[Karshe's Inn] Dining in the Trees

[Eliza Soule]

10th trial Vhalar, Arc 719

She'd only arrived in Desnind a ten trial ago, but Eliza was already in love with the little city in the trees. If it could be called a city at all. Back home in Caervalle Town, her little rustic cabin and studio blended so easily into the surrounding forest, that it might as well be part of the forest itself. Desnind however, with so many of its dwellings and walkways high in the canopies; with trunks and limbs both supporting and embracing them, took that concept a large leap further. It felt welcoming and peaceful. But even more than that, as an artist and painter, the daughter of Ymiden was finding inspiration around every corner, lurking behind every leaf.

She'd found the people to be both watchful of strangers, but also welcoming in their own sort of way. Eliza kept telling herself that she'd traveled here in order to see and experience something that, over the course of more than two centuries, she must have experienced before. But if she had, it had been more than a century since then, so in a sense, it was good as new. There were other reasons however that she wasn't so quick to admit. Not to herself. But deep down, she hoped she'd cross paths with her father. Two and a half centuries, almost, and she'd seen and spoken with him only once. And just briefly.

The young woman who at least appeared to be in her early twenties, had rented a room at Karshe's Inn, where she'd remain for all of the Cold Season, if not longer. In part, it was a matter of practicality and even necessity. Soon, there'd be nothing but dark trials, one right after the other. It was the time of the arc to settle in, not one to travel. Eliza didn't mind. The rooms were comfortable, the hospitality better. Shame though about the food. At least she'd been warned that those who frequented the place came for the company and not for fine dining.

It was early evening when Eliza had come down from her room, to find a place near the wood burning stove in the corner. She'd ordered a cup of tea for herself, having found that while the food itself was nothing to write home about; it was difficult to mess up a good cup of tea. She'd thrown caution to the wind while she was at it, and while the cup rested off by her elbow, she'd decided to try the fruit tart. It wasn't bad, Eliza had decided once trying it and might be off the menu soon for the rest of the cold season due to fresh fruit being harder to come by during the Cold Season.

Meanwhile, somewhere along the way from Caervalle Town to Desnind, she'd slipped into a dusty old book shop in a small village she couldn't remember the name of. She'd purchased an old, leather bound book of maps. Page after page, each devoted to cities and towns and villages in Idalos, and all the slices of wilderness in between. Old, but the book had held up well. It was very well made after all, and while faded, it's pages were even trimmed in gold leaf at the edges. The maps themselves were serviceable, straightforward, but not particularly appealing to an eye looking for artistic expression. Nonetheless, during the evenings while on her journey, by candlelight she'd studied the maps and the legends, learning to read them better.

She'd studied the scale on maps, and learned to interpret it clearly. A quarter inch in some cases, equaled a mile, and so on. Contour lines where valleys dipped down and mountains rose up; the lines indicated changes in altitude. Each page she'd discovered tended to have it's own key. A way to understand what any number of symbols on a map referred to. There was much more to cartography than she'd imagined at first, and while informative, even interesting, from Eliza's perspective it was all rather dry. Surely maps, even books, could be more than informative, Eliza thought. Couldn't they also be something beautiful to look at? Works of art, each of them bound as pages in books or framed and hung on the wall? Her maps would be, she'd decided.

The old book of maps was pushed off near the corner of the table, her cup of tea and the tart half forgotten while Eliza regarded the open notebook in front of her. It was half filled with sketches already, ideas and subjects she might return to later as inspiration for painting. Currently however, she was focusing on a drawing she'd been working on since her arrival. A map of Desnind, rendered in a stylized, artsy way. The map itself was contained inside an oblong oval in the center of the page, and framing the map itself, rimming the edges of the page, were a number of ink line drawings. Illustrations, one might say, particular to Desnind itself. A cheerful tunawa and another wearing a determined expression on it's face. Fireflies, structures, dwellings in trees, a specimen or two from the sea that she'd spied along the coast as she'd come.

