, along with any who reached the same age in that season. From then on, they were an adult, with the responsibilities of an adult, though many were still in training, and would be for some time.

Training was less a matter of Master and Apprentice, and instead a wide variety of teachers, to diffuse both responsibility and power.

Orime plant huge farms held and worked in common, with a large variety of crops which have been, sometimes with a purpose, selected for hardiness in the cold conditions of their land. It makes their diet, which often consisted of stews, bread, and and great deal of meat, relatively diverse in other ingredients as well. Some areas of Orime lands have extensive fruit trees, especially Winter Apples, able to survive into the early winter. Orime have come to notice that without such apples in their winter diets, they tend to get sick towards the coming of Spring, in what they call Apple Sickness, cured only by apples, and thus the Orime in those regions do a brisk trade with both human and Orime neighbors, often quite distant, who use the cider (which is drank regularly and medicinally), dried apples, and even preserves to supplement a diet that, no matter how they try, tends to still be lean by winter's end. But Orime are survivors.

Besides cider, which is viewed less as alcohol and more as necessity, Orime drink a good deal of ale, and drink what they call Gorzakle as for special occasions, and as a sort of pain medication. Certainly, humans from the south who have tried it have said that it distracts rather well from the bodily pains, burning as it does on the way down.

Orime tend towards raucous, celebratory drinking, but they have many other pastimes. Many love hunting, and there are traditional games, many of which come from pranks done in the mythic past, and they sing and dance at all times, even those who aren't Skalds. Music is central to the life of an Orime, and the Orime who is tone deaf is thought the most unfortunate creature in the village. They place much stock in being personable, and in getting along with others.

Orime may challenge each other to fights over disagreements, but the fights can be only with bare firsts, and to first fall, and are more common in some villages than in others.

When an Orime marries, they mingle their blood with the man and woman of their choice, and recite the vows as have been recited for beyond Orimeish memory, and often follow it up with poems or songs of their own composition, or the composition of a friendly Skald, in order to mkae it sacral. The Leritel and at least two or three other Orime usually are required to watch, so that all can know it was done well. Once married, an Orime might move into their spouse's house, or their spouse into theirs, or they might build a new home together, the customs there vary quite widely.

When Orime get sick, they call upon both Skalds, some of which can do quiet miracles with their magic, and traditional herb-husbands and herb-wives, who are sometimes also Skalds.

When they die, it is a Skald who ensures that they do not come back as a ghost, and their body is either burned, if they are thought wicked or full of regrets, in order to give their souls more time to consider things before they go beneath the earth (for the Orime have a vague but present understanding of what we'd call the Water Cycle), or buried if they have lead a life with few regrets.

Mythology/Religion:

The Orime believe in a multitude of Gods, all formed by a single Goddess, Orima, whom they were named after in memorial. These Gods no longer get involved directly in the world, out of compassion and understanding, but they taught the Songs of the Skalds, and they maintain the world even still, so worship is a matter of thanking them. Sacrifices aren't made, as they were in the days of the Priests. Instead, songs are sung, for what tribute is greater than the very thing which created the universe, Orima, and from her singing all the other Gods?

The Orime have a complex and expansive mythological cycle, which is both poetry and song at the same time, and which can be categorized in certain ways, as can all their songs.

First, the Tworzhist, the History of Creation. This tells of Orima, born of the sound of silence, and her lonely singing, which gave birth to the first Gods, who sang along with their mother, and on and on, as more were created and sang the world into being. It is filled with stories of hjinx and games, as well as their wonder at their creations, and ends with the creation of laws for the Orime, the naming of the Orime, and other matters.
Second, the Kreovak-Gesh, the Story of Blood, the greatest sung epic in Orime culture, which tells the story of Orime failing to live up to their promises and covenant, and of one such Orime raising an army of ghosts and nearly conquering the world, before being narrowly stopped, leading to the Gods creating new laws, but also agreeing to step back from rulership of the world, so that it may control itself. It is an incredibly popular epic, even to this day.

Third, the Gesha-Lyud, the People's Stories, are really several different categories. First, there are a number of stories of great heroes and adventures, stretching to this day, including that of Kataival, the Skald who climbed the world, and Bogumah, the first Bearsarker of the Orime. These thrill people even to this day. Second, there are the histories, which often specifically refuse to name names, instead speaking of entire tribes, clans, or villages, and which are unique to each village, or so it seems.

The final category is everything else. The drinking songs, the occasional songs for funerals, weddings, and every other occasion, the comic songs of no particular origin, the songs made purely to dance to, the songs you sing a child to lull them into sleep… they have no specific ritual attached to them, and yet the Orime view them as sacred in their own ways.

The Orime live their life with their religion, their songs of thanks, their traditions, and the Leritel, who traditionally take three apprentices at once, so that they do not favor any one, are merely those who help remember the traditions, recite them and the songs and stories, and who provide wisdom but not rulership. Even the Gods do not rule over the world, merely guide it and protect it, as the warriors must protect but not rule a village.
History: The Orime are a broad group, more widespread than their sizeable traditional locations might indicate. But there are certain trends, such as their conflicts with the Kingdoms and other governments which they often neighbor or are even a part of. They have their own ways, and their own lives, and they don't always mix well with humans, at least in the sense that their belief that those in an Oremish village are Orime can create confused loyalties and cultural misunderstandings. At times, Orime have warred with human Kingdoms, raiding them or even bringing them to the ground, but they have in some ways been safe from many of the trends that have affected so many. The Sepult-Edelian Empire reached almost to their borders before it began to fall apart, and so while influenced by them indirectly, they never warred with them except very briefly towards the end, and were certainly never conquered in large numbers by them.

But they are not without history, despite that. And they are not outside of history, as they might yet learn.

Unique Classes:

The Orime, like any beings, can boast of many talents, and plenty become adventurers, either in the local sense, or in the traveling sense, as the villages can hardly, nor would they hardly, forbid Orime from leaving them to travel as the song of their hearts so desire. But among those who leave, two particular groups stand out even more than others, for any Orime in the land of humans will tend to stand out.

The Oremish Bearsarker is very different than that said, increasingly embattled, category in the Nelkaelands. Instead of unleashing their anger, they stoke it into a great fury… and then with all their iron will, hold it under control and use it with a cold, even calm in its own way, mind. It is a fury that might lead to chanting and shouting, but that was as much an artifact of the Skaldic arts and the intimidation tactics of warriors than anything else. Instead, this leashed, controlled fury makes them the hounds, or the sleep wolves, to the rabid dogs of Nelkeaish Bearsarkers. The most famed Bearsarkers are capable of super-Orimeish feats, though it is well remembered that the most famed warriors were not Bearsarkers.

The Skald, on the other hand, is a figure who flits between entertainer, religious figure, warrior, poet, healer, worker, necromancer and more. They are the chief magic-users of the Orime, and in fact all the other types of magic combined still don't have the hold that Skaldic magic does, and Skalds, being entertainers, often travel to learn more about the world for their songs, and for their art, for their magic is an art like any other, one which requires intelligence, skill, and even a sort of daring. They, like Bearsarkers and the Leritel, are highly respected in Orimeish society.

