Looking for an Inn (Open)

[Fallan Windchaser]

As he listened it occurred to him that he had very little experience of shipping as a means of getting things around. He'd seen the sea, seen boats floating around on it, but never had he stepped foot on a boat, not even while it was moored. He sort of had the idea that boats just floated along without very much effort and that the most effort involved was simply to put things in and take them out when it reached the other end of the journey. On that basis supplying a city by sea had seemed easy.

He was starting to get an inkling that perhaps it wasn't quite that simple. His grasp on geography wasn't that strong but he did have an idea of where Sunberth was and it made him realise that actually it was quite a long way around by sea.

They had indeed arrived at the Inn and Hadrians words now recalled another memory, the warning against the beer, but he shrugged it off. How bad could it be?

"Well thank you for that and it looks a reasonable place, so you've certainly deserved the beer. Let me stable my horse and we can go in." He led the horse into the stable and tipped the stable boy to look after it and put his gear up into a room.

"Well then, let's go and try this kelp beer then."

[Hadrian]

"Don't say I didn't warn you," Hadrian offered with a smile, leading the way into the inn's common room.

It was nothing fancy, but it was clean and the cook was an artist working with limited resources, which made the fare imaginative within the constraints of cost.

"The food here is good," he said, "in case you're hungry. I'll just take a table for us while you get the beer."

[Fallan Windchaser]

There were some indications that Hadrian was right for there were some interesting smells wafting over the bar when Fallan moved there to order. It was unfortunate though that a stronger smell predominated, one which reminded him strongly of the docks on a hot summers day when there had been no wind.

The smell got worse as the two beers were served up onto the bar and for a moment he closed his eyes and fought the urge to retch. It passed though and though he'd eaten some things in his time which were rank, only the spike of raw alcohol which unmistakably rose through the smell of rotting fish convinced him to proceed so he carried the beers back to the table and took a seat.

He picked up one of the beers and raised it in toast. "Your health," he said and without allowing himself a moment to think, brought it smartly to his lips and tipped it up. Foul liquid filled his mouth and with it came the urge to retch again; something which almost made him choke. He fought the reflex, knowing the longer it stayed in his mouth the greater the need to either spit it out or choke. Eyes bulging he decided to swallow and as he did he dropped the beer back on the table where it slopped over.

"Uhh," he choked out, throat burning from the alcohol and eyes watering from the disgusting brew. "You enjoy that?" He grimaced with distaste and shuddered.

[Hadrian]

"I don't know if enjoy is the right word," he said, smiling as he sipped his own, but holding back his laughter so as not to offend the proud Drykas trader. "One does get used to it after a few years, and I keep stores of normal liquor back at my place. This place might have other alcohol, but they run out often in Zeltiva. I don't know why. But there's always kelp beer, and the locals love it. Strange, I know."

He moved the mug around between his hands on the tabletop.

"So what news from inland?" he asked. "Most of what we hear here comes by way of the docks."

[Fallan Windchaser]

He noted abstractly that Hadrian had not matched his gulp but had instead sipped more circumspectly and that seemed the wise choice. He was disinclined to drink any more of the brew but had nothing else to hand and in any case, it couldn't taste any worse could it?

He sipped and put the beer down firmly. "Inland is starting to become passable again now that winter is past. I spent much of it holed up in a small town in the back of nowhere, so really I came here to find out the news as much as anything," he grinned at that and shook his head. "I'm not sure that I have much to tell you that is interesting about what is happening inland, but I'm glad I didn't try to come through that pass over the winter."

It seemed a fair guess that supplies would be short here in the city just now since the winter would have closed off supply routes and stopped boats from putting out to sea. He wondered just what it was that was in demand here, at least things which he was capable of bringing in over that pass.

"So what is it that you do here?" The mans clothes seemed unusual and likely denoted something, but what escaped Fallan.

[Hadrian]

"Me? Oh, I'm a student at the University. Soon to graduate, I hope, and then travel... to learn more. It's sort of my thing, learning. I'm just not sure yet where I will go. Traveling would be my other thing. I've traveled mostly by ship, though. I imagine it's different with a horse."

