The weather had always been a fickle mistress upon Kaonus. Fluctuating between calm skies and violent storms since the earliest days of mankind, even after the taming of the Storm Warden the storms only became more manageable - which was not the same as being light. The torrential downpour that covered the eastern plains was enough evidence of that. It was bone-chilling as it soaked through thick clothing and drenched those caught in it for more than a couple of minutes, the cold of night only enhancing its discomforting effects. It was not a good night to be on the road.
Thus, it was fortunate that the Broken Lantern inn still had room. Poised on the edge of the village of Ellwood, its single lantern held aloft above the door like a flickering firefly in the darkness, it was like a beacon to those who trodded the road at this late hour - few and far between as they may have been. The village itself was tucked in for the night, howling winds and pattering rainfall the norm in these lands - the people had long since learned to sleep through most of it.
Within the creaking structure of the inn a fair number of occupants sat nursing drinks and shivering by the fireside. Few travelers, mostly just villagers with a penchant for drinking late into the night - but for tonight there was little merriment, just solemn drunks mourning their lot in life and shivering merchants with little left to sell. Ellwood was the last village before the long stretch of road to the larger town out West - Teliodor, a critical stop between the scattered east plain villages and the distant capital of Central Kaonus, Bastion. With the hills and woods surrounding north and south the road was one of the only ways through to the West, less you wished to risk finding something hungry and toothy out there.
In one corner sat a young man with a blue cloak, sodden by the rain, working through a bowl of warm stew. Despite the storm, it seemed a calm night within the Lantern for now.
I am Inferi.
11-Nov-2019 13:00:42