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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 2539201" data-attributes="member: 3192">Kayla began examining the many colorful wagons.  One had a sign with an open hand upon it.  Intrigued Kayla knocked.  A young woman with long flowing hair answered.  “Yes! Please come in!  I will read your fortune, yes?”  Kayla did not enter, but the woman came out to her anyways.  Seeing the woman grab Kayla’s hand, Dram and Dalin rushed over fearing an attack.  “You will go on a long journey,” said the woman reading the palm.  “It will be dangerous.  You will have many adventures.”  Kayla laughed. She asked the young woman’s name. “I am Diedre the Seer.  I see your future.”  She looked at Dram and Dalin.  Some of the other team members started to walk over.  “I will read your future too, yes?”  Many of them agreed smiling.  The fortunes told were rather simple.  Afterward Kayla entered the woman’s wagon for a short talk.  Dalin noticed several flickers of light go off inside.  He wondered just exactly what Kayla was up to.  When the two women came back outside Diedre unharnessed a horse and pulled it up alongside Kayla’s.  It was announced that Kayla had found herself an apprentice.  It seemed odd, but Diedre left her people quite willingly.  She waved goodbye and the team was traveling again.  The time was close to midnight, but no one was tired.  After only another hour they reached Holmfaust.  Most of the rooms were full at the Red Lion Inn, but Darius managed to secure a few beds in the hostel room from the innkeeper.  The rest of the team had to sleep in the stables.  Even though the hour was late the common room was bustling with people.  Kayla and Diedre went upstairs to converse, while everyone else relaxed and listed to the most recent gossip.  Darius was not nearly as shunned by the common folk here.  He felt a little safer, but did not want to press his luck.  So instead he took Cyrus up to the bar and bought him a fine meal.  Tongues wagged on all sides in conversation.  Dalin and Dram had their work cut out for them as the tried to join in different ones.  Warily the two maneuvered around the patrons making sure never to bring up Darius’s name.  Unfortunately, the topic came up nevertheless.  They heard ‘Darius the Dwarf’ had replaced a commoner lord named Strom Miller and now was openly commanding Keep Margrave.  Ducking around, Dram heard another farmer talking about how a man named Gil from Hamfast had quite a price on his head: a whole cow for whoever brought him in.  Taking his father by the hand, Dram quickly led him to the room upstairs.   Next, a flutist struck up a tune and Rose came out of her hiding spot in the corner.  She began singing a Fey song in her own tongue.  The farmers and townsfolk of Holmfaust stared in amazement.  As she finished tears were flowing down their faces.  Sensing a challenge, Cyrus stood up on his bar stool and began a song himself.  “There once was a lass who owned a bucket.  She couldn’t walk straight, but boy could she…” “STOP!” shouted Darius.  “I too have a song to sing.”  Darius started a drinking song with several verses.  Changing the dwarven words to Common though, the tune was a little off.  But no one seemed to care.  Between verses he pounded his tankard on the bar to keep in tune.  Once they learned the chorus the whole crowd joined in.   Apparently the anger against dwarfs was not as deep as Darius had first believed.  Afterwards, all the humans who had tried to drink along with the song were passed out on the floor.  Later that night, after everyone was asleep, Cyrus opened one eye.  He had only feigned dozed an hour having rested while tied on horseback.  Tiptoeing around, he gathered some things: shoes, a bit of coin, some of Darius’s clothes, and other miscellaneous supplies.  Piling up the clownish clothes he had been given he wrapped the blanket he had been wearing around them and left the Cyrus-shaped bundle under the bar.  Then he snuck away in the early morning light.  The rest of the team slept in the following morning.  The constant traveling had worn them thin.  When Darius finally awoke Cyrus was nowhere in Holmfaust to be found.  “What happened to him?” he asked.  “It is obvious, no?” replied Diedre the Seer.</blockquote>

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