She hadn't come to the point of painting in the colors with ink, just yet. But nonetheless, she had a single, very small jar of ink sat there on the table beside her book. It was different than most inks. It shone like silver through the smudgy, discolored glass. A tiny bottle, precious stuff, and expensive too, considering the silver leaf she'd need to purchase if she ever wanted more. And she would at some point. She'd already used it once, a sparing amount, and had loved the effect. Eliza only looked up from her work when the owner came by and refilled her tea. She sat back, smiling. "Thank you Karshe," she said politely before the woman was gone again. A few more patrons had wandered in while she'd worked. More, come for an evening of talk and companionship, and not necessarily for the food. So for the moment, Eliza pushed her work aside, but left open so that the ink could dry, an sipped her tea while she watched and listened.

[Dula]

¤

Wealth Skill: Pan flute

Inside the Karshe Inn the regrettable sound of a half Sev’ryn playing the pan flute was heard. The woman was a novice and while it wasn’t like a child was playing the artist clearly had a long way to go. Dula was known to Nae’ila and her husband by name only, as she was connected to the reknown Tey’droa by way of birth, and had came here to ask them to let her busk for the night. They said they would pay her a small sum for playing but wouldn’t let her busk.

Sat on a stool by the bar was an earth skinned woman in a short, brown cloak, and unseasonably thin looking olive dress, and decorative brown leather boots. Her hair was a mass of blonde curls and beneath them peered eyes the color of dark honey with bright jagged lines drawn through them as if they had been broken and fitted back together. Despite the poor playing she looked serene and focused, as if she was here with a purpose.

By now she was used to the overstepping and was able to time her songs around the bass drop BOOM, as most of her songs were about six to eight bits long. It was a matter of taking small breaks between to let the falling sound and BOOM rock her mind. While she was getting worried it would never stop she was dead set on living her life normally until it did. The noise still made her pulse quicken and occasionally she would rub her head. At least it didn’t hurt.

Having run through her whimsical lullaby already, taught to her by her mother, it was the first song she played and the one she knew the best. This ditty got a smattering of applause and had the bar patrons looking sleepy much too early in the night, though Dula wouldn’t admit to herself that it was because of boredom. The next song she played was her upbeat local song, another one of the first songs she had memorized, and although she tried to get the bar to clap along only one person chimed in, for about five beats, and then stopped. Probably embarrassed to be the only one clapping.

The next song was one of her favorites called “Forever Grateful”. This song was still new to her. Though she missed a couple marks and her fingers played a wrong note due to a particularly loud BOOM in her skull she still held her composure and finished the song to the end. No one cheered, everyone was too busy with their own conversations and eating. The familiar sensation of alienation from her peers set in as the sound of the falling and the metallic BOOM rang out in her head yet again. It was an explosion in her mind of sound. Gods this was difficult. But she would persevere. Like the epitome of a cat, this woman would always land right on her feet.

The last song she played was a new one and actually got some of the bar’s attention. Her first notes she blew into the pan flute were freestyled with abandon to get the bar to look at her. Then she began. Called “Song of the Alchemist” it usually had a singer to accompany the tune. The song was played as a novice and was around fifteen bits long but she stuck it out through any mishaps and follies. It was a beautiful song and if someone more skilled would have played it the song might move people to tears. It was a droll song with long, sad notes accented with trills of triumph and glory. It wasn’t the best but it was the best she could have done. In the end she got a few claps and one whistle, she took a bow after stepping off of her stool and took a seat at the bar.

“She kind. Her ‘Nae’ila’. No Karshe. Karshe is Inn.”
Dula had approached the woman and sat by her at the bar, noticing the half eaten tart. She spoke in broken and heavily accented common, as her fluent language was Xanthea. Continuing on in common she asked,
“Art? Beautiful. What make?”
That was when her eyes rested on the intricately styled map of Desnind, which she could tell immediately, done in silver ink. It seemed to glow and shimmer as if it was still a touch wet. The half sev’ryn grinned sheepishly at the tunawa, the image was uncanny, and pointed to them. The whole thing was beautiful. Her face burned terribly at the foot of a real artist, especially after making a fool of herself on the flute. Even though she was at odds with Hygge this moment she took heeds of his words. “Don’t be a fucking coward.” Sucking in another breath she asked.
“Map! Tunawa. No mind if look?”

