>>6189953>(4) Tour Winterfell as a whole party, get a head start on mingling.>(5) Have breakfast, socialise more with your party indoors; your choice of who with and whether one-on-one or all together. (All together) You think about what to do for the remainder of the day. There’s a lot to attend to - scrying on known Nightrunners to figure out if any are here, researching the planes, drawing up plans of action and trying to work out what sort of laboratory you can improvise over the next few weeks. But, sitting here at your dining table, you find yourself struggling to focus on anything important. Your experience in the godswood and its shrine helped highlight just how little you know of this place and of its people. And you know your own scarcely any better.
You also find yourself craving a proper breakfast. The feast last night did sate your hunger, but it was rather too heavy. The meat of pigs and cattle is rare in Cuva; your people prefer foul, eggs, clams, crabs, shrimp, and above all salmon. Heady festivities follow the major runs in the spring and autumn every year, and all but the most critical official business grinds to a halt for weeks at a time.
The translucent servants of your mansion bring out a broad variety of dishes from home. Smoked salmon, boiled eggs, baskets of blackberries and apples, soft herb-stuffed nachbánna flatbread, little golden oatcakes made with cattail pollen, sunflower seeds and pine nuts, and a sharp cheese, along with tea and coffee.
“So, how did you two meet, if I might ask?” you say to Emíl and Lukas while nibbling some bread. “You said you’ve known one another for a while.”
“Oh, it was back in ‘51,” Lukas says. “His company was hired to help defend our outpost on Suvarmur during the Travan War. The North Cape is a miserable place, but the Corellians thought it too important to let fall to Travans or monsters, so we were ordered to help them defend it. Our little garrison spent most of six miserable months shivering and watching for the Travan man-of-war that never came. We’ve maintained a correspondence ever since.”
“There was nothing to do but drink, sing, and hunt the local beasts,” Emíl says, “and there were not quite so many beasts after a while.”
“Not too much rum either, by the end.”
“My apologies for that.” The two men laugh.
“And… What about Anya?”
“Ah, that,” Emíl says. “I am afraid there is not so much story there. I have worked with the faithful of the Dawnfather in Corellia before. Some years ago I met Soren, and when he noticed I possessed skill beyond the common mercenary, if I might flatter myself, and introduced me to the High- ah, to Anya. I received her Sending some three weeks ago now requesting a meeting, and I believe you know the rest.”
