Quoted By:
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-b">Winner:</span></span> The Winegate
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-g">Choice Winners:</span> Titan, Armored Athlete, Labors of Valor, Arcane Trickster, Wild Plains Drifter
Three Choice Winners were ties; I selected from the tied options.
Your return to Liliendorf brings a bright smile to your face. Damien boggles when it catches his eye. A stormy mood always takes you during a purge, so this may well be the first he's seen you happy. Your joy is an infectious thing that spreads to your retainers like wildflowers in a fallow field, warming the late summer's morning chill.
And why would it not? Liliendorf is a beautiful, peaceful village.
In the decade since the duke carved out this fief from the borders of his lands, the little hamlet has grown into a village proper. The dirt roads creep up the gentle slope of a cliff that sharply jetties out over the water like a vine in spring. Like flowers on the vine do the homes of the townsmen bloom, each of them painted in bright and vibrant colors that bring out the joys of life. Some are wood and some are brick. The most prosperous of them nestle up against the walls of your estate, proud to call themselves their liege's neighbors.
The main street leads from the burgundy stained Winegate straight up to the keep's outer walls and the front doors of your castle. Unlike all the other roads in town, it's been paved over with stone tiles. The shops of artisans and tradesmen squeeze in next to one another to face visitors to the village and promote their wares. The most successful of the traders built their shops on the lots closest to the gates, save for one. The only merchant in town that boasts a great glass window like the shops of Stamen sits across the road from the guardhouse, next to your estate.
Today you ignore them and go straight to your favorite shop in the village.
Well, it's more a stand attached to the village pharmacy that gave a new purpose to an old piece of machina used to carbonate tonic water. There you can find a certain carbonated beverage that has become something of a local specialty. More importantly, instead of ice to cool it, for an extra copper they'll drop two scoops of frozen sweet cream into the cup and pour it over that. As a reward for a successful campaign - or pick-me-up after the rare defeat - you can think of nothing better.
"This tastes peculiar..." Damien frowns at his float while everyone else is enjoying theirs. "Why does it taste like someone sweetened a medicinal tea?"
"Cuz that's what it is, Damey," Hilde explains as she greedily slurps up all the sweet cream floating in hers.
"Beg your pardon?" he asks.
"She's not wrong," you tell him. "The good Dr. Martin invented it a few years back. He was trying to create a medicinal khemical that could help him with surgeries. Hilde, help me out, what was he trying to combine? I know part of it was the healing properties of Golden Nymph Honey..."</span>
