Investigate
1540 Words
Friday, 9th September 1442
The morning came as some birds were chirping overhead and were fluttering away when it detected some movement from underneath the trees.
Everyone was snugly asleep in the positions that they were last night ever since they curled up into each blanket. The chilly morning awoke Guy and Gillian since they both knew how to live in the outdoors and the chirping birds indicated that the dawn was already breaking.
"Gillian, use one of your leather pouches to make some tea, will you? We would have some jerkies along with some bread. See those thin trials of smoke about some miles away there? It's going to be our first town to visit."
"It seemed these two can't really wake up after having a good night's sleep eh? Hahaha. Too bad they are newlyweds, I wonder what makes them want to join the Adventurers Guild and be members. Don't they know they have to live outdoors and survive just like this? "
Guy was chatting away with Gillian as he prepared to stoke up some firewood on the campfire and very soon the whole place was smoky before the campfire erupted into flames.
The kindling underneath them was wet with dew and that's the reason why there was so much smoke from the campfire. Luckily they were inside the pine trees area and the smoke that rises would soon be enveloped by the mist and the pine leaves overhead.
It would soon look like some kind of mist and not smoky fires.
Gillian went up to the Guinness and shook their legs slightly and they slowly stirred from their sleep. They awoke with a start and was delighted that the campfire was burning and a pot was sitting on it to make the morning tea.
The Guinness' immediately rose to their feet and fluffed their blankets that were slightly wet with few and after air-drying them for a while in the clothesline, the blankets were then rolled up and tied outside their knapsacks.
"We will enter the village using our uniforms but we will also use our blankets to cover ourselves. We won't know which town or village that is and it would be best to keep our identity on the down-low."
Gillian advised as she too had fluffed her blanket and air dry them. Instead of rolling it and tying then up, she would drape it over her body to act as a cloak.
"Keep all your coins into many pouches, just have 12 coppers on a coin pouch that is on your body. This is not Gracehaven where 100 coppers would be exchanged for 1 Silver but this is the outdoors where 12 coppers are exchanged for 1 Silver Coin."
Guy advised as the Guinness' immediately hid most of their money inside their knapsack in between some layers of cloth and whatnot and then just jingle 12 coppers on their body.
"I wondered how come the currency rate is truly different from inside our town and outside town. It would be good to earn coins in our town and spend it outside, don't you think so?"
One of the Guinness' asked Guy and he simply replied, "Our Majesty was simply following the old system of currency exchange back in town. At least he won't have to think so much in how much this and that would cost. Luckily Our Majesty has Marcel as his Trade Advisor or else even I myself would find it hard to adjust the pricing for the goods to be sold internally."
"Owh...no wonder Our Majesty just followed the old currency rate or maybe he devised his own so its simpler for him to keep track of his investiture?" Guinness replied as he broke off a piece of bread and passed to his partner.
"Whatever it is, just follow my lead. We just need to stay low and let me ask the villagers around before hitting the tavern for some nice hot food. If that town does not have a Lord then we would be having an easier time to deal with the town folks."
"Besides from this town onwards, we would be able to gain knowledge to the rest of the inhabited towns nearby. At least we won't be walking around blindly. Looking from this distance, at least we could see some kinds of movements from that town."
"Yeah, we also need to replenish our supplies as well, especially water for the food we can hunt on our own," Gillian added after Guy had advised to follow his lead and inspect the village first. They would not want to end up entering a bandit's town, am I right?
After the party of four had drunk some pine tea and ate some pieces of bread with some roasted smoked jerkies, they broke camp. Guinness wanted to take some pine leaves with them to make future tea but was stopped by Guy.
"Sorry mate, tea would be best served with fresh pine leaves from the branches itself. If you keep it with you it would taste bitter and may upset your stomach."
"Just leave them be, there are a lot more leaves that could be made into tea later on. But at least you know that fresh pine leaves can't be boiled but could be steeped in boiling water, am I right?"
After listening to the sound advise from Guy, the Guinness then removed some of the pine leaves they had stored inside their knapsack and disposed of them away. Of course, they would not want to have any stomach upset in the future as it would hamper their progress.
They broke camp and cleared all the embers so that it would catch fire. After stomping a few times on the ground and wearing their uniforms back before shrouding themselves with the blankets, they moved towards the trail of smoke from the chimneys or fireplace in the distance.
They were hoping that the first town they would be visiting would yield good progress as it had been a day since they had travelled towards the unknown frontiers.
Guy and Gillian had never ventured out without being close to the body of water since Irish Travellers rely on the main source of life all the time. This was the first time they had to walk according to the directional given to them and were glad to meet some life out here in the frontier.
After they had walked for some miles, they had reached the outskirt of the town. It was more like a small village or a settlement and there were some crop fields around the area.
From one look, they had not seen any brick homes but there were some thatched houses and cruck houses that lined the perimeter of the small village after the crop fields.
Guy looked at the rest of the party members as they walked through the village and stopped when they had met with some farmers tending to the fields.
"Good morrow, we are Adventurers and we hail from afar in a town almost a day's worth of trek. What is the name of this place and is there any Lords living in here?" Guy stopped a fairly middle-aged man and asked the details of the small village.
"Oh, hello there, young lad. Welcome to Aidi Village, my weary travellers. It had been some time since we had any visitors and we had just recently built this town from scratch."
"There's no Lords here, my young lad but there's a leader whom you might want to meet later on. His name is Aidi and he is the one that named this town."
The middle-aged man greeted back in a friendly manner and from the looks of him and the rest of the village, it seemed that the situation was quite harmless but Guy didn't wish to lower his guard too soon.
Stories of Bandits acting as farmers and other artisans were abound as he and his family had travelled across vast lands from Wales all the way to Scotland and then back again while herding their livestock for better pastures.
"Do you have a place where we weary travellers could take a break and have some hot gruel or something?" Guy asked as his eyes darted around wildly and take in as much information as he could about this village.
The party of four was led in by the middle-aged man and the village was rather small with not more than 12 houses and yet there's a cosy tavern right in the middle of the premise.
How convenient... Gut thought to himself as he cautiously watched the surroundings for any signs of hostility.
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