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Oakstead is a small village of eight buildings in the midst of a large wood. The wood consists mostly of oaks and shrubs. The other notable feature is fox creek. It is this body of water that allows the transport of goods. The things to transport from Oakstead to the next bigger city are wood. And some pelts of animals from these woods. Half of the 25 people living here are working to create lumber.
The owner of the sawmill and self imposed mayor of town is Dwayne Smith. He came here with a dozen lumberjacks, built the sawmill, and two houses for the lumberjacks and started his business. The workers are currently Peter Hatwell, John Goodsmith, Jane Wolfson, Curd Owlson, George Atwell, Linda Gatwick, Lucas Burston, Evelin Porter, Chuck Stallone, Sarah Morgan and Guy Bronson.
As shipping everything needed from the next town cost too much of his time and was expensive, he tried to get some other people to settle in Oakstead, to take care of his worker's needs. Successfully.
First came James Gordon, a middle aged man with his son, who built and runs the local general store. He also owns the boat running up and down the creek. Captain of the boat is James Gordon Jr. who stays always longer in the city than in Oakstead.
Next came Gertrud "Butch" Johnson with her family. She works as hunter/butcher and makes sure there is meat to eat in the village. Her husband Randolf set up a potager behind the house, where the trees are gone. Together with their now four kids they provide half of the fresh food for the village.
The last to join the village six years ago are Will and Shelly Branston and their five kids. They are farmers. They grow mostly grain and raise chickens. They also operate a small oxen driven mill.
The village exists for 11 years now. Some of the workers have changed over the years. Some only come here in spring and leave at the end of autumn. But all know each other and are relying on each other. That doesn't mean they all like each other. Dwayne is not known to be generous. Especially to the lumberjacks. That he sold the wood for for bulding their houses, to the four lumberjacks who decided to stay here almost at full price, while giving the Johnsons, Gordons and Branstons at half of that caused some bad blood.
But nowadays life is just moving on with the constant knocking noise of axes hitting trees and the noise the sawmill makes.
Gertrud has laid the table for breakfast. It is a eharty selection of food. Dried sausages, apples, tomatoes, cucumber and bread. Most of it, from their own garden or something made of hunted meat. Around the table sit Randolf and the kids. "I don't want to see that stinky weasel at the breakfast table." Gertrud scolds Clara as the weasel climbs Clara's shoulder to look over the table.
Tobar, being the good boy left his pet in his room. Which earns him a smile from his mother. Gertrud sits down and speaks a short prayer of thanks to Desna.
As everyone grabs some food she goes through the duties of the day. "I need one of you to help me with that boar. It will become more of these tasty sausages. And your father needs help too. The weeds are larger than the vegetables again. Someone has fluked on that job lately. I'll serve you weeds if I find no vegetables anymore. If you don't want a salad of thistles, you better be thorough this time."
Rolls are Profession(Butcher) with a DC of 10. Fail 5 or more and you cut yourself. Work is done when you reach 80.
Weeding goes also to 80, but is not supervised. Needing more than 6 rolls will lead to blisters on the leading hand.
@Branston's House
There is a similar scene at Branston's house. Will sits at the table with three of their kids. Over the door hangs the iconic bow of Erastil. The table is full with bread and vegetables. Shelly stands at the hearth with a large pan for scrambled eggs.
"How long will it take Silas and Tarjun to get the eggs this morning?" Shelly asks mostly herself.
"Ok mum." Clara tells as her mum complains about Weasel. She grabs it and sticks it into the bum bag of her hoodie, together with half a sausage from the table, to make sure it stays there.
Weasel follows Clara around since forever. She couldn't even speak in full sentences back then. She didn't get that it was "a weasel" and took it for its name and it stuck. Weasel doesn't care. As long as there is food.
When the talk changes to work Clara rolls her eyes and sighs. But that expression disappears to make room for the 'wasn't me' expression when the topic comes to the weeds. It totally was her. She hates weeding. "I'll help with sausages." she calls out before someone else can. Which comes over a lot more enthusiastic than she is. It's still work. Clara bites into the other half of the sausage.
