July 15:
It was the evening of first day of the Highsummer Feast. The Feasting and revelry would continue for 13 more days. The older Findlings had been allowed to leave the stockade and begin the journey to finding their identity. Most would be gone for only a few days, others would leave for weeks stretching into months, and a very few would be gone for a year or more. Today, those Halflings older than age 28 who felt the call to the Finding had left the stockade.
Those timid souls that waited so many years to begin the Finding would be home in a few days, thought Belladonna Kalliwart as she sat atop Outlook Rock. Tomorrow the Findlings that had obtained the minimum 22 years of age and their Clan leader’s blessing would leave the safety of the Stockade and the Village for the first time. Belladonna would be among them.
From Outlook Rock, the highest point in the village, it was possible to see the whole village and, sometimes, one could see the ruin to the west. Most Halflings were content to wander as far as the ruin and return, content to have “tested” their courage and chosen their settled life. Of course, Belladonna, being who she was, might have already climbed the stockade and visited the ruin. Belladonna might know that it is little more than an old round building if fancy brickwork collapsing in on itself with traces of Machinery rusting buried among the leaves and litter. Probably an old Dwarven ruin, thought Belladonna, but nothing really interesting … at least nothing interesting was left among the rust and rotted wood.
Today, all she saw was the Trees of the forest that covered everything. Where would Belladonna go? Children were forbidden beyond the Stockade and most Halflings remained within The Loop (a gravel trail that encircled the land controlled by the halflings). Belladonna had never been beyond The Loop, but she had seen the Spires of the Canyons in the distance and heard stories of the ‘Trollkin’ (Humanoids) that lived in the porous canyon walls and Elves that dwelt in the great spires high above the canyons.
For now, there was The Dragging to plan for. Each Highsummer Feast, some Findling would kill a ‘Trollkin’ (Humanoid) in single combat and drag the corpse around The Loop and burn it atop a rock. Superstition claimed that as “Evil is drawn to Evil”, the corpse will draw misfortune and sickness from the land within The Loop and cleanse the land for another year.
Belladonna cared less about the superstition and more about the honor and reputation gained by the Halfling that completed the task. Perhaps that honor would be hers this year. Perhaps it would be the start of her story.