Eternity RPC Board
09-13-2016, 11:45 PM
While Elke certainly could have sworn she was in the haberdashery for hours, struggling for life against the warm embrace of the troll musk upon her senses, the truth of the matter is that the entire ordeal with the civil beasts surely lasted for no more than several minutes, the sun high overhead having barely moved from the time she entered the village to the time she desperately closead the heavy door behind her and breathed deep gasps of life-sustaining air. Clean air, or at least as clean as the fumes coming off her sun-beaten clothes would allow; the breezes from earlier having died to nothing, the waves of heat coming from overhead would not allow her to fully escape her noxious prison.
Thankfully, not a soul stood nearby to partake in Elke's minor purgatory; she found herself alone in the "road," a few stray strands of tall grasses ticking the sides of her shins between what most surely used to have once been some frontiered vision of a proper cobbled road at some point in the past, now near fully overgrown along its myriad cracks by a lush verdant carpet. The locals, such as they were, probably mostly vacated to their chosen jobs and chores for the remainder of the day while the student sage has busied herself with the two towering trolls and in so doing migrated to portions of the hamlet beyond Elke's immediate surrounds, though there still existed the same group of about three plainly dressed gentlemen back towards the way she entered this tiny patch of civilization. Apparently farmers of some kind, they clutched the tools of their trade, talking in a diction and dialect unintelligible to Elke both in their distance from her and in the foreign undulations of the language, though one might guess weather woes constituted the bulk of their conversation by their constant glances towards the sky.
As to Elke's destination, "down road" could surely only possibly mean that this "Forlag's" place resided somewhere along the stone-based carpet upon which she currently found herself; what used to once pass as some manner of roadway certainly seemed like the commune's widest thoroughfare, all other pathways either sporting packed dirt, not nearly as gracious in width, or both. Indeed, one end of the road seemed to extend beyond the talking farmers and out through what once resembled the idea of a town gatehouse thorugh which Elke previously entered the town; having seen no sign of a "Forlag's" that-a-ways previously, Elke could only assume her target could be found further in town, and so with a deep breath and readjustment of her personal effects, the mageling started her saunter further along the rustic hovels.
Sure enough, her intuition proved correct, as she found herself before a building that certainly did not entirely match the roughly daubed exteriors of the nearby homes. Indeed, the place resided almost completely on the opposite end of the village whence she left the trollshoppe. Aside from a few people tending their vibrant vegetable garden patches and a group of merry children chasing a slightly confused-yet-okay-with-it canine, Elke met no one along her way.
The building itself, which must have been owned by this Forlag person based upon the convenient fact someone previously affixed an embossed brass placard reading "Forlag's Cozy Canker" above a heavy oaken doorway. The entire building itself was only two stories tall, but quite clearly at least four times as big around as any of the buildings past which the wayward witch had wandered; similarly outstanding, the building seemed primarily constructed from whole interlocking fir logs - as opposed to the daub plaster most of the local construction favored - carved with intricate designs of shapes, knots and creatures within the rough bark along the various edges, doors, and windowframes. As opposed to the other homes, this building sported expansive windows on both stories, their casements cast of dark iron and inset with vibrant shades of mostly opaque glass panes.
From the outside alone, it was clear that whoever this Forlag person was, he certainly was either a man of means, or a man of connections.
Inside, the first room in which Elke found herself made Forlag's seem a typical tavern: a large expansive space populated by several long, heavy oaken and benches handcrafted and carved in much the same fashion as the meticulous designs on the outside of the building, the floors of a smooth polished gray stone so flat and fine that no simple masons could have fashioned their faces. Along the various walls hung various decorations from simple colorful banners to large calico and gobelin fabrics embroidered in exquisite scenes and designs...save for the wall behind a long counter, which saw itself home to a host of tapped barrels, from massive floor-to-ceiling affairs to stacks of many dozen barely larger than a bucket, and anything between. All was lit by the dancing lights of the colored glass windows, the mammoth hearth at the far end of the room dead and cold, the hanging braziers long since extinguished from the last night's revelries.
This Forlag must certainly be a man of means, then...but how such means coul even exist in this manner of place might be a niggling question at the back of one's mind.
Conspicuously, the proprietor of the establishment seemed absent from the scenery, the dining hall completely vacant. The entire place seemed lonely, empty as it was; being the middle of the day, people had more productive tasks on their minds than to spend their paltry incomes at a place of bed, food and revelry, but even then one still at least expected the person for which the establishment bore a name might at least be in a place to greet or otherwise keep an eye on those who might slide open a heavy reinforced door and peek inside.
