In the morning, the healer brought them more bowls of not quite dead marine creature, and mugs of cloudy ocrex ink.
“Oh, that ocrex ink is strong,” Sevan winced.
“What is the plan?” asked the healer. “Call on the gods and ask them to help? Be careful, because wrath kills the foolish, and envy slays the silly.”
The healer chewed on a piece of not quite dead marine creature.
“The foolish try to settle here,” he continued. “Their camps are cursed. They bring offspring far from safety and are crushed at the gate of the settlement. No-one helps them.”
“Why do they come here?” asked Sevan.
“The hungry have eaten their harvest. They even pick the stray crops that have been growing within the thorny red thimbleberry bushes. The thieves take everything. Evil does not come out of the soil, nor
