The Journey of Clangor
Chapter Two: Reflection
As I walked down the road following the signs, I began to wonder where to go. I could just wander; let the wind take me to where ever it blows. Or I could find a place and settle down. The second choice sounded the worst to me; I am not one to stay still for long. I pondered my choices all day, until I came across a small pond just off the road.
I had stopped there to have a drink before continuing on, but something caught my eye as I drank. As I dropped my hand into the water I saw my reflection in the corner of my eye. I looked over and saw what appeared to be a hideous face in place of mine. It looked to be an Orc, but only if you cut off all of its skin and left it in the sun for a few days, then buried it for another few weeks and dug it up. I shifted my head ever so slightly and the face turned into the most beautiful person I ever laid my eyes on. With brown hair like the finest oak tree, and the eyes to watch. If it was a real person I would never stop staring.
I stayed at that pond for the rest of the day thinking about what I saw. I knew it was a sign of sorts, though I never knew what it went for years, when I met an odd group a travelers.
The next day I continued down that road, coming across a town. The town was very small, twelve maybe fourteen houses. Of course it stank to high heaven; you could almost see the birds falling from the sky. I wandered around the town, with my nose pinched shut, looking for anything of interest, well it stank did I mention that? Other then that it did not seem to have anything useful to me; that was before I found the port. I approached the man who seemed to be in charge of the largest ship, though it was still rather small, and tried to get a ride somewhere.
"Can you take me out of here?" I asked the man, staying in this dump did not appeal to my tastes.
"For the right price." He said looking me over with a smile. Oh great, now I get to go on a boat with some freaky guy, my life just gets better and better.
"How much of a price?" Please be low, please be low.
"Well how much do you have?" Well let's see, carry the one, fifty six. Yeah I will definitely need more.
"Thirty two gold, is that enough?" Hey it might work.
"Lucky you, that's just how much it costs!" Yeah and I was born yesterday.
"Alright, where can you take me?" Let me guess, nowhere?
"Well I am only going to Vvardenfell right now, so you will have to wait if you want to go somewhere else." Yeah I bet.
"That will work. When are you leaving?" In a year if you don't shut up.
"Sunrise tomorrow." Great now I have to rent a room.
"Okay, I will be back then." If I come back.
I walked away to find a place to rent. Not much in this port "town". At least not enough to warrant a tavern or the like. So I started wandering again, thankfully I found a family had an extra bed to spare, for travelers with gold. I slept outside of a jail cell for the first time in a year, and it felt great. I had a dream that night, it was the same dream I had every night for years. But right now is not the time, maybe when I am dead I will tell you the dreams I have, yeah that works.
The next day at sunrise I met the ship captain twelve gold lighter, I would have just swam to Vvardenfell, but I might get eaten by something. I don't know about you, but being eaten by a sea monster is not that high on my "Things to do" list, in fact it was close to the bottom, right above "Die a slow painful death by suffocation" and right below "Fall off a cliff". Thus I went to see the second most annoying person I ever met.
"Ah good you're here, take her away!" Oh just shut up already.
I spent the next two days on that ship. I won't describe them here; I don't think I could even if I wanted to. It was just that horrible; and annoying. We reached Vvardenfell in the dead of night, in a place called Hla Oad. It was a small dirty stinking hole in the ground, far worse then that last town. Here you could see the birds fall from the sky, I need to remember to ask the full destination next time.
After disembarking I searched for another place to stay, this time unsuccessfully. I am used to sleeping on the ground now, but that first time in Vvardenfell was a nightmare. I wandered out of the town looking for a place both comfortable and out of site of the guards, if they caught me sleeping in town I would have to pay a fine, which I could not do so back to the mines with me. Needless to say I did not want to go back to mining.
The place I slept at was not to far from the town, but I can't be sure of the direction. There were some trees, rocks, more rocks, and small pond full of some kind of muck. I later found out that I just described about the entire western coast of Vvardenfell. A couple of hours after falling asleep I was woken by a large crash. Rousing myself I went to go check it out. It turned out to be smugglers, and they had their own ship. Wow, I thought, these must be high end smugglers! But I had heard bad things about the smugglers of Vvardenfell, they were supposed to attack on sight, so I approached carefully.
Approaching the smugglers I reached for my bow, but not quite pulling it out. I wanted to appear ready to attack if needed, but only then. Thankfully they must have seen something in me, as they did not reach for their weapons but instead one of them came off their ship. Possibly knowing I was once one of them.
"Why are you here?" Good straight to the point.
"I was woken by your men." It was the truth.
"Oh yeah? Why should we not kill you right now?" I can think of forty good reasons off the top of my head.
"Because I used to smuggle before being arrested, you don't want to kill a brother would you?" Please work, oh gods please work.
"Well… I guess that would not be great on my reputation… just leave and we will forget about you."
Good, I did not want to join. And they might not let me leave alive if invited to join them.
I went back to my little nock in the rocks and went back to sleep with out thinking of the danger I had just avoided, both by the smugglers and by the profession its self. I woke the next day and decided it would be best to follow the signs again, that always leads to fame and riches for me. By the way, I was being sarcastic. Following the signs almost worked that time, well, I came to a place slightly better then Hla Oad. I had found a town called Seyda Neen, though it was not much of an improvement even in name, at least it was pronounceable.
Seyda Neen was the kind of town people only stayed in if they have no choice; thankfully I was able to move on soon after finding it.