Other Locations/Misc: While there are traditional lands that are called Oremish, Oremish settlers have rather large settlements or groups in many of the lands to their immediate south, sometimes independent of the various sovereigns and nobles, at other times trading military service for independence otherwise. In somewhat lesser numbers, Oremish outcasts, mercenaries, and inquisitive Skald could find themselves in the Central Lands or the Golden Road, but very few find themselves in Edelish lands, let alone even farther to the west, though few are not none. As well, there are several prominent tribes that live in the Nelkaelands, whose history and culture are quite different at times than those of their kin.

Note: I'm posting this because we hit the third page, and to encourage discussion there'll be more lore dumps if we hit the 4th, let's say?

And the vote closes tomorrow!

 

[The Laurent]

The Mysterious Orphan

Name: Lotte, daughter of Henrik and Anelie
Sexuality: Pansexual
Age: 18
Species: Lamia, Central Lands Human Culture
Level: 3
Class: Hunter
Weapons: Bow, Knife

XP: 2/18

Description: A tall lamia, with short blond hair, and blue eyes, dressed in a protective vest and a noble's hunting shirt. They are muscular, well-formed and handsome, and have slightly yellowish eyes and a forked tongue. Their snake-half is in a forest pattern that helps for blending in, except for the occasional splash of Tyrian purple.

Traits:

Just Devotions (Racial--Human, Central, Cultural)(Level 0): Humans in some parts of the world worship the Gods, vast and sometimes unknowable beings that do grant blessings to those that believe in them, magical blessings. But even the lowliest of the pious knows how to pray to them, how to do the right supplications, how to act in the proper ways. This knowledge can sometimes be put to good use, though the Gods rarely turn their eyes to every little prayer.

Wholesome Farm Looks (Human, Central, Physical, Level 1): Though most of the people of the Central lands, that mass of Kingdoms, Princedoms, Dukedoms, Duchess States, and more, are of course quite poor, they are a hardy, hard-working people, and sometimes this life less beats a person down and more hones them. They have reasonably good looks, and even more importantly, look trustworthy, clean-cut, and otherwise like the kind of person who'd never lied a day in their life or slacked off a single hour, either. This remains even after becoming a lamia, though it is... tempered, obviously.

Snake Eyes (Level 1, Physical, Lamia): You can see in the dark pretty well. It isn't perfect, but the night is not nearly so dark and full of dangers as you expected it would be, for whatever reason.


Forest Wanderer (0, Pre-Class): The forest is a fascinating place for a child, as long as they don't go too far. As one gets used to it, one learns more about its ins and outs, and while some of it only applies to the forest that such a child lived in at first, much of it is quite helpful later.

Forest Eyes (Level 1. Class): As one could have eyes that pick out every tiny detail of the tundra, so can one be used to seeing in the dark forest tracks, possibilities, old growth, traps, and anything else, especially when one knows how to use your ears and nose to aid it. It is remarkable how much you can see, when you see what is actually there.

Hunter's Mettle (Level 1, Class): To hunt, one needs a bow, an arrow, and perhaps a knife for self-defense. Having some skill at them is inevitable, having solid skill at them is admirable, and quite useful.

Steady Arm (Level 2, Class): You have a strong, consistent aim. You're not a superlative archer, at least by the standards of adventurers, but you don't have off moments, and you don't waver from being able to hit your target, even if you're not doing the fancier tricks.

Leave Few Traces (Level 2, Class): The experience of being on one side of the hunt makes you wonder how you'd hide your tracks if you were being hunted, or tracked by hostile enemies, as sometimes does happen in adventures. You've begun to practice how not to be followed in the woods, and perhaps elsewhere.


Mending Knowledge, Basic (Level 0, Pre-Class, Healing Priest): You know how to apply poultrices, and you know the basic ingredients of a number of potions that cure headaches, deal with common pains, put someone into a gentle sleep, and other minor things. You can also bandage someone properly. You are not very good at this, merely adequate... but that's more than what most people are.


Whitlin' Ways (Level 1, Common): A man or woman who knows how to whittle will never want for whistles, or spoons, or any number of goods. It's a useful, solid sort of skill, and one that could be made into a trade. It also makes a pretty decent way to pass the time, and the person who whittles never lacks for a knife in sticky situations.

Penny Pincher (Level 1, General): You know the value of a Pfin, and how to keep from wasting all of your money, even if you're far from a merchant. Money is something you're familiar with.

Steel Nerves (General, Level 3): You've seen enough strange places and done enough fantastic things that you are less likely to panic in terrible situations, and more likely to think things through, however difficult. This doesn't mean you can't panic at all, but you have a grip on those nerves. In battle and danger only, this unfortunately doesn't help at all with social anxiety.


Divine Sense (Level 0, Divine): You can sense when someone is a Demigod, and there's at least the potential ability--though you have not figured it out yet--to try to track people through their divine 'scent.' A person's 'scent' gets stronger as they get more magically and divinely powerful... but on the other hand, you now have a 'scent' of your own, that will allow other demigods to know you for what you are, increasingly as you grow more powerful yourself.

Captivating Eyes (Level 2, Divine): You can sometimes 'catch' people with your eyes. If you're concentrating, they'll find it slightly more difficult to look away, though any sense of threat or danger breaks it immediately, and they'll hear your words clearly, actually listening… or at least hearing them. There's no requirement to listen to them, nor does it seem as if anyone's mind is being altered in any way, but it's an interesting, if bizarre, power, and certainly is a new take on 'lost in their eyes.'

Slithering Shadows (Level 3, Divine): You can blend into the shadows better than you should be able to. At night, and in darker areas, you can seem to shift away from sight. It doesn't work well in a wide-open space, but that little bit of extra secrecy can be very useful as a hunter, and as someone who might need to sneak through various areas.

 

[The Laurent]

Prologue

If the woods around her home had some fancy name, she didn't know what it was. But like all the forests around, it could be dark and dangerous, especially if you were young and unprepared.

But the dark didn't have to be scary, and Lotte was not afraid. Yes, her knees were shaking, and she'd been lost for nearly an hour, but if you'd just ask her she would have told this hypothetical person that she wasn't afraid. So, there you go!

Of course, she might just ask this stranger for help getting out of the woods. Unless they were lost, then she would have sucked up any fea… any lack of fear and tried to help them. Ol' Gunther, the Forester, said that that was the duty of those who knew the wilds. He'd said it a little drunk, on another lament that none of the boys of the village wanted to learn his profession. "I'd been a real adventurer, y'know. Now all I have is a girl to teach, though yer decent, don't get me wrong. But you know what I mean, don'tya Lotte?"

Lotte felt something sharp in her chest. She wished she was a boy, just so that Gunther would be a little less sad.

But he'd still taught her plenty, and she looked around the forest, and as she did, she relaxed a little. She didn't know where she was, yes, but she knew this part of the forest in general, even if she'd never gone this deep in. She recognized the trees, the way they bent and twisted around, like ol' missus Agna. They had been alive long enough to have deep shadows and blur at the edges.

She knew what the wind felt like, knew that it wouldn't carry her scent all that far, and she knew that tangy smell in the air. It was blood. The ten year old girl didn't let herself tremble, because if it was someone hurt, she'd have to save them, no matter the cost. Her parents didn't raise someone who could just walk away from that.

Still, she proceeded cautiously forward, eyes careful for the traps she knew were sometimes found deep in these woods.