It was clear the woman was a foreigner, her common had no Desnind accent. The woman also had the air of something... different. Like she was larger than life. Dula rationalized to herself that it was because she was an artist. They always had this very personal way of carrying themselves.
“Travel far? Where? Sea? Desnind is home. Am… ‘townie loafer’. Alchemist! Hard know some words, try slow?”

[Eliza Soule]

It wasn't unusual for Eliza, when she was working, to become so focused on and absorbed by her work that the process was almost trance like. As if she became one with the lines and brushstrokes on her canvas or paper. As if she wasn't so much creating her emerging subject, as it was that it took on a life of it's own and guided her hand.

Grandfather Poppy, more than century ago had proposed that there was a very thin line between artistic expression, obsession, and even madness. She'd met a handful of artists since then, older than her but also not, and she'd decided that her beloved Poppy was probably right. But hopefully she'd never progress to the point that she might become one of those brilliant and eccentric artists, and lose her grip on reality.

She'd heard the music playing while she worked. Sometimes her heel even rose and fell in time with the melody, as she rested the balls of her feet on the lower rung of her chair. Her hand even, sometimes, worked faster or slower, depending on the tempo. And once or twice when silence or applause interrupted the flow, she glanced up and even clapped her hands softly. When the musician, a woman with a dusky expression joined her, Eliza smiled and nodded. The woman's appearance suggested she was Sev'ryn, but maybe not quite. So, she'd gotten the name of the inn's owner wrong. It wasn't like her, but then she was always better with faces than names. "Nae’ila," she said, careful to watch the pronunciation. "I need to apologize to her for getting it wrong"

The woman's common was a bit broken, Eliza thought but otherwise thought nothing of it. She was probably a local after all. And she'd run across any number of Sev'ryn in the ten trial she'd been here, and more than a few spoke only Xanthea. When it came to moving from place to place, locating those places she'd wanted to go, she'd begun to improvise as they had too, and engaged in a fair bit of pantomime. "My name is Eliza," she said, smiling, and noticing the unusual nature of the woman's eyes. She'd never seen any others like them and had to check herself to stop from looking too long.

As a painter who'd created a fair number of portraits over the centuries, it was the unique things that invariably caught her eye. Too many times her subjects considered those things to be flaws, and wanted her as a painter to omit or transform them on canvas. It was a shame, really, since it was the quirks that gave each individual the sort of character that could leap from the page. "Thank you," she said softly when the other complimented her work. "Art, yes," Eliza confirmed. "But also something useful. If it's possible to put the two together." But yes, "Maps." When her new neighbor at the bar pointed out the tunawa, Eliza grinned. "Do you know any tunawa? I've only seen them in pictures, before coming here." And yet, she'd lovingly drawn the curious little folk, feeling some strange sort of kinship with them. But then she'd realized, why wouldn't she? They were her father's creation after all. She might even consider them to be family.

"Of course," she said when asked about the work, and looking. She turned the page she was working on so that Dula could see better, and there were other pages in front of it that had already been filled, should one choose to leaf through them. Drawings in ink or charcoal or even pastels. Not all portraits, but many of them were. "You're an artist too, you know," she said, gesturing towards Dula's instrument. "Art isn't just painting or drawing. But sculpting, carving, acting, singing, music. You create, so you are an artist. I enjoyed your playing very much."

As for the silver ink that Dula had noticed, Eliza explained. "I'm thinking of creating maps that are also paintings. To put in books or hang on the walls. When I was little, my grandfather showed me a very old book that had pictures along the sides of each page. The artists had used gold and silver ink to make the images, pictures, glow in candlelight. He called it illumination. I don't know how they made the ink, but it must have been very expensive." Which, she thought, was probably why as Poppy had told her, the old book was so rare and so precious. "I made that little bit of ink from crushing silver leaf that an old friend had given me. When it runs out, gone," she said with a shrug. She'd have to sell a lot of paintings, just to keep herself supplied in silver or gold leaf.

"I came from Caervalle Town," she said, after taking a sip of her tea and putting the cup back down. "It's a little village not very far from Rharne. It's nearly swallowed up by an ancient forest, Ywyngyll Forest. The trees there are very old and alive. Alive in a different way than ordinary trees." It was difficult to describe trees that on a whim, might take up root and move from one place to another. As for how she'd traveled, "A little of all. Land, sea. I first stopped in Scalvoris. There's a strange portal between Scalvoris and Rharne. Step through, and your there in a blink. Have you always lived in Desnind?" she asked, which seemed more likely than not. "It's wonderful here, and the people have been very kind."