Kygar enjoys the sausages and an apple but her mood is ruined because after dinner comes work. And as breakfast is finished she tries to talk herself out of work.
"But mum, I don't like the vegetables anyway. May I just go outside and do something else than working all day like all the other days? Kygar asks and tries to look pitiful.
"How about you work fast instead of dawdling all day and be done with it early? Then you can go outside and do something else." Gertrud replies, ignoring the played pitiful looks.
"Kygar has to wo-ork, Kygar has to wo-ork." Lilly tells amused.
"In a year or two you'll have to work too" Kygar sticks her tongue out.
"I'll do the weed then." she tells listless with an upside down smile on her face.
"You're so little, you're not allowed to do grown ups work." Clara tells and also sticks her tongue out at Lilly.
"Mummy, tell them I'm not little!" Lilly complains. But Gertrud ignores that.
"Make sure to call me when you think you're done with your work." Randolf tells Kygar. "Tobar, you can choose whichever work you want. None of them will be finished today anyway."
As all are done with breakfast they clean the table together and do the dishes and then everyone goes to work.
Clara gets herself a stool to stand on and starts mincing the meat pieces her mother hands her. It is a tedious job, but it is a job with a cool big sharp knife. The work goes well and she is finished early.
She sneaks away from the house to avoid being manipulated by her bigger sister into helping with the weeds.
As she passes the Branston house she waves to the kids to let them know, that she is on the way to their 'playground' in the woods.
Kygar grabs herself some tools and goes in the fields to do her daily work. With hatred she strucks the weed and tears it out of the ground to end it's life. Hour for hour for ...
Kygar thinks she heard something but it must have been her mind, since she can't see anyone. She continues her hard fight against the weeds, which are stealing her time to do anything fun.
And with her last strength she defeats the weed and walks in the forest to join the rest of the kids.
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At the Branstons' house, whoever is up early has to go fetch the eggs.
Unfortunately for Tarjun, who has a negative opinion about working in the morning, he's often the one up early. He follows Silas to the chicken pen, munching on a large slice of bread. He spends some time throwing crumbs to the hens, letting them snack on the bread while he's looking for eggs.
He's surprisingly focused this morning, and manages to work for a dozen of minutes before growing tired.
"Look, Silas! Look!"
Playing his favorite game, Tarjun puts one of the hen's wing over its head. Almost immediately, it falls asleep, before the boy wakes it up suddenly with a roar. The startled reaction makes him laugh in glee.
Silas walks outside, searching around the chicken coops for eggs. Silas giggles at Tarjun's prank on the chicken as he says, "That was egg-cellent!" He looks begin the chicken that Tarjun had just startled before finding two more eggs. "I think we have enough!"
As they start to walk back Silas says, barely keeping a straight face, "Ah, quit being a chicken."
@breakfast
"These sausages are really good. Did you add some garlic to the recipe?"
He "sneaks" some sausage into his pocket to give to Brina. "Obviously" his parents fail to notice, as always :-) :-).
"It looks like the garden REALLY needs weeding."
"And somebody has to make sure that lazy bones actually works!!"
Tobar and Brina head out into the garden. Brina protects Tobar and Kygar from the nasty butterflies. That, at least, is HER story and she sticks to it too.
"Kiggy, I bet I can do a better job than you!!"
"Hey, we're done. And I only did a LITTLE more than you. You worked pretty hard for once."
He calls out in a loud voice
"Hey mum, we're ALL finished. We're going to the forest to look for mushrooms. Ok?"
Without waiting for a reply, he dashes off into the forest
After only 3 hours he and Kygar are completely finished.
[b]
Featherbrains is indeed what comes to Shelly's mind as she sees Tarjun and Silas come in with the egg basket. "I see you had fun. Thanks for bringing the eggs." she says with a genuine smile and starts making scrambled eggs of them.
"Today will be a busy day. The grain is almost ripe and we will have to harvest everything in the weeks to come." Will explains. "But first we have to move and roll the remaining sacks of grain from last year. So all of you move to the barn after breakfast and drag sacks with me."