He thought of suggesting the raw fish wrapped in rice and seaweed, which actually worked with the kelp beer, but he didn't want Fallan to get overwhelmed all at once.

[Fallan Windchaser]

Bissfully unaware of the option to have something to eat which would likely have turned his stomach even more than the beer would have done, the Drykas focussed on the answer to his questions.

"A student? Well now that is interesting," he replied with evident curiosity and it helped explain the garb he thought, though quite why it was necessary escaped him.

"Of course you might imagine that I'd only ever suggest travelling by horse, and if mine isn't a Strider then still you'd be hard put to have a better travelling companion than a horse." He stopped himself from extolling the virtues of the horse as a companion and means of transport because it might give Hadrian the wrong idea if he'd never actually ridden one.

"What sort of things are you looking to do when you travel? Will be it to satisfy your curiosity and expand your experience or do you hope to do that as a living?" He realised that he was prying and quickly added, "if you don't mind me asking that is."

[Hadrian]

"I don't mind you asking," he said, amiably enough. Part of what he liked about Zeltiva and his hometown, Syliras, was the amount of travelers who went through it; he liked sharing his own tales sometimes as much as hearing those of others.

"I will be traveling for all those reasons, actually. To satisfy my curiosity and expand my knowledge... There are many places with many different types of magic and perspectives on it. I feel like the more I know, the better I can be at what I do. Of course, I doubt any Drykas would teach me Webbing, but it would be interesting to have a dialogue with one of your shamans to see if there are any bits of esoteric wisdom that might be shared outside the horseclans.

"Don't think I haven't thought about learning to ride a horse, too. I mean, I can sit a horse; I'm just not... adept. I guess that's the downside to studying so much, being a bookworm. I'm skinny and worthless in a fight." He grinned at his own expense. "Still, I'm sure I'm going to have to ride horses to get to some of the places I want to go." He sipped meditatively at his kelp beer then, considering that.

[Fallan Windchaser]

As the man spoke, Fallan nodded encouragingly, but he considered to himself that travel was probably not all that some might imagine it to be. He wasn't about to interfere in anothers dreams though by pointing out that being cold and soaked through miles from the nearest shelter when your rations had run out three days before wasn't as much fun as might be imagined.

"Strangers are welcome in the grass lands," he replied, "so long as they are respectful of course. I'm not saying that it's impossible for you to learn webbing while you are there, but you'd have to come up with a good reason for someone to teach you. But if you want to travel and make your own choices as to where to go when the sun rises then you'll need a horse or be prepared to walk, and the grass lands are a very long way across even with a horse." He smiled back and sipped in his turn at the foul liquid; it didn't get any better but now the alcohol content was starting to ensure that he wasn't quite so worried about it any more.

"I guess that will happen though when you've finished your studies. If you have dreams of travel then you surely chose to study something suitably challenging too I expect?" He ended the sentence on a questioning note if Hadrian cared to pick up on it.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian smiled to Fallan, who might have been surprised to know that this unprepossessing young man in worn student robes was the son of a Syliran merchant prince. It was true he didn't know the first thing about uncomfortable travel, but he would find out eventually.

"I came here with the intention of just learning everything -- naïve, I know. But somewhere in that first year I latched on to magic. Now I've studied a little bit of everything, but mostly magecraft. I'm better with world magic, didn't inherit much raw talent in personal magics as some of my colleagues. Oh, and anthropology. It's interesting, and it will help me peacefully coexist with other peoples when I'm trying to learn from them. Go native, you know?" He grinned.

"It's mostly about respecting the culture. Like I wouldn't go stay with a Drykas pavilion and not expect... you know, it's just a totally different experience." He was a little vague in that regard. Most of his travels had occurred when he was younger, and his anthropology studies were largely theoretic in nature. "But I won't, you know, go to Sahova first thing... I'll cut my teeth on more friendly peoples. And as for the Drykas, I thought I would sail to Endrykas when it's near the sea, which happens from time to time from what I understand... Moving tent city. So awesome."

He beamed. If one got Hadrian a drink and asked him questions about the future and academics, he could go on and on until you bought another drink to smash over his head and shut him up.