Local lore is surprisingly accurate

[what_greater_weapon]

Noelle finds that having a village is quite a pain. So she doesn't have one. Instead she travels. This isn't as easy as the sentence makes it sound. She has several sets of clothes that fit her just badly enough to make her look androgynous instead of feminine, while still being practical and not in her way. It's perhaps not what her fashion choices would be if choosing for aesthetics, but her fashion choices are not based around aesthetics. Instead it's to keep the idiots that think a lone reasonably pretty young woman is a tempting and vulnerable target to a minimum.

Not that it's a foolproof strategy. People are stupid, and she's apparently rather pretty. Not that anyone should try anything; while she might be tempting, she is not vulnerable. She has a sword at her hip that she knows how to use beyond 'pointy end goes in the person,' a small crossbow that looks deceptively useless when it is anything but, and a few knives that benefit from baggy clothes and the ability to hide knives therein. Anyone that thinks she is a tempting and vulnerable target and that they should act accordingly will be corrected. Possibly with the knives, if they especially deserve it.

She's actually in the middle of that right now. Well, sort of. She is working on being in the middle of that right now. In order to get there she has to find the guy. He had some wandering hands that went to unsanctioned locations, and after she broke his finger he, well, ran. Normally she might let him go, call it even, but she realized the next morning that he fit the description of a bandit with a sizable bounty on him. And he did have a mysteriously large purse for a man with that little class. It fits. And he's an asshole, so she can go retrieve him, dump him at the feet of the local lawmen that are looking for him, collect the lovely bounty, and be on her way.

One problem: the asshole ran into a thing the locals call the Witchwood. She realizes rather too late that it is appropriately named. The trees must be moving, or moving her, because she passed by that creek with the rocks in that particular formation and the slightly broken tree two hours ago, and she was following the sun. This should not happen.

Well. She has travelling rations with her, and she can find water reliably well (especially if the creek keeps showing up) but if she's trapped in here forever there's not much she can do about it. If it takes longer than a week she might set the forest on fire, but she's not that desperate. She'll let the magic woods lead her around if they want to, she guesses. Not that she has a choice.

She scrapes marks in trees with her least favorite knife, because it's not like she has anything better to do, and she wants to know how many times trees will repeat themselves. Scrape scrape. Wander wander.

Comments

[pythbox]

The lack of servants and servant-related areas means there are no obvious places to do laundry.

There is an obvious place to take a bath. It's extremely fancy. You could nearly (not quite, but nearly) go swimming in there. Cuddly towels and interesting soaps abound. One could technically wash one's clothes in this, but one might not like to, depending.

[what_greater_weapon]

Well. Maybe she can ask the bath.

Feeling rather foolish, she addresses the bathtub. "Excuse me, can you, er, wash my clothes?"

[pythbox]

There is no immediate answer.



But after a few seconds, one of those trays comes trotting into the room on its little feet, empty.

[what_greater_weapon]

"Oh. Okay. That works, then." She considers the viability of all of her clothes being washed in time for her to be wearing them when she is done with her bath. "Do you have spare clothes, actually?"

[pythbox]

The tray, lacking a teapot with which to nod, does a little not-quite-curtsyish bob instead. And takes a few steps toward the hall, leadingly.

[what_greater_weapon]

Well the only reasonable thing for her to do is to follow it.

She does so.

[pythbox]

It leads her to her chosen room, where it comes to a halt beside the large sturdy wardrobe in the corner.

[what_greater_weapon]

Because it seems the obvious thing to do, she opens it. Are there clothes in there?

[pythbox]

There are clothes in there. Clothes in both her size and her taste.

The tray curtsies proudly.

[what_greater_weapon]

"I adore this castle," she says, "creepy as some of these implications are. Just. Thank you."

She picks out a set of these wonderful clothes that have trousers and this long dark flowing jacket that can disguise her sword and various weapons, and shirts that help with the androgyny while also actually fitting her, and soft but sturdy boots that are good for a lot of walking, and then cackles and heads off to have a bath.

[pythbox]

The tray traipses off to wherever trays go when they're not helping her with things.

The bath fills itself with hot water. It is perfect and delightful.

[what_greater_weapon]

Eeeeeeeeee!

She thinks she loves this castle. If it and the Witchwood's going to trap her in here for the foreseeable future, at least it's being excessively nice about it.



When she is clean she wears the wonderful brilliant amazing new clothes (she indulges in a twirl) and then asks if she can please take some weapons from the armory, too.