Meanwhile the eggs are done, the tasty smell filling the kitchen, and everyone starts eating.
Tobar and Kygar finish about the same time with the weeding. They took almost an hour longer than Clara but there is still enough of the day left to have some fun.
The ruins in the wood, where the kids go to play most of the time is just an old house built of roughly hewn grey stone with a yard in fron of it, where two of three sides have a wall of the same stones around with a height of about seven feet. What makes it really interesting is the 15 feet high tower with corkscrew stairs inside, leading to the top which allows for a nice view through the battlements. In winter when the leaves are gone, one can watch far over the wood. Now it's just a look into the tree tops. But it spreads an aura of a bewitched castle. The roof of wood and straw, that covered the house has crumbled, and got cleared out long ago by the animals living in the wood. Leaving the house empty except a pile of stones, that have crumbled down now and then.
What the function of the building was is unclear, as all signs telling that are long gone. Might have been a watch tower, the shelter of some hermit, or a shrine to some deity.
Clara really likes this tower. In her imagination she can be a pretty princess living in a castle. Or a dangerous fire spitting dragon. But when she is alone, like now that she came here first, she turns it into a haunted ruin. Through the shadows of the house wanders a blueish glowing incorporeal figure. It roughly resembles a human with a hump. After a minute it disappears, only to reappear a moment later at a different position.
As they get moderately close to the house
"Race you to the top. Last one has to kiss Weasel"
As he runs up Brina casually jumps onto his shoulder. She IS a cat, why run when you can get somebody to carry you?
"Weasel doesn't kiss anybody. Kissing is disgusting!" Clara greets Tobar, the disgust showing on her face, as he arrives at the top of the tower.
As they head outside Silas whines, "Come on ma, I'm brainy, not grainy." However, he helps pitch in, though his small arms aren't the best with dragging heavy sacks.
While Silas and Tarjun race to search the chickens Jewel strolls along whistling to herself. (and to Chirp, who she called as soon as she left the house) By the time she reaches the chickens the boys already had enough and were heading back in. Jewel takes a moment to 'chat' with the chickens, and smooth ruffled feathers. She laughs quietly at the complaints about Tarjun pulling the hen's wing over its head and tells the hen not to worry. He won't do that again, today at least. Before leaving she asks the hens if the boys missed any eggs and gathers any that the hens point out. (if any)
Returning to the house Jewel joins the boys for breakfast. Hearing the next task she cringes. "Those sacks are heavy. If we just had a mule we could hitch it to them and not have to work so hard...."
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Tarjun groans. He had hoped he'd have the afternoon off, and even if he doesn't find moving sacks around to be particularly exhausting, his leg usually slows him down.
"A mule? More like an ox," he grumbles, dragging his feet to work.
Thankfully, he quickly realises that working hard would set him free early, and, in a couple of hours, he gets the job done. However, he feels guilty leaving Silas behind, as he struggles to carry his own sacks.
"Need help?" he offers.
After moving a lot of sacks filled with grain from one corner of the barn into another and rolling the sacks on the way to kill all hatched insects in the sacks the room is cleared to bring in the new harvest the next days.
Working together the Branston kids are also done after six and a half hours and have some time left to play with the other kids.
With Tobar and Brina there, the ghosts disperses and a single light, that dances over Tobar's head teases Brina for a hunt. "What are we playing? Hide and seek?"
"Light!! Must Chase!!!"
Brina leaps off Tobar's shoulders and pounces on the light. Unfortunately for her, the light suddenly moved and she misses
At which point, she sits down and grooms herself
"I MEANT to land EXACTLY here. Nothing to see. I totally did NOT miss what I aimed at"
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Before joining the other kids at the tower, Tarjun goes to fetch his crutch. It is very rudimentary, but it does help walking long distances after hours of tiring work.
Besides, with his unruly hair, it gives him a pirate-like look that he finds particularly cool.
To go with his "costume", he greets the other kids with another roar that sends all the nearest birds flying in a panic.
"AAAAAAAARRRRRR mates! Whaddyayer up to?"
