Eclipse made her way from Port Adúnë, where her ship had just landed, towards the Wilwarin Inn and Pub. She huddled into her cloak, for all the little good that it did her. Lómëdor had been struck by a period of driving rain, complete with high winds which caused the raindrops to strike her with such force they penetrated through her layers of clothing to her skin immediately. Her soaking wet cloak snapped violently around her with the winds, and her hood clung wetly to the back of her neck.
"Gods-cursed weather," grumbled Eclipse as she made her way to the tavern. "Out on the seas it's a right fine adventure, but here on land it's nothing but a nuisance."
But even Eclipse had had her fill of the high seas of late. Her latest work had been as a hired bodyguard, accompanying a snobby aristocrat named Lord Elgin on a cruise from the Lake Aelin to Lómëdor. Personally, Eclipse didn't see the worth of a cruise when the one taking it didn't even like sailing. In fact, Lord Elgin hated being on the seas, and had been sick most of the way. He had insisted at stopping at every small port on the way to "regain his footing", whatever that meant. And then as they'd come in they'd hit on this storm. As soon as they'd finally made it into port, Elgin had taken the private coach that had been waiting for him and made his way towards his mansion home, without even bothering to pay Eclipse. She would have to go find him the next day and bother him about it.
But right now she was exhausted, cold, wet, and hungry. Her pay could wait.

Entering the pub, Eclipse did her best to wipe off her boots on the mat and hung her dripping cloak on a coat-hanger near a large fireplace. Then she made her way to the bar, where she ran into Laika, a young barmaid that she knew fairly well.
"Goodness Eclipse, you look like you've been to the abyss and back again," said Laika.
"Hello to you too," said Eclipse, fumbling with numb fingers for her coin purse. "Any chance I can get a mug of warm cider and a hot meal? I should have enough to pay for it..." She finally succeeded in pulling out her coin purse, and poured out the remnants of her money on the counter, revealing not nearly enough for both cider and a meal.
"Damn and blast," muttered Eclipse. "Better just be the cider then."
"You know, I could just put the meal on a bill for you and you could pay once you have the money," offered Laika. "It's not like we don't know you here. We know you'll pay."
"You know I'll pay," corrected Eclipse. "And I know that it's not your policy to have running tabs here. I'll eat tomorrow. Just the cider, please."
"But aren't you hungry? protested Laika. "You need a warm meal in you more than anyone else here.
"Yes, I'm hungry. In fact, I'm famished. But I don't want to risk getting you in trouble for breaking the rules, and I can't afford a meal. Just the cider please," said Eclipse. Her tone made it clear there was to be no more discussion.
"Alright then," said Laika in a resigned voice. "Just the cider.

Rask was supposed to have left for Anfauglir today. His dreams had been of the desert's vast dunes, the homely feeling of the grains of sand beneath his bare feet, the warm breeze and the hot kiss of the sun. Curled up in the blankets of the tavern, tucked away in bed and delightfully sober, the dreams felt as real as always: He ran free over the sands, hunting for his food and napping in the shade of a tall dune come high noon.

It was the drums he couldn't explain, as they pierced the delightful sleep within sleep. Irregular and hollow, echoing over what some would call a wasteland and what the Gaurim touched male called paradise. He sat up, the sand crunching beneath him and looked about. There weren't many drummers in the desert, so the sound put the one called Sidewinder into a state of tenative fear. He crept up the curve of the dune, and peeked over it...

... Only to take a drop of mind numbingly cold water between the eyes.

"Ah!"

And with that Rask was awake, a second drop hitting the tip of his nose. He twisted and turned, caught up in his blankets and already hanging halfway off of the bed. "Wha's goin'on? Wha's with t'water?" He thrashed a bit and freed his arms, and pushed himself the rest of the way from the bed, and hitting the ground with an unceremonious thud, his legs still tied up in the blankets.

He slithered across the cold floor on his belly, wincing at the chill that cut into his once warm self, and pulled himself up the side of his bed, peering at the wet spot now forming on the pillow, and followed it upwards, to the small gather of moisture on his ceiling. "Wha's'his now?" He muttered, lowering himself back to the ground and kicking the blankets away indignantly, before standing up and scratching himself in exaggerated motions.