If one were some stalking beast, perched on a tree, one would see a surprisingly large scrap of a ten year old, with blonde hair done in messy braids which she fiddled with in the village, though not out here. She was dressed in old leathers and decent cloth, all of it green and brown of just the shade to blend in with the forest. She had a quiver on her back, and an odd sort of rig there, to put her bow, such that it wouldn't warp, or dig into her back when she moved. Gunther had sworn by it. She wore shoes that were little more than hunks of leather, almost raw enough to moo, and moved with a grace that would have surprised some in the village.

Of course, if one were some stalking beast, she probably would have noticed them.

The forest was a dangerous place, where a predator could look like the shadow of a log, and a bandit could look, in shades and shadows, like nothing more than a bush. It wasn't a bright place, and it wasn't a quiet place, though at the moment it was doing its best impression. That's why she had a nose, and ears, and eyes, and instincts, and if all else failed hands. You couldn't rely on one thing, it'd be like going into the forest with a single arrow.

Her bow, of about medium-length when one accounted for her age, was held in her hand, strung when she'd left for the forest some hours before. She moved forward, careful of twigs and leaves, up the slight incline, around a tree that looked like it might be a den for animals she didn't want to disturb, and on. She listened, stopping every so often, to see if anyone had been following her.

She licked her dry lips and came, at last, to a twisted, tangled sort of depression in the earth. The grass was higher than the pastures her family raised their cows and pigs on, part of the time. At one corner was some nightmare of the past. It was a twisted thing of iron, twisted around a dark, struggling, bleeding wolf that whined and growled in equal measures.

The trap looked like nothing Lotte had ever been shown. Now, she was lettered, if just barely. (Her mother had insisted, and the priest would put her in a clean enough room and glare at her if she creased a page of books which, he'd reminded her, had been hand copied by people far more intelligent than her, and couldn't stand abuse.) But you didn't need letters to guess at what this strange contraption had to be. A Sepult Trap, and if that was so, it had been there for a thousand years without rusting, which made it the kind of thing you didn't want to touch. Magic wasn't that scary: her Mom had magic from the Gods, been an adventurer for a few years. But Sepult magic? Old Sepult magic?

Even if she could trust the wolf not to lash out in fear and pain, and she wasn't sure she'd trust a person not to do so… she was almost certain she couldn't undo it, clever though her hands were. The wolf wasn't going to get out of the trap, and nobody else was going to come around with the skill to help. She imagined some Sepult jerk, grinning to themselves as they set the trap, sure it'd catch some pony-riding enemy Sepult, or… something.

Still, she didn't linger long on the hurts of the distant past. Instead she looked at the wolf. It was a beautiful enough creature, even if she'd lost a few pigs to starving wolves in the late autumn.

It would starve to death, probably, or it would bleed out, but perhaps slower than one might expect. It was going to be a painful, slow death either way, even if the end, she supposed, would be dreamier than the start.

There was only one sort of mercy she could give. She prayed to Wilfhuld, the wolf-headed God who watched after those who worked together, whether they were hunters, warriors, or people gathered to make a village festival come off.

She grabbed an arrow, notched it smoothly, with years of practice already, and loosed it.

********

The family who lived surprisingly near to the outskirts of Valwald was often thought quite lucky. Henrik's father had been a bold man, a third generation of scrambling upwards helped by his lack of sons to care for other than Henrik, and only one daughter to see settled. Henrik had inherited a decent piece of land, a chunk of the village's common-land for farming, plus some pasture and pigs, cows, but the oxen was his own purchase, and the pigs were more numerous and more carefully kept than in his father's time. He'd married a wandering adventurer, a pious woman who could heal with a prayer, yet wasn't truly a priestess. She lent her hands to help the local midwife and care for local animals, and as any smart man did, he lent out his oxen to the service of others so that they didn't have to ask his High Lordship for it. It meant that when bad times came, and bad times would always come, they wouldn't whisper so loud and wouldn't hate so much.

They was good folks, all around, and good folks to adopt some doorstep child with no known mother. Lotte, well, she was odd in some ways, of course, but she was dutiful and you could do far worse than a child who took care around the farm, and sometimes brought venison back from her forest sojurns. They said she was good in the woods, though nowhere near as good as ol' Gunther had been before he'd been taken off, last winter. Such a shame, such a shame.

If she married some nice, respectful man when she was steady of herself, they'd no doubt prosper further. Or, some added with mischief, a woman. It wasn't unknown for two men or women to marry, though many around these parts thought it odd, and in a village of hundreds there were only two such marriages. But any talk of marriage was years premature, everyone ultimately concluded. You didn't marry until you had enough to marry on, not like the nobles, leaping into bed at fourteen, dead in childbirth at sixteen, or so everyone said.

The farmland was in common, though everyone knew what parts of the field were done by Henrik. You could draw a diagram of how a field should be by his work. Now, the pasturelands, on the other hand, were marked off with raised stone, piled on top of each other, a sort of fence without a fence. It was upon one such pillar that Lotte sat that spring day, whittling out a whistle for a local kid who'd begged her for it. She'd changed, in six years, but most of all she'd grown. There was a lot of woman, lean though she was, and all of it was dressed in hunter's clothing, even when she wasn't off in the woods. Her hair had been hacked short, after an incident involving a bear, honey, and a stream where she'd done some spear fishing. She wasn't bad at it, but it had none of the simple thrill of archery.

The pigs wandered, of course they did. There was a pen right up against the house, for when they needed to be kept there, and there always had to be pigs to give birth to new generations, when it came time for the slaughter. It was a regular thing, and there was a cycle and a rhythm to life that almost made sense to her, but didn't quite fit. Her parents worked well together, and cared for each other, and sometimes she wondered if it'd be so bad to settle down--

But, no. Something in that thought twisted and turned like a snake trying to avoid a hawk.

(She'd had a dream once, one she'd forgotten over time. She'd been coming home from working in the fields, and her spouse… who was vague, in the dream, when she thought of it and remembered it, had hugged her tight. Lotte's beard had tickled their cheeks, and--

She'd woken up upon realizing the absurdity of that. Only Sepult women had beards, and she was the furthest thing from a Sepult, a tall, strapping human woman. That fact woke her up, and that fact made it easy for her to drive it out of her mind with a pitchfork, so that by a month later she'd forgotten all about it.)

It was late, and still quite early in spring, and at this stage they wanted to do everything they could to protect the pigs. In the height of summer, they could often mostly look after themselves, but this early? There were things in the forests. Lotte had seen them, fought rabid wolves, driven by some dark design, since regular animals were shy and retiring enough, or at least, were easily scared off by pain and danger. Wolves were predators, and predators didn't fight to win, not like people were supposed to do. A person would impale themselves on a spear just to have the last laugh.

Animals were, in that way, a lot more sensible. Lotte still didn't really come in for book learning, but she'd seen plenty about people, and quite a bit about animals, in her sixteen years, or something roughly like that.

So she got the pigs where the pigs already wanted to be going, and then she washed her hands in the bucket outside her home. It was a nice wooden house chimney and a rough stone floor and everything. The whole house was one large room, of course, and in the deep of the winter they brought in the animals, but she'd seen the way some in the village lived. While her family wasn't the most well off of the families--that'd be the moneylenders, the village headmen, the local lord--it was more prosperous than most.