"You're an alchemist?" she asked then, her interest apparent as could be. She knew so very little of the craft, but from the little that she had heard, that too was an art in itself. Both science and magic, neither of which Eliza had a knack for. But that didn't stop her being curious. "What sort of things to you make?" she asked.

[Dula]

¤

A lot of what the woman would say would go over Dula’s head, but she tried her best to keep up with the conversation. Nodding slowly with her eyes closed as Eliza, as she had introduced herself, spoke. Dula had caught the glance at her that Eliza gave, the curious look to her eyes, but Dula wasn’t sure what the look meant. She just assumed the woman wasn’t used to locals being so forth right. While Desnind’s people were friendly enough they still kept to themsleves for the most part. But Dula had a knack for getting up to trouble, almost like a sixth sense for the weird. The woman truly had a larger than life feel about her but her demeanor was comforting, in a way. It was obvious the more she spoke Eliza was a kind person. Dula thought to herself that Eliza must rather kind if she sat through and understood Dula’s broken rambling.
“Have know Tunawa. Joran, others. They kind. Small, stick to they little things.”

When offered to peer into the page further that Eliza was working on Dula drank in the details, seriously impressed. The half sev’ryn was in the middle of tracing the steps around the Wealth of the Land when another metallic BOOM rang out into her skull and she raised her hand to her temple, wincing at the intrusion. But it was gone soon enough. Though she had missed the first half of Eliza speaking about the different forms of art it dissipated in time for her to hear the compliment.

“Think am artist? Good. Townies laugh. Make bad money. Thank.”
Her head bobbed and bowed her thank you, hands pressed to her heart to show she meant it in earnest. Dula did rifle through the different drawings, just moving one or two to the side to peek. The first one was a portrait done in chalk pastels, it was beautiful and the artist caught the expression of the person perfectly. The next was exotic, clearly something from the woman’s home land. Dula was blown away. Truth be told, it didn’t take much to impress her when something was odd or strange, her world was Desnind and that to her was small indeed.

What Eliza said next needed mostly a translator, but Dula tried very hard to understand. The gist of what she understood was the woman wanted to create more maps, paint them, and she wanted to use gold and silver to do it. Something about books? Gold and silver that glowed like candlelight? Dula’s eyebrows raised.
“Ill-loom-en-ation. What mean? Alchemy?”
The word was pronounced with an inevitably heavy accent, each syllable tasted.

She listened as the woman spoke of her homeland, of the trees that lived there. Understanding more of this than the previous statement, she felt transported momentarily to the land where trees were alive.
“Makuwba Lori. Very live trees there. Danger yes. They each sing, never be fell down. Live for…”
She struggled thinking of the word for millennia. Her hands grasped the word from the air as another falling and BOOM rang out and distracted her mind. Her brow furrowed as the beat passed, it was only a moment. Shaking her head, hoping to Moseke the woman didn’t think she was insane just very foreign, the half Sev’ryn finished her thought.
“Long time. Great-great-great grandmother. Me? Birth. Never go pass gwalos. World big. Desnind small. Townies kind. Yes. Mostly. Why forsake Carevalle Town? Rharne long sea."
The word small was exaggerated and drawn out, her accent seemingly getting thicker the more she spoke as well.

“Me alchemist? Yes! Have made not few thing. Only powder. Study. But very….”
She struggled for the word resourceful.
“Thought-ness.”
Dula was in fact cooking up an idea for Eliza’s illumination powder. But it would take a few steps. And they would need fire. That meant they would have to make a trip to the Firepit.

[Eliza Soule]

While Dula leafed through the pages of her notebook, Eliza smiled, recalling again just the small handful of tunawa she'd spied since coming into the area. Maybe she'd passed within feet or even inches of others, and had managed to overlook them. When it came to blending in, particularly in the forest, the little twig and leaf people were custom made for it. "The ones I saw, I found them to be shy."