Rask shivered in the cool night air and pulled on his long headress, wrapping it around himself as a make shift cloak. He looked around his room, finding all his things in the general status of disarray. Sidewinder tried to gather them up, one arm to grab his things, the other holding his feeble pseudo-cloak around him to try and keep him warm. It took some time, a liberal amount of crashes, thumbing and dropped items, and generous amounts of curses before he had it all sorted out, and there was only one thing he could blame for it: The cold.

Having grown up in the heat of the desert, anything less than too hot was too chilly for Sidewinder. He wrinkled his nose at the temperate climate when he had first left the desert, and at the so-called 'coming winter'. He had never heard of the latter term. He assumed it was some sort of festival, with the mixed reactions it recieved from folk. The young embraced it talking of 'snow balls' and 'snow angels'. The elderly, however, spoke of treacherous travel and illness. He didn't know about this 'snow', but festivals (or so he heard) tended to produce folk who were less than savory, and drunks who were less than peaceful, so the statements of the elderly made sense to him.

Luckily for Rask, now rushing down the stairs having unknowingly slept most of the day away, he was, in his mind, going back to the desert over the next few days. He bound through the common area, headed for the door. The warmth of the fire in the Inn cheered him, and he let go of his headress, exposing his bare chest to the warmth of the flame. Its gonna be a good day, he though, waving a 'goodbye' to the barkeep and starting to the door. He grasped the large brass handle, pulled it open and made to step forward.

Outside was wet.

Wet and cold.

The door slammed shut loudly enough to rattle some of the glasses behind the bar, and Rask pivoted on his foot and briskly walked up to the bar. He was going 'no where'. Where was Rask going? 'No where'. He sat at the bar'n'wrapped himself in his headress again, the fire far enough from the bar for the Gaurim-touched to be cold again. And he voiced it. "Wha's with t'water'n't'cold?" He paused for a minute in reflection. "An't'dark? Isn't it mornin'?" Rask was confused, and determined to get answers. And warm. He wanted to get warm too. "'Pose y'could get'a cold snake a'pint o'warm'd rum?" He asked the barkeep, shivering on the barstool and glaring out the window at the horrible weather.

Shivering violently from the cold which her soaking wet clothes did nothing to alleviate, Eclipse clenched her hands around the warmth of the mug of steaming cider that Laika placed in front of her.
"Thank you," she murmured, and brought the mug closer to her, savouring the light aromatic steam that rose from the mug before raising it to her lips. She was occupied enough with her mug of cider that she didn't notice the tanned man in a headdress brush past the bar, heading quickly for the door. When that same man slammed the door shut hard enough to shake the nearby windows, however, he got her attention.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the man coming towards the bar.

"Wha's with t'water'n't'cold?" he demanded. "An't'dark? Isn't it mornin'?"

Foreigners, thought Eclipse to herself. They never understand that the meaning of 'foreign' is 'different' until they get here. What's the point of leaving home, then, if you want everything to be the same?
This one, as if his confusion over the seasonal cold wasn't enough indication, was tanned enough and dressed lightly enough for Eclipse to know he was from the desert, and probably had no concept of winter whatsoever.

"It's nearing on winter," she told the man. "Which means that days are shorter, and colder. It's wet because it rains a lot at this time of year. Soon it will be so cold that that instead of rain, it'll snow. And it's dark right now because it's not morning. You, my good sir, have evidently slept the day through."
Eclipse paused and considered the dull grey world outside the windows.
"It's very late afternoon now. In fact, I don't even know if it could be called the afternoon anymore. It's close to suppertime now."
Her empty stomach agreed with that last statement, growling angrily at her to remind her that it was indeed suppertime, and that cider simply didn't count as supper.

Eclipse gave the man behind her a sidelong glance.
"You're dressed too lightly for weather here at this time of year," she told him. "It may never get cool enough to dress warmer than that in whatever desert place you come from, but if you keep that up here you'll literally catch your death of cold. This is the time of year where temperatures drop to below freezing at nights. You should consider investing in some warm clothes, and some winter boots as well, if you're planning to stay."