She stepped inside and inhaled the scent of stew and bread and beer. Her mother made her own beer, didn't trust the alewife that made it. Lotte thought she sometimes was too harsh in judging the village, but then again…

Her mother was a short, slightly plump woman with sandy blonde hair bundled together haphazardly and hidden beneath a cap. Her dress was stained with the work in the field she had done, and there was much yet to do in the house. Lotte was not enough help, she knew. But she hurried forward, towards the pot and the fireplace anyways and asked, "Ma, anything I can do?"

"Just sit at the table and tell me you've seen your father?" She said it in a tone of annoyance.

"What'd he do?" Lotte asked, baffled.

"He objects to all the time you're spending around that boy. The one with his father's spear."

Lotte thought her mother knew his name. But she asked, to be sure, "Ardnt?"

"Yes," she said, as Lotte moved to get the wooden bowls and metal utensils. She laid them out on the sturdy table, one by one. They clanged, because she was paying more attention to her mother's words than putting them right.

"Careful, dear."

Lotte knew her face wasn't one of those that could hide anything. She'd met girls and boys like that, who could get away with a lot. But her face, the features a little sharp, the chin a little too strong, an ugly face, she always thought, showed her discontent.

"Lotte, what is it?"

"Not… it should wait," Lotte said, firmly. She thought about Ardnt, a sandy-haired boy with blue eyes that made him look like a dreamer. Sometimes, when she looked at him, she just couldn't look away. She was innocent, and a virgin, but she weren't fool enough to not realize she had a crush on him. But that wasn't why she wanted to do this.

No, that's not really why she was nervous.

She breathed in the familiar smells of home, of hearth, of bread from the millers (make that four families that were wealthier) and beer, watered down for her age. She could smell the pigs, still, but they were a smell you could get used to. You could get used to a lot. She glanced over at her own bed, which she'd moved into once she was too old.

(She still squeamishly contrived to be elsewhere when she knows she would hear her parents having sex. It wasn't a thing that could be done in private, not really. One wondered how it could even be attempted.)

Henrik arrived, eventually, giving a wave towards Anelie and settling down in his chair with a groan. He was a big, bearded man with a laugh that could lift the roofs off thatched houses, and eyes that gleamed with mischievous intelligence. Lotte didn't understand it, sometimes, how two such intelligent people, both literate, had a child that had to be dragged through her letters and who fell asleep reading histories the Priest had given her. She liked the religious stories, as long as someone more interesting than the people in books could tell them to her.

At the moment there was no mischief in his eyes, just wariness. They drank their beer, ate their stew, scraped the bottom of the dish, bit into their bread. "Ma, Pa, I want to go adventuring," Lotte finally… ventured.

"You do?!" Henrik asked, staring at her. "After all the stories you've heard?"

Especially after all the stories she'd heard. Her mother did sometimes tell stories about the misery and the scramble for coins, but there was also the camaraderie of the road, and she'd only met her husband because she'd traveled. "Yes," Lotte said. "I'd like to go in a week, or two. Or less."

Anelie was frowning at her. "Are you going with Arndt?"

"Well, you always said that there was safety in numbers."

"Absolutely not," Henrik said. "You're my heir, Lotte. I love you, but if you leave now, run off with a man, what am I supposed to do?"

"I'm not running off with him. I'm telling you, and I'm going with him because you're supposed to have a party to keep you safe. Isn't that what you always said, Ma? Friends on the road."

Now her Pa was looking at her Ma, eyes clearly conveying the message: this is all your fault.

"I said that, yes, but," Ma began.

"Have we done something wrong?" Henrik asked, his voice rough with the anticipation of grief. "Have we been too hard, asked too--"

"No, no, of course not," Lotte said, in a panic. Her father didn't cry, not except once or twice a year, and then when he was so deep in his cups it wasn't really him that was crying.

"Can you just tell us… why?" Ma asked, her voice careful and gentle, the voice she got when a man started swearing up and down that he was going to die. Lotte knew that tone well, knew that in the right moments she could talk a little like that. "If that's alright?"

"It's not because of Arndt." Yes, she was fond of him and fascinated by him, but sometimes he looked at her in a way that made her feel as if he was imagining her in a wedding dress of some kind. His family was another decently well off family, after all. Something about that struck Lotte as wrong, but she couldn't quite understand why. "I want to see the world, see new things, find my own place in it. I'll probably come back in a year or two, as thoroughly sick of it as you think I'll be." Lotte let the longing creep into her voice, because she could hardly stop it. "But I'll know."

"You're sixteen," Henrik said, firmly. "You're not going, and that's…"

"Dear," Ma said, her voice soft. "Why don't we work out a compromise."

"A what?" Henrik asked, tugging at his beard in frustration, which was far better than almost crying, to Lotte's mind.

"You're still young yet, and you haven't trained that much, have you?" Ma asked.

"I've tried," Lotte said, then took a breath, aware of how close her voice had come to whining. She bit her lip, and reached over to her beer, taking a swig of it in the hopes that it helped. She'd never gotten really drunk, nothing more than tipsy, and even that involved drinking so much she was more likely to need to go find a ditch before it involved getting drunk. Though Arndt had once showed her a bottle of what he swore the Orime really called "Gods' piss", a white liquid which even a sip convinced her wasn't fit for humans to drink.

"So, why don't I tell you a little about priestly magic? I don't think you have any talent for it, but learning could help. And so could training a little more…"

"Anelie," Henrik said. "How is this a compromise?"

"If, if you give it two more years," Anelie said, her voice shaking a little, but her eyes bright as if glad she'd thought of this idea. " If you still want to in two years, when the noise and clamor dies down and Arndt is long-gone, then you'll have had plenty of experience."

"I don't agree," Henrik began.

"And, in the meantime you can't let your mind wander. Help out around here, and I'm sure you'll grow to understand that sometimes it's best to stay where you are. There's a lot for you here in this village. We'll give you coin to leave with, if you want to, in two years," Anelie promised.

"I… you know what? Yes, Lotte, I will make that deal with you. I'll shake on it, even, Lottie." That's what he called her when he was in a good mood, and Lotte knew that this was the most she was going to get, unless she fled from her home, her family, and her village in the night.

They shook on it.

*******

The family who lived surprisingly near to the outskirts of Valwald was often thought to be blessed, by their neighbors. The crops had been good the last two years, and they seemed to be doing even better than that would imply. Their daughter had taken to hunting far more often, and last fall she'd been in and out of the forest more times than seemed safe, coming back dragging a sledge of deer, arms and muscles straining in a way that indeed had a few of the village girls, and a village boy or two, giggling and staring. She'd taken the Priest aside and traded small whittled idols of a God or two for the right to be locked in a room with a book on herblore, and then she'd gone out and filled baskets with useful flowers and traded them for vegetables that could be pickled.

Everyone knew that the Spring Fever, which made one tired, sick, and yellow, was caused by a lack of vegetables, which put the humours out of balance and could only be solved by the right folk tonics. She'd worked herself to the bone for her family, and because of it they survived the winter happy and healthy, even by the time spring came, though it was lean by then.

She'd changed, in the last two years, though none of the villagers knew about the deal. She was taller, about average for a man, which was to say quite tall for a woman, and she'd filled out. You did that, when you walked and ran everywhere and hauled deer and otherwise made yourself useful.

She even had suitors, of a sort, or at least people whose interest might last, and whose marriage would be heartily approved. Arndt was back, with a spear wound in his gut that might have killed him, and a few interesting stories about adventure, too. He'd been changed, but nobody was quite sure how, except that Lotte spent a good deal of time talking to him, and he still seemed sweet on her.

