Arienh and Hartrim sit in a crowded Prancing Pony. Arienh yawns as she leans over the table.
"Are you alright?" Hartrim asks.
"I'll be fine," Arienh says "but after all the running around to get last minute orders in and check the cart I could pass out right here."
"Why don't you go to bed?"
"The food is down here."
Hartrim laughs and says, "Are you that hungry?"
"I just want something good before we're stuck with salted meat and hard tact."
"Is that why you've eaten so much while we've been here. I hope you're going to work off what you put around the middle on the way back."
"Very funny," Arienh says as food is placed in front of her. She immediately takes a bite out of the beef sandwich in front of her.
"You have absolutely no manners."
"Why do we need manners" Arienh asks with her mouth full. "It's not like we're going to offend the ghosts walking around Agamaur."
"I suppose you have a point but I certainly don't want to see food you've already chewed."
Arienh swallows, "What's your plan when we get back?"
"The hillmen that started setting up camp should be dealt with. Taking out their leader should cause enough chaos to give us a little breathing room."
"You know where the leader is?"
"Not exactly but my guess would be the entrance to the old fortress," Hartrim says. "They seem to be interested in the old city."
"We should take out some of the lesser hillmen to slow them down more."
"Did you get a good price for the relics you brought back?"
"Yeah and you were right to talk to the scholars first," Arienh says. "They were practically drooling over them before we even started talking price."
"Scholars are easy money if you have an old vase."
"With what's left in the ruins we can feed the Eglain for years."
"First we have to survive the Red Maid and hillmen," Hartrim says.
"If we can do something about the Red Maid I think the hillmen will retreat."
"Probably which is why we must sow some chaos until that time. My more immediate concern at the moment is the darkwaters that are being born of the corrupted waters."
"Those things give me the creeps," Arienh says. "Have you ever seen one form? It just pops out of the water without warning."
"I'm thinking more of the fact that we don't actually kill them. Once the bodies they've made of water are destroied they just start to make another."
"What else can we do?"
"Nothing," Hartrim says "we simply continue to kill them to ensure they don't get to be so numerous they stampede over us."