The Golden Perch Inn

[Kath]

"It is so great to see you. Really. When you first approached me you told me that you had so much to tell me! Hopefully more exciting than my rather dull story, please do tell!"

Cir laughed as Jadelen stopped her runaway tongue long enough to await the answer to her question. She had almost forgotten the joy of speaking to one near her own age that was not her brother. Her brother, ah yes, that was what she'd wanted to talk to Jadelen about.

"My story isn't a great deal more interesting. Cir and I managed to slip the watchful eyes of those pilgrims and made our way here for a bit of fun, but the journey was as easy as you say yours was and we had a very warm welcome once we arrived. It was what happened this morning that I wished to tell you about! But not here. It seems however quietly you speak in this room there is always someone you haven't noticed who happens to overhear!"

Taking Jadelen by the arm again Cir began walking back to the room she and her brother had shared the night before, ignoring the feel of eyes on her back, knowing it would be Cir attempting to apologise with the soulful eyes that had got him out of trouble with her many times before. She was sure that had she been alone she would have turned and fallen prey to them, but Jadelen's presence gave her the company she would otherwise have been bereft of had she stayed mad at Cir and she stalked out of the common room without a backward glace.

Once they reached the room Cir watched as Jadelen stared round with unabashed fascination, before finally settling down on one of the beds and fixing her with a sharp look.

"So, I noticed some hostility between you and Cir back there, is that what you wanted to talk about?"

Cir nodded sadly.

"Well what on earth happened? You two have always been so close!"

"He kept things from me!" Cir cried out, the anger that had been coursing through her before returning with a vengeance. "He overheard our parents saying some not very nice things about us and rather than tell me he kept it to himself. He broke the rules. We always tell each other everything even if it's horrible, you know that. He just made me so cross!"

Realising she was reaching a level of agitation not really suitable for one of a race known for being cool and collected Cir stopped to allow herself to calm slightly and turned to her friend for reassurance.

"I'm not being stupid about all this am I Jadelen?"

[MaskedNicci]

She hadn't been seated very long at all, when suddenly a loud noise reached her keen and listening ears, and she barely had time to look up to see a mug of ale flying in her direction. Unable to stop the inevitable, she stood up in shock, staring down at the mess of ale quickly soaking through her traveling clothes. Alassë uttered a sharp sound of disapproval, her eyes darting around to fall upon the one who had may as well have walked over and dumped it over the disgruntled female.

The figure she had been watching came over and apologized 'for any inconvenience'. Alassë couldn't help but narrow her eyes ever more in distrust. It just seemed too coincidental that the innkeeper had 'accidentally' thrown drink all over her, just as the man she had been studying leapt up to eagerly 'lend a hand'. Turning back to her wet clothes, she gave a sharp intake of breath before swallowing what was left of her pride.

"I am fine. Or I will be, once I am dried." She let out a sigh, her tone as flat and strict as could be. Alassë desperately tried to subdue forward questioning and interrogation of either of them - an action that was clearly pushing itself foremost in her mind - and deal with the problem at hand.

She knew there wouldn't be other clothes she could change into, and delicately took the handkerchief from the man. "Thank you," she muttered under her breath, begin to dab away at the seemingly endless ale.

[Folwren]

Dick was mortified and utterly speechless. The man who had supposed to serve came to lend him a hand to his feet. Dick was practically picked up and set upright before Elorn turned towards the elf. The man offered his assistance to making her comfortable again.

Dick was still aghast with embarrassment and a feeling of utter clumsiness and stupidity.

He heard the elf reply shortly to Elorn’s offered help, taking his handkerchief and beginning to dab up ale.

“I’m so sorry,” Dick began to splutter out. “I’m so sorry. I’ll run and fetch a towel. I’m so sorry.” Still repeating the words, he hurried away to the kitchen. Tollers and Gable and Cella were there, but he hardly spotted them as he made directly for the towel drawer and pulled out one of them and hurried right back out again.

“Here you are,” arriving again at the scene of the accident. “That will help you more. I am so sorry. Can I offer you anything?”

Looking truly repentant as he offered her the tea-towel, Dick hoped nothing worse would come from her. It was an awful mistake, and the fact that he would happen to trip for once in his life, with a full mug of ale in his hands, right in front of a new customer was too great to fully accept immediately.

[Firefoot]

"You stay out of this, Gable," snapped Cela, taking a passing notice as Dick hurried in, grabbed a towel, and dashed out again. She turned back to Tollers. "I don't see how helping yourself to the pie has anything to do with keeping the youngsters out of trouble - just the opposite, I'd say you're setting a very bad example for them!"

Tollers at least had the grace to look slightly abashed but offered up no words of explanation. Cela couldn't see any excuses that she would accept, anyhow. "Now you get on back out there and do your job like you're supposed to. Master Dick's looking mighty frazzled, and cleaning up spills is your job more than his. And you, too, Gable; I don't need any help in here. Both of you, out!"

The pair quickly obliged, leaving Cela alone in the kitchen. She shook her head. She was the cook, not the disciplinarian - truth be told, a disciplinarian ought not to be much needed around here, but that was such a false statement that Cela nearly laughed out loud. "Now let's see what we can do about that pie," she muttered to herself. She took a knife and cut off the edges where Tollers had fooled with the pie and irascibly tossed out those scraps. All told, at least a quarter of the pie had been wasted, and the common room seemed to be filling up quickly, from the sounds of it. Done is done, she told herself, and set the pie back on the shelf. There's other work to do.

[Child of the 7th Age]

"So? So what?" Tom stared down at his precious treasure and then grinned defiantly at his older sister. After that he snatched up the key with his right hand and began swinging it back and forth just an inch away from Daisy's noise, while continuing to talk, "Anyways, Lil is right. Nothing's happening here. Just some old gammers sawing away at each other. I'm bored. I want to go on an adventure. A real adventure doing things we've never done. This could help us. It really could. Who knows what we would find? Maybe a magic sword or a piece of treasure."

"But that's not yours." one of the siblings objected. "It's one of Master Dick's keys. He carries them on the big iron ring."

Tolman was quick to offer an explanation, "Yes, Master Dick has lots of different keys. He just didn't want this one. He left it sitting in a little basket on the top of the bar. I was trying to help him tidy up the room so I stuffed it in my pocket. That way, it won't bother anyone."

Tom stuffed the key back in the pocket of his knickers and ofered his grimy hand to his younger sister. "Come on, Lil. You lead the way and we'll all follow. I know the key is to the rooms that are just off the common area. It's the same hallway that has the stairs that lead down to the cellar. I think this might even open the cellar door. We can check that out later. Meanwhile, let's all have some fun. We'll find lots of candy to eat and maybe some other nice things." He pulled his sister up on her feet and then stared around at the others. "Well, are you coming, or are you just going to sit here like a bunch of dolts?"

[Folwren]

Lil had no question but to do as her older brother asked her to. He had always had her unswerving devotion and taking a kea wasn’t going to shake it. She didn’t question whether or not he had been wrong. Tom couldn’t be wrong. He was too smart to do that. He never got in trouble, he was so smart, except a few times.

She reached out for his hand and hopped up from her chair. He mentioned that candy might be found when they used the key to get into the rooms. Candy! One of Lil’s many weak spots. Tom payed his followers (or slaves, practically) well, when they did what he wanted. If the yield was good this time, Lil had no doubt she’d be rewarded.

Off she went, Tom’s hand holding onto hers, leading the way back into the hall from which they had just come. Hamilcar, a brother just a year older than Lil, came just behind. Next came Iris, and last of all, dragged most reluctantly by the hand, came Daisy, pronouncing prophecies of doom and destruction, but coming just the same.

Lil finally stopped, nearly half way down the hall, before a promising looking door (although it looked just the same as all the others). “Try this one,” she said, stepping back and looking at Tom.

[mormegil]

Kuric moved with speed that belied his massive girth, slamming his right hand down on the driving his metal spikes into the table splintering some of the wood on the table. Gripping his mace firmly in his left, he set his face within inches of Aranholt and through his gritted he managed to speak,

“Ye don’t speak enough and when ye do ye speak the wrong things, if ye can’t speak then don’t sit with me. I’m tired as it is and then you come and annoy me with your prying questions, I’ll warn you once, if ye do it again there won’t be much left of ye to send back to wherever yer from.”

With that he quickly spun on heels, hefted his pack onto his back and began marching through the crowd of people towards the hallway that would lead to his room. He longed for rest; it had been far too long since he had slept in a proper bed, and oft times the hard rock was his bed and the stars his ceiling. This was, after all, a dwarf who, despite his adventurous spirit, was brought up in relative luxury living with the thriving colony of dwarves living under the lonely mountain.

“I’ll be in my room if anybody needs me, though I don’t expect THAT to happen.”

With the emphasis placed on ‘that’ Kuric thought it should be obvious that he did not, under any circumstances want to be disturbed. His interactions in the common room had put him in a foul mood, and despite the ale coursing through him he wasn’t pleased. First, a hobbit who claimed to love adventure had falsely gotten his hopes up and then some young ruffian was asking about his mithril suit. He would need to be on his guard. With that thought in mind he climbed the stairs clutching his mace and making certain that everybody around knew that he had it with him.

Arriving at the entrance to the hallway he turned to glance all in the common room, taking stock of all the new comers. He saw the keeper of the inn busily mopping up a mess he had made. Normally, the sight of an elf in such a plight would have been the cause of great mirth and amusement but even now he couldn’t enjoy such a scene.

“Durned elf, probably deserved it anyway”

He left with that imagine stuck in his head, hoping that it would allow him to be in a bit better mood. He found his room in short order, and true to his word Tollers had given him a rather large room, he would have to ‘thank him’ Kuric thought, which usually meant giving him a little coin.

Kuric immediately sat on the bed and began removing his boots. Placing his ring and necklace on the table in front of him and placing his pack on the ground on the other side of the bed, he lied down, still fully armor clad when he realized that he had better wash up a bit. Putting his boots back on he trudged off down the hallway to the washroom, making sure to lock his door and bring his mace, he could ill afford to be unarmed with such ruffians about as he had just encountered.

[MaskedNicci]

The innkeeper continued sputtering his apologies, rushing off and fetching a towel to aid in her half-hearted clean up. He asked if he could offer her anything, looking dazed.

Alassë tried to refrain from any harsh insults she could throw at the innkeeper, deciding that to try and appear friendly would be the easiest way to find out more of this strange coincidence. Perhaps the innkeeper and the man were in a secret society, and they were going to tactfully interrogate her and find out if she was an enemy figure. Trying to offer a smile through clenched teeth, she murmured. "Oh, it's quite alright. I don't melt, good sir. Just something to drink would be nice. What would be even better, would be if I didn't take it all over. Keeping it in a cup would be just grand."

Mentally rebuking herself for a failing in her attempted guise of behaviour, Alassë gave out a tight-lipped sort of sound to resemble a laugh. "No harm done." She said, looking sideways at the stranger she had been inspecting upon entry, and she held up his handkerchief. "May I make arrangements for this to be cleaned, before I return it?"

[Forest Elf]

Gable sighed; she wasn’t even going to of had a piece of pie. Sometimes cook got on her nerves. When would cook learn to stop making assumptions? Doesn’t cook know by now that I don’t take baked goods, just a plain apple or a slice of older bread when I'm hungry before meals? Gable wondered to herself as she watched a leaf floating on the breeze out the window. She sat down at an empty table and closed her eyes. She put her hands on top of each other and laid her forehead down on them. She needed to think things through, though why she did though, she didn’t know.

Whose locket is that? Why are the wolves attacking? It doesn’t make sense…why would wolves attack the Inn? Why did they come and attack in the first place? What if Tollers was right and there is a hole in the Hedge? Or what if something is driving them mad enough to make them this desperate? Does it have something to do with the pony’s owner’s disappearance? Or does it have to do with one of the customers here? at the Inn?

Gable sighed…so many questions that couldn’t be answered. If she kept this up she would be getting a headache. Maybe I should take another look around the area where I found the pony…there has to be some sign of the owner, or tracks that I missed since it was dark and I can see better now that its light out. Then she began troubling herself with the question of, Should I bring someone along to help or not?

[Finduilas]

Elorn felt like laughing when the clearly ruffled Elf offered to have his handkerchief cleaned. He refrained from doing so, knowing that it probably wouldn’t improve her present state of mind.

“No thanks, ma’am. It won’t be necessary,” he replied as he took it back.

Once he had wrung out his handkerchief and returned in to his pocket, he stood, wondering what he should do. The Elf didn’t seem in the mood to talk, but he didn’t feel it would be very nice of him to leave her, seeing as she was still soaked, and in bad humor. Elorn sincerely wished that either the Elf or the landlord would help him out of this awkward situation.

[ElentariGreenleaf]

Lynaata sat on a low wall just outside a town of which she did not know the name. By the look of the place, he was a hobbit's town. Lyn wasn't entirely sure why she was sitting on that wall. She was desperate to buy more supplies, but at the same time she was nervous. Hobbits were such lovely folk, and she felt incredibly conscious of her tatty appearance. What would people think of her? Her boots were too large, and her dress was faded, and that was how she had looked before she left Bree. Now her boots and the skirt of her dress were caked with mud from her time travelling. Her hair was full of knots and the odd burr, as she had often hidden in the bushes on the road side if ever a horse rode past from the direction of Bree. Rowan had been offered a large dowry to take her for his bride, and she doubted he'd let that opportunity pass him by easily. The Inn Rowan had inherited verged on the edge of debt, as it was not in the best location on the outskirts of Bree and the Prancing Pony attracted most of the business in the town.

In the end Lyn's stomach won. She was hungry, as her remaining food was either stale or mouldy. She took out a coin purse and counted out her gold. She had stolen as much as she could from Rowan, but he only kept a small amount out of his locked moneybox for day to day business in the Inn. She had enough for now, but eventually she would need to find work, or learn to hunt. The idea sickened her.

As she wandered through the town, Lyn admired the Hobbit architecture. It was odd to her seeing doors in the sides of hills or the odd chimney poking out of the ground. She had never been to such a place as this before. The Hobbits were no bigger than human children, and if they had their backs to her, Lyn could quite easily mistake them for so.

Eventually Lyn found what she had been looking for - before her stood an Inn. The sign read "The Golden Perch Inn". Lyn smiled to herself, glad she had found an Inn here that was designed to accommodate humans as well as Hobbits. She stepped through the round door, ducking as the door was still more Hobbit sized than human. The Inn instantly struck her as a welcoming, homely place. Well, what she imagined other people to consider homely, as she hoped it was nothing like her home. She went to the counter and ordered a beer, handing over some of Rowan's gold with a large smile. He would feel the sting of the amount of gold Lyn took being stolen, that was for certain. Lyn hoped Rowan slipped into debt and his Inn closed. He deserved everything bad that would happen to him.

As Lyn went to find a table to sit at, she noticed a beautiful woman mopping her elegant dress with a handkerchief. Lyn studied the woman for a moment. She had never seen a woman with such grace before. When the woman had finished her attempt at drying her dress she brushed her long hair behind back from her face, revealing a pointed, very much elven ear. An elf! Lyn had never seen an elf before. For a moment she stood staring at the elf, until she noticed people had begun giving her funny looks.

Lyn found a table near window, from which she could both admire the town and study the elf. She felt almost happy while she sat there. She could tell things were taking a turn for the better for her.