[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][img]https://i.ibb.co/WvZTwJ26/winter-vineyard.jpg[/img][/center] [center][img]https://i.ibb.co/vXD6Q0t/Update-Text.png[/img][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] [center][hider=Coach House][img]https://i.ibb.co/BVvx6LH2/Coach-House.jpg[/img][/hider][/center] [center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center] [u]Weather[/u]: The snowfall stabilized into a productive, but relatively gentle snowfall. The winds have backed off a little, coming now in short gusts as opposed to long pulls of winter air. It might be considered nice, especially in comparison to the relatively brutal night before. [u]Time[/u]: Early evening. [u]Ambience[/u]: Soft colors of approaching twilight give the sky lovely painted notes, what little of them can be seen amid the mostly full cloud cover. It is winter, and as such night comes a little earlier, prompting a timely dusk. Within the confines of the Coach House, it is a more or less comfortable setting of simple, well constructed wooden furniture, with hearthy scents of tea, aromatic oil, and gentle firewood. The light retains a constant, only slightly flickering presence, cast from the hearth, candles, and the occasional grapeseed oil lamp. Wind and snow make the odd sound outside, but that remains the only influence it has upon the setting within. [center][color=darkgray][h2]*****[/h2][/color][/center] The absent stare which Lizbeth gave to her sword seemed, to her observation, to stretch for a long time and no time simultaneously. This day had been full and eventful, not entirely like the day before. It felt to her that this was all winding toward something of even greater consequence and that she was at the middle of it. Part of her wished that it might be over, while an equally, inwardly vocal part wished to put off whatever was to happen for as long as humanly possible. But as it turned out, only one of her companions on this evening was fully Human. Considering her history in this rural place, that was honestly something novel. Her thoughts were put aside by Kathryn's suggestion that their training change to include walking the perimeter of the Rose River Vineyard, not only for the physical exertion of a hike through hilly ground, but to inspect the area. [color=darkgray]"Yeah, I guess. I don't know what to look for, but I'm willing to give it a try."[/color] It was as straightforward as she could muster at the time. The ongoing conversation appeared to give moderate annoyance to Urmdrus. At least an aspect of it was working its hardest to bring him some amount of frustration. The older Dwarf was aware that his ability to communicate in surface Common was limited in ways that spoke to nuance, which led occasionally to mild misunderstandings. Luckily for him, he didn't do a while lot of talking apart from the people who he had known for many a year anyway and better understood his intent. This was not a luxury he possessed on this day, hence, the touch of negativity. Urmdrus set his mug down a little harder than he intended and looked straight at Lizbeth, uttering fast strings of complicated sentences in oddly accented Dwarven. Lizbeth perked up when she was being addressed in this way and nodded a quick affirmation to Urmdrus. She then cleared her throat and addressed the others in the room. [color=darkgray]"Okay, so, um... It's not that there's definitely an unused secret storage room somewhere. Master Urmdrus was asked to construct a large stone cap, like what [i]might[/i] be used to seal a long-term storage area, for grain or such. Or, like, a bulwark when you seal off a mineshaft. Then he never saw it again after it was finished - never got to use it. He thought that was a strange. Like, if someone asked for something specific like that to be built, there was probably a reason for it, is what he was saying."[/color] The amazingly multi-lingual girl looked to Urmdrus and spoke what sounded like a question to the Dwarf, who in turn nodded his own affirmation. [color=darkgray]"Yeah, that's what he was saying. There's got to be a reason for it, but he doesn't know what or where it is. If you find it, you can recognize it by the fact that it's a huge, round, stone bulwark. And it has a Duergar crafter's mark on it, unless someone chiseled it off."[/color] Finally satisfied, Urmdrus settled back into his chair more comfortably and took a decent pull from his drink. The Mosswaters, now thoroughly invested in the unfolding conversation, took special note of the information and planning presented by Kathryn and Baronfjord. The planning for a seige from the former raised Halfling eyebrows well enough, but when the latter began to discuss the finer points of potential undead masterminds and a Prince with a very desert-sounding name, objections began to form into words. [color=darkgray][b]"Woah, woah, woah there, folks,"[/b][/color] began Barbal. He wasn't quite standing up from his seat at the table, but he was leaning as if he might at any moment. [color=darkgray][b]"I hope I'm reading the room wrong, but it sounds like you want the both of us to stay here for the foreseeable. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. If I'm right - then NO."[/b][/color] He look of surprise shifted into the sort of face one might give when pursuing the best deal at a livestock trade; shrewd, no-nonsense, businesslike. [color=darkgray][b]"Tarace and I have a farm to run. I know it's winter, but we can't up and decide to [i]not go back home[/i] without a lot of preparation first. Now, we agreed to a night, for this ...eh, dream thing..."[/b][/color] Barbal lifted his cup of [i]totally not cursed brandy[/i] as if to make a toast, [color=darkgray][b]"but when it's good and light out, we're getting back to the farm soon as we're able."[/b][/color] Tarace, ever the diplomat, added, [color=darkgray][i]"Oh, but we're more than happy to be of assistance until then."[/i][/color] He looked to Barbal, who was only slightly reddening. [color=darkgray][i]"Aren't we?"[/i][/color] [color=darkgray][b]"Yeah. Sure."[/b][/color] grumbled Barbal, not exactly happy that he was being undercut by Tarace but understanding that he probably meant well. The collection of books from below were placed upon the shelf in no particular order, as far as one might tell from a glance in the dark with a beeswax taper candle. One might assume that the author might have had something in mind, but casual observation did nothing to impart what it might be. Bringing them into the light upstairs did reveal a couple of overt details, that being tht the books themselves were not uniform in any way that would identify them as a matched set, and a quick flip-through allowed one to note that they were penned in a bold hand, written in Common, for the most part. Their recovery was uneventful. One might be forgiven for accumulating the unavoidable heebie and/or jeebie after having returned to the scene of the skirmish, a questionable underground spot which until recently housed the undead. All that was left was to put literate eyes to pages and hope something could be gleaned from the madness.