I needed a break from organizing the repair work for the outer walls, so this afternoon, I stopped in at Cayden\u2019s Keg. It had been a few days since I was last there, and I was missing the atmosphere.<\/span><\/p>\n When I first arrived in Breachill, it was where I spent most of my evenings because it\u2019s the most comfortable for me and also fairly lively\u2014almost bordering on bustling\u2014which makes it a great place for music. It also didn\u2019t hurt that it\u2019s less expensive than the Wizard\u2019s Grace, and less violent than the Pickled Ear.<\/span><\/p>\n At the slowest part of the day, the place is a mix of busy and subdued, and that\u2019s what I was in the mood for. I just wanted to sit quietly at a two-top, have a drink or two, and watch and listen to people.<\/span><\/p>\n What I was <\/span>not <\/span><\/i>expecting was for Brynne to come out and sit down with me.<\/span><\/p>\n Cayden\u2019s Keg doubles as a temple of Cayden Cailean, and Brynne is, for lack of a better term, the head priestess. It\u2019s kind of a loose religion, mostly involving ale, and lots of it. I have visited several of his temples in the past couple of months, and they all look pretty much like this. Though Brynne\u2019s is in better shape than most. Breachill even manages to make <\/span>drinking <\/span><\/i>earnest.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI missed seeing you in here,\u201d she said. Which was surprising, since I\u2019d only been in town a few days before all <\/span>this <\/span><\/i>happened. I said as much.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI could tell when I first saw you that you had some stories in you,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I recognize a traveler when I see them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI did walk here from Druma,\u201d I said. \u201cThe long way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPath of Commencement, along the rivers, then a right at Elidir. Am I close?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I laughed and said, \u201cSpot on. Though I stopped in Dustspawn and Saringallow.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cSaringallow. That must have been an experience.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAlmost as much fun as a bout of cholera.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n We traded stories for a while. Word had already spread about everything we’d been doing over the past couple of weeks. Without mentioning Alseta’s Ring, I told her about the Bloody Blades and chasing Voz. The latter\u2019s arrest came as something of a relief to quite a lot of people, it seems. I guess Voz did not go out of her way to be liked. If anything, she did the opposite.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou know, you should tell that here. Maybe tomorrow night. Only embellish it a little,\u201d she suggested. \u201cPeople are curious about the new stewards of the Citadel. Showing them you\u2019re more fun than the last ones would go a long way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I smiled and said, \u201cI would love to do that! Thank you. Though, hopefully, we don\u2019t have to work to convince people we\u2019re better neighbors than the Order. I am pretty sure they slot in somewhere along the cholera-Saringallow scale.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n “Not much convincing, no,” she said with a grin. \u201cBut as the Placard of Wisdom says: <\/span>Good folk don’t need convincing. They just need meeting.<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n My first, and second, impressions of the Wizard\u2019s Grace were that it was too expensive, and too full of itself.<\/span><\/p>\n I was wrong about the latter, and I\u2019ve made peace with the former. I don\u2019t know why I had the reaction I did.<\/span><\/p>\n Or maybe I do. I think it reminded me too much of the Drake. Obviously, the town is different, and the people are different, but it <\/span>feels <\/span><\/i>the same. The food, the music, the atmosphere, the way it respects its patrons, and, crucially, the people those things tend to attract. I know now that the Wizard\u2019s Grace, like the Forest\u2019s Drake in Macridi, is Breachill\u2019s common room.<\/span><\/p>\n I spent so long trying not to think about what I had lost that when I found something like it again, my first instinct was to push it away.<\/span><\/p>\n I was there late morning, before it started getting busy, and was able to catch the owner, Trinil, alone.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI owe you an apology,\u201d I said.<\/span><\/p>\n She gave me a perplexed look. We\u2019d probably not spoken more than a few words to one another.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor what?\u201d she asked.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI judged your establishment before I understood it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This took her aback, but then she half-smiled and said. \u201cThat\u2019s a rather formal apology.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI practiced.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Her grandfather was an adventurer, and apparently a well-known one. This whole tradition the town has of people eating that famous boar stew before the Call for Heroes? It was her way of honoring his memory. \u201cBefore setting out on whatever road called to him, that\u2019s what he would eat. He loved it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019d unknowingly been mocking sentiment. It\u2019s the sort of thing that makes me feel like a heel.