Immersive Ink

coffee wrote:
Dieter will eat sparingly, just enough to keep body and soul together.

These people seem friendly, but those sacks of silver could tempt them beyond their normal ways.

danhem wrote:
Ulric eats quietly leaving the talking to the more smooth tongued members of the party. He keeps his eyes on their host, however. He too is not ready to let his guard down.

eris wrote:
Olaf takes a fairly small portion, and eats quickly before excusing himself, saying he needs to carry some food to a shy member of the party who has remained outside. He will then take food and a mug of water (or beer if it is available) out to the barn for Desmond.

"Desmond, they seem friendly enough, but it might be a good idea if one of your heads sleeps while the other keeps watch...if you can do that."

waysoftheearth wrote:
So enthralled are the farm folk with Gustave's elaborate story telling that they barely notice Olaf ducking outside with a plate of food.

"Tell us more," they insist collectively.

"You clapped yers eyes on Saxxon, eh? What was 'e like?" they ask.

"So Saxxon an' 'is lot got their comeupence at last?" asks Ma Pillock.

"So that there silver come from Saxxon, who pinched some ov it from us, didn't ee?" Pa Pillock thinks out loud, "So oi reckon that makes some o' that there ours," he concludes.

"Oi reckons that's the right ov it," say his sons.

mushgnome wrote:
Highbough eats with quiet, detached dignity.

tonneau wrote:
"Saxxon?" says Gustave, eyebrow raised theatrically, "oh yes, we left him with a scar or two ill wager. Though the ugly brute eluded our best efforts to apprehend him."

"As for silver", he continues, "I think you most assuredly deserve all that is rightly yours, and I will see to it personally that this comes to pass ere we depart", and bows deeply.

"But for now, fortified by fine food and beverage, I think some of my comrades would be most augmented by a brief respite in, lets say, a pile of hay?" he says, eyes drifting toward the barn.

"Tomorrow we continue to Ket, and rest is much overdue."

waysoftheearth wrote:
"Ooh!"

"You never!"

"Ahh!"

Gasp the farmers as Gustave weaves his dramatic tale. They are mightily impressed.

And when a filling dinner is done, the Pillocks agree to let the company sleep in their hay loft, so long as they "don't get up to no funny business", which is truth is unlikely given how exhausted everyone is all of a sudden.

The full buy weary adventurers stagger out into the night drizzle and scurry across to the barn, where upon they find Desmond/Mondes and Olaf already luxuriating in the hay loft above a dozen or so animals. The barn has an animal pong about it, but it is warn and dry, and by far the most comfortable place any of you have slept in nigh on a week.

It's crowded to be sure, but everyone is so tired it hardly matters, and pretty soon all have found a place to lie down and listen for a moment to the patter of the rain on the roof...

Zzz...

Zzz..

waysoftheearth wrote:
It isn't long before cranky old Mondes is the only one with an open eye...

"Lazy buggers," he mutters to himself.

eris wrote:

waysoftheearth wrote:It isn't long before cranky old Mondes is the only one with an open eye...

"Lazy buggers," he mutters to himself.

Olaf whispers to Mondes, "If you start to fall asleep, wake me and I'll take over keeping watch."

waysoftheearth wrote:
The night passes.

Sometime shortly before dawn, Mondes tosses one dried pellet of sheep dung after another at Olaf's head until he awakes with a start.

"Oi!" mutters the unsavoury Halfling. "I thought you looked too comfortable," he says with a smirk.

He then begins tossing pellets at Highbough...

The dawn is chilly, but the barn is reasonably warm. The animals are beginning to stir, while the rest of the company snooze on in the hayloft.

Olaf thinks there might be some sounds of activity coming from Pillock's farmhouse.

What now?