Eclipse drained the last of her cider just as Laika approached to hand the man the pint of rum he'd asked for. Eclipse looked dejectedly into her coin-purse, as if hoping that it had somehow filled itself with enough money for a meal. It hadn't. But there was still enough for another mug of cider.
"Can I get this filled again please, Laika?" Eclipse asked, pushing her mug forward on the bar.
"Sure," said Laika. "You sure you don't want that meal? You look half-dead. You can just pay tomorrow when you have money again, you know that."
"Like I said before, I know the rules well as you. No running tabs. And until Lord Elgin remembers he's supposed to pay me for my bodyguard work, I'm broke. Just the cider again, please."
Eclipse's stomach growled again in protest as Laika sighed and went to get the cider.

"M'name's Eclipse, by the way," Eclipse told the stranger. "S'pose I should've said that beforehand. You are?"

Sleeping late was a talent Rask had perfected. It was, perhaps, his most honed skill for it took up the majority of his free time, and was practiced religiously, on a daily basis. It didn't matter how late he was up, nor how early the Gaurim-touched went to bed, he was rarely awake before the sun reached its zenith. The nights in his home, the Anfauglir Desert, were cool, but early mornings (when he usually found sleep had crept up on him) became bitterly cold, urging the denizens to seek somewhere warm to curl up and sleep. Once the sun's rays kissed the earth, however, life would stir again, seeking the warmth of the coming sun and going about while it was still cool. Rask was the notable exception, usually nestled in the shade of a large rock, or under a fern in the occassional oasis. Come noon, most were asleep again, avoiding the sun at its worst.

Fortunately for Rask this meant the first real task of the day was to take a nap, which he did with pleasure and gusto.

But sadly, such a lifestyle seemed frowned upon over here. This was, however, a realm in which it seemed accepted that this part of the year became miserable, wet and otherwise unfit for human habitation. Rask snuggled into his barstool, wrapping his hands around the steaming cup of rum the innkeep passed him, and his headdress tightly around himself. And yet this concept of 'winter' meant little to one who lived in an eternal summer, and 'snow' seemed as fanciful as horseless carraiges to him. But the woman next to him seemed convinced of it, so Rask just nodded in agreement.

"Wouldn'afta worry'bout freezin't'death out'ere if I'was back'in t'desert right now. Be there too'if i'wasn't for t'bloody map. He growled, somewhat sullenly, nuzzling his cold nose into the warm tendrils of aroma wafting up from the mug. He lifted it to his lips and took a long pull off the tankard, the warmth of both the liquid and the alcohol seeping into his cold bones.

"Ah... Now that's mor'like it," he purred, a lopsided smile creeping onto his face, giving him a more jovial expression and benevolent aura. "M'name's Sidewinder." Rask took another long drink of rum and smiled contently. He was a remarkably cheap drunk. If he started on a third rum he'd be staggering wonderfully. Into the second he might be slurring. Oddly though he didn't know this, or understand the concept of 'having a limit'. He just knew the more he drank, the more relaxed he was. And the more he wanted a nap.

Yup.

It all lead back to napping.

His stomach growled in protest, however. It couldn't get a meal while napping, and it growled louder to remind him of such. And it sounded like the woman next to him could use some food as well. It was never fun to be a hungry critter, Rask would know, so he didn't think twice before calling for the barmaid and picking through the remains of his coin purse. "Eh there Mouse? Y'able t'grab a-plate o'food for this'ere critter'n't'Osprey there? Be'much appreciated, t'would." He put the coins on the passbar and turned to the woman seated next to him. "Wha'cha say Osprey? Music t'ya?" He asked, still smiling the same lazy, crooked smile and taking another sip of the rum. "Where're y'from anyhow?" He added, tacking it onto the end of his last question idly.

