Chapter 11

I promised to tell about the village we were sent to.

Approaching the village we see trash around the village wall and that the gate is open.

Close by we note that the place is a dump.

There is trash and filth all over the streets and almost all the houses are hovels that are in bad shape, unpainted and seemingly uncared for. The only exceptions seem to be a huge house on a small hill and couple of normal looking houses at the foot of the hill.

The people on the streets seem lackluster and moving in slow pace, not seeming to care much about anything. Some look at us and then ignore us.

I have never heard of such places in the kingdom. Most people and places in the central kingdom are buzzing with activity and most people are industrious and always seeming to be doing something.

This gives me a strong feeling of "wrongness" in the place. I can also feel that there is something else in the air, a somewhat oppressive feeling, but cannot pinpoint it.

I mention the fact and Garis comments "I have never seen anything like this anywhere in the kingdom on my travels and although I do not have the feel that you do for such Luvirini, even my senses tell something is wrong."

Nedia says "I doubt it is just the disease that is the problem"

Anneli then gets a strange look in her eyes and says in the clipped tone she uses when she is upset "You know, on way here I stopped on the north coast of Emer for about a week when switching ships. There were people with the same hopeless look on their faces there. Those were the chain gang slaves." She then looks at us with hardening eyes and continues "We had better get to to bottom of this."

We all agree that we will do that. After a quick planning session we agree that we will pretend to be ignorant, to just talk to the Mayor and promise to get the herbs. Then we will go out of town to look for them and come back at night to try to find what is going on.

We ask some people for directions to Mayor Desden and mostly just get ignored, but eventually someone points us to one of the two normal looking houses.

The house in question seems to be in disrepair too, with most of the paint having peeled off and so on.

Garis knocks on the door and after a while a rail thin man with gray hair and glasses opens the door and asks who we are and what we want. He does not seem to be lackluster as the rest, but seems distracted by something.

When Garis explains that we are from the Adventurer guild and that we are here to help with gathering of the herbs for the disease cure he seems lost for a few seconds until he seems to remember and says "Ah, yes, the Baron said that he would send for adventurers. Please come in and I will explain what is needed."

We step in and notice that the inside of the house is in slightly better shape than the outside, but still somewhat untidy and clearly in need of some repairs.

He leads us through a small entry to a room with some comfortable looking chairs and quite many bookshelves.

He tells us to take a seat while he goes to prepare tea and leaves us there.

I go to the bookshelves and look at some books. They seem to cover many topics, but a majority is about history.