"Aaaarrr. We're just drinking Grog right now. Then we were going to go look for people to raid and steal. Aarrrr."
He then whispers, although everybody can still hear it
"Hide and Seek."
"Tobar is searching." Clara tells and runs down the tower to find a hideout. "Start counting and don't look!" she calls back.
Running out of the ruins and behind them she hides behind a large slab of sand stone, that stands at a strange angle out of the ground.
Nothing Is More Satisfying Than the Fruits of a Day’s Labor
Here rests
Tohrid Dawnbreeze
4537-4603AR
His work here is done
"Hey, it's Tobar's turn to search!" Clara answers. She notices too late that she gives away where she is that way.
Silas runs toward Clara's voice and finds the stone. He notices Clara and cries out, "I found her!" He quickly quiets down when he sees the writing on the stone, "Woah, I've never seen this before. Clara, you're standing on top of where someones buried!"
Clara jumps out of her hiding place and looks out for bones or such. "You're pulling my leg. There is no dead here." she tells angrily, because she fell for the ruse.
"Are you crazy?" Clara asks, the expression on her face a mix of horror and disgust.
Kygar hasn't put much effort to hide since we played this game tausend times before. As she hears the others talk about a grave, she gets excited and leaves her hideout to walk over to the others.
"Who goes back and to get a shovel?
"If you really dig up a dead person I'm going to tell mum!"
"killjoy, mum is against everything I wanna do!" Kygar replies disappointed
"No, WE can't dig up the grave. But what about if Weasel and Brina just "happened" to dig it up. That wouldn't be our fault, would it?"
He then bends down and whispers in Brina's ear
"What is he trying to tell me? Oh, he is saying that he loves me. Then he should give me belly rubs!!"
Since she obviously completely and totally understands Tobar, Brina rolls over onto her back for the promised belly rubs.
Not really wanting to play hide and seek Jewel still runs off a short ways and ducks behind a tree. She whistles quietly to 'Chirp' to watch and warn her if Tobar comes close to her.
Once the game is broken by Clara's complaint, and the boys start talking of digging up a grave she rejoins the group.
Hey, If that's really a grave you don't want to dig it up. What if the body is still there and you disturb a spirit. It might haunt you AND your family, or maybe curse you!"
Jewel switches her Ferel speech hex to communicate with mammals and laughs when Brina responds to Tobar. "Tobar, She thinks that you love her and says you should rub her belly!"
"Weasel doesn't want to dig up deads either. What's those signs on the stone say?" Clara asks, her curiosity piqued.
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Although Tarjun has a decent knowledge of the alphabet, he never was good at reading. On top of not being keen on books, he keeps mixing up the letters, and focusing on a text usually gives him headaches.
He squints at the stone.
"Says it's gonna haunt everyone who touches the stone," he improvises with an appropriate gravitas. "Gonna pull their hair and put spiders in their shoes and," he squints harder. "Steal their toys."
Not being sure if she touched the stone Clara becomes afraid. She is not afraid of spiders, but hair pulling is nasty and stealing toys is the worst. Assuming a ghost can only haunt one person, she pushes Tarjun into the stone. "You be haunted then." And then she runs away.
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"It was a joke!" Tarjun shouts. "Ghosts don't exist, silly!"
He laughs -but it comes off a bit nervous. What's dead stays dead, but everyone is a bit afraid of ghosts.
"It's been here for years and years," he says to reassure everyone -including himself. "Sure it's past being disturbed. Sure it doesn't mind when people visit. Must be awful boring, bein' all alone in these woods. And dead don't arise, that's what it's all about. Over. No coming back. And why would it haunt us anyway?"
As he speaks, he seems to become bolder and bolder. He even dares to remove a bit of moss delicately.
"Just old, not haunted, thassit. Graveyards have plenty of em' -ain't no ghost attacks. Maybe we could give it a nice cleaning."
Beeing fooled again Clara runs home. As her mommy is still busy she goes to her dad, who is preparing supper. "Dad, I want to learn how to read. Can you show me before bed?" she asks imagining it is something that can't take longer than half an hour to learn.