It might be their nature, Eliza didn't know them well enough to say one way or the other. Or it might have been that they'd considered her to be an outsider. Which she was. Having lived more than two centuries as a mortalborn and having borne witness to history playing itself out around her, on a deeper level, Eliza thought, she was much alike to an observer.

But her focus was on the woman seated beside her, and during those fleeting trills when Dula winced and raised fingertips to her temple, Eliza frowned only slightly. "Are you feeling well?" she asked. But she shook her head and smiled a little again, regarding any potential music critics in the room. "Those who laugh, are the same ones who cannot do it themselves," she said. "They make terrible judges. You play well. I have a gittern and have learned to play just a little. But not well, and I don't like to practice." She'd discovered that she was one of those people. Those who dreamed of playing brilliantly, but didn't care for the practice it took to get there. But when it came to painting and drawing, her dedication was something else completely.

But yes, and no, not exactly. "Illuminated. Illumination," she said, careful to watch her pronunciation. "But not alchemy, I don't think." Not that she was aware of anyway, being not at all familiar with the science. It was difficult to explain however that illuminated books or paintings referred more to a style of art, or a medium rather. That being the use of reflective paints or inks. "The gold and silver ink don't shine by themselves," Eliza said, looking for the simplest explanation. Neither did gold and silver while deep in the dark earth, she reasoned, until a miner came along and shone a lantern on a precious vein. "They reflect light. From a candle, a lantern, the sun? Like sunlight on water or snow."

"Alchemy maybe," she reconsidered, "if the ink shined on it's own in dark places." As for the trees, her expression turned curious. "I might like to hear a tree singing. I sometimes wonder if the ones near Rharne can speak, but I've never heard them do it." But Eliza wondered, if she wasn't a mortalborn, if she was only to live an ordinary life for an ordinary amount of time, would she have stayed in one place all the while. She might have, but she lacked the experience to know for sure. "No forsaking," she said, grinning at the thought of what her neighbor Ser Wolfert would have had to say about it, if she'd said she was leaving forever. "I love it there. It's home. But to paint more, I need to see more."

"Alchemy must be very interesting, and hard to learn?" the mortalborn wondered? She'd always imagined that many of the sciences were, at least for those whose more natural inclinations were focused on the arts. She shuddered to think of the damage she could inadvertently do, was she to be turned loose in some sort of lab. "I think it must take a lot of dedication. Determined," she amended. "but satisfying."

[Dula]

¤

Dula merely nodded when Eliza asked if she was feeling well. Being a mage now, despite the positive thoughts most had on Attunement, she still knew enough to hide her “condition”. Plus how does one explain in broken common the experience of overstepping Attunement? It was the strangest thing she had ever been through, thus far. Also wholey disturbing.
“You right. Know this. Still get pissed off.”
The half-sev’ryn said in regards to Eliza’s pep talk. The other woman was right but wasn’t getting through to Dula much, the dark skinned woman remained salty and crossed her arms in defiance. Eliza may be right but Dula has thin skin, she would be hard pressed to come to believe more in herself than the supposed insults thrown her way. She was just the perpetual outsider seeking something more.

“Ill-loom-in-ation. Hmph. Like candles. Okay.”
Dula thought she understood. As she mulled over the new word she learned Eliza continued on seeming to reading Dula’s mind.
“Yes!! Could make powder, methinks. Glows in dark. Have weird sap from crying tree. We could go make now? No ask much, favor someday? Err... repay this one on ‘morrow.”
Uncrossing her arms she waved towards the maps and art on the bar.
“Would very beautiful for art, maps, not long time making the… alchemy. You think, let know.”

“Trees singing Desnind? More of wind from Idalos, not face of usually. Tho’ see face on tree infact, rare, how came own gold sap. Ether storm, yes. Verrrryyy strange.”
She nodded gravely and silently wished the language barrier wasn't so troublesome. Eliza seemed like someone who would have great conversations.
“Paint more? See more? Yes, show you around Lori if ask. Safe with Dula, tho’ not now. Another time. For now, Eliza would want glowing ink?”

If Eliza agreed Dula would say,
“Good! Must run home. Meet Fire Pit yes? See it before? Ask way from Nae’ila. Ha! Or look on map. Be quick, methinks. Meet at Pit! Bye!”
And without another word she would dash out the door, to her home, to go fetch the items she would need to make the powder she had been concocting in her mind from the moment Eliza had mentioned an "ill-loom-in-ation".

