Akara

Gonar, Northern Stryre, 6th April 1601

Riding north along the Varensen road near the end of a spring day, the elf Animir sighed as she saw the long queue to enter the city. She'd hoped to get in and get a rest and some dinner soon, but it looked like about an hour's wait to get through the gates.

As she dismounted and loosened the girth of her horse, she heard a commotion further up the line. a small figure in a dirty green cloak darted away from the gate, with a huffing guard in hot pursuit. The small fugitive was crying "Please help! please help!" in strangely-accented common at people in the line. The guard grabbed the cloak, but the occupant wriggled out and escaped. A general gasp went up as it was revealed as a kobold.

As the guard returned to his laughing comrades, the obviously distressed kobold trudged off down the line dejectedly. After it had passed, Animir swung back up into the saddle and followed it until it was out of sight of the town, then caught it up and intercepted it.

Akara the Kobold

Overcoming its' initial terror with kind words, she enquired why it was trying to get into the town. In very broken common, the small reptillian responded "Akara's people are in trouble, and he needs help," he brightened fractionally, "your help, to free them. Akara has searched long and his hope is becoming small. Can you help Akara?"

Feeling sympathy for the little creature, Animir began to enquire more closely. Akara, it seemed, was his own name; the trouble was that "lizards" were making his people dig in the mountain, which was "six suns that way", which unless she misremembered the maps she'd read meant the nearby Vision Peaks.

After the sobering experience of Fingon's death aboard the Angelina during her last adventure, the elf was aware that to tackle a job of this nature she was going to need companions, to watch her back in battles and (hopefully) help lug the loot home. Gonar was a good place to recruit such people, but it was abundantly clear that she couldn't take Akara inside the town. She therefore settled him into a cluster of rocks with enough food to last him and went into the town to obtain supplies and acquire companions.

Her experience of human towns was still limited, and this was easily the largest she'd ever visited. She wandered around rather wide-eyed for a while before finding a weaponsmith's establishment called simply Cedric's.

Cedric turned out to be a bulky, uncomplicated smith with an eye for business and no particular fondness for non-humans. He dickered with Animir, trading very sharply until he'd obtained the Grackle's rapier and Fingon's Bracers of Armour for a very good price.

Leaving his business, she next visited Barry's Magical Supplies, a rather overblown emporium dealing in the trappings of wizardry. Barry himself was rather a fop, and overwhelmed at having an actual elf in his premises. He obviously prided himself on his ability to speak the High Tongue with one of the Fair Folk, and insisted on speaking that language throughout. He was painfully bad at it.

Nonetheless, he bought the last of poor Fingon's scrolls, providing Animir with enough cash to purchase nearly a month's travel rations for herself and her mount.

 


 

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