#22

The writing is in ink now; some of it is smudged. Eishona is not used to ink. Attached to the page is a happier picture of the autumnal shades of the trees nearest Valdisdall.

My employers changed when I came back to Stormheim -  and I admit I think it’s for the better. I asked too many questions of my Forsaken companions, one of them actually slapping me. She said I had no right to ask as I did, how they are dead, yet not. I was sent away for my troubles.

But I wonder still. I had no one to really ask but them. I haven’t had a letter from Tahalem - but then I wonder that my letters are tampered with. They don’t seem as well meaning as I’d thought. But the pay was alright. I still cannot raise Vik’wa on her little crystal, and all of my letters have no replies.

I keep mostly to myself, seeing occasional travelers. I’ve traded for a few things with the hides I collect. I acquired a good cooking pot - the elf, one of the purple kinds took a wolf-hide for it. I was surprised to see how many people will buy rabbit skin pouches, I’ve run out of those, I need to make more.

My new employers are a tall people, like those humans I’ve seen, but way, way taller. I suppose employer is the wrong word - but I stay with them, and we work together. I find them to be more practical then the forsaken I worked for. They want all of the animal I hunt - fur, flesh, bones - the lot. I found them by accident, stumbling on some of them while on a walk through the land. By luck we were both hunting the deer in the area. 

We shared the hunt, and brought down three stags and two does! I’m grateful we met as friends and not foes - the woman I am staying with is intense! Her name is Grynda Lonasdottir, of the Vrykul peoples. We’re on the fringes of Valdisdall - a small encampment here in Stormheim, under the banner of the Valajar.  Her mate Frundl is rarely home, but is a quiet man, but good with his hands.  We share meals in the evenings if we’re all around, and tell stories. Such amazing tales they tell - Grynda says to test my abilities, I should go on a hunt for a dragon - a dragon! Weylo only ever mentioned those in fantastic tales! She says their hides offer remarkable scales that her people and others eagerly trade or purchase them outright for armor making or decoration. Maybe I will try my hand at this. But dragons, they sound amazing. She says the dragons here are large and ferocious, that only the determined hunter can take them down.

My new friends are educating me on the events of the world, and promise that despite appearances, the post system functions reliably in Valdisdall. So I sent a huge crate of hides and furs to Tahalem - I hope they arrive in one piece.. They’re what I’ve chosen to keep for myself, but have no place to store them, so I sent them to him as a gift. Well, hopefully he sees them as a gift - a fine wolf pelt shouldn’t be frowned at, I’d think. I could see him wearing one of those, I bet it looks nice on him.

The hour is late, and Grynda and I have hides to flesh out and set to tanning tomorrow. Good night!