The man muttered something about wanting to be back in the desert, confirming Eclipse's belief that he was most definitely not from the area in or around Lomedor. But when he said something about a map, the adventure-seeking woman's ears perked up.
Now that sounds promising, she thought to herself. But I suppose this one's a land rover, not a sea wanderer. I doubt he'd consider taking on a hardened seafarer if his quest will take him cross-country.

"M'name's Sidewinder." said the man. Of course, Eclipse recognized it as being an alias of some sort, but it was hardly as if she would press the matter. She always introduced herself as Eclipse, and that wasn't her given name either, was it?

Eclipse found herself considering the man's speech. He blurred his words quite a bit, connecting syllables where most people wouldn't and dropping syllables that most people would never forget. Eclipse would almost have believed the man was drunk if it wasn't for the fact he was obviously sober...for the time being at least. It was safe to assume that the Common tongue was not his first language.
"Eh there Mouse? Y'able t'grab a-plate o'food for this'ere critter'n't'Osprey there? Be'much appreciated, t'would." Both Eclipse and the barmaid paused to try interpret what had just been said.
"Wha'cha say Osprey? Music t'ya?" the one called Sidewinder asked. Eclipse suddenly understood that she had just been re-named Osprey, and that the man was offering to pay for her to have a meal. She was about to refuse but Laika had understood the request as well, and immediately took the excuse to stop arguing with Eclipse over whether or not she should have a tab at the inn.
"Yes sir," the girl said to Sidewinder. "I'll just go fetch it for you from the kitchen." With that, the girl disappeared into the back of the inn.

"Where're y'from anyhow?" the man asked her, as he took another sip of his drink. Eclipse paused a moment at this, considering the question as she drank a bit more cider from her mug.
"I suppose here's as good a place to be from as any else," she said slowly. "Can't say I'm from anyplace in particular, really. My parents were...well, they were rather free-spirited. I was mostly raised on a ship. Can't say I ever lived anyplace on land more than a couple of months at a time, and that always during winter storms when the winds and sleet were coming too fast and hard, and the waves were so high we couldn't leave the port. I tell you, the cold seasons aren't near as bad when you're already out to sea, so long as you know how to handle the winds, but try to get out of a harbour in a squall and like as not you'll ram yourself onto the quay and see your ship to the harbour floor."
She took another sip of her drink. "I s'pose I sometimes envy your desert for its warmth this time of year, but I don't take well to landlocked places, so I guess I'd come running back to my blustery cold port city quick enough."

Just then Laika reappeared with two platefuls of hot food. It was standard fare for the inn; meat and potatoes with gravy, and some steamed vegetables. Simple, but well-made and wholesome.
As Eclipse picked up her fork, she glanced over at Sidewinder, who was still huddled up in his headdress, trying to battle the temperatures of an early winter evening.
"You're about as comfortable here as I would be trying to wander the desert you come from," she commented. "What's dragged you this far from your sun at this time of the year?"

"Thank'ya kindly," Rask called after Mouse, scratching idly at the growth of stubble on his chin and neck. He relaxed into the bar, leaning onto it with an arm and propped his jaw on his fist, raising the warm rum for another sip. He felt the pleasant haze of the alcohol settle over him and his smiled. The heat of the fire had taken most of the chill out of the air, and good food was on the way. Despite the miserable weather, it was turning out to be a good night.

Sidewinder listened carefully to the sailor's speech, not necessarily because he didn't quite understand some of the terms she used, which he didn't, but because paying attention was remarkably difficult. Coincidently, his mug of rum was almost empty as well. He nodded in what he thought were all the right places, and made general noises of acknowledgement, though what she was saying seemed as incomprehensible as his jargon and Raskisms.

There was a notable pause before Rask realized it was his turn to speak. He shook his head to clear it, and downed the remaining rum, thoroughly convinced it would help his sort out his thoughts. "I'm ou'ere fo'tha map."

Perfect.

Eloquent even.

Rask put the mug down, ignored the incoming food and dug through the pouches he wore until he pulled out a worn piece of paper. He looked up at the plate, and grabbed the meat off of it with one hand and bit into it, holding it in his teeth as he wiped his hand off on the bar and spread the map, using the utensils he'd been given to pin down the curled and yellowed edges. He tore off a piece of the meat, holding the rest in his hand again.