Then there was the headman's daughter, Hildegard, who seemed equally taken with Lotte.

Either way, all expected that Henrik and Anelie's good fortune would continue, and that they must surely know how very lucky they were, and how beloved they must be by the Gods, to have done so well for themselves, and through hard work rather than through cheating ways.

They didn't feel particularly lucky that night.

"You… what?" Henrik asked.

"I'll be leaving in two weeks, Mother, Father," Lotte said, firmly. Her hair was even shorter than before, and this time by choice, and the clothes she was dressed in were soaked with sweat. She'd worked hard all last week, harder than she'd ever worked before.

"...why?" Anelie asked.

"You said that in two years I could go. It will be two years in two weeks, and I thought to give you notice," Lotte said, looking from one to the other, remembering the hours spent pacing and choosing her words with the same care that she'd looked over the mushrooms of the forest to make sure she didn't bring poison back to her family home.

"Oh," Henrik said, putting his head in his hands. "You hadn't mentioned it in over a year, we'd thought you'd… forgotten."

Lotte shook her head. "No, of course I didn't forget it. I've learned a lot, but now I'm ready to leave, and with more than I would have left with before."

"I…" Anelie gulped, startled for reasons Lotte couldn't quite understand. She sipped her own beer while she watched them, startled by their shock. There wasn't anything that should have occasioned such reactions. "If you're… sure?"

"Mother, Father," Lotte said. "Will you be able to let me go in two weeks? I've been whittling idols to say goodbye to the forest and its Gods, and I've been talking to Arndt about what it was like…"

"You're not… attached to him?" Henrik asked.

"No," Lotte said, baffled. Though he did sometimes act as if there was some tie that bound them together. But other moments, drunken moments, he seemed to resent her for not having gone with him. He'd have been fine, if only he'd had a friend out there. In those moments, she couldn't help but both blame herself and resent his blame.

"Nor Hildegard?" Anelie asked.

"No?" Lotte said, though it was as much a question. Hildegard was shy and retiring, a beautiful young woman whose smile could sometimes do funny things to Lotte's insides, but her shyness didn't extend to keeping her from watching Lotte sometimes. She'd watch as Lotte trudged, sweat-soaked, dragging a deer or carrying a basket, her eyes finding every curve of muscle, and staring in a way that made Lotte want to hide. Lotte's body was not something she wanted to be judged for, the thought made her sick with worry she couldn't define. "I don't. I just… I need to go."

"I… very well," Ma said, glancing over at Pa.

"I expect you not to slack off, these last two weeks, and we'll see about getting you everything you need to travel," Henrik said with a grin. "And come back whenever you want, and we'll have a place for you."

Of course, Lotte knew, he expected she'd be back in a year, or less… if she came back at all. Lotte expected the same, in a way. But she had to try, had to test herself against the world and against the road, and see how she stood up.

"I will, mama," Lotte said, standing up to wrap her mother in a hug.

*******

Two weeks later, Lotte left the village on a day where the sun was shining, where the whole world seemed filled with possibilities, and with every hope that the travel would show her new ways to be.

Lotte doesn't find her first adventure… it finds her!

[] Rats!: Just two villages over down the trade route, she finds that a village is being harassed by a Rat Piper, a man whose pipe allows him to control rats… and who is making at least some of them pay for the privilege of not having rats. Those that refuse, well, they have rats in the kitchen and rats everywhere, enough rats that even cats run away at them. He, and his apprentice, are a menace, and something has to be done! The peasants who have been most bothered are those who can least afford to pay, especially so soon after winter's end, so the rewards wouldn't exactly be great… but rats all over, biting things, peeing everywhere… it was a menace!

[] Little Lost Lamb: Lotte stumbles across a shepherd boy who is looking for one of his sheep. His stepfather will kill him if he doesn't find it, and so he desperately tasks Lotte to go and see what happened to it, and save it if she can. There's been rumors of bandits and wild animals in the area, but it should be nothing an adventurer can't handle, right?!

[] Neither Rain Nor…: After almost a week of not finding much, at least not much that didn't start and end with standing in place to guard something, Lotte was handed a package by a sickly looking man and told that if she continued to the nearest town, she could deliver it to a certain address, and that she'd be paid for it. She was also implored not to open either the package or the message, because they were personal. Which made sense to Lotte!

*******

A/N: And thus is the Prologue unfurled.

 

[The Laurent]

The Book of Lotte

"Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in his hometown."

" A blood and bones and hope and arrows child. A lonely friendly happy sad joyous longing child. A girl child? A troublesome child, an obedient child."

 

[The Laurent]

1:1

Spring was certainly the season to travel, Lotte decided. She was dressed in a warm woolen cloak for the morning damp, and she could tuck it into her pack when it grew warmer. She liked the comfort of it, the thick fluffy feel. From a distance, she no doubt looked like she could be anyone at all, beneath the cloak. It was a comforting sort of thought, for all that she knew she sometimes stood out. She had the materials for a tent, but she did plan on finding somewhere to stop. But it'd be a while before she was treading new ground. She'd been as far as Wellway before, though not for long.

But there was always trading to do, and she'd accompanied her father for it. He'd been trying to get her used to the business, Lotte had realized. It probably should have been obvious, but she had been so focused on her daily tasks, her hunting, her training…

So she walked along the path, watching out for carts. It'd rained recently enough that if one came passing, it might well splash her. The roads were a muddy mess, in this part of the world, winding between forgotten fields that were fallow and overgrown. She had no idea if they had ever been different. Perhaps she'd been taught it at some point and forgotten it?

Either way, she made sure to pray to any small shrines she passed. She had very little to give, but she gave her voice. The Gods had fought together, sometimes literally, to make the world from the void of beasts and madness. She didn't know all the stories, and she certainly didn't know all of the… complicated things the priests told her about. But she figured it'd take quite a terrible person to not be grateful for that.

Her mother didn't raise an ingrate or a heretic. "Schatzi," her mother had always called her. "You are my little treasure, the one far greater than any I earned as an adventurer."

So she prayed, and she watched, and she looked up at the sky, the blue of a robin's egg, and noted that the lack of clouds meant that it wasn't going to rain, at least not anytime soon today. There was a beauty to the world that she could appreciate all the better for understanding it. She saw the trees, knew which ones were doing best, roots sunk deep in solid soil, and which ones no doubt were suffering from some local conditions, or the competition of trees.

Trees had a life, she remembered learning. Roots snaked into the ground, and drank deep of secret sources of waters. She'd learned it one day, while practicing digging for water. A priest had commented on some far pilgrimage, and the lack of water, and she'd--

Well, she'd been bored and willing to spend some time trying to imagine how she'd survive so far away from the trees she knew. At the end of it she had learned very little, in all honesty. But it'd passed the time.

The birds were all out for spring, here to mate no doubt, but also hunting, foraging. She noted one, and then the other, making a game of it as she walked. She counted the crows, swifts, and when she got closer to a stream, the different sorts of plover. There were names for every sort of bird and beast, many names in fact, but Lotte's mother had helped teach her these, long ago.

If all else failed, there were certain kinds of birds that mostly lived in marshes, or near sources of water, and you could learn a lot about a place by what lived there. In fact, it was when nothing lived in a place that you knew there was trouble. When the bear had cleared out, and the wolves howled and left, then that's where there were monsters.