The creepy aspects of such a vacant scene aside, something felt...off, the nagging feeling that not everything was as it appeared. The tingling uncomfortable silent white noise many older mages refered to as the feeling of magic.
Thankfully, not a soul stood nearby to partake in Elke's minor purgatory; she found herself alone in the "road," a few stray strands of tall grasses ticking the sides of her shins between what most surely used to have once been some frontiered vision of a proper cobbled road at some point in the past, now near fully overgrown along its myriad cracks by a lush verdant carpet. The locals, such as they were, probably mostly vacated to their chosen jobs and chores for the remainder of the day while the student sage has busied herself with the two towering trolls and in so doing migrated to portions of the hamlet beyond Elke's immediate surrounds, though there still existed the same group of about three plainly dressed gentlemen back towards the way she entered this tiny patch of civilization. Apparently farmers of some kind, they clutched the tools of their trade, talking in a diction and dialect unintelligible to Elke both in their distance from her and in the foreign undulations of the language, though one might guess weather woes constituted the bulk of their conversation by their constant glances towards the sky.
As to Elke's destination, "down road" could surely only possibly mean that this "Forlag's" place resided somewhere along the stone-based carpet upon which she currently found herself; what used to once pass as some manner of roadway certainly seemed like the commune's widest thoroughfare, all other pathways either sporting packed dirt, not nearly as gracious in width, or both. Indeed, one end of the road seemed to extend beyond the talking farmers and out through what once resembled the idea of a town gatehouse thorugh which Elke previously entered the town; having seen no sign of a "Forlag's" that-a-ways previously, Elke could only assume her target could be found further in town, and so with a deep breath and readjustment of her personal effects, the mageling started her saunter further along the rustic hovels.
Sure enough, her intuition proved correct, as she found herself before a building that certainly did not entirely match the roughly daubed exteriors of the nearby homes. Indeed, the place resided almost completely on the opposite end of the village whence she left the trollshoppe. Aside from a few people tending their vibrant vegetable garden patches and a group of merry children chasing a slightly confused-yet-okay-with-it canine, Elke met no one along her way.
The building itself, which must have been owned by this Forlag person based upon the convenient fact someone previously affixed an embossed brass placard reading "Forlag's Cozy Canker" above a heavy oaken doorway. The entire building itself was only two stories tall, but quite clearly at least four times as big around as any of the buildings past which the wayward witch had wandered; similarly outstanding, the building seemed primarily constructed from whole interlocking fir logs - as opposed to the daub plaster most of the local construction favored - carved with intricate designs of shapes, knots and creatures within the rough bark along the various edges, doors, and windowframes. As opposed to the other homes, this building sported expansive windows on both stories, their casements cast of dark iron and inset with vibrant shades of mostly opaque glass panes.
From the outside alone, it was clear that whoever this Forlag person was, he certainly was either a man of means, or a man of connections.
Inside, the first room in which Elke found herself made Forlag's seem a typical tavern: a large expansive space populated by several long, heavy oaken and benches handcrafted and carved in much the same fashion as the meticulous designs on the outside of the building, the floors of a smooth polished gray stone so flat and fine that no simple masons could have fashioned their faces. Along the various walls hung various decorations from simple colorful banners to large calico and gobelin fabrics embroidered in exquisite scenes and designs...save for the wall behind a long counter, which saw itself home to a host of tapped barrels, from massive floor-to-ceiling affairs to stacks of many dozen barely larger than a bucket, and anything between. All was lit by the dancing lights of the colored glass windows, the mammoth hearth at the far end of the room dead and cold, the hanging braziers long since extinguished from the last night's revelries.
This Forlag must certainly be a man of means, then...but how such means coul even exist in this manner of place might be a niggling question at the back of one's mind.
Conspicuously, the proprietor of the establishment seemed absent from the scenery, the dining hall completely vacant. The entire place seemed lonely, empty as it was; being the middle of the day, people had more productive tasks on their minds than to spend their paltry incomes at a place of bed, food and revelry, but even then one still at least expected the person for which the establishment bore a name might at least be in a place to greet or otherwise keep an eye on those who might slide open a heavy reinforced door and peek inside.
The creepy aspects of such a vacant scene aside, something felt...off, the nagging feeling that not everything was as it appeared. The tingling uncomfortable silent white noise many older mages refered to as the feeling of magic.