[pythbox]

A tray comes into the room to give a little bobbing nod.

[what_greater_weapon]

Eeeee!






Everything in the armory is so wonderful. She loves this place. It is so great. She doesn't exactly never want to leave, but she would like to always be able to come back, she thinks.

She picks out a new set of weapons (upgrades to everything she owns, actually) and then decides that maybe she should go to bed. So instead of gleefully trying to wring all of the stuff out of this wonderful magical castle, she will head up to her chosen bedroom, change into an offered set of clothes appropriate for sleeping and goes to bed.

Zzzzz.

[pythbox]

The castle does not interrupt her sleep.

In the morning, the breakfast tray arrives, with delicious breakfast.

[what_greater_weapon]

Delicious, delicious breakfast! Nom nom nom.

Well! As much as she wants to go be a language nerd again today, she... dislikes feeling like she's languishing. And she doesn't, exactly, but she doesn't want to feel anything close to like she is. Besides, she has a lot of energy in her, from consistently good meals and long comfortable sleep and an entire day cooped up in the library. She needs to go do something.

She has all of these new weapons, and she isn't quite good enough with them all to her taste.

The armory has a good area for this sort of thing. She'll use it.

Wheeee!

[pythbox]

As usual, she is uninterrupted except for trays at mealtimes.

[what_greater_weapon]

Lunch is a good stopping place, she thinks. For this thing. Though now she is covered in sweat...

...

She can have as many baths as she wants, can't she.

So because she can, she has one, because why not, it's magic, and then she dresses in clothes from the wardrobe that have trousers, but look a bit more actively feminine over androgynous. No one else is here, the wardrobe changes its clothing offerings, and she just feels like it. So, again, she does.

And then, to the library! She'll get to looking at the non-Albish and non-Callian offerings. She thinks it will take her less time to get enough of a handle on the languages to tell if there are introductory books than it will to sort through archaic Albish and Callian books to piece together a lesson plan for a beginner when all of the terms are different and everything is in jargon, instead of something perfectly understandable, like long-archaic languages.

Back to reading. Aloud.

[pythbox]

Some of the languages on offer are close enough to Albish or Callian or both that she can guess pretty well at the meaning and pronunciation of this or that word and then work from there. Some are more obscure. Several don't even use the same alphabet, which makes reading aloud a pretty hopeless prospect.

[what_greater_weapon]

If you can't do everything, do what you can. She leaves the ones that use a different alphabet alone, a little glumly. They're - not exactly hopeless, she's not calling them that, but there is no way she could figure out that language in any reasonable amount of time.

She doesn't get the languages confused very often, which is hard to do when one is embracing their inner polyglot. Distinct accents for each helps distinguish them in her head. This one does not follow these rules, because it sounds like this, but it is more like this language because it sounds similar, but not quite, it was sort of in the same region as this other one that sounds similar but not as much -

And on and on it goes.

[pythbox]

Until the dinner tray arrives.

[what_greater_weapon]

Dinner tray means break time, but not a permanent one. Nom nom nom.

Then, back to being a language nerd.

Pity she doesn't have anyone to practice with, but that's all right. She'll be fine. She read and chips away at them, piece by piece. She'll understand how they work.

[pythbox]

The books are helpless before her onslaught.

But none of these are introductory, either. And there are only helpful poetry books available for some of these languages. The supply of books she could understand soon but hasn't understood yet dwindles steadily.

From the material she's deciphered so far... well, she might be able to tell that a 'Dream-world' is the same thing as a 'mind-realm' which is the same thing as a 'mindscape', and the name gives some obvious hints about what sort of a thing it is, and there are more hints to be had in how and where it is mentioned, but all these books seem to be written assuming the reader already knows exactly what it is, how to get there, and how to safely manipulate it. And many of them are very clear that unsafely manipulating it is also possible. It's like this for much of the specialized enchanter jargon: hints that add up to a broad grasp of what something is, but not enough of them to form a concrete practical understanding.

[what_greater_weapon]

That's sort of annoying, but it's looking more and more like she made a good call in trying to decipher the languages first. She'll be more able to piece information together that assumes she knows the basics if she has as much information as possible. So she's allowed to play to her strengths.

And eventually she yawns mid-diction, notes that it is late, and goes up to bed to sleep. Zzzzz. Glorious bed.

[pythbox]

Delicious breakfast arrives the next morning after she wakes up. It is tasty and the tray that brings it is adorable.