Fableman Tarren's Table
/ Marc Nicoletta
Questions?
If you tender forth questions, bring them with a mug in your hand.
I'll tell what I can.
Now, some of you be coming in and asking of some game. I know nothing of this. What do I know? I know the city of Bastone. I know the fear that lurks. I know the people and the places come afar.
Lore. Story. Legend. Most of it almost all true.
Ask.
Ask away.
As good as might be found, I would suppose.
As any good sized city, we've a Banksmith. Turn your iron to weapons or weapons to money as you see fit. I hear his trade price is fair, but I've never had quite enough iron on myself to take advantage of his particular skills.
I think you may find more here looking for aid than offering. If you mean a touch of blight or greenworm bite or somesuch, you can try the apothecary. She's a bit on the moody side, if you catch my meaning. Meaning if she get's up on the wrong side of the bed, quite the row you'll be in for. Watch what you say round her.
Stay away from those street kids, too. Not sure how much you can trust those rats. Always pulling shards from my tip plate.
Good night's rest. Ain't we all been looking for it? Ain't we all...
You speak of fairer times. You speak of different places. You've not traveled long the streets of Bastone.
Ambition? Ambition is the currency of the rich. A comfort and luxury not afforded here.
Hopes? To hope the wall holds. To hope they are never asked to step outside. To hope the outside never steps inside. Hope the guards stand strong. Hope for a meal. Hope to wake up tomorrow. Or maybe for some, to hope not to.
Dreams.
Now would come a thing to say.
Would I could say the same of dreams I have of hope. That there were none. But lately. Something is wrong in the dreams in Bastone. Everyone knows it, but few speak it. Grown men cry out in the night as children would. Others still sleep and sleep on through the day come dawn through supper. Some dreams stay with you when awake, and you still feel them. Still hear them. Still see. They claw at your waking moments.
I myself swear upon animus, Pot's Peace and oath. I've seen within my dreams something watching. Eyes like sunset. Breath like dust.
You could blame witches, you could blame a turned potato, you could blame the rain. I blame the Deepwood. These walls may be holding out the razorvine and the trees, the Ravagers and mire. The walls may make the scar chieftains take a step back. But something is feeling it's way in. Through crack and crevice, every chip and hole. Something presses at the back of the mind, like so much dirt on a cellar door.
Don't ask of dreams.
You want to know the ambitions of a Bastonian? To become someone who never dreams again.
The Broken Oak. If you can get away from Greycane. He sings too loudly.
Beyond that, no place holds candle to it. You ask for Yement's draft. Fine potato mash, burn a hole through your gullet it will, but you won't mind the pain.
Yement, he's sweet on Celeste from the underways. She let's him at first harvest. Pulls the best root for himself, so I heard. Makes a better mash.
The stuff's almost clear.
Fableman Tarren overhears your comment and leans over from his table to yours.
Fantasy, Jeremiah? Wish it were so. Keen be running through dungeons, are you? Dragons? Fairy tales.
This be the Realm Of The Deepwood now. Been out there past city walls at night, have you? You've both legs and what seems a whole mind, so I doubt it. I've been there. I've walked along the Wire Road, I have. Razorvine. Ravagers. Have you not heard of the Scar Tribes?
I've a scar of a slash on my calf wide enough to stick your thumb in. What from? Don't know. The Deepwood. The Deepwood hungers.
I've seen the things in the woods. Big as houses. Dark as death.
Your wife. You want to take your wife along. I'm hoping you've no children. This is no place for them. If you and the lass head to the woods... Well, I hope your children are prepared to be just so many more orphans crying in the streets.
Dungeons. Heh. The wood holds the terror, not some safe stone dungeon. Dragons. Were that the things out there that kind, Jeremiah.
Intrigue. Now that, Jeremiah. Aye, that there is.
My throat runs dry now. You'll buy me that next drink for me saving you the terror of stepping out the walls now, won't you, Jeremiah?