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A little flavour, rumours and stories - Labyrinthe Forum
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> A little flavour, rumours and stories
dnsmantra
post Sep 21 2021, 05:48 PM
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A little background flavour, scene setting, rumour and story, in anticipation of next month's guild special. Characters can decide they've heard about this if they like, or not, up to you. An actual brief will appear next month nearer the time.

Huw


A rattling on the road caused Cuthbert to look up from the cobblestones he and his long time partner had been employed to lay. It was a hard job, this section of the trade road that ran from Scarlene to Takalia, winding as it did through the rocky valleys of the Remus Hills to avoid the marshes and bog ridden lands to east and west. Mudslides and rock falls blocked the road and damaged the path despite everyone's best efforts. But he was an experienced roadsmith, guilded and long since trained to a mastership of his art. His art was a careful blending of ancient mysticism and practical masonry. Each stone one of many in a long chain that sculpted the power of the road, warded it from weathering and eased travel. On a road such as this one could travel between the two cities in under half the time it would have taken were the path mundane, on a good day, less again. It was an art he loved; the sensing of each stone, its placement, the resonance and harmony with the surrounding terrain. There was satisfaction in a good road, and pride too, despite the fact that it kept him away from his family for months on end.

Looking up he saw the source of the rattling. A carriage heading northward. Pulled by a team of four horses, a rare siting in and of themselves, it clattered as it moved over the sections of the road yet to be repaired. A figure in a weather beaten coat sat on the plate and there were no markings of lineage or family. 'Strange', Cuthbert thought; for someone with the wealth to own not one but four Baronial thoroughbreds, he would have expected at least a crest or coat of arms. Strange lot these southerners, if southerners they were.

As the carriage passed a strangeness overtook him, an odd out of body sensation, a tingling in the limbs and a rush of memories; his apprenticeship, his first stone, his first road, first child and then the second, and more, all the highlights of his life flitting through his mind. Time almost seemed to pause, and then as soon as it had started it was gone, save for the faintest of tingling in his fingers. The carriage clattered on down the road and Cuthbert shrugged. Strange people on the road these days. Often were since Pep he mused.

"You feel that too, Halford", he said to his partner, plucking the next stone and skilfully sliding it into place.

"Halford?"

Turning, he saw his partner faceup on the rocks, eyes staring, skin pale.

"No!" he thought, "no no no...".

Scrabbling over he shook him, shouted at him, screamed and cried and in the end even prayed to whomever might listen. To no avail. Halford, who was laughing and breathing and working just moments ago, was as dead as anyone could be.
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dnsmantra
post Oct 4 2021, 08:25 PM
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Elsewhere, in Cordell's Folly, a small village nestled in the alpine steppes of the Gilmedean Hills, Nettle was birthing the fourth lamb of the day. It was the wrong season, and it came off the back of three unexplained childbirths the night before. Violet and her husband, the local shepherd, seemed dumbfounded. By all accounts they'd been trying for years to no avail and then 'boof' a child. Out of nowhere. No bump, no nothing. Nettle supposed it was something in the air. There'd been that storm two days ago and then the rainbow that hung in the valley for the best part of three hours. Surely an omen. And Nettle knew about omens. One did as a witch. She chuckled to herself as bleating its birth into the world, the lamb popped into the barn. They still called her Maiden. Still. Even though she was sixty years young and a few more than that to boot. She didn't really count anymore. But she supposed the Maiden she was, not that there was a Mother or a Crone, but well, that was life. One witch for half a dozen villages. And she wouldn't have it any other way.

Well, good fortune and good tidings to all she thought. She hoped the lambs would survive the snows, and she'd have to ask round for more blankets and hand-me-down clothes for the young-uns, but it was a good time to be alive. A good time indeed.
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