The hovel was woven into the strangled roots of a dying Ironwood tree. The old man had introduced himself as Drigurd, the province's storyteller.
He was a Lvl 120 Scholar. Though now, as he told Percival, his teaching days were far behind him.
His home smelled of the damp earth and drying herbs. It was a scent easy to memorize. A small fire crackled in a stone pit, casting long, dancing shadows against walls made of living bark and hardened mud.
Drigurd sat on a stool carved from a stump, his gnarled hands wrapped around a clay bowl. Steam curled up from the Lowen soup; a thick, crimson broth made from river-moss and spiced venison blood.
It was a dish of the old world, heavy and iron-rich, designed to keep the cold of the frontier from freezing the marrow.
Percival sat across from him on a crate, his obsidian armor drinking in the firelight. He held his own bowl, but he did not eat.