That's, at least, what her mother's stories said. There were monsters in the wild, and old castles, and beast-people, who nobody she'd ever met had a good word for. Though, in all fairness, she'd never seen one of them. So perhaps they were wrong. She couldn't say for sure.

Either way, she traveled along, and stepped out of the way once or twice, with a polite doffing of her hat, when someone passed by. It was a simple enough hat, though it was her father's, and she'd decided she needed something like it to cover her head.

There weren't many people passing through. Wilfhuld, her mother had told her, was at the long end of a chain, with villages, then towns, larger towns, and at some point a city as its links. It dangled at the end, supported and provided for, but only after the merchants had sold everything else. They were surrounded on three sides by forest, though it was a large enough clearing otherwise, large enough to live in. There were paths through the forest, but they were twisted, unsteady paths not suited for a soft merchant. Few people had reason to go to and from her village, and so she had remained nestled for most of her life. The trip to Welsburg was just a few miles, so even slowing down to savor it, she soon reached the village.

She'd been before, it was a slightly larger village in a depression that couldn't quite be called a valley. It was only bounded by trees on two sides, with the other two entirely open. Lotte looked down at it, taking in the farms, which seemed far larger than she was used to. Welsburg had more room to grow, and Lotte looked over it. It was a nice enough looking village, of course. There were rich homes and poor homes, and it was run by the same lord of the area, who could be found if she followed the road into town, and then north.

She took it all in, and took in how familiar and normal it was. You weren't going to find a new adventure or distant shores several miles from home!

So she turned towards the less used path that looped around the edge of the village. It was sloppy dirty indeed, but she made decent time. She wasn't going to stop for at least two more villages, and she hoped to pass by even more. It was still morning, and she wanted to sleep somewhere she'd never seen before.

So on she went. Except, at the outskirts, she saw a house. That wasn't a surprise, though what was a surprise was the moment of pained homesickness. It was absurd considering she'd just left, and just as easily pushed aside.

It was easier still because it was like no home of hers. It was as tall and about as wide, but it was made of wooden frames, wattle, and daub. So, of course, were most houses. But it looked halfway to collapse, the frame leaning inward and almost ready to buckle, and the two people standing in front didn't look much better.

One was an older man, about the age of her father, whose skin was like leather, and who held a small knife. His hair was startling to fall out, and he looked like a wounded animal, snarling with rage. Lotte was too far away to hear him, but she could imagine it, and indeed his wife, a thin woman who looked as if she would be hardier if she were in better health. Her hair was long but tangled and brittle looking, grey from age and yellowing. She was dressed, as with the man, in worn looking woolen clothing, same as most people were around here, if a little more gray and fraying.

Standing about two-dozen paces away from them was a finely dressed man. He wore a flowing red tunic, and had new looking hose, and shoes that seemed as if they'd been made by quite the cobbler. The overall picture was one of glowing red health, only slightly marred by how milky his face was. He was healthy, strong looking, and perhaps in his thirties, at the age when men like him sometimes began to grow stout, if they were a hard-working wealthy farmer. He had dark hair, swept over his face in an almost dramatic way, and he held a flute in his hand. At his belt was a knife scabbard and a squirming bag of… something.

Behind him was the first beast-woman Lotte had ever seen. She didn't really look like a ravenous, heartless monster. No, the girl, who seemed part rat, merely looked anxious. She had the ears of a rat, a little higher than ears were supposed to be, and a long, thin pink tail, flicking back and forth, faster and faster as she watched. Her nose was a little off too, snuffling as she fidgeted with her hands. Lotte was too far away to tell the color of her eyes, but they were some sort of dark color, she guessed, along with her dark hair. She was dressed in a woolen dress, not so much nicer than the woman's faded clothing, and couldn't have been much older than Lotte.

Lotte walked closer, though she still couldn't hear the conversation.

The farmer shook his hand, and the Rat Piper, for that's what he had to be, theatrically shook his hand and dumped the squirming bag at his feet and then began to play. Out came big, hungry looking rats. As the Piper began to play, they leapt at the farmer.

The farmer stumbled back, and none of them got to him, or even tried to bite him. Instead he danced around, trying to slash at them as they leapt, but in no shape to catch them, until at last, dizzy, he fell over.

All the while the Piper kept up the music. Lotte was growing closer, and could hear the faint sound of screams from the woman. But the farmer wasn't being hurt, merely terrified. But there was no reason for it, no sense to it.

Then the Piper turned and left, the faint sound of his music drawing the rats after him. That was a Rat Piper? He'd always heard of it as a bold and kind profession that dealt with pests. Though rats were kind of cute when they weren't being a nuisance.

The girl trailing the Piper looked back for one moment, seeming to hesitate. Before the farmer yelled, "Go on, git!"

She hurried after the Piper.

Lotte continued on her way, now determined to get to the bottom of this. The farmer saw her approaching and stood up, trying to affect dignity that had long since fled, like a deer before a sudden noise.

"So, you saw," the farmer said.

"I did, sir. What… what was that?" Lotte asked, aware she was being blunt.

"What's it to you?" he asked, his voice harsh.

"I'm an adventurer," Lotte explained.

"Ah, well." The man spat on the ground. "Freidrich, if it pleases you. And this is my wife."

Lotte nodded. "Who was that?" She repeated a very similar question.

'His wife' said, "That was Aldrich the Piper of… Gaffburg. He came a few days ago, asking for money in exchange for getting rid of the rats. Whether in coin or kind. I said we should--"

"Quiet, woman. We barely have enough, and when we gave him his coin, who is to say he wouldn't have demanded more?" Freidrich asked. "No, I don't like bullies, but now rats are nibbling everything in the house and scaring us awake. He's gone mad for revenge, jus' cause I didn't pay his racket."

Lotte stared for a moment. "I'll help you."

"You'll…" 'his wife' said, eyes wide. "We don't have… much."

"How much'll it be?" Freidrich asked, his eyes showing that he'd probably be willing to pay more than his wife thought wise, if it meant getting back at a man who had humiliated him and made him miserable.

What IS Lotte charging?

[] Nothing except perhaps a square meal and room while and immediately after dealing with this. Bullies are despicable, and stopping them is the right thing to do.
[] Some token amount of coin on top of that. Not much, but something to jangle around in her hands. Proof that she had completed her first adventure.
[] Besides food and board, perhaps… some cloth? Not much, but they make clothes like everyone else, and Lotte had this image of having more than three sets of clothes. What she wore was practical, but there were other practical things she could do.
[] Write-in, subject to veto.

What does Lotte do?

[] Confront him directly. He's being a bully, and surely he doesn't understand just how bad he's being. And, if he does, perhaps a direct solution would be more useful.
[] Try to find a way to steal the pipe. No pipe, no controlling of the rats, right? Now, if Lotte were he, they would be very careful not to set it aside, but it's possible. Lotte knows the man has to sleep, and they're pretty sneaky when they want to be.
[] Find out where the Piper is staying--the couple says it's not in the village--and harass them. Give them a taste of their own medicine. It's… yes, a little mean, and Lotte doesn't like being mean, but they started it, and bullies don't like it when they have to face their own tactics. That's Lotte's experience, at least.
[] The rat girl is apparently his apprentice, at least according to Freidrich and 'His Wife'. But she seemed a little startled and apologetic for what he did. What if Lotte talked to her while he wasn't around, tried to get her on Lotte's side. She might know important things about what's causing all of this.

