The next morning after Marion finished making breakfast, she decided to open the journal to see if anything had changed. While eating and slowly going through the pages, the village elder knocks on her front door.
“Braiden, come in. I’m just finishing my food; we can talk in the kitchen. I don’t have any coffee or tea to offer to drink just yet” Marion says as she guides him through the house.
Walking into the kitchen Braiden sees the journal and his eyes go wide as saucers, but he quickly catches himself and says “It is no big deal, we should still see a merchant before the winter hits. I was just wondering where you found that book of yours.”
“This old thing? I’ve had this my whole life. The only thing left of my family. I was adopted, never knew my real family” Marion tells him. She picks up her dishes and walks over to the sink to clean them.
“I’m sorry you never knew who your real parents” Braiden said with a tone that bespoke a similar deep loss.
“What did you come here for Braiden?” Marion asks while sitting back down at the table looking over at him.
“Just wondering what your plans were. I assume you will also want to be exploring the local area, so I brought a couple of maps we have of the area.” Braiden said as he starts pulling out a couple of maps from a satchel.
Marion pulls the maps closer to her and unfurls them. The first map was of the region and notated some major finds like various major caves, dungeons, natural resources and various cities. The next two rolls of parchment were incomplete maps of several local cave systems that were nearby.
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“I need supplies before I go anywhere. Do we have a general store or something similar?” Marion asks while putting a plan together in her mind.
Braiden stands up form the table and gestures for her to follow him. He leads her down the main street to a building that looked like it was out of an old western movie. When they walked inside there was an older-looking Beastkin grumbling under her breath complaining about the bandits and how she can’t keep anything worthwhile in stock.
“This is Kaela, owner of Ironpaw’s Trading Post. I’m sure she still has some things she can spare to get your explorations started” Braiden said as he introduced the shopkeeper.
“So, you are our savior then?” Kaela said without turning around, she continued to pick up the items that were strewed all over the floor.
“Yeah, that would be me. Even decided to stay and take over the old forge, if there are no complaints” Marion replied.
As soon as Kaela was done with her current task, she turns around “I assume you know how to work a forge, if the kusarigama at your hips is any indication.”
I tell her what I’m looking for, a backpack and some rations along with several feet of sturdy rope. She tells me to stay here, and she’ll have a look in the back, since she hasn’t had the time to properly clean up and put things back in their place. Close to an hour later Kaela comes out with a pack, that looks like it was already packed.
“Here, take this. It is the least that I can do since you saved the town, and in case you want to think about paying me back for the supplies, it’s an investment” Kaela tells me as she hands me the pack.
She tells her and Braiden thanks and headed back to her new house. Once in the kitchen, she sat the pack on the floor while she sat in a chair slowly unpacked to see what was in it. After going through the pack and only keeping what she needed for a quick exploration trip to get her bearings of the surrounding area. After putting the extra supplies away and the pack by the front door, she decided to make dinner for the night and set out after she woke up the next morning.
