Day 12 of Ready'reat CY 576
Hmph. Another day dawns in Orlane, or tries to, anyway. A dense fog crept in this morning, thick as thieves and twice as chilly. Makes an old woman's bones ache, it does. But the snow is finally melting, and the last of the leaves are letting go of the trees. Change is in the air, you can smell it.
I’m sitting here in my usual corner of the Foaming Mug, nursing my tea and watching the heroes. They call themselves the Saviors of Orlane, you know. A fine, grand title. But this morning, they looked less like saviors and more like any other gaggle of folk trying to sort out their breakfast. Oatmeal, poached eggs... the grand business of heroism starts with a full belly, I suppose.
And what a morning it's been for them. First, the dwarf Sergius turns up again, like a bad penny you’d forgotten you’d lost. Been off walking the deserts, he says, finding bugs. A closed-mouth sort of dwarf, that one. The party takes him back, of course. They’re a loyal bunch, even if they bicker. They even decided to give him a share of their latest haul, just to get him leveled up and useful. Smart thinking. A level-one character is a liability in a place like the barrow maze.
Ah, the barrow. That’s where their minds are set, you see. But not today. Today was a day for what I call the housekeeping of heroism. You don’t hear about this part in the songs. First, there was the healing. A few of them were banged up, and there were hushed talks of who would spend their divine spells on whom. It’s not just a simple matter of waving your hands, you know. The clerics, Aratzi and Nikki, they have to consider if you’re worthy, if you’ve been respecting their gods, if you’ve killed unjustly. I heard Aratzi asking young Los if she’d killed anyone unjustly. She insisted all her killings were justified. That one… she’s an elf of a hundred and twenty-four years, but her soul feels as old as mine. Can’t carry a tune to save her life, though. Kicked out of the elven choir, I hear.
Then came the money. Oh, the money! They scurried off to a private room to divvy it all up. They’d brought back coffers heavy with thousands of silver pieces. And that was just the coin! Later, they went to see the traveling merchant, Tame, who’s set up shop where the old common shop used to be. And the things they pulled out to sell! Death masks, gem-encrusted chalices, ivory bracelets, a silver necklace worth a king's ransom, runic tablets, and more gems than I’ve seen in my long life.
That elf, Nikki, she has a silver tongue. A charisma of sixteen, they say, and she used it to get them a fine price. The merchant appraised it all, for a small fee of course, and when the sums were done... eighteen thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two gold pieces. Can you imagine? Enough to make a dragon blush. Of course, it’s not all pure profit. Young Arnd is in debt up to his eyeballs—thousands of gold—from a curse he picked up. Needed a restoration spell that cost a fortune. See? The songs never tell you about the debts.
They spent a good chunk of that coin right away. The newcomer Sergius needed a thousand gold pieces to train to the next level, plus fifty-four gold for a fancy room for the month. Others bought healing potions at seventy-five gold a pop. Feno, he picked up the lockbox he’d ordered from the blacksmith and went to the dwarven tinkerer to get an excellent, hard-to-pick lock for it. He bought four more good locks for the coffers they’d emptied, turning them into personal treasure chests.
So now they’re flush with cash, patched up, and better equipped. They’re planning to head to Hokk to train, as no one in Orlane is skilled enough for most of them. And after that? Back to the barrow maze. Back to the danger and the dying. That’s the rhythm of their lives. From near-death to unimaginable wealth, and then right back to risking it all again. It’s a strange way to live. But then, it makes for a wonderful story, doesn't it?
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