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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Destan" data-source="post: 1023754" data-attributes="member: 12157">Ciddry RevisitedIt took the party an hour to make the journey from the forested meadow to the town of Ciddry.  It took John less than half that to realize he hated Breof’s pigs as much as he did the Rornman they had left dead on Olgotha’s altar stone.  The infernal beasts continually got beneath the hooves of his mount, causing the Pellman no end of exasperation.  He was forced to adjust his seat and jerk his reins numerous times.  His companions had prudently dismounted, but he was not yet ready to walk alongside the mud-covered swineherd and his charge.  Their return to civilization – if the backwater of Ciddry could be called such - was not at all what John had envisioned.  If Laughing Luke and the others could only see me now, John mused.  Why, they’d break their lutes over my head.  And rightly so.  Breof, blessedly, deposited the hogs with his wife and four sons outside the Coastgate after informing everyone – with a regrettably loud voice - that he had found ‘the rich man’s quarry.’  The swineherd’s family swarmed about John and companions.  They were as annoyingly underfoot as the pigs had been, and equally covered in offal.  John found it difficult to ascertain where pigs ended and men began.“It appears his whole brood is like to dance from joy,” John whispered to Kellus. For a horrifying moment John thought Breof’s woman, smelling of poultry and pork, was about to hug his boot.  It was nearly too much to bear.For his own part, Kellus enjoyed the show.  He found himself smiling as he watched the ebullient commoners.  His own voice was pitched low.  “Four crowns is no paltry sum for a pig farmer, John of Pell.”John deigned not to reply, but rather stared stoically ahead as the party continued onward past the crowd of commoners.The guardsmen atop the Coastgate looked upon them with suspicion.  With suspicion, that is, until Breof grandly announced just who they were.  Immediately thereafter a sergeant strode forward from the sally port and gestured for them to pass under the portcullis.  “No, no – you need not pay.”The man’s largesse only served to further sour John’s mood.  I have traded my reputation as a dashing Pellman for a handful of coppers.  The bard looked away from Kellus to seek a better audience for his complaints.  He eyed Baden – the dwarf glanced about with wide eyes; the towns of men apparently still held some pleasing novelty for him.  John sighed.Breof and Raylin conferred quietly with a stableman inside the gates.  At Raylin’s urging, John reluctantly dismounted and handed his reins to the pock-marked teen. The party took a few moments to remove various items from their saddlebags.  Amelyssan was practically reverent in the way he pulled the staff free from his own harness.  Then, without further delay, the companions fell in behind Breof as he led them into town.“The stables will not charge us to tend our mounts,” Raylin remarked, “at least for the remainder of this day.”“Lovely,” John quipped.  “Doubtless all of them will be sharing a drink with Breof, and the pig farmer’s new-found crowns, this very evening.  This Tower Sage has much to answer for.”The party ignored his comment.  Breof, for his part, became a veritable tour guide.  He gestured toward a rusted gibbet and explained it was the abode for a merchant, Harold Pimplobeen, who had once betrayed the town by opening the gates to Gordian raiders.  The swineherd ushered them past a fountain, the water surprisingly clean, and pointed to an iron torch set at the base of a weathered statue.  “That torch never goes out, mark my words as truth.  Been burnin’ for nigh on three decades.”“A rather simple dweomer,” John commented.  But Breof, like his companions, seemed adept at ignoring him.  Insufferable.The day was not a market day, bless Tymora, so John was not forced to wind his way through additional throngs of Ciddry’s townsfolk.  The entourage made their way toward the opposite end of town, past wooden buildings as glum and non-descript as those few citizens they passed.  They halted before a large, two-story structure – one of the few buildings within Ciddry fashioned entirely of stone.“Wait here, good sirs,” Breof instructed, smiling like a cat.  The farmer marched into the inn with the air of a triumphant general.John stood in an ensuing silence made uncomfortable from recent memory.  The last time the party had been within the Guildsman’s Inn they had agreed to Aramin’s offer of employment.  John struggled to forget the Rornman.  The bard turned his mind and eyes to a number of gulls as the birds flew above the inn’s flat roof, seemingly suspended in midair by the constant winds off the Conomora.The party needed not wait long.  Breof returned, meaty fist clenched around coins, with a man in tow behind him.Poridel Poriden, Tower Sage of Val Hor, appeared an icon of comfortable prosperity. He was perhaps a handful of years past his prime and a handful of pounds overweight.  His teeth were only slightly stained from smoke and drink, and his hair only partially white – mostly at his temples.  Soft gray robes of Larren wool covered his frame, the pearl-colored tower marking him as a Valudian sage emblazoned upon his breast.“Ale and warmth, friends,” the sage greeted them with a smile.  Much like Aramin had once done, John mused.  The bard was in a distrustful mood.  “I am Poridel Poriden, lately of Val Hor.  I trust you shall forgive me for seeking you in such a manner.”John glanced from Poridel to Breof.  “Not likely.”The sage laughed.  “Aye, well, you have my apologies.”  He turned to Breof, offered his thanks, and watched the swineherd depart before once again eyeing the party.  His face grew serious.  “We must talk, and soon.  But not here.”John shook his head.  He had heard this type of talk before.  “Sage Poriden, please understand we are tired and hungry.  Though my companions may do without,” John glanced at Vath, “I would very much like nothing more than to wash the stink from me.”“Certainly,” Poridel agreed.  “I only wish to speak with you.  I have secured the top floor of this fine establishment and would be honored if the lot of you would join me for dinner.”  The sage’s gaze stopped upon John.  “After you have bathed, of course.”Kellus nodded.  “We are not averse to conversation, Sage.  But we would know the intent of your summons, if it could be called such.”Poridel’s eyes were somber.  “I wish to discuss matters you will find important.  Again, forgive my rather churlish means of finding you, but I needed to be sure I located you before…before others might have.”Amelyssan’s eyes were clouded.  He leaned upon the blanketed staff and spoke for the first time since entering the town.  “These matters you wish to discuss.  Do they deal with-”Poridel showed his palm.  “They do.  But, again, now is not the time nor the place to speak of such things.”  He looked to John.  “I have a flask of Arn brandy upstairs, and have had a hog on the spit since morning, in the hopes of your safe return.”“One of Breof’s pigs, I presume?”  John’s voice was even, but his mood was significantly brighter from the mention of Arn brandy.  Expensive spirits, that.  Well worth wasting the evening in conversations that would most certainly be filled with riddles and tales of long-dead Tarn Calian bishops.Poridel's laughter came easily.  “Actually, yes – the pig was one of Master Breof’s.  I trust it shall not taste any worse because of it?”“On the contrary,” John answered with conviction, “nothing would give me greater pleasure.”</blockquote>

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