<\/span><\/p>\n We got to talking. Like Brynne, she enjoys hearing adventuring stories, but for a very different reason. Brynne wants the excitement they bring to a room, stories that will enrapt a crowd of patrons, or create a sense of camaraderie. Trinil listens because every one of them reminds her of her grandfather, just a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\n Most of the town knows something about us. Trinil had heard I came from Druma, and had traveled here on foot. She asked what started me down this path.<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, that is an uncomfortable story, but I could give her a kernel of it.<\/span><\/p>\n During that time in the Palakar Forest, I was so busy grieving that I never stopped to wonder how I was still alive. Not because of the attack, but because I was alone, in a fey forest, with no food or water, just a few arrows, and a dagger. By all rights, I should have died there. The fey are not known for their restraint\u2014or their sympathy\u2014and many are openly hostile to intruders. Yet somehow I stumbled into that place, desperate, alone, and grieving, and walked out again three weeks later.<\/span><\/p>\n It changed me. Not just in the metaphorical sense. When I left, I could see in twilight as though it were the middle of the day. The Forest had <\/span>marked <\/span><\/i>me.<\/span><\/p>\n That <\/span><\/i>was the story I told. Something terrible happened, and I was forced to enter the Palakar Forest alone, with nothing to my name, and it accepted me. <\/span>Adopted <\/span><\/i>me. Treated me like one of its own.<\/span><\/p>\n She didn’t say anything for a while. Somehow, that felt like the right response.<\/span><\/p>\n The first time I entered Lamond\u2019s Lament, it was because I had no choice.<\/span><\/p>\n When I left Kerse, I believed I could plan my way through starting over. I budgeted every coin, calculated what I could afford, and convinced myself that enough discipline would keep me afloat.<\/span><\/p>\n In Macridi, I thought it worked.<\/span><\/p>\n Once I reached Breachill, I was forced to confront the reality that my plan hadn\u2019t carried me far at all. Over and over, I misread good fortune as accomplishment. Then, in a matter of hours, I was back where I’d started, only this time with even less.<\/span><\/p>\n The norns gave me a destination and enough money to start the journey. They did not spare me from arriving broke and hungry. And that\u2019s how I found myself standing outside Lamond’s Lament, trying to convince myself to walk through the door.<\/span><\/p>\n I honestly didn\u2019t think I belonged there. I didn\u2019t feel like I <\/span>deserved<\/span><\/i> to be there, because I believed I was simply living with the consequences of my actions. But Iskaryn was insistent, and I was too exhausted to argue with her, so I went inside.<\/span><\/p>\n Renatta didn\u2019t ask me why I was there. She didn\u2019t ask me what happened. She asked me my name.<\/span><\/p>\n Today, I walked into Lamond\u2019s Lament because I needed to understand why.<\/span><\/p>\n Renatta saw me come in, and she knew. She smiled at me, handed me an apron, and suggested that I start by shadowing the other volunteers. I watched as someone new came in, looking every bit as uncomfortable and embarrassed as I\u2019d been only a few weeks before.\u00a0 Renatta did for them exactly what she did for me. She asked them their name. She served them personally. She sat down with them, and she listened.<\/span><\/p>\n I went in expecting to stay for only a couple of hours. Instead, I stayed all day.<\/span><\/p>\n As we closed down in the evening, she said to me, “Some people come through those doors because life knocked them down. A poor harvest. An illness. A lost job. They just need a little help getting back on their feet. Others have been down so long they don’t remember what it feels like to stand.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThe important thing to understand is that it doesn\u2019t matter why they come in. What matters is that they come in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been so cynical about this town, but I think I finally understand why Breachill is the way it is. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Arodus 19, 4719 Citadel Altaerein Evening I needed a break from organizing the repair work for the outer walls, so this afternoon, I stopped in at Cayden\u2019s Keg. It had been a few days since I was last there, and I was missing the atmosphere. When I first arrived in Breachill, it was where I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[88],"class_list":["post-5526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aoa-journal","tag-aemi"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5526"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5530,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5526\/revisions\/5530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dungeonetics.com\/gamediary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Arodus 20, 4719<\/h1>\n
Breachill<\/h2>\n
Afternoon<\/h3>\n
Arodus 21, 4719<\/h1>\n
Breachill<\/h2>\n
Night<\/h3>\n