Previously on The Path of Poison…
After narrowly escaping an attack from beastmen thanks to Sepp’s hexes, a poison magic with a bad reputation, the group came to terms with their feelings about it, and finally found themselves within the walls of a Voerlund town…
Chapter 6 can be read here
First, there was a fuzzy darkness, and then the bleared image of a Voerlund inn room as Sepp slowly awoke. The bed was soft, the blanket warm, there was only the faintest murmur of activity from down below. He had no idea what time it was and he didn’t care. He felt completely regenerated. He sat up and, scratching his head, studied his homely surroundings a little more than he had last night. His bed lay against the left hand wall was as you entered the room, just beyond it was another—Barosh’s, who must have awoken and left already. Against the right wall was a small set of drawers atop which were two wash basins, and then beyond these was a window with a small table and chair by it. Next to this, on the right, was a door leading into a small privy room. The walls were of a dark, warm wood panelling, not just bare board. They looked old, he thought. A wavering brass disk sat upon the door itself, illuminated by the good strong light coming in the window—the sign of the World Serpent, the god of Voerlund of Silverden.
The actual amount of time that had passed since the attack on the village felt...ages ago. In truth, he was mildly unsure, which was just a little odd. Had it really been just two days ago? Sepp got up and walked to his wash basin. A towel sat by it for his use. He splashed the pleasantly cool water onto his face, and recalled the events of the last night.
They sat in a nice little corner, festooned with all kinds of amusing decorations: little art pieces like Voerlund landscapes dulled with age and smoke, and woodcuts of old castles and figures none of them recognized. A couple of the bar’s workers came over every so often to ask about them, including the barman, to whom Skivor slipped a note or two for more drinks and peace. Sepp was explaining to them his knowledge of the language differences between Silverden and here, in an effort to equip them for what might be some time in the kingdom.
“So, the thing is, it’s mostly intelligible, especially near the border where we are. But the further you go, the more stuff changes. My dad was from further north, so I have an idea of it. G’s, J’s, and Y’s are pretty tough. But I think, in general, their G sounds are our Y’s, you know, Yamesh and Gamed, but their Y’s are our J’s. So a name like Jeal from Silverden is more like...Yal here, sort of. When in doubt, go for a harder sound. Kind of like the name Skivor—your name is probably Voerlunder originally.” Barosh down his glass and spoke with the sound of someone struggling.
“Got any, ah, examples of that?” Sepp thought for a second.
“So, my dad’s name, Búcher. In Silverden, they all called him Byoosher. Well the ‘ew’ sound was hard even for me, but the ‘ch’, that’s more in your throat. It’s not Booker. So, our ‘sh’ is their throaty hard sound. Also, their hard ‘k’ sound is like our ‘ch’ sound. Does any of this make sense?” he smiled nervously.
“Wait wait,” said Seva with a chuckle, “you mean they say cheese…”
“Yeah, like ‘keese’ almost—but! You’d need to have a pretty thick accent for that.” She snorted.
They talked on and off for a couple hours, sometimes going a little quiet and musing on the decorations, especially the big axe over the fireplace, sometimes about themselves. The topic turned, at a late point, as to what plans were for the future. What to do once they got to Lundermark? They had surmised that Sepp had his healing to fall back on, though it’d probably be a rough start, as he had the idea he wouldn’t be able to just open shop wherever he liked. He knew about the Kastrokyrion College in southern Silverden, one of the two great colleges the veneracy is famed for, where they pioneer the study of medicine. It produces physicians of a kind that outclass village apothecaries in every way, and they go through years of training for their careers. All kinds of checks and regulations would probably befall any healer in a city, and that was a world to traverse by itself. Barosh, he was a good hand at any general labour, that’s always in supply, he was comfortable with that. Seva had her own ideas, of which Sepp believed only he was aware of, and she didn’t share much with the others other than vague indications. Skivor they questioned as much as they could. What was a woodsman going to do in the midst of a city?
“Make my own niche, always have, and carry on the tradition for my brother.”
“He was a woodsman, too? What happened?” asked Barosh.
“Died in the attack.” He shook his head. “Wasn’t able to save him quick enough.”
Barosh began to blubber out an awkward apology, but Skivor just gave him a gentle prod with his elbow and said, “Don’t worry about it, lad.”
In that instant, Sepp immediately softened towards the gruff old woodsman. God, no wonder he was like that. He spoke up then, changing the air.
“So, how did you all meet anyway?” Seva picked up on the tactic.
“Myself and Skivor were neighbours for years. I was a good customer of his.” Skivor assented wordlessly. “Well, we found ourselves going in the same direction when it all began. You know how it was. Chaos. Had some temple guard fending off horsemen and all. I met Barosh coming out of an alleyway, looking absolutely terrified and sort of just dragged him along.
“I think the Serpent guided me,” Barosh said with half a smirk.
“And I’m sure you’re glad it did!” replied Sepp. Barosh’s smirk flashed into a full smile hidden behind an ale mug.