******

A/N: So there we go, the first adventure has begun! It's comparatively straightforward, as you might have guessed.

 

[The Laurent]

1:2

The forest that she plunged into was different than the one she knew. The differences were small, and yet she couldn't help but notice every single one of them. The shortcut past the hive of bees she'd taken didn't exist, early on in the woods, and neither did the nettles along her most usual path.

The air felt as clean, the animals as lively, they certainly didn't note any differences in living from the area around one village and another. Why should they? The lines people drew weren't always real.

That was about as philosophical as Lotte had ever gotten about anything, perhaps in her entire life. Lotte, however, didn't know the word philosophical, and so she decided that her 'ponderings' were a result of leaving home, and discarded them as quite unimportant in the face of tracking to be done.

If it were a hard task, it'd be more interesting. Few people went deep into the woods, and even Lotte had only occasionally gone towards the dark heart of the forest around her home, where there were hints, mere hints, of strange monsters and stranger people. No, the Rat Piper left a clear trail through the parts of the woods that had been, at places, cut back by fire and axe.

Lotte could see the places where the cutting stopped, could even see where some enthusiastic fool had left a grove of stumps. It was hard, pulling up stumps, and easier to let them rot, if you were lazy.

It couldn't have been that long ago, if the stumps were still there. Not compared to the age of the forest.

Either way, the Rat Piper left footprints in the damper ground, and he moved, it was clear, with the grace and subtlety of a novice. It was a winding trail, enough so that Lotte understood why nobody had followed him before. He doubled back, which was a good move to hide your tracks, actually, except he left such clear indications that he might as well not have bothered.

Lotte was enjoying the sun on her face when she walked in clearings, and she almost didn't want to reach the Rat Piper and his apprentice, since talking to her would no doubt be difficult, and even dangerous. Lotte had no idea how she was supposed to fight a swarm of rats, if it came down to that. She was a good enough shot that she could probably hit them, but if there was a swarm, than the only proper tactic would be retreat.She knew that some rats could climb trees, and others couldn't, or at least not well.

The other proper tactic, of course, was stopping the music by any means necessary, but the thought of killing a human being was disturbing. It would be killing, in that she had no way to control how bodies reacted to her shots. She had to assume that anyone she shot with a well-placed arrow might die, so that she'd feel lucky if they didn't.

It was something Lotte would have to get over. But she still thought that killing the Piper, Aldrich, would be a bad idea.

Of course, not everyone agreed.

"If'n you can kill him," Freidrich said as he let Lotte step into the house. "I'll pay double whatever you're charging."

Lotte looked around. It was shabby, of course, but his wife, whose name Lotte still hadn't learned, clearly had put labor and effort in trying to make it the best shabbiness she could. She'd swept up, though the straw on the floor meant that it'd catch some of the refuse. His wife also had food cooking already, and she offered a chipped, half-broken bowl of stew for Lotte, and gestured towards the seat. She sat down, saying, "What he's done is cruel, but I don't know if I can kill him for it unless I have no choice." She began eating the stew, never one to pass up a meal. She was eighteen, and her father had joked with watery eyes that now that she was gone, there'd actually be food that lasted for more than an afternoon before it was all eaten up.

It was thin and watery, but there was a slight flavor of certain plants that some people used to add a sort of spice to the dish. Not real spice, which was expensive and only for the merchants and nobles, but enough to help its taste.

"We don't need womanish doubts about violence. You're an adventurer!" Freidrich pointed out, bellowing loud enough that it was followed by a coughing fit.

"Dear, as long as she deals with the problem that's enough, right?"

"I… suppose," he said, after he'd finished coughing so hard his whole body had shaken with each cough, as if he were about to collapse.

"What's your name?" Lotte asked 'his wife.'

"Hilda," the woman said. It was a common name, and Lotte knew three Hildas and a Hildegard.

"Do you have somewhere I can stay? If I don't drive him off today."

"Of course! Just as long as you don't take too long. What's your price?"

"A single black Pfin," Lotte said, without even a moment's hesitation. She wasn't sure she liked the man, but it would be cruel to ask an actual price.

"What can you buy with that? Not even a white Pfin?" Freidrich asked.

"I'm not planning on buying anything with it. It's a token," Lotte said.

There were black Pfin, made with whatever metal was lying around, and there were White Pfin, like the ones she had in some quantity in her coin purse. They were not all silver, or else they would have been far beyond most people, but they had silver in them. This gave them a steady value, whereas the black Pfin were what you traded for apples, or a dog's breakfast, or the right to bed down in someone's filthy hay.

She thought she might whittle a religious charm and find some string, and make a medallion of sorts of it.

It'd be nice to have something to remind her of her first mission.

They were camped in a small clearing, with two tents set up, and a fire in-between them. There were rats swarming around the main path, closed in by what looked to be a circle of blood. Lotte knew far too little about Rat Piping, but she knew that it was more than just controlling rats with an instrument. It was hard, though, to tell the stories from the reality.

Lotte snuck up carefully. She watched out for twigs, she tried to step where she wouldn't leave tracks in the dirt, and she kept towards the dark edges of the trees as she moved closer, until at last she was only a dozen feet from the camp.

Alddrich and his Beast-person apprentice were standing there, talking.

"I'm going to go back to town, go around the long way. We need more food, and I need time to think about how we're going to deal with the farmer, Lisbeth."

"Deal with? He's… just a farmer," the rat-girl, Lisbeth, argued. "He doesn't have anything to really steal, and if we hurt him too bad we'll turn the village against us."

"You're right, girl." Aldrich shrugged, though he was hunching up a little as if he were an animal about to spring. "But you can't have people thinkin' that a Rat Piper does anything for free. The rest of the village, and the Headman, agreed to pay me, but--"

"I understand, sir. But didn't the headman pay for him?" Lisbeth asked. "Hardship, or somethin'?" The Rat-Girl spoke with a faint accent that Lotte couldn't quite place.

"That old bastard is just too cheap. Well, we'll show him. I just have to figure out how." He paced around a little and then said. "Watch things while I'm gone. Practice your notes, girl." His face grew darker for a moment and he reached a hand out to grab her shoulder. "Careful that mouth of yours. Don't question, and don't be soft. If anyone crosses you, you hurt them twice as bad back. That farmer hasn't tried to kill me, or I'd do it right back."

Lotte decided that he should never learn of what Freidrich had asked about.

Lisbeth was staring at him. "Do you understand?" he asked, in a voice low enough that Lotte barely heard it.

"Y-yes sir," she said, sounding shaken, and her whiskers were stiffening in an odd way Lotte couldn't place.

"Good girl," he said. "Mind this place. Perhaps I'll see if there is fire oil for sale. Burn out any food they have stored. Let them go begging for it."

Lotte thought that this was not so different from murdering them, even with the most generous sort of village. Besides which, Freidrich had pride as heavy and hard to shift as a tree blocking any such path of retreat.

Lisbeth nodded, though uncertainly.

"Remind me to talk to you about killing later," he said, giving her a glare that told her he meant it.

"Yes, sir," Lisbeth said.

She stood stock still, her tail stiff, her ears raised, until he was long gone. Then Lisbeth slumped down, shaking her head a little sadly.

