@Zeroth Yasunami Akitsugu, @Dragonydas Myrravel Velasien, @Remram Brom Stronghammer

It appeared, for the time being, that the foreign blacksmith from the far east, had managed to cut and chop and carve up several pieces of lumber from fallen logs. However, the man would find it difficult to locate anymore of these convenient sources of sizeable, dry and suitable pieces of lumber around - at least in this particular section of the woodlands. There might be more fallen logs, yes, but most of them were either ones that had started decomposing, become overgrown with other vegetation, or claimed by various forest insects as nests and hives. Thus, only things like loose sticks and branches would likely be around on the ground in the vicinity at this point.

As the red-haired man returned to converse with his companions about their immediate future and next steps, there was a rustle in some nearby, convenient shrubs. A tense moment followed as the leaves quivered and shifted from the presence of something within the foliage being astir...

... And then...!

... A slime sloshed out. Yup. A slime. A green one. Flabby and gelatinous. Semi-transparent. About the size of your average little dog, like a dachshund or jack russel. The sluggish creature seemed to have been attracted by something, and was now making a very slow, gooey approach towards the trio had gathered around the firewood that the metalworker had so painstakingly spent a lot of time gathering and preparing.

... Was... Was it attracted to the firewood!? Was it planning to eat the firewood?! ... Or maybe it was just drawn in by the sounds of three large, clothed monkeys who didn't know better than to keep their voices down in a forest full of monsters. In any case, the small ball of goop was headed straight for them!


@ERode MacKinnon, @Lupusintus Rinn Arniman, @BunniesOfDoom Adrila Jaaxa,

The married couple continued to converse and talk amongst themselves. Eventually devolving into the large man letting out a happy laugh, grabbing his wife's waist and lifting her up into the air, afterwhich he did a twirl with the woman still in his arms and in the air - causing her to let outa horrified shriek, followed by a brief moment of mirthful laughter, before she began to bonk her husband on the head, telling him to put her down. The man just grinned and happiyl accepted the loving bats to his rather wooden noggin', perfectly content with letting his rather-noticeably shorter-than-himself wife squirm a bit.

So lost in their own little world was the pair that they didn't even notice when the girl from earlier came running by and delivered a quick, unclear message... Nor did the ynote when the bard stood and hurried after the new and shiny female who had just appeared. But, at the very least they were staying in one place, so if the beaurocrat elf decided to drop by and take up Sheryl's offer to help go over and test, measure and try the new blankets, she'd at least have no trouble finding them.

Meanwhile, as the spirited girl with her pickaxe, and bard, in tow rushed over to the east of the town, she found the following revelation:

The eastern part of this old settlement was a lot less populated. There were fewer buildings here than in any of the other areas she'd gone to. In addition, the buildings here looked a little larger in general... Was this perhaps the wealthy part of town? Or, perhaps it was an industrial zone and this is where all the various artisans and crafters hung out and lived? It'd make sense for people who had to use lots of tools and make goods to need larger space. But then again, it made just as much sense that people with more money than sense would spend it on giving thesmeselves larger living areas compared to their lessers... So, who could say, really? Regardless, the buildings were still in pretty much the same state as everything else around the village. But what would she find if she poked her head into one of these larger dwellings?


@CitrusArms Niara Rootwick, @Rune_Alchemist Yingmei Okudaira

When the farmer girl offered the little creature some seeds, it looked up from what it was doing, spotted the new source of food, and immediately trundled over in its waddling way. IT happily pecked at the bits of food it had been given, then let out a satisfied "Rrrrrp~!" noise once it was done. It seemed very happy when the root elf patted and cuddled it, closing its eyes and enjoying the pets. When they stopped, it waddled over to the farm girl who had fed it, and nuzzled up against her leg, gently rubbing its feathered face and cheeks against her leg. It seemed to have taken quite a liking to these two ladies. It wasn't quite intelligent enought o give any replies or hints about its gender or ability to lay eggs though, sad as it was, most birds couldn't talk.

All that was left to do now was inspec tthe strange little shack, or the old farmhouse and see if there was anything useful or important there... Otherwise, all they could really do was either head back to the town, go explore somewhere else, or get to work on clearing up those fields that still needed a-cleaing!

//Eastern Village
_{@Xaltwind@LupusIntus}
MacKinnon hadn't been so lost in her own little treasure-hunting world that she didn't realize someone was following her. It was just that, instead of slowing down, she sped up, battered boots pounding down the dirt path as if this were a competition.

Which, of course, it was. One that she quite decisively won.

Kinda disappointing that it seemed like the foppish fellow who chased after her approached her at walking speed though. Turning around, she rolled her eyes to the corner of the sky best suited for thinking up simple answers to strange questions, before releasing an emphatic response: "Nope!"

Like, sure, there were possibly clues out there, and she had thought about the fates of the previous villages a little bit, but like, what was the point in that? If they were gone, they were gone! And if they returned, they ought to be thankful that others had made good use of what they left behind! So with the question answered and her conscience smoothed over, the cheery lass continued on with her own adventures, shouldering through doors, peeking through windows, looking up at fallen-in ceilings, not particularly minding the brown-haired hat-man who had followed her.

The Eastern portion of the village was, by all means, a place of industry (she figured). There was a dusty ol' blacksmith's forge from which she picked out a couple of less-rusty tools for resell before smacking a big, clear sign in the side of the wall. There was was a nice big water barrel, large enough that MacKinnon could climb into and roll on the side in. Didn't have any holes that she could see, but she did find out immediately after jumping in that it was home to a family of spiders (as well as a dead rat), so it took a while to pull out all the webs and crushed arachnids off of herself. After some cleaning up though, it'd be great to have a real big vessel to hold well water in! She could imagine the well-to-barrel-to-jug life cycle already!

The barrel was a pain in the ass to haul around though. Her rucksack was big, but not that big. Should she mark it like she did walls and doors? Eh...how much could a barrel be sold for anyways? Did it matter? Sometimes, you could throw away money for free, and somehow get that money back but more.

"Hey," she said to brown-haired question-man, "Wanna roll that back to the center for me?"