[Eliza Soule]

If something was bothering Dula, then clearly she'd rather not discuss it, or even have it noticed. Her nod, but otherwise a silent response, seemed to indicate that much. Eliza hadn't lived nearly two and a half centuries without learning to read at least the cues that could get her through interactions without seeming rude or intrusive. It might also have seemed rude, or at least inattentive, not to have noticed at all. So she'd attempted to strike a happy medium, and then left it there.

And Dula was right. No matter one's confidence in themselves or their skills, the perceived scorn of others could be hurtful or even worthy of anger. "When I was younger," she said, instead of insisting that the opinions of others didn't matter a whit, because honestly in the art world they did. "I didn't paint or draw as well as I do now. Patience helped me get better. Practice. Even criticism did. Go through the hard, to get to the good." She wasn't sure she was expressing herself in a way that might be easily grasped by anyone who was more familiar with their own native tongue. She made a mental note to learn the local language while she was here. At least enough to manage trial to trial.

"You can make powder that glows in the dark?" she asked, wanting to be sure that she'd heard it right. "With alchemy?" If that was true, what a difference it would make in cost and convenience...as well as sourcing what was needed to create illuminating inks or paint. And inks or paints that would glow on their own in the absolute absence of light? The very suggestion opened up all sorts of possibilities. "Would you really?" she asked, and when it seemed that Dula was as excited to do it as Eliza was to have it done, she added..."A favor. Do you mean barter? Is that the correct word?" A trade, at any rate, and she thought she'd heard already that many of the locals preferred bartering to the exchange of goods or services for coins.

She smiled and nodded. "I've thought about it already. The answer is yes. Please," she said. She'd love to be shown around, absolutely, and from Dula's description of the trees around Desnind, they sounded very alike to the ones that crowded her back garden, with their great limbs stretching over her roof as if embracing her home with their protective arms. At any rate, they were agreed. "I know where the fire pit is. I've passed it once or twice since I arrived. I'll meet you there in a few bits."

So once Dula had scampered off, Eliza had gathered up her belongings, then paid for her meal with a little extra for Nae’ila, before leaving the inn and heading for the fire pit.

[Dula]

¤

As Dula made her way to Ivyside Hideout, the charming name of her treehouse covered in dead ivy vines, she thought about what Eliza had said. Patience, practice, “kriti-syz-em”, and going through the hard to get to the good. It made sense. Dula was mulling over patience most of all, it wasn’t something that easily came to her. That was when she decided to heed the woman’s words this time, in creating this ink. The worry crossed her mind that she could start a fire if something went wrong, resulting in banishment or worse. She planned on using a reagent that she was unfamiliar with, it could be dangerous. They probably should have headed to the gwalos so she could experiment in private…. But that’s when she was reminded of what Hygge had said about attunement and alchemy being helpful to one another. As if prophetically, the falling sound and BOOM rang out in her head.

Wincing, she gently sent out the tendrils of awareness to her own frequency and the familiar tones of her being came washing over her. As did a sense of anxiety, would she be able to maintain the frequency during the “boom”? Cutting off the attunement to herself, she stepped into her home, ready to grab her things.

Setting down her flute on her indoor garden table she gave her alchemy equipment an appraising look. Upon her brow was a worried crease, this could be dangerous. It was then she came to terms that she wasn’t afraid of attunement, described to her as a gentle magic, she was afraid of compass-- it would be a long time until she did that again. Logically she knew it was from her switching her power on and off, on and off, after practicing all day, her Spark was gorged on the magic and begged her for more. With each push in her attunement she had done that night, giving herself over too much to the Spark, that was the fatal mistake made to this poor woman’s psyche. She was stronger now, she could feel it, and refused to do something so stupid again.

Grabbing her mortar and pestle, her skillet, the gold vial of liquid she had harvested from the weeping trees in the Lori, a glass container for the finished product, and a wooden stirring spoon along with her small scalpel, Dula stuffed all of her items into the bag she brought with her everywhere. Everything except the vial of golden liquid she held in her hand and began to open herself up to the frequency of the vial. It took three bits, shorter than previous times, but eventually the frequency graced her mind. She studied the notes for a moment, listening to them and not trying to divine their meaning, just being one.

