@monstrous, backdated to the 17th

[thelesserevil]

[ Having arrived on the 14th, Renfri has spent some time figuring out her new surroundings and exploring the confines of her cage while doing her best to remain unnoticed by the... disguised captors? Illusions? Fellow prisoners slash lab rats? She doesn't know. She doesn't even know if this place is real or one of Stregobor's illusions (far more likely than being whisked away to someplace outside of space and time to feed foreign gods with her suffering, though going from the frying pan into the fire would be her kind of luck), and if not that, at least the work of another wizard (almost guaranteed.)

Either way, you can't keep hiding forever and it's not like this place even has a bar to go make her presence known, even if she weren't keen on using this "phone" thing anyway because it seems to permit for communication without giving away who or where you are. ]

I have two questions:

1. Is it always so cold here?

2. What kind of settlement has alcohol but no tavern?

Comments

@luusi

[grief]

1. No.

2. Two parts: One. Any cabin can be a tavern if you try a mite. They're dingy and smell bad enough.

Two. Why would you want to drink in a tavern anyway LOL

[thelesserevil]

Because getting drunk by yourself is just sad but getting drunk in a tavern comes with songs and a brawl if you're lucky.

[grief]

Maybe my vision is blurred by my experience with dumb RPG games and period shows but taverns look like germ-infested rat traps.

Wouldn't you rather get drunk in a club? You can still fight and not catch some toilet disease

[thelesserevil]

A club? The only kind of club I know is the one you use to smash people's heads in. Something tells me that is not what you're talking about.

[grief]

Oh are you FROM an RPG? Explains some things lol

That probably means nothing to you.

A club is a place where you put on your tightest clothes to dance in, drink a lot (and hopefully for free), then do a spot of molly (just nod at this, yeah) before you pass out in a cab going home.

Insert a brawl or two in there anywhere, still holds up the same. And unless it's a particularly nasty back alley, you won't get the plaugue.

[thelesserevil]

That sounds like a good evening! If you pay for my drinks I'll wear something tight.

I have never heard of RPG. I'm from the principality of Creyden, and was last in the village Blaviken, in Arcsea, before I was brought here.

[grief]

Okay not an RPG but maybe some fantasy novel trilogy. Again, means nothing to you.

I'm actually intrigued by this prospect, though. In the absence of any proper club in this drippingly awful place, what else could I do for you to get you into something tight?

[seaboard]

To your first, not at all. It was quite warm when I arrived, but it is midwinter that you have arrived my lady.

As to the latter, this place is most all abandoned. If there were a tavern it is long since abandoned. But if you have a want for a drink and food, you are welcome to come to me, I can give you both.

[thelesserevil]

[ That... is very friendly. This person sounds nice. Now if only she could trust anyone or anything here. ]

And who is my benefactor?

[seaboard]

I am Gilia, Gilia St. Loe. Of the Isle St. Loe, Second-Child and Daughter-Sea to the Great Ocean Spirit and She Who Sings the Ocean to Prosperity.

[thelesserevil]

[ That... is a lot of fancy-ass titles. Hello, blast from the past. ]

So you're nobility.

[ Doesn't really bode well, considering The Continent's nobility. ]

[seaboard]

[ O o p s. ]

Of a kind.

We do not use the word, but I suspect 'Queen' is what translates best.

[thelesserevil]

Fancy. I have yet to meet one that impresses me.

[ Especially so being a princess herself. No, there had been nothing to be impressed by. ]

[seaboard]

The only thing I have a care for my lady, is that you are fed and clothed well, now that winter has well and truly begun. We are so alone here, and I have no desire for anything but all our safety as best we can.

[thelesserevil]

Do you consider yourself the queen of this place then? Caring for her subjects?

[seaboard]

Oh no! Not at al all.

It is just that no one here has ever learned how to ration for winter. Not a notion of how to preserve meat or how much flour will be needed over months without easy access to food. It was most alarming, so I made sure to make the preparations and to ensure everyone had enough in their larder so that if the snow becomes thick, we shall not all starve.

[thelesserevil]

[ Okay. Consider her stunned. ]

How can adults not know how to provide for themselves in winter?

[seaboard]

They have never had to. In their lands, they have these things at the touch of their fingers, so I am told, even in the depths of winter.

Elsewise they have had other people to do it for them.

When I saw the food that we had been given and I realised it was all just sitting there - a whole harvest's worth - I did what my mother taught me too. That is all. I have no wish or want to rule anyone, it was only that I was the one that knew how too.

[thelesserevil]

So what you are saying is that they are either too rich to worry about where they buy their next meal, or could pay other people to do it for them, which also means they are rich.

Not that there is anything wrong with that. We could all benefit from a comfortable life where we can still afford to buy food in the direst winter.

And you're one of these people who either care about others or are very good at convincing themselves they do.

[seaboard]

I do not think they are rich, some of them at least, but as you talk to them, it becomes quite apparent, they live a very different sort of life.

Though I think perhaps, you are a little more like the one that I know, because I must confess that is what I thought as well.

... If I were someone who were simply doing it out of duty and not care, I do not think I would have embarrassed myself crying quite so long over how to preserve so many cabbages.

[thelesserevil]

Are you telling me you cried over cabbages?

[ What. The. Hell.

To be fair, Renfri had been a princess before becoming a brigand, she had also never needed to worry about preserving her own food back when she still had a steady home to do so.]

[seaboard]

Shamefully, I must admit I did. I was looking at nearly a years worth of the wretched vegetable and yet no one else knew how to preserve them, I thought we'd all starve if I did not figure it out.

[thelesserevil]

Did the other people at least help you? If I was looking forward to preserving winter food for dozens of people by myself I'd cry too... or stab someone. Stabbing someone would be more likely.

[seaboard]

Oh yes, that is the most wonderful thing, here. People are so helpful and so kind, as soon as they knew what I was so worried about, they were happy to learn and to help me.

[thelesserevil]

That's strange. I have never known people to be terribly helpful unless there is something in it for them.

[seaboard]

Perhaps, but, I am glad that they found it in their hearts, they are all very good people here.

But if you wish to look at it this way then - I suppose, well there is. If we do not all work together, we shall starve, will we not?

[thelesserevil]

That's true. But people are a vicious sort. We all have it in us, even the meekest. And a place like this, I would have expected it to bring out the worst in people.

[seaboard]

No, not at all, the best is be found here. We all care for one another, despite all our own queer natures to one another, everyone tries to work together.

It is no small matter of survival, truth be told.

[thelesserevil]

I know that survival is easier when you have a community of people working together.

It's just. My experience is that this community will very quickly start selling another out.

[seaboard]

We have not. It is not easy to live here, there are many strange and cruel things visited upon us. It keeps us working with a common goal, I find.

[thelesserevil]

Better than the other extreme, I guess. Even if I'm still not sure I can trust it.

Well. Contact me if you need me for something, I guess. In the spirit of things.

[seaboard]

Of course, and first of all, I shall deliver all the food that we put together for everyone that comes. I may need Master Geralt to deliver it to you, if that is acceptable? I have a few other tasks I need to complete.

[thelesserevil]

That's acceptable, of course. Contact me if you need anything else. I live in the apartment building in town.

I'll let you get back to your work now.

[seaboard]

Thank You, I will leave it outside for whenever you return.