>>5170403>>5170404>>5170433>>5170436"Where is this place?" You see if there's any point in asking Zhafira.
"We're in llos! Home of the gladiators and the strongest men alive. At least that's what he says, I've never seen him fight, but since only the winners tend to win and stay inside while the losers stay here for labor, he's probably a lot stronger than me. Hahaha!"
"Do you know how to fight?" Finally, she starts to speak on something more coherent.
"Gosh, no. I cut myself when trying to slice a block of cheese! My family is full of artisans, no need to learn how to fight when we will surely grow famous from our other skills. I know how to use magic, but I don't think I could use any of them for violence." She messes with something behind your ear, and after some itching, she pulls a large set of knotted handkerchiefs from you. "Here, you should get yourself dried up!"
It seems that she can't really use actual magic, but the commoner optical illusions that people call magic, such as making your fingers 'disappear' and choosing the right cards from a pile. At least these won't get you in any trouble from the church.
"Are you just toying with me?" You're not too quick to trust the jester.
"I'm serious! It's in the notes, and the notes never lie. Except when they do, but that's never my fault!" She shows a paragraph she wrote down that explains what she thinks of the place.
'Ilos, Leave in under a week or get challenged into a fight for wasting money. Barnham is a very bad person. Need to impress the king with my arts and convince him to free the people here.'
Though very childish in her thinking, she thinks she can stop slavery by sucking up to a bigger master, and judging by how she's the only one here wearing colored clothing and similing, you wonder how well that's going for her.
"Interesting, what else is there in your notes-"
"Don't touch it!" She slaps your hands when you inquire for more info. "It's mine! Zhafira hisses. You feel slightly inclined on reading her memories out of spite, but that would just be rude, and given how much of a weirdo she is, you doubt you would get a lot of it.
"Wait, you said you had puppets, right? Would you mind showing them?"
"Of course not! They're all back home with the others, but that means you'll get to meet the others!" She takes your hand and skedaddles before you even had the time to dry your hair with her rags.
Checking out the scenery with more detail, you see an open graveyard with several dried up corpses on one end, and other small houses huddled up not too far from there. The buildings are all crooked and lifeless, and the people all look hungry, sick, or some combination of the two.
Which only makes it more offputting when you hear Zhafira happily humming a lullaby song when passing by the dried up corpses of the innocents.
>So who do you live with?>Anything else you know about Barnham?>Why are you so happy all the time?>Why do you think the king will get over here?>Write-in. 