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[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=Old Distillery][img]https://i.ibb.co/rFHTL8t/Hidden-Distillery.jpg[/img][/hider][/center][center]━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[/center]	

	[u]Weather[/u]: The sun has progressed to its apex in the sky and just a touch beyond, not that one can experience it's warming rays firsthand. "Overcast," remains the word of the day. Chilly comes to mind as well. The winds are now steadily pushing the season's air upon you. Rejoice, those who dressed warmly.    

	[u]Time[/u]: Give or take, it is about one-thirty to two-ish in the afternoon. Moving barrels, inspecting the tree, and finding alternatives to close off the distillery has taken a chunk out of the day, and we're all here for it. 

	[u]Ambience[/u]: The most immediate of the smell of corpse-burn has wafted out of the hillside, though it's safe to assume that the lingering notes of radiant smolder and old rot are scheduled to be present for an indeterminate (but not short) amount of time. The air in here is heavy but breathable, and the details of brandy still hang in the background. The air outside of the distillery is, per usual, clean and clear but significantly chillier. 

	The barrels and equipment within held its integrity well enough, dry and solid on the outside, maintaining the contents within in a sort of quarantine while it continued to age, as it likely had been for decades.  

	The dead people are half bones and half ash. Whatever else might have been on their person of a more flammable nature is now part of that ash.  

	For the point of repeating things as least as possible, let us assume that until mentioned otherwise, the effects of the magic burst remains. Kat is still a little taller, Victoria is noticeably taller (but still the shortest one in party, go fig), Kosara still has flowers growing harmlessly in her hair, and Baronfjord, the Blue Dragonborn, is ...blue. I'm seriously never getting over that one.  

[center][color=darkgray][h2]*****[/h2][/color][/center] 
[img][/img]
	To kick things off, there is plenty of time to build a superior snowman while things are in the works elsewhere. If you need to hit the Coach House to get a carrot (or parsnip, whatever - get as creative as you need) for a nose, have at it. You go, Kosara.

	Exploration of the area around the sycamore tree, as well as the tree itself, yields nothing except for a lighter amount of snow beneath the mostly bare branches, and an otherwise stout, healthy bit of upright flora. Regardless of what may or may not have been going on in the hidden distillery below, this tree seems to be apart from it, or at least unaffected.      

	The epic journey of barrels, now counting three thanks to the efforts of Victoria's [i]Phantasmal Steed[/i] turned from shadowy riding beast to trotting, semi-transparent labor animal and Kathryn's indomitable physical prowess, make their way steadily over to the Coach House, hopefully as a temporary measure to await proper distribution or at least a formal query to the Vineyard's caretakers even if it might be understandable to keep it on the quiet. For study. Obviously.      

	As the party members who went to deliver the brandy to its destination were Kathryn and Victoria, they are the ones who meet up with Urmdrus, coming from his out-of-the-way smithy/shop/humble abode here on Vineyard property. He seems resolute, and carries a bulky, irregular sack of coarse cloth slung across his back. The bottom of this bulging burlap bag of bouncing befuddlement barely brushes the bare, beveled base of the boardwalk betwixt buildings, belying a bounty of beautiful bits and bobs for bestowal. He looked like he was headed in the general direction of the Estate House, and strode with purpose. This was, until he caught sight of the two adventuring women exiting the Coach House.

	Urmdrus stared at the two of them in wonder for a moment as he drew close, shaking his head and copping an incredulous look at the both of them, as if he might begin scolding at any second. [color=darkgray][b]"Hrrrrrm..."[/b][/color] he growled. The sack was deposited upon the ground and the Dwarf pulled a short length of rope from his tool apron. Those who were under his scrutiny in the past knew what to expect, mostly. The rope was marked off at regular intervals, and used deftly but with some annoyance as a measuring device while, and without requesting permission mind you, wrapped it around points of Human and Half-Elven anatomy and uttered what were probably numbers in an unusual dialect of Dwarven. In halting Common, he said at last, [color=darkgray][b]"STOP. CHANGING. SIZE. Custom work. Have to alter. Hmm."[/b][/color]

	He understood more or less, after what explanation was offered, that there was a "mysterious hole" that needed have a door installed over it and a means of barricading said door. He explained that he might do something [color=darkgray][b]"Fast, ugly,"[/b][/color] in a couple of hours, but assured that [color=darkgray][b]"...it will hold."[/b][/color] He then went to specifically find Cecily to inform her of the developments. 

        It was another hour before Urmdrus came upon the site, pulling a cart laden down with wood and tools. 

[hider=Anomalous Grape Site]-
	Elsewhere within the bounds of the southern fields, previously viewed anomalies remain for others to view. Barren (even for the winter season) vines entwine frames and stakes in orderly, slightly curved rows. It was a gradual change for those walking toward the affected area, but after a while those with any knowledge of agricultural processes would recognize the signs of a place marked for clearing and replanting. The few leaves remaining on these vines were brittle and dry; tendrils which were once vital and held the vines snugly to the planting frames were woody and snapped with ease. These plants appeared biologically incapable of supporting flower nor fruit. Nevertheless, two spindly bunches of smallish, near-to-black grapes hung from a vine, sporting tough, withered skins. They bobbed lightly as the cold, winter breeze pushed them about, an eerie sight of withered fruit growing on deceased vines.   
[/hider]