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[h2][color=darkorchid][i][b]Victoria Belmont[/b][/i][/color][/h2][i][b][color=9932cc]Half-Elf, Bard, Level 5[/color][/b][/i]
[color=9932cc][i][b]HP:[/b][/i][/color] 33 / 33	[color=9932cc][i][b]Armor Class:[/b][/i][/color] 16	[color=9932cc][i][b]Conditions:[/b][/i][/color] N/A
[color=9932cc][i][b]Location:[/b][/i][/color] Southmoor (Healer's Home)
[color=9932cc][i][b]Action:[/b][/i][/color] N/A
[color=9932cc][i][b]Bonus Action:[/b][/i][/color] [color=dimgray][i][b]Familiar[/b][/i][/color] stuff
[color=9932cc][i][b]Reaction:[/b][/i][/color] N/A
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[right][img]https://i.ibb.co/ZzgLdXRt/Victoria-Alt-8-ss2.png[/img][/right]
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[center][hider=Healer's Cottage][img]https://i.ibb.co/Kjt2pXrP/Healers-Home.jpg[/img][/hider][/center]

	[color=9932cc]"Thank you,"[/color] began Victoria, utterly surprised that a simple plea to conviction, if presented earnestly and with deference to her authority on the matter, succeeded where other attempts at getting her to talk about ...anything.... resulted in death threats. Victoria gave thought to her party's flippant suggestions that she merely [i]insist[/i] and everything would be fine. Inwardly, she gave a passing fancy toward stuffing all of them into a cookpot and animating the remains later. It gave her a tiny smile.

	Annick misread her expression as smugness and hardened her voice. [color=darkgray][b]"Wipe that off your face and keep working while you listen. I need those books copied word for word, line for line. Leave space for the illustrations. All right, good."[/b][/color] The Medician pulled a chair over to where Victoria sat. Curious, the younger Miss Floquet also brought over a chair. Her mother rarely opened up about what she did and what she knew from years ago, so this was indeed a rare reveal. Annick began, [color=darkgray][b]"I was just a midwife back then. Younger than Annabelle is now and... I assume you are now, too. Hard to tell with you Half-Elves. I got conscripted, but I didn't mind. It isn't always good for a young girl midwife in a small town, most folk figure you as marriage bait. And I was such a patriot then, too. Stories of High Knights and powerful Wizards seeking glory in war. Gods, but I was stupid."[/b][/color]

	The Medician paused for a moment and allowed a grim expression to take hold of her. [color=darkgray][b]"I know this doesn't answer you directly, just... let me get through this."[/b][/color] Victoria gave her mentor a silent nod and continued pressing ink to paper. Annick continued, [color=darkgray][b]"The needed healers for the battlefields. Didn't tell us that part. They also didn't tell us that we had to figure out how to stay alive when armies of the Undead attacked. We weren't Clerics with their fine, wound-knitting blessings. We had to get swift feet and swifter hands. We had to get strong, fast. The ones who didn't got ripped to pieces. There were over one hundred of us who went in for training as combat healers in my zone. After three years, just north of twenty remained. We had to forage for a lot of our food, improvise tools, perform surgeries in the middle of killing fields. More than a few times we had to slip away and behind lines to smuggle supplies back. Some nights, laid up in entrenchments, the mud we were all stomping around in reflected red in the moonlight. The Dead don't take prisoners, for the most part. More they kill, more they get reinforced. Anyhow, doing this long enough will give you serious trauma and a reputation. That reputation... I got around. Saw some things. Heard more."[/b][/color]

	She rose and stepped lightly into the kitchen, grabbing a pitcher of water and tall, wooden cups. Returning, she filled them and downed half of hers immediately. [color=darkgray][b]"We were a ways east of here, where Elves are more common but, ah, not extremely popular."[/b][/color] Her voice hinted as some incident or overall cultural zeitgeist that she opted not to discuss. [color=darkgray][b]"Field hospital, so to speak. Evacuation point where they bottlenecked the wounded before sending the worst off back, or let them die in peace. Those ones - we disfigured the bodies so they couldn't be used by the enemy. Anyway, I heard a story there. Overheard, more like. Some of the big, important people having a big, important meeting. They mentioned [i]Avonshire[/i]. It was home, so, I listened. The important part is, all this stuff happened not during this war, but the one before it. A long time ago. Back before the nation of Aquitania spread this far south. None of this ... place ... was here a hundred years back. There are no ancient families on this land, least not Human or Halfling. The Township didn't even show up until trade with the coast was established, and that was... Well, not so long ago as someone might think."[/b][/color]

	Victoria wanted to ask questions, mostly on how this was supposed to relate to the name of the Prince that she knew nothing about. She opened her mouth to ask those very questions, but thought better on it and simply took a sip of water. Annabelle also looked confused, but said nothing. To her credit, Annick raised a had as if to ask for a moment to make the connection. [color=darkgray][b]"But there were people here, supposedly. Frontier folk. The first Human settlers, come for a new life away from their past. Rugged individualists, or something like that. Open land, if you didn't mind growing crops on rolling hills and a wet, godsawful tract of lowlands that made permanent towns difficult to build on over half the place. [i]Anyway[/i], those highborn jackasses were worried about a possible attack from the southwest, about where we are now. Rumors even further back says that there was troop movement out in the moors, but nobody reported anything. No settlers, all those years ago, said a word. Encampments and brush towns were gone or abandoned. Nothing left, they were saying. And in the end, no attack ever came from here. No one ever said anything else about Avonshire, but the rumors persisted that there was an army out here, led by some Southern Prince, waiting for something. Maybe waiting for someone to give them commands. I don't know what is or isn't true, but I will say, the armies of the Alhazred Empire don't mind whether you're a warm body or a cold one. They'll make use of you. And they're very patient. And you, Miss Belmont, have a problem with the undead, don't you? Maybe it's coincidence. Best to fix it sooner than later."[/b][/color]

	Victoria was taken aback at how the things she had been listening to sounded like it marched in step with some of her dreams lately, if indeed the lines of mountains in the distance did mark this place as the same location her resting eyes saw. Her crystal blue eyes looked up from her book to the older woman, blinking once slowly and contemplatively. A sudden rush of aggression pulsed through the Bard's whole body, fading just as quickly as it came. Victoria's face was inscrutable as usual; a serene but cold visage from which she peered at her mentor. If she was correct and there was an army of the dead somewhere around there, moreover the vintage detachment of a prince of an occupying force, this meant danger. Dormant, but very present danger. It also meant knowledge. And treasures. And severe problems for someone enthralled by something powerful enough to still be sapient after all that time. What might something like that do to the land? What might that do to those living off of that land? 

	Instead of pressing more questions, Victoria allowed her tone to become icy. She carefully brought the book she was working on to a close. [color=9932cc]"Looks like I am done with this one. What would you like for me to transcribe next, Medician Floquet?"[/color] One hand felt the hilt of the long knife at her belt, as well as the black and gold pashmina she wore. Yeah, she might have proof that an occupying force from the Southern Deserts was once there.