Sepp stopped for a moment over the wash basin, then dunked his whole head in and shook it around. Now that felt much better. He had an idea to mention maybe finding a bath house, as the inn was too small to have their own. But he suddenly felt a familiar pang then. It was a jab of not really loneliness, but an acute awareness that always came whenever he found himself alone for a minute. Barosh had fallen asleep immediately, the buzz from the drinks and light conversation had been brushed aside by that awareness, and Sepp, somewhat ponderous by nature, had focused on it. He supposed this was how it was going to be. In those moments, Sepp felt an immense desire to read through his father’s grimoire. There was only so much it could do, though, same for rummaging through his pack of healing supplies and hexes. Yet, for all that, something about the distance between himself and the village, as well as knowing he had people to go to, made the pangs that came about his father and the attack feel somehow lessened, and rather than guilt, he felt glad he had some recourse. An odd mix, to be sure.
Sepp looked to the little metal disc on the door then. He reached out with two fingers, touched it lightly, and said a little prayer, though he wasn’t sure how it worked here. Back home they didn’t do much in the way of what would traditionally be called prayer, but they did do a lot of meditation. In Voerlund, the World Serpent was a great but distant guardian who stepped in when times were most dire. It was pretty simple, and he’d learned of it from his father. But some two thousand years ago, a schism had occurred in the faith when a priest had a vision on a riverbank—the Asoliad River, and Silverden had become home to a radically different belief system. They believed that the World Serpent was more like a force or intelligence which flowed through everything, giving form and order to all it touched. It was impersonal in the extreme, but it was everywhere, in everything, all the time. Silverden faithful meditated on it, and tried to live in accord with its order, thus gaining guidance of a kind. The one thread which remained in both branches was the importance of knowledge and learning. For Voerlunders, they might ask the Serpent to pass an eye over them and make sure things were okay, but it wouldn’t just fix everything, instead it opened learning to them. In Silverden, learning meant knowing more about the Serpent. So regardless of whatever form it took here, or really took everywhere, Sepp asked for guidance, or to help him follow the path just a little.
Sepp headed downstairs and walked through the swinging doors of the inn. The mission today was to investigate any and all possibilities of transportation out west. They also felt like maybe they should try to avoid the other refugees if they could, even though there was likely to be no problem. It just felt a little awkward, they’d all agreed. Sepp came outside in a loose tunic, breeches, boots. No traveler’s hat or cloak, for which he was glad. Though around his shoulder was slung Búcher’s pack, with all its contents. He didn’t feel safe leaving it out of sight, for various reasons. He found Barosh leaning against a wooden support, watching Skivor and Seva—but mostly Seva—walk away, having just bid goodbyes. Barosh explained they were to split up for a bit and start looking around, but to take it easy, then meet back in a couple hours at the inn. Although they felt some measure of anxiety, really, there was no particular rush. They had lodgings, the town was safe, best make what they could of it. Barosh mused on buying weapons—he’d been given a sum of coins to for them to use on whatever he deemed necessary. If they were on the road again, being armed couldn’t hurt. Beastmen, bandits, who knew what else lurked out there. All kinds of smiths and such here no doubt, and all those fine varieties of Voerlund axes they saw the guards carrying, there’d be something for each one of them. But maybe that was just him wanting to carry an axe around and feel tough. He said all this without any input whatsoever from Sepp, who merely held back a chuckle at Barosh’s expense. Sepp then proffered that perhaps breakfast would be more immediately useful, and Barosh heartily agreed.
They ate street food, a fixture of Voerlund towns and cities. It existed in Silverden’s bigger towns, but Voerlund—especially the capital city Lundermark, was famous for the number and variety of things being sold from carts and stalls. Restaurants were ad hoc here, and several vendors might take up a spot in an open court with natural places to rest. Cuts of meat, fried cheese, dumplings, cooked vegetables, neither of them truly realized how hungry they’d been and the scents which flowed down the streets stirred an excitement in them. They passed through a lightly winding road of several stalls and open shop windows, and tried something from each one. At most of them, Sepp studied the Voerlund script, a blocky kind of lettering with large central characters surrounded by ancillary ones. These rectangular clusters formed whole words. But what really drew his attention was what sat under them—Silverden script. Made sense, of course, this was a major settlement close to the border, probably got a lot of traffic from merchants and other travellers. But still, it made Sepp feel welcome. He studied them as they stopped and ate. Silverden script wasn’t too dissimilar, its clusters were round, and the central characters had their supporting characters inside them instead. But both languages shared the same feature of reducing many words and concepts like ‘and’, ‘the’, ‘of’, ‘if’, ‘in’ and so on into special characters instead of clusters.
Thoroughly pleased with their meal, or rather meals, they discussed what they’d investigate. Some ideas were thrown around. Skivor had mentioned he and Seva might be searching for the upper town gate and what might pass through there. Caravans and such. Maybe even boats on a river. Barosh had the idea some kind of travel bureau might exist around here where they could book official passage with someone. In truth, he didn’t know if such a thing existed, but these larger towns often had all kinds of amenities smaller places didn’t. Sepp was inclined to agree, and in rather good moods, they set off into a tangle of cobbled side roads and alleyways chosen on gut instinct, and hopefully a little divine intervention...
Very interesting passage near the end about the scripts used in the two regions and how they lay out the characters! 🤓