The Scarred Elf Inn : Vignette 2
The Scarred Elf Inn small snippets, continued.
(non of these are beta'd very well, augh.)
Every scar had a story, and Italia liked telling them. The one across the back of her knuckles usually served as an introduction, the line of pink raised skin easily explained away as ordinary. A stray knife in the kitchen, a bad turn around the corner of a yard. Yet the story told otherwise, just as twisting as the line itself. It wasn’t her oldest scar, and it wasn’t her newest-Italia always began that way, in the middle, one elbow on the bar while she stretched out her fingers and considered how that made the scar pucker.
“That scar,” she’d say, flexing her hand, “-like most wounds anybody ever gets, came from that deadly tincture of stupidity and bad luck that everybody gets a taste of at least three times, if they aren’t really trying. Ten if they might be putting in a little effort, and more ‘n that if they are doing it right. I had decided to go into Port Silvmouth-“
Which usually earned a small jerk and a sudden appreciation in the Campaigner’s eyes, a sharp sudden attention that Italia hadn’t had before.
“-on a run for supplies. I didn’t have much choice, I’d just worked out of a mine infested with crawlies and I’d run out of counter-poison halfway back up. I could feel it working at my insides, crawling away at my intestines with a distinct burning feeling. They say you can’t feel the poison work, but I’ve always paid attention to the burn. The numbing is when you get into trouble, that stop of the pain. It means things have died and you need a cleric, a temple, fast. One of the major ones if you aren’t quick enough.
“I’d struggled back up and blessed be, the sun was up at high noon, and the few stragglers chasing me back up didn’t like that much. Especially after I’d lost a decent dagger to stabbing one in the eye-- I’d gotten that one off a friend in Kesmyth for a favour. So I was half dead and squinting against the light, mostly sunblind, when I struggled back through the brush and towards the nearest road I could find. Port Silvmouth was just half a day’s walk away, and that says something for the crawlies seeing as they still were there really, and I needed more if I wanted to see the night.
“Took my nearly until the dusk-time to get there, when the gates like to close, so you know how badly I’d been feeling the poison. Maybe I’d still had enough counter-venom in my when I’d been bit, or that last bite hadn’t been too bad, or that I’d just been bit so much that day I was already building up a mild immunity too it-either way, I could still walk when I got there, clearheaded if only because my legs did that tingly thing when you’ve used them far too much and jolted me with every step. Good thing I could see straight, too, ‘cause the guards ran me through that triply-dammed Cloak-Speak and all the s’s are easy enough, but the metaphors for names are always hell to remember unless you’re Bard-trained, and asked me where I was from.
“Now, if you aren’t familiar with who is and isn’t on level with Port Silvmouth, the common guy’s gonna get kicked back out if he’s lucky and even have all of his clothes if he’s even luckier. If you aren’t-you’ve heard the stories. You can usually pick it up by whose up on guard, and you know that by whose colours they’re wearin’, but this isn’t something you do if you haven’t got a clue or a divine direction.
“So I get through them, stagger down the street, and try to find me an apothecary sign, ya? I ducked into an alley to get my bearings...”
(non of these are beta'd very well, augh.)
Every scar had a story, and Italia liked telling them. The one across the back of her knuckles usually served as an introduction, the line of pink raised skin easily explained away as ordinary. A stray knife in the kitchen, a bad turn around the corner of a yard. Yet the story told otherwise, just as twisting as the line itself. It wasn’t her oldest scar, and it wasn’t her newest-Italia always began that way, in the middle, one elbow on the bar while she stretched out her fingers and considered how that made the scar pucker.
“That scar,” she’d say, flexing her hand, “-like most wounds anybody ever gets, came from that deadly tincture of stupidity and bad luck that everybody gets a taste of at least three times, if they aren’t really trying. Ten if they might be putting in a little effort, and more ‘n that if they are doing it right. I had decided to go into Port Silvmouth-“
Which usually earned a small jerk and a sudden appreciation in the Campaigner’s eyes, a sharp sudden attention that Italia hadn’t had before.
“-on a run for supplies. I didn’t have much choice, I’d just worked out of a mine infested with crawlies and I’d run out of counter-poison halfway back up. I could feel it working at my insides, crawling away at my intestines with a distinct burning feeling. They say you can’t feel the poison work, but I’ve always paid attention to the burn. The numbing is when you get into trouble, that stop of the pain. It means things have died and you need a cleric, a temple, fast. One of the major ones if you aren’t quick enough.
“I’d struggled back up and blessed be, the sun was up at high noon, and the few stragglers chasing me back up didn’t like that much. Especially after I’d lost a decent dagger to stabbing one in the eye-- I’d gotten that one off a friend in Kesmyth for a favour. So I was half dead and squinting against the light, mostly sunblind, when I struggled back through the brush and towards the nearest road I could find. Port Silvmouth was just half a day’s walk away, and that says something for the crawlies seeing as they still were there really, and I needed more if I wanted to see the night.
“Took my nearly until the dusk-time to get there, when the gates like to close, so you know how badly I’d been feeling the poison. Maybe I’d still had enough counter-venom in my when I’d been bit, or that last bite hadn’t been too bad, or that I’d just been bit so much that day I was already building up a mild immunity too it-either way, I could still walk when I got there, clearheaded if only because my legs did that tingly thing when you’ve used them far too much and jolted me with every step. Good thing I could see straight, too, ‘cause the guards ran me through that triply-dammed Cloak-Speak and all the s’s are easy enough, but the metaphors for names are always hell to remember unless you’re Bard-trained, and asked me where I was from.
“Now, if you aren’t familiar with who is and isn’t on level with Port Silvmouth, the common guy’s gonna get kicked back out if he’s lucky and even have all of his clothes if he’s even luckier. If you aren’t-you’ve heard the stories. You can usually pick it up by whose up on guard, and you know that by whose colours they’re wearin’, but this isn’t something you do if you haven’t got a clue or a divine direction.
“So I get through them, stagger down the street, and try to find me an apothecary sign, ya? I ducked into an alley to get my bearings...”