Post by tom on Sept 13, 2020 18:32:52 GMT
Nighttime in Frog Bog
by Bugloss, aged 28 1/4
I love the night. It might seem like an odd time to watch the light but I prefer it. The daytime just has too much going on - so many colours and textures and shapes I can only get the teenciest fraction of a fraction of what there is to see and even then it overwhelms. But at night little threads of radiant silk weave through the dark and I can actually see them for what they are. It's how I like to get to know a place - sitting at night, watching the light skimming off the earth and air.
I'm sitting on a cart in the middle of Frog Bog, keeping watch. The cart belongs to Coppertong Mining Corp and we're its escort, taking it to the Hammerfall Smithy in Daring Heights. This is my first roadtrip outside of Port Ffirst since I arrived in Kantas and I'm excited to arrive there. Our journey's been slow, the cargo is heavy and the road uneven - at least, the parts of it I've directed the cart across. Places to rest are scarce and none of us slept well the first night out in the Bog. I'm tired and dirty and I've never felt more like an adventurer! God, I hope it's called Bog because of the marsh, otherwise I'm going to have some serious scrubbing to do. At least we've eaten well. Dille managed to find a bounty of the tastiest mushrooms out here - I still don't know how. She showed me where they grow but whenever I look I just see marsh. I suppose that must be what expertise is. One day Bugloss, one day.
Tonight is our second night out here. The chorus of 'ribbit, ribbit' somehow lives on the air - it never stops but not once have I been able to pinpoint its source. A hundred little eyes of light blink across the swamp, diffusing through the mist so that hues of red, yellow, orange and blue wash over me like lush chords. Which reminds me, I must ask where Indeterminant Objection found his trousers, they are quite splendid. He's got a positive energy, it's rather infectious. And muscles! I'd like to say I helped lifting the cart round that fallen bridge, but I really didn't, it was all him. I'm sure he and Terence, our cartmule for the journey, will remain fast friends after our work is done. Tollin, the chap from the company who is doing the driving, doesn't seem to enjoy his job much. That must really suck but I get the feeling he might never be happier than when he has something to be unhappy about. Skovvakor doesn't trust him. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have understood why, but since then, my time in Port Ffirst, I do wonder if he has a point. I suppose adventuring must change you. I just hope it's for the better.
Moonlight trills over the patchwork of earth and water, a stream of dancing sparkles - like thoughts and words connected unfiltered, unmanipulated, without the slightest indirection. One of our band is a cleric named Nikja. My word she can talk! If I try to talk like that I end up face first in a jumble words before I've even mumbled a greeting but she could talk her way round anything. So impressive. If those blinking eyes turned out to be a squad of frogs, mounted on giant spiders and waiting in ambush, I wouldn't be surprised if she could talk them down before it came to blows.
Sitting here, perched on this little cart I feel like a king. Not that I could be a king, nor would I be. Blaze. Now there's a leader. If it wasn't for her I'm pretty sure we'd still all be sitting in the Cavernous Seashank struggling to digest the ripe array of drink. And she has ideas. Not like my ideas which would see everybody dead before you can shout "Not like this!" but good ideas, like, when we're changing the wheel on the cart don't get underneath it, lift it up instead. Stuff that would never occur to me.
I feel the sun start to rise behind me, not by its light but by its heat. This Bog is indeed quite a special place - I think I could be very happy here. But now is not the time to linger. Today, Daring Heights!
by Bugloss, aged 28 1/4
I'm sitting on a cart in the middle of Frog Bog, keeping watch. The cart belongs to Coppertong Mining Corp and we're its escort, taking it to the Hammerfall Smithy in Daring Heights. This is my first roadtrip outside of Port Ffirst since I arrived in Kantas and I'm excited to arrive there. Our journey's been slow, the cargo is heavy and the road uneven - at least, the parts of it I've directed the cart across. Places to rest are scarce and none of us slept well the first night out in the Bog. I'm tired and dirty and I've never felt more like an adventurer! God, I hope it's called Bog because of the marsh, otherwise I'm going to have some serious scrubbing to do. At least we've eaten well. Dille managed to find a bounty of the tastiest mushrooms out here - I still don't know how. She showed me where they grow but whenever I look I just see marsh. I suppose that must be what expertise is. One day Bugloss, one day.
Tonight is our second night out here. The chorus of 'ribbit, ribbit' somehow lives on the air - it never stops but not once have I been able to pinpoint its source. A hundred little eyes of light blink across the swamp, diffusing through the mist so that hues of red, yellow, orange and blue wash over me like lush chords. Which reminds me, I must ask where Indeterminant Objection found his trousers, they are quite splendid. He's got a positive energy, it's rather infectious. And muscles! I'd like to say I helped lifting the cart round that fallen bridge, but I really didn't, it was all him. I'm sure he and Terence, our cartmule for the journey, will remain fast friends after our work is done. Tollin, the chap from the company who is doing the driving, doesn't seem to enjoy his job much. That must really suck but I get the feeling he might never be happier than when he has something to be unhappy about. Skovvakor doesn't trust him. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have understood why, but since then, my time in Port Ffirst, I do wonder if he has a point. I suppose adventuring must change you. I just hope it's for the better.
Moonlight trills over the patchwork of earth and water, a stream of dancing sparkles - like thoughts and words connected unfiltered, unmanipulated, without the slightest indirection. One of our band is a cleric named Nikja. My word she can talk! If I try to talk like that I end up face first in a jumble words before I've even mumbled a greeting but she could talk her way round anything. So impressive. If those blinking eyes turned out to be a squad of frogs, mounted on giant spiders and waiting in ambush, I wouldn't be surprised if she could talk them down before it came to blows.
Sitting here, perched on this little cart I feel like a king. Not that I could be a king, nor would I be. Blaze. Now there's a leader. If it wasn't for her I'm pretty sure we'd still all be sitting in the Cavernous Seashank struggling to digest the ripe array of drink. And she has ideas. Not like my ideas which would see everybody dead before you can shout "Not like this!" but good ideas, like, when we're changing the wheel on the cart don't get underneath it, lift it up instead. Stuff that would never occur to me.
I feel the sun start to rise behind me, not by its light but by its heat. This Bog is indeed quite a special place - I think I could be very happy here. But now is not the time to linger. Today, Daring Heights!
