[color=bc8dbf][b]Stormy[/b][/color]

With the escapades of the rest many footfalls behind them, the group arrived at Silverbrook. 

Stormy had wandered between everyone by random, self-absorbed chance, gravitating around Koda. The path had climbed its way up a hill, meeting a large chunk of stone, crumbling under the passage of time and the plants that now dug their roots deeper into the crevices. 

Beyond it, the town rose up. Thatched hovels and leaning shacks of wattle and daub shambled towards the central square of stone and brick buildings, huddling close, clawing for the monolith that spewed smoke from great, red-clay chimney stacks. Close by were the drab-coloured canvases of a market, shouts and smells spreading like ink in water. Crofts crept over the surrounding hillsides, like pilgrims to the holy land. A grey quagmire tangled through most of the village, brackish liquids nesting in its grooves and divots. Flagstones paved the way for a single thoroughfare that barged through to the square and then left the town in equal hurrying. 

Windows glinted like staring eyes, all focussed upon the party, this squabble of strange and strangers, as they approached.

Stormy squinted and frowned at everything, chewing her bottom lip. Occasionally a humming escaped her. 

Perhaps an actually beautiful sight was the winding stream of quicksilver and liquid crystal. Its song even reached them. It came from the valley, the same direction as the flagstones, between two treeless slopes, threading through the town and taking off into the trees. Dotted along its banks were the statue-like fishermen.

As they grew closer, the ever-smiling and clean denizens looked at the party for maybe a handful of seconds between them all. 

[color=bc8dbf]“Perhaps it is festival time?”[/color] She trilled to Koda, pitch rising at the end of her question. Her smile guttered momentarily, cheeks twitching, aching, and then it slipped; it fell from her demeanour: snuffed. Everything had an odd quality, as if it was being observed through grey-tinted glasses not quite in focus; it was all hazy and dull, outlines and edges seeming not so sure in themselves. 

Stormy bent over, rubbing her calves and thighs, careful to be away from the churned mud paths. She shrugged at the question Michael asked, [color=bc8dbf]“I’ll go with whatever’s groovy.”[/color] Though, her stomach too audibly rumbled.