[center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][img]https://i.ibb.co/mN25CKd/Wintering-In-Wine-Country.jpg[/img][/center]
[center][img]https://i.ibb.co/vXD6Q0t/Update-Text.png[/img][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][hider=Rose River Vineyard][img]https://i.ibb.co/yRk60Zg/Vinyard-Estate-Gridded-Day-Lv4.jpg[/img][/hider][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center][center][hider=Coach House][img]https://i.ibb.co/5jfBrYW/Coach-House-Opener.jpg[/img][/hider][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]


	[u]Weather[/u]: Cold and mostly clear, except for a glint of possible weather on the horizon. Wind does as it does, occasionally making its presence known in controlled gusts which serve to remind all that winter was on the threshold of the moors.  

	[u]Time[/u]: Morning, still. Barely a quarter hour to twenty minutes has passed since the last update.  

	[u]Ambience[/u]: If a word can be used to describe the day thusfar, [i]crisp[/i] would be a qualifying one. Hints of fog remain in the hollows as the sun spreads gently along the higher places of the great, standing waves of green hills. It's a lovely morning. A smaller staff of workers begin to stir around the Vineyard, noted by occasional movement and the odd line of smoke. Were one to look toward the Estate House, one might witness curtains opening and life beginning to buzz thereabouts, as a.m. chores commence.  

	The dim lighting within the Taproom crackles every so often, giving percussive sounds to the low murmur of simmering water. These two sounds blended into a very domestic sort of song, whispering of quiet creature comforts. It also looks to be the only sound in the room as everything has fallen deathly quiet following the last-moment exclamation of Kathryn before magic appeared to claim her life. Looking at the faces of the locals, that quiet might be extraordinarily short lived. 

[center][color=darkgray][h2]*****[/h2][/color][/center]

	Lizbeth looked shocked. Elements of fear crossed over her countenance and her mouth stood agape, as her mind struggled to process the thing that she saw that simply [i]should not be[/i]. Yet there it was, despite the choked-off word of regret from Kathryn, Victoria whispered ...whatever she whispered... and the powerful warrior fell as quiet and unresponsive as death. There was a small part of the young woman's mind that thought this was a trick, like stories she had heard of Bards and their ability to impress and entertain with magic, beguile others with their words and put on impressive but illusory performances, and the like. But the color upon Victoria's face, conviction with which she spoke of her history with magic, and the sudden jolt that brought Kathryn to a nonliving state smashed those expectations. This wasn't a pantomime for the purposes of entertaining. Lizbeth needed a moment. 

	Curiously, after she took that moment, the shocked look altered. Still surprised, still hovering on the edge of disbelief, but not shocked. An impressed smile formed on her face as she dared to step a little closer. Almost grinning now, out of nervousness as much as wonder, Lizbeth stumbled out queries. [color=darkgray]"Oh, she's not... Is she? Yes, you said you were going to make someone die, but, you can bring her back whenever you want? She's not [i]DEAD[/i] dead, right?"[/color] Then, after her wide eyes regarded the lack of movement from the chestpiece of Kathryn's armor, the girl asked with sudden and unexpected eagerness, [color=darkgray]"May I check?"[/color] Her eyes became bright and inquisitive, her face a beacon of excitement. 

	After receiving a small steel mirror, Lizbeth placed it beneath Kathryn's nose to check for breath. Seeing nothing condense upon its reflective surface, she raised a grapeseed oil lamp near to the downed Knight's face and, with her free hand, gingerly opened one of her eyes. There wasn't the slightest response to the light in the way of motion, nor involuntary pupil contraction. Then the heart - an  ear laid upon her chest told nothing, even if it would have been a little more difficult to tell with a layer of mail. Smiling with a glint toward the macabre, Lizbeth raised one of Kathryn's arms and let it drop back to the table with a boneless [i]thwap[/i]. [color=darkgray]"By the Light,"[/color] mused the girl, [color=darkgray]"She's dead."[/color]

	A scream broke out from near the doorway as the matronly cleaner held a hand to her face in horror. While her husband still had his hand on the door handle, she wasted no time in grabbing around it anyway and flinging herself outside. Sounds of her alarm could still be heard, retreating alongside heavy footsteps. The man, looking more than a bit shocked, himself, stood rooted to his spot, asking in a hoarse voice, [color=darkgray]"This is a trick, yes? This is a trick and she's not really dead, and this is a trick. Yes?"[/color] The door was still held open, as he had not decided yet whether he was going to run and wanted to keep his options, and escape route, open. 

	Out among the rolling, vine-covered hills of the Rose River Vineyard, a bald, tattooed Dwarf sat at a simple wooden table within his living quarters above a reasonably equipped smithy. A bowl of uninteresting, grain-based mash lightly steamed before him and a wooden spoon containing a small amount of this neutrally colored (but probably quite nourishing) foodstuff hovered near to his face. He had the occasion to poke his head out of a window, vexed by the sound of someone apparently screaming and running for their life, to be met by the sight of the cleaning lady hauling herself mightily away from the Coach House. With a grunt and a sigh, the Dwarf closed the shutters and shook his head to assert his personal philosophy of [i]Nope[/i]. Urmdrus returned to his bowl. This fell neatly into the realm of "not my business", and he was sticking to it.