The map itself depicted a portion of the continent, namely the northern bit, the Anfauglir desert most notably. It had cryptic runes on the side, words Rask didn't understand, and no one he met, it seemed, knew any better. Thus the travels. There were a few symbols, however, any civilized being would understand: Piles of gems and coin to indicated wealth or fortune, and skulls and crossed bones, indicating danger.

"Y'shee... I can't que-... Quti... Qui..." The word eluded him. "I can't read tha'shing." He growled, giving the map a look of personal hurt. He took another bite of the meat, the juices flowing down into the hair on his arm, and dripping onto his long kilt. He was thirsty still though, and that rum had been good...

After a noticeable pause, the man managed to answer her, although his reply shed no more light on his presence in Lomedor than there had been before.
"I'm ou'ere fo'tha map," he said. Of course, this told Eclipse nothing, but her interest heightened when the man dug through his pouch and produced what was indeed a worn-out map.
Eclipse tried not to stare at the way the man set about eating his food. She had seen messy eaters before, but she couldn't remember having seen it done to quite the same extent as she was now. She decided to focus on the parchment that Sidewinder had placed on the bar. While the man himself was still somewhat of a mystery to her, maps were something which she was familiar with and understood well.
"Y'shee... I can't que-... Quti... Qui...I can't read tha'shing." said Sidewinder.
Eclipse heard what he said, but didn't respond to him right away as she studied the parchment. She recognized the shape of the land depicted as the northern end of the continent and the Anfauglir desert, and of course understood that this was a map that was meant to lead to wealth. "Now who puts something of value so deep into the sea of sand," she muttered to herself. "It's about as attainable in that barren land as it would be at the bottom of the ocean."
She chuckled softly to herself. "But of course, that's the point."

She turned her attention briefly to the runes on the side of the page. She immediately recognized them as being completely foreign to her. Although Eclipse had had some minimal education from her parents - enough to be able to read the contracts she sometimes had to sign when she worked as a mercenary, and to sign her name on them - reading and writing were both frustrating processes to her, unless the reading material was a map or sea-chart of some sort.
"I can't read whatever that bit there says," she told Sidewinder, indicating the runes. "I'm no scholar or scribe, or anything so educated as that. Maps I can read, but it's my guess is that you aren't looking for someone to read the map for you, you're looking for someone to read whatever those letters say."
She shrugged. "Besides," she added. "As much as I love adventuring and treasure-seeking, whatever you're looking for is in the desert. And while I suppose you'd be just as happy as anything wandering about there, I'd be like a landed fish. There's very little in this world that'll cause me to go much beyond the very edges of that place."
She took another bite of her food. "Where'd you come across something like that, anyhow?" she asked him. "That is, if I might ask."

Rask chewed thoughtfully on the hunk of meat, swallowing large chunks like an animal, tearing them off rather than chewing. The juice fully coated his arm now, and he waved at the barkeep. "D'ya shink I'c'n get shomem're rum?" He asked politely, if slurred and with half a mouthful.

He pointed at the map and squinted at it to make the words stop moving. "Right'ere," he said, pointing at the place labled Angband, "there wash thish drunk, h'dropp'd it, sho I pick'd it up." He paused for a moment in reflection. "I'hope he'sh'not missin' it." Rask added as an afterthought.

It was at this time another mug of warmed rum was pushed across the table, and Sidewinder picked it up in the hand that didn't hold a steaming slab of meat. He took a long drink from the mug, the warmth and soothing taste of alcohol filling his mouth. He smiled and put the mug (now a third empty) back down on the table.

"Y'shee," Rask went on, "I'm sheeking a'group'o folk. Shome tha'c'n read t'map, othersh t'jusht help out, find t'stash o'shtuff. We'd all shplit t'shtuff equally'n'shuch, there'sh bound t'be more then'nuff for'all." He tore another chunk of meat off and chewed thoughtfully, a bit dismayed that yet another folk turned out to be less that literate when it came to the map.

"Well thatsha shame. If yer eva'in t'desