Ah a town at last, time to put our feet up and…

What the fuck.

The first sight that greets us is a gnarly old tree, full of corpses.

We’re then greeted by a smelly little melt of a man called Urgeat, who opens up with a sure-fire pick-up line:

Have you ever conceived a Hollowborn child?

He then carries on with his radically misplaced attempt at flirting by telling me what they do to people who aren’t their kind of people in this charming little hamlet. Apparently, the local lord’s wife is about to have a child, and he’s a bit protective over his pissy little fiefdom. He’s scared that children will be born without souls and become ‘hollowborn’.

I have to tell him a few things to even be allowed to set foot in the town, first of which is that I saw the cult up outside Cilant Lîs, though again Urgeat’s charm comes through and he implies I’m a lawbreaker.

I have to tell him about my run in with a soulstorm as well, but he brushes this off too, outright calling me a liar..

Just then, bells sound around the town, 3 in total. The townsfolk quietly begin to shit themselves.

Turns out that not even Urgeat knows what’s going on apart from that a member of the lord’s family has died; this might yet impact our ability to settle here, not that that is looking promising given the impression we have so far…

He eventually lets us go, so we have a wander around town. Outside the inn we come across an elf in trouble.

I like the idea of a fight, even though the thugs seem to think I’m taking the piss.

The elf eventually looks like he’s ready to make a move, and the thugs don’t really get the danger they’re in apparently.

This actually works and the thugs decide to leave the elf and me alone. He’s thankful, which he should be, ‘cause it was fairly obvious that it was our big strong Nature Godlike neck that was stuck out to save his skinny bum.

He introduces himself as Aloth Corfiser, a noble-born wizard from the Aedyr Empire. I let him in on a secret, that I survived a bîaŵac. Apparently, that’s impossible, but so is taking on 3 xaurip so it seems we’re in the habit of possibling the impossible.

A bit more probing reveals that the Aedyr and this area were at war at some point in the past, and the people of the region hold a grudge.

Aloth then denies aggravating the thugs, despite saying he’d fucked one of their sisters.

Aloth has been fed the same junk about the lord’s impending child and how that affects the ability of people to settle, so I guess that Urgeat is just a big ol’ sack of shit to everyone that he meets.

I go to take my leave, but Aloth pulls a move directly out of the Infinity Engine playbook and offers to join up. Mayhaps we could team up to go and take down a certain bear…

For now, we’ll head back into The Black Hound and find Tenfrith, and see if there’s anything else interesting to stea.. I mean investigate.

Tenfrith is in the kitchen, and as a reward we get…

A pie recipe. Neat I guess, but I’m in the mood for killing, not culinary expertise. We can access the crafting menu through the inventory screen, and the pie has been added to our list.

The stats are pretty good, with a 150-second duration to boot. Extra Endurance and Might can really help turn the tide of battles, and the ingredients at least appear common. Seems like it would be a good idea to see if there’s a merchant in town that can help with the missing ingredients.

I talk to the innkeeper to have a rest to recover from the ordeals of bandits, xaurip and spiritstorms, and she’s super duper thankful that she has her chef back, so much so that we get a discount on drinks and rooms, and a decent wedge of experience to boot.

We get the choice of 3 rooms but since we’re as poor as fuck we just sleep on the floor.

This was a bad idea, and nightmares plague our sleep...

WE SEE DEAD PEOPLE (in our dreams).