3. Paprika's Spice

Paprika's Spice


  • Dearest journal.

    Mmm… I’m often not rightly sure I should salute you, journal. Certainly you’ve been at my side throughout my travels but you’re just a thing, no? You’re not sentient. At least, if you are, you don’t speak to me or tell me jokes or help me up when I’ve slipped in the mud. But, then I can’t say you don’t comfort me. Many times I can look back in your scribbled pages, particularly when current events are causing me trouble, and see that I’ve weathered worse before.

    I was just saying to sir Dwin yesterday at the log fire in Norwick, “Thems folk that forget their istory is thems folks that istory will bite in the arse.”

    Mayhaps that was too forward a thing to say to such a refined gentleman as the armor crafter Dwin. But he seemed take no offense from it and several at the fire agreed. Well, why shouldn’t they? Tis a truth, and not my truth. I didn’t originate it.

    Nonetheless, good journal, I shall salute you for the time being. Though your hardly the same now are you? Your binding’s been replaced, what, twice? Thrice? And many a time I’ve had to re-scribe my thoughts from a crumpled or wet parchment to a fresh new one.

    But then, I’d be a fine pot to call your kettle black if I held that against you. Since I myself have changed a good bit too in my travels for the Great Lady. Just like you, dearest journal, not only in content but in form as well. But you always seem to be the better for your changes. Am I? Whatever the Great Lady sees fit.

    Well, let us see how our life in Narfell shall fare, shall we?


  • I was at the fire last night, having the most wonderful conversation with a Mr. Ridush. I had some pressing questions to ask him. He follows Shaundakul, who is apparently the Wind Rider.

    Well this all sounded very fascinating so I quickly shuffled the questions that jammed my brain into a bit more prioritized manner, if you will, and began to ask them.

    Then, however, another fellow strode up. Found out a bit later Quin Reyer to be his name. Walks up and before a “How ye do” or a “Fine eve” or a word at all he spits! Spits right there on the ground. I widened my eyes and looked and then he goes, “Ey.”

    “Ey.” That was it.

    Well I was polite and gave him a “Good eve to ye, sir!” as I’m obliged to. No sense in both of us being backwards.

    Then he gets all squinty eyed, as if looking at Mr. Rudish and myself were quite the chore in itself and uses the most awful accent I’ve ever heard! I almost had to ask him to repeat himself before my mind wrapped itself around his thick sounds.

    He was asking about crafters, he was. And spitting! Oh, just spitting this way and that. Left and right. I considered it a wonder he didn’t lean back and spit to the heavens. Though he’s probably done that too.

    The source of all this expectoration was a quite appalling wad of… something… in his mouth. He would work it and chew it and… oh, it causes me to break into a cold sweat just thinking about it. I have no idea what it was he was chewing on but I might have thought him a cow with a most precious cud, the way he treasured it.

    I think it exacerbated that already atrocious accent as well.

    Needless to say, I was a bit affronted by this lack of social grace and I daresay Mr. Rudish was as well. I saw him eye the growing puddles too.

    To add to his charm, Quin Reyer had the most delightful brown teeth. And to see him groom his face with such a wondrously haphazard stubble made me think I must be in a royal court. Pardon my sarcasm but I’m really at a loss.

    But, of course, even this most obviously correct target for my anger ended up biting me in my arse.

    I was accepting Master Dwin’s initiation you see, to be the realm Chronicler and taking my vows. And Quin Reyer just up and makes some sidled remark like, “Well I’m from Peltarch and you can kiss my hand any time you like!”

    I don’t need to tell you how angry that made me! And there I was trying to complete my vows with Master Dwin. And Commander Devlin standing right there as well! I couldn’t very well let them see go into a fury right after such a solemn event so I begged their pardon, very politely.

    And then he’s all complaining about how I’ve been unsociable to him! I mean, true, I did threaten to backhand him but I was justified, oh I’ll say I was.

    I strode right over to that Quin Reyer and I didn’t tell him the many things I was thinking, oh no! I mean, he probably already knows he’s ill-tempered, foul behaved and generally unsociable, so my telling it would not have been of any educational value. Instead, I as politely as a priest and gracefully as a palace courtesan reintroduced myself. But I did so with quite the glare so he knew what I was about.

    Well that’s when I find out he was part of Master Dwin’s union. So, there I was starting a scrap with one of the members of the very master I had just sworn to serve.

    I swear it always seems like the right time to let someone have it but then it never seems to work.

  • H

    (( LOL very good read. Enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as the RP IG. That was truely fun. From Foilir's point of view anyway. )) 😄


  • As I stated in another letter tacked to the wall of another room, a Mr. Alexi has offered me gainful employment. Well I don’t need to tell you what welcome news that was! Exploring Narfell and meeting all the wonderful people therein is all fine and good but when your stomach is glued to your backbone, there ain’t quite as much joy in it.

    So some steady money for food and a place to stay would certainly set my mind at ease!

    However, as I also mentioned, this Alexi chap worries me just a wee bit. He has a fondness for going off to the side and whispering, and he won’t stop talking about hugs! “I hug for this reason and that,” he says. Always going on about it. Even says there’s a clause in the contract for hugs. Well, I don’t mind a hug, no I don’t. A good embrace will certainly bond a friendship. And he doesn’t seem to mean anything beyond a hug. It’s just all so very odd.

    Also, I’ve yet to see the contract. Oh he said I’d have it by this day and then the next, and then the next after, but it hasn’t shown yet in my mail slot.

    But then, yesterday, sir Dwin offered me work scribing. Well, now, that is what I do! I do love to scribe.

    I can’t say that sir Dwin’s offer is more to my liking than sir Alexi’s offer because I don’t even know what Alexi wants me to do yet! That’s another thing that just seems a bit off about the whole affair.

    “What would I be doing for ye?” I asked him just plain as cane. And he just whispers about ‘tasks’ and them being ‘within my abilities’. Well how’s he to know my abilities anyway?

    So I was quite happy that a second offer for gainful employment had come along and that the ‘tasks’, as they were, were clearly stated. “You’ll follow us around and chronicle our feats,” sir Dwin was crystal about it, he was. Well, I can certainly do that! Why to witness great feats and write about them? Wonderful!

    So, I figured, I’ll do this for sir Dwin and, once I have the contract, try sir Alexi’s job as well. But do you know what sir Dwin said to me?

    “And I don’t want to hear any more about this Alexi contract foolishness.”

    Well! Sir Dwin is no person to argue with so I did not. But what am I to do? I certainly want sir Dwin’s job and intend to take it. I may decide to sneak about with sir Alexi’s job on the side but I would so hate for sir Dwin to be disappointed if he considered that to be a character flaw.

    I don’t want to disappoint sir Alexi either because, his oddities aside, he’s a most charming gentleman. Always going on about how I’m beautiful and brighten a day, and so forth and such on. I certainly like that as much as the next girl, I should say I do.

    I’d still do my performing of course, whether I take both jobs or no. I can always squeeze in an hour when the tavern owners will come off their purses and hire me. And that Aristos gentleman hinted that I may be able to get a show for the town. How grand that would be!

    But this thing with sir Dwin and his opposition to sir Alexi…

    Tis a decision I certainly have to make.


  • When I was small I could tell my ma didn’t care for dwarves. She was always going on about ‘the elven way’, though, so I just dismissed it as a bit of racial bias.

    But they truly are an ornery, stubborn and loud lot. Why they’ll be holding a conversation with you one moment and be just as apt to punch you the next! I mean you’ll be chatting with a dwarf and thinking for all the world that things are going swimmingly when, in the mere space of a few words, his tone has changed and you find yourself embroiled in some dispute.

    I try not to judge books by their covers. The cover may be quite ratted or chewed but the story inside turns out to be very sweet. The lady Myeil was just chatting about that yesterday at the fire as well, whilst she tried to glean some useful information out of a book on warfare (or some such) that was quite outdated. So, when I see a dwarf I suppress the urge to head the other way and, instead, engage them in polite, civilized conversation.

    Well, it may be a pious attitude but if it don’t always bite me on the arse!

    Just yesterday at the very same fire where I met such delightful folks as sir Dwin and lady Myeil, not to mention Devlin and Holli and Aristos, I ended up sitting next to a dwarf by the name of Foiler.

    I was trying to be civil and proper… in fact I was about my business for sir Dwin! Mr. Dwin had sent me on an errand and upon my return this Foiler fellow makes a statement like, “Who’s the walking color spray?” Meaning me. Now, I know I sometimes dress a bit brightly, but it’s only to freshen up a day. And who’s he to talk anyway?

    Sitting there and mumbling most of the time, he was. He’d pull on his beard. Why he tugged on that so much I considered it a wonder it was there at all. And drawing maps in the dirt with his staff. As if he had no parchment and quill and, if he didn’t, as if I didn’t already have mine out scribing. He could have borrowed some of mine, I should say he could have.

    Well after a couple of side remarks aimed at me I decided to engage the dwarf in proper conversation. Face to face like, you understand. Tisn’t proper to be tossing words at another person from the side of your mouth. Rather shady if you ask me.

    But we’re talking and I’d just started to think that I’d won the dwarf over to civility when, next I know, he’s telling me he’s going to pick me up bodily and throw me over a wall! Right to my face, he did!

    Well, I told Foiler in no uncertain terms that I disagreed with his notions and then what have you but he’s up and on his feet and menacing me! I was waiting for the others at the fire to step up to my defense but this dwarf was so threatening that I shouldn’t be surprised that they were hesitant, oh no I shouldn’t.

    I was off the stone and away from him quick as you please. I also brought out my quarterstaff to let him know that I could be about this business as well. The lout just laughed at me. Shamed me, he did, and I put the staff away since I knew I’d have to be running if there were to be any good outcome in this for me.

    But it turned out he was just having fun at my expense. Scared me terribly but he seemed to have actually meant no harm. Still, I found the entire incident most unsettling and think it a wonder that the dwarven kingdoms under the mountains or wherever they live are intact at all.

    I shall be sure to let sir Dwin know about this since Foiler was boasting that Dwin was his cousin. His cousin, of all things!

    You can bet I’ll be keeping an eye on this Foiler fellow.