Dula was now ready to leave. Still clutching the vial and attuned to its frequency she headed to the Fire Pit. Once there she took her seat at one of the smaller pits which, thankfully, was devoid of hunters or other patrons cooking their evening meal. There was a small amount of people here, no one at the main pit except for people getting warm and a group of 4 people at another of the smaller outlying pits cooking what looked to be a stew. Trying to be as non-descript as possible she pulled out a few pieces of charcoal with the poker stick and let them cool. This would be the base of the ink.

Looking around for Eliza, she was nervous. This wasn’t going to be easy. Once the coals had cooled down, she picked them up and stuck them in her mortar and pestle, beginning to grind them down. That was when the falling noise rang through her skull, she grit her teeth, and then the BOOM. She was ready for it. It muddied her ability to hear the frequency but didn't turn it off. She could be satisfied with that, she told herself.

[Eliza Soule]

It would only have taken Eliza a couple of bits to reach the fire pit. She'd passed by the location a number of times since she'd first arrived in Desnind, and it seemed to be fairly centrally located. For good reason, since so many of the hunters, trappers and other locals seemed to gather there for the sharing of meals. The painter and daughter of Ymiden liked the concept very much. The people of Desnind seemed to have a very well and wonderful sense of community, and that of caring for their neighbors and friends.

Nonetheless, she'd realized that her newfound friend might need to return to her home before heading to the fire pit herself. It might only be an assumption, that Dula might want to gather some things, but to Eliza it seemed like a logical one. So she hadn't hurried, but had taken her time; and the opportunity to taken in more of the settlement and the people who lived there.

Rumor was her own father favored the place and the wilds around Desnind. So much that from what she'd come to understood, he himself had created some of the smallest inhabitants to be found here. It was no wonder. She loved her little stone cottage and gallery back in Caervalle Town, but she could be happy here at least for a while.

When she finally approached the fire pit, her leather satchel containing some of her art supplied tucked beneath her arm, it didn't take her long to see Dula already there. Easy to spot, when during this time of the trial, there were few others there. She smiled and nodded to the ones that looked up as she passed, and quietly joined Dula. The other woman appeared to be working away already. She smiled again, seated herself quietly beside the other woman and looked on curiously at what she was doing. "I hope I didn't keep you waiting too long?" she said, then tilted her head, nodding towards the mortar and pestle. "Coals from the fire?" she asked, wondering what role the coals would perform in the final preparation.

[Dula]

¤

Eliza found her seat beside Dula and gave a greeting. Merely nodding, Dula continued to grind down the coals as much as possible.
“What for?”
Dula parroted.
“Oh. Ink. Making powder. Look.”
From her pocket she pulled out the golden vial whose frequency still hummed in her head.
“Found in Lori. Not sure what is… have…”
She lowered her voice,
“Attunened. Will be taking listen heat during cook. If fire, explosion, Dula die. Elders hate fire, sacred trees more important than Dula life. They drown I. No fear Eliza. Dula know doing. Attunenement sing, I will know.”

In reality, she was winging it, and it was especially dangerous with her handicap. Luckily Eliza didn’t know about her over stepping either, else the woman might get worried. The coals were now a fine powder, filling about half of her mortar. As gently as possible she added a drop of the golden liquid, it did nothing but lay on top of the coals, its frequency remained unchanged. Using a small amount seemed better than going crazy with the unidentified reagent, she was hoping it would limit any horrible effects. It would seem, at this point, she needed another ingredient. Something to bind the two elements together. Pensively tapping her finger to her chin she looked around and thought hard about about the ingredients around her, surely there was something she would be able to use as a binder….

That was when the half-sev’ryn’s eyes rested on Eliza’s bag, thinking of the silver ink which was inside it. Puzzled, she thought of how she might ask the woman for something so precious-- but in the end decided to skip beating around the bush. It just wasn’t her way.
“Eliza, silver in ink-- final item. No need much-- just drops. Will grind together. Stick on skillet to cook. Should done quickly. Are Eliza in?”