That's a weird perspective; these people can all expect to die peacefully in their beds and be survived by enough generations that they don't bother guessing how many there will be. And still don't plan like there's a future?

That's rude to say out loud, though.

"Has that come up a lot? What happened?"

"Uh, a lot. Not here so much, maybe I'm just paranoid, but I've had - several phases of my life, let's say, and none of them have ended peacefully yet.

Probably won't be anything you need to worry about - I could recommend not joining an army, exploring any haunted caves, or falling in love, but I think people often do these things more successfully, so..."

"I have in fact done one of those things successfully. Also unsuccessfully, though at least I survived that time."

"I'm quite fond of surviving, some days I think it's what I'm best at."

The door opens to reveal an older lady than most of those out and about here.

"Oh, come on, come in, sorry to have kept you waiting! I just had to make sure that the smoke didn't get in the main room and the latch was playing up again.

You look new to the Steading, do you need a bed for the night or have you just come for the best stew in Foundhome?" says Brynna, shuffling back a bit and holding the door open. 

"It certainly beats the alternative."

"Bed for the night, thank you, though I wouldn't say no to stew. I've landed here by a magical accident, probably not staying long this visit though I'd guess I'll be back sooner or later."

"Magical accident, hmm? Davyd checked you over? Let me get you a bowl, I'm mostly keeping the middle door shut to keep the smoke out of this half of the house, so you can come through or I'll be back in a bit.."

Allegra smiles. "Shall I leave you to Brynna's hospitality, then?"

"Probably. Thank you for your help!"

Allegra nods at Asitha and heads off; Brynna goes to open the middle door and looks back for a moment to see if Asitha is following her through or whether she should get a bowl of stew and come back shortly.

She'll follow in, might as well see the kitchen.

"Thanks for taking me in. Everyone here's been very hospitable, it's a nice change."

"Well, it's kind of why we're here! Although I think most places in the Empire are hospitable if your lineage isn't too obvious. Here at Foundhome we've all shown up at some point needing that hospitality, so it's just fair to pass it on to others."

This house has two rooms; the front room that the door opened into had one bed, a small table, two chairs, shelves and a big old chest of drawers; this room has a much more lived in looking bed, a considerable yarn collection on the shelves, as well as the cooking fire with a big cauldron over it, a more comfortable looking chair liberally coated in woollen throws, and a larger table with a bronze basin full of water on one end.

"It's a big change from what I'm used to. No one back in the Cursed Empire has enough for themselves, let alone strangers, so hospitality is hard to come by."

Oh good, this doesn't look nearly as half-assed as the architecture.

"That's something our Empire is very good for; you do get some places where people are desperately poor, but mostly because they won't move somewhere they'd be better suited. Plenty of magic and following the Virtues generally lets us rally round and fix things up, even when a place does get cursed or invaded."

Brynna serves up a generous bowl of stew; plenty of venison, with pearl barley and a wide variety of root vegetables. The bowl and spoon provided are both wooden.

"You have really, enormously, more magic than I'm used to. I'd say nine people out of ten that I've met have gone their whole life without seeing a spell cast, and at least half have never seen anything that was enchanted, either. I've got a fair amount personally, but most of those were the life-price for several people, if not more."

"Ooh yes, that would make things a lot harder. Rituals to make the land productive are incredibly useful. Our magic tends not to actually be fuelled by deaths so much, although really big workings can - the Trods were created by the founders of our nation, Navarr and Thorn, and they died in the casting. That was probably part of a deal with an Eternal though, they can demand that kind of thing."

"Oh, not what I meant, sorry. There's definitely magic powered by deaths, the empire's curse is, but the life-prices I mean are payment. Save a dozen villagers from a marauding ogre, they pay me with an enchanted helmet that's been in the family generations; save a hundred, get paid with paired enchanted swords. ...I wonder if we could get like you, if we made peace with our kind of mages and tried to encourage more of them?"

"That does sound promising! Some of our neighbours are less keen on mages, and it doesn't seem to do them much good.

Your items are artefacts? We don't see many of those out here, not that it would mean much to me, I'm not really clever enough for the whole magic thing myself."

"They are! Mages live apart, mostly, there's bad blood on both sides. So if ordinary people see magic it's usually something like these, traded as a favor years ago when people weren't quite so hostile. Or some mage who's turned bandit when his family kicked him out, which sure doesn't help the bad blood, but what can you do, right?"

"You all seem much happier, if I ever get back hopefully I can bring a bunch of volunteers and see if we can't make that happiness contagious."

"I'm sure you'd get plenty of takers for an exciting quest to fix another area of the world, especially if you're dripping with artefacts! Probably more in Dawn or even Anvil than round here, we've already got plenty to fix at home."

"I'm hoping to travel a while first, so I'm sure I'll be able to ask there, too. I like exploring, it's how I left home and started fighting for pay in the first place."

"You'll be in good company, then. My old bones can't take wandering any more, but the Navarr are mostly wanderers by inclination and Imperial citizens in general tend towards the curious - although I suppose I would think that, I just don't get to see many that don't leave their villages!

Are you taking up with a Striding, or just heading off down the Trods and seeing where they take you?"

"Not going to properly join a Striding, at least at first, but hopefully travel with the next one coming through, maybe go alongside them for a while. Allegra suggested I might interest some scholars in Anvil, to see my reincarnations or to sell some of my enchanted gear or both. But I'm not making any big plans yet."

"Oh yes, if you have artefacts from distant lands, I'm sure you'd be swarmed by interested types trying to cast rituals on them to see what visions they hold! I hear the gathering's bigger than ever these days, so you might need some rather pointy elbows to get hold of true liao, even so.

If you're looking to travel with a Striding, you'll probably need to get to at least First Voice Glade, and by that point you might as well go all the way to Seren instead; we get a regular trade wagon but not a proper Striding very often at all, we're a bit off the beaten Trod out here."

"Is 'true liao' different from Bourse? I don't think I heard the name."

"The Bourse is, well, auctions and - big money. True liao is the thing - the holy substance, I should probably say! - that lets you see your own past lives. I think the Bourse auctions off a dose, which might be where you heard it?"

"Ah, yeah, I think what I heard was 'Bourse dose' and thought Bourse was the substance rather than the market. It must be a remarkable experience; there's nothing similar where I'm from."