Lotte chose that moment to step out, with her hands raised. Lisbeth didn't have any weapons, or else Lotte would have been even more careful.

Lisbeth turned, staring at Lotte as she approached. Her face was blank, as if she was somewhere far away, but her tail was swishing back and forth rapidly.

"You," Lisbeth said, quietly. "You're that adventurer I saw approach the hut as we were leaving."

"I am."

"Then I suppose you've been listening in?" Lisbeth asked.

"I have been. I wished to talk to you," Lotte said.

"I'm Lisbeth, but you know that too, right?" Lisbeth asked, taking a step back. "If you were planning on attacking me, I can scream loud enough to call him back."

"I don't want to do that," Lotte said. "All I want is to do is help someone. You don't gain anything from hurting them, do you?"

"No, but my Master said we should do it." Her body seemed to twitch a little as she said the next bit. "I owe him a lot. If you try to hurt him, I'll stop you, no matter what it took." Lisbeth's voice was low, but filled with the sort of threat that seemed like the shifting of the air right before an animal attacked. It wasn't helped by the way her features were just a little different than Lotte expected, up close.

Lotte smiled, raising her hands up a little farther, trying to think about what she could say. "You owe him a lot?"

"Yes. The specifics are none of your business, but if you want to know how unlikely it is I'll betray him: he saved me when he could have killed me. And he's training me." Lisbeth's ears were curled forward oddly, and Lotte couldn't be sure what that meant.

"How long have you been his apprentice?" Lotte asked. "I've never met a Rat Piper."

"Eight years. Now, you should go," Lisbeth said. "If he finds you…"

Lotte noted the worry on the girl's face, the concern. "Why are you so worried? You shouldn't be afraid of him."

She hadn't been afraid of her parents, had been a good child in that respect.

"Maybe I shouldn't, but I just… owe him so much." She got a far off look for a moment, before shaking her head.

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen summers," Lisbeth said, her cool smile wobbling. "Not sure how long that is."

"Can… can I ask something of you?" Lotte asked.

"No, you should--"

"If he is planning on burning the field or their house or hurting someone, could you tell me? I know we just met, but." Lotte gave her best smile. "They should at least know to be able to flee, or… or to find a way to convince him to stop."

Lotte would have offered her own money as a portion, except she'd heard what the piper had said. The debt had already been paid, he was just vengeful. Besides, Lotte feared it would just encourage him to do it again.

"Only if you tell me if you plan on attacking him."

Lotte shouldn't promise that. She'd tell him, and then…

But she nodded. "Agreed." She held out her hand, and they shook on it.

There was very little to say, then. But Lotte decided to say it. "I haven't told you my name."

Lisbeth looked startled. "You… huh, that is some smile. Then what is it?"

"I am Lotte, of the next village over. I'm a hunter."

"Ah, hunting!" Lisbeth said, her ears perking up a bit. "I've done a bit of trapping, lean days. Though just for spice. You never starve as a rat piper, not if you're desperate enough."

Lotte considered all of the layers of meaning behind these words and nodded. She wasn't sentimental about survival, and she wasn't proud, not in ways that would prevent her from surviving. But she couldn't imagine the taste of rat. "Seems practical."

"That's Aldrich for you," Lisbeth said, the fondness like a brush of dew on grass, making her face entirely transformed. "He's the sort who always has an answer, always knows what to do. Not like me." Lisbeth shrugged. "I guess I must be lonely, to talk to some enemy who came out of the forest." She shook her head, her tail twitching in what Lotte guessed was worry.

"I've never met a beast-woman before," Lotte said.

"Well, here I am. And there you are." Lisbeth sighed and pointed in a random direction. "There's time before he gets back, but I don't want to risk it." Lisbeth curled in on herself, in a way that made her wonder what Aldrich was to her, that he could inspire such fondness and yet also such fear. Lotte turned to leave. "Oh, and, nice hat."

Lotte, feeling more pleased by that compliment than the comparative trust she'd been given so far, grinned from ear to ear, and felt cheerful enough to try something. She had her equipment with her, so it shouldn't be so hard to…

*******

Freidrich stomped into the house, exhausted after a long day of work. Spring days were backbreaking work, as hard as winters were sickly. The broths were thin this early in Spring, but lively, and he hoped his wife had done her best to make it tasteful. The woman was a good cook, and kept house well, though he had to wonder about her sometimes. Did she regret not having children? Everyone said that a woman needed a child or two, and regular sex, or they burned up inside as with a fever.

Freidrich never forewent the duty he owed to her, nor her to him. But there was something wrong with him, something that made him curl up at the thought of more than what was needed. In his drunk moments he wondered what sort of man he was, that he couldn't have children and didn't feel the spark of lust that others did. All he'd have to show for this life when he died was the work of his hands, the crops he'd planted.

What little coin he'd saved up, since with the way he was declining, she would be his widow as well as his wife. If that time came, he was not going to have anyone saying he was a failure of a man.

His wife wouldn't understand that, the pride a man had, or perhaps she would, in some odd way. She took pride in her housework, so…

He smelled something unexpected when he trudged in, hands still damp from washing away all the mud and grime of the day's work. It smelled like meat.

Inside, near the fireplace, there was a second pot, the stew already scooped out to eat, and inside it came the smell of… birds?

"I had time, so I caught three birds," Lotte said. She was sitting at the kitchen, still with that mannish hat on. She was an odd girl, but she was an adventurer, and what could you do about that?

Hopefully she'd save them all a lot of time and trouble.

"Three?" he asked. "We can't eat three. And woman, you can't pluck birds well." It was the simple truth. She had no practice.

"So we took them over to Goodwife Hulda, and she plucked them--"

"You accepted charity from that--"

"We plucked them," Lotte continued, speaking quite out of turn. "With her help, in exchange for one of the birds. Two was enough."

"Lotte convinced her to eat the Maiden's Scream," Hilda said, her voice oddly gleeful.

"The… what?"

"Bird you find out here. It has a scream like a woman dying," Lotte said. "Or what they say that sounds like. It's not supernatural, or at least it's as easy to kill as any bird, but they say eating it's bad luck."

"Ah, and Hulda, that witch, doesn't believe in luck," Freidrich said, realizing it was quite true. For someone who knew a little of the old magic from down south, perhaps bad luck meant nothing.

"Maybe not," Hilda said. "Sit down, dinner will be ready soon, and some meat to go after it."

He didn't have a seat. Instead he walked over to smell the birds. He glanced over at Lotte: she was a good hunter if nothing else, and a single black Pfin and a place to stay was no real cost at all. Certainly not enough of a cost to ask hard questions, just yet.

Still, it had been so long since there'd been much meat.

The cauldron smelled a little something like hope.

What does Lotte do next?

[] Go to the village headman, whom she has seen before, though never spoken to. Surely he might have some power to talk to the Rat Piper and warn him off of anything too drastic. At the very least, it'll be a help for later.
[] Aldrich is a proud man too. He wants revenge. So deny him it. Hunt food for the family so they eat better than they did before he started cursing them. Trade some of it with others for things for the family. Make him mad, and make it seem pointless.
[] Confront him non-violently if and when he comes back to talk to Freidrich and Hilda. There are those that might view him as someone who can't be challenged, can't be questioned. Being able to do so and get away with it would perhaps show them otherwise.

*******

A/N: So it goes.