60-65 °F; clear; light breeze
The Stone Barn tavern sits on an almost-level piece of ground about fifty feet below the crest of a south-facing hillside that is overall fairly steep Hazardous terrain. A hundred and thirty feet down from the inn - and about three hundred yards to the east - two streams conjoin from west and northeast to form a larger stream that flows away generally southward. It's this joinder of streams that gives the village its name. From the flat yard outside the east door of the barn, looking down to the streams, you can see the rough-hewn wood trestles that are laid across much older stone pilings to span the main stream about hundred yards south from the two small streams. Downstream from the trestles, the main stream runs rough over the tumbled stones of the older bridge. Maybe was wrecked by a spring flood?
The Stone Barn is the big yellow square on maps. The village comprises about forty cottages, scattered singly and in clusters all across the three steep hillsides that overlook the streams. Though none of the cottages are right down in the valley bottom, the sunset light from behind the tavern highlights the hard lines of big ruined foundations down on the flat flood-meadows along both sides the main stream. "Those meadows been sheep pastures a hundred years gone," some local might say.
Inside the tavern, in the main room lit by sunset as well as by hearth and candles, eleven people sit drinking and eating and shouting along to a fiddler's tunes.
You are among them. Looking around the benches, you see seated here ...
Periwinkle
A gnome male, scant three feet in height and sturdy build, red-cheeked with wild blond hair and beard. His hair, his beard, and his plain clothing are dusted white with ... flour? Cheerful mannerisms, a bit finicky with the loaf of crusty bread that he's tearing apart between sips of ale.
Sigmund
A sturdy human male (5'11, 170lbs.) with short, combed back brownish red hair formed into a deep widows peak, a finely trimmed mustache and bright green eyes. He wears studded leather armor, its regal blue and purple coloring smudged by dust from the southern road. On his right ring finger gleams an ancient signet ring with inset amethysts. At his belt he wears a rapier and dagger. A dueling buckler dangles from a MASSIVE traveling pack between his feet.
A group of ruffians
Periwinkle's local knowledge
There's a shouted greeting from the west doorway, an old woman's screechy raspy voice: "Hello the Barn? Soup for an old hag?" She cackles and waddles along the aisle, sunset casting her crooked shadow hugely into the common room.
At the hearth, the innkeeper straightens up, massaging her kidneys with work-thick hands before adjusting her grey-streaked brown hair. "Hello yourself, old mother" she grumbles, making no effort to raise her voice. "There's soup."
What do you do? (pick one)
Board and bed: 2 sp
Converse with the ruffians
Converse with each other
Converse with the innkeeper
Converse with the "hag"