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[b]Corgula Bexley
Approx. 3 days from Afron's Capital[/b]

[indent]Aelana spent three days in soaked misery; perhaps not the worst of times, but certainly not the best. By the end of the second day, her horse was looking at her as if to say, "You daft bastard." She was a particularly keen horse.

Bexley didn't seem like much of a sanctuary, either, not to hear the tales of it; if she had her druthers, she would have rather tented down in the muck and bore the weather rather than sleep among the rogues and opportunists that wanted to knife you in the back -- they might not mean much in a standup fight, but only a fool slept among a hostile countryside; a smart individual got his arse in a castle or encamped only with alert guards. Though with the current attrition of magical creatures and the paranoia it propagated in everything with some exclusive claim to humanity, there really wasn't much asylum throughout the land. The fact that Aelana chose to travel without companion spoke of either morbid stupidity or arrogance. 

As to which it was exactly was anyone’s guess. It was better this way. She was infinitely more effective when commanded to conduct on her own; she felt considerably more in tune with the nature of herself and that of the land when free of the burden of having to command a detail of men and cater to their mortal misguiding.

The White Tankard was not her sort of place, nor were the other inns scattered throughout the city; too many people, the stench itself was overwhelmingly stifling. It also didn’t help that Bexley had a particularly uncompromising intolerance of outsiders, be them human or otherwise, and the black cloak adorned on her head, worn to mask the obvious indications of her heritage was anything but nondescript. Usually such concealment wouldn't be necessary but she was without the boarders of her city and without the safeguard her station provided. She would need to find some manner of lodging but every inn possessed a certain level of obvious peril for her and she certainly wasn't going to finance a room to be murdered in whilst she slept. After hours of nonchalantly eliminating every establishment of respite, she deduced that comfort and security couldn't be granted inclusively and focused on securing the latter. Instead, she rode somewhat toward the outskirts of town until finding exactly what she was looking for: the town's agriculture district. 

The farmer was wary at the approach of a stranger and Aelana figured she had the right sort of place; the price of a stay at the inn was what he offered in return for bedding for the night...in the barn, with the animals. More was offered for the farmer to occasionally wake from bed and watch the surrounding area for any approaching unit of people. The farmer didn’t seem at all obliged to do so, but she knew he’d be doing so anyways as a means of checking up on the stranger and ensuring that his neck wouldn't be slit as well.

"Alright," the farmer, grizzled and aged before his time, told her with his sons in formation, practically, behind him, menacing enough with wood-cutters axes and shovels, looking unpleasant and standoffish. The man took the coins and bit 'em, "Ye bed in the stables then, and mind ye yer eyes an' yer hands round me livelihood, unnerstand me then?" He looked wearily at Aelana as she finally undid the coat from around her head, but took the money all the same. It probably wasn’t the first time he had lodged a transient; and the coin offered was enough to make any human turn a blind eye. 

"Of course," Aelana nodded in the direction of the farmer, whose sons helped her get her horse into the barn, along with many other beasts: clucking chickens, mooing cows, a couple plow mules. But there was room.

"So, why a barn? Fer that price, ye could 'uf had a room at an inn." the eldest son seemed a squinty sort, and was half in the bag for the evening, being that farmers found solace in their drink, but he wasn't a fool. 

"A man can get killed at an inn, traveling alone, you know." she told the farmer, who accompanied Aelana with a dog at the leash; slighter than some of the shepherd dogs she had seen, but with a pointed nose and a black muzzle, and gold fur otherwise; long jaws and a bushy tail. The dog sniffed at her curiously, and licked the hand; she didn't stick it out under the dog's snout, because that was an invitation to be bitten; instead, she'd let the dog come to her.The farmer grunted, "Hungh. This one don't usually like folk much. But he's yer companion fer the night, we leave him out in the barn."

"Perfect," the Templar told him, and meant it; a dog was the best security available. She liked animals, as a rule, they weren't duplicitous beings like humans were. A good animal was faithful to the feeder, their most intricate scheme being feed and care. A human...well, he could figure out the need for long term care, independence and other troublesome notions. You couldn't keep a person like an animal, the person knew better. He tossed a piece of jerky from her rations to the animal, who snatched it out of the air and gobbled it. Good intentions established.

Inns had men in and out all the time, strangers passing through, folk used to it. And drunkards, all of whom could see the comings and goings of a stranger. A farm, ah, by contrast, was a lovely place to stay if one needed to stay hidden. Farmers tended to mind their business at the farm and it was lethal to approach one by night; the guard was up, because farms had one thing that bandits and other fellows wanted; food and drink. The farmer, by contrast of a normal citizen, had his own animals to worry about, and that meant that the farm wasn't about to go unwatched either -- farmers were used to having people try and steal their things. A farm had dogs, birds, animals that made noise when things tried to sneak through like a predator. Farmers tended to be light sleepers, always worrying that others would steal the fruits of their labor; he wouldn't be surprised if one of those sons were awake at any given hour, making sure foxes stayed out of the henhouse, that wolves didn't come for the milk cows or the sheep. There would be shepherding dogs out and about; much like the one he was going to wind up sharing the barn with.

"We catch ya near the house, lookin' to rob us, we'll string ye up."

Aelana took that as encouraging news, because it meant they were watching, even as she nodded somberly and the farmer left, feeling that the threat was sufficient.

Once left to herself, she started to bed down her animal; she started by checking hooves, currying coats and checking feed and water to make sure that they weren't tainted; but it was a healthy looking farm, and the animals were well kept. These fellows, they hadn't even given their names, seemed like they were an honest crew; Aelana had nothing against honest men, and didn't take their suspicion as terribly amiss. With her horse settled, she took out a shovel off the packsaddle and started digging a bit; the dog looked at him as if she were daft, but she just explained it to the dog, as if explaining it to an equal -- talking to animals was considered daft, but daft was not a bad defense in these parts; anything to keep a torch-wielding mob at a respectful distance. 

"A fire, la,'" she told the shepherding dog, "Covered, to keep commoners from thinking some fool is bedding down in the barn. You never known when trouble's caught your spoor, and it's always good to think like it has, eh? Keeps a dagger out your ribs, that’s for sure."

Or so she hoped, as she built a hidden fire, sheltered so that the glow would not light up the barn in the night like a beacon. She used charcoal, which would stay warm, burn a while and not put off too much light, or even much smoke.

The dog sneezed at her in response and turned to find more interesting amusement. Following suit, she dug into the confines of her own pocket and withdrew the letter that contained the specifics of her proceedings.[/indent]

[quote]
With address to Aelana,

This letter is sent to you now, in the bitter hollowness of the morn, because in it is the collected information detailing the plight that nigh approaches us. With a firm ear in the Rift, I have discerned the contrivance of a being of incomprehensible malevolence. A being embellished by the collective vengeful promptings of those slaughtered at the hands of man in his attrition on magical beings. The darkness stirs restlessly, it has tainted the land's verse and threatens to purge the Rift of magic; it will consume those who are sensitive to the calling of nature and with their soul, I fear, even I, cannot fathom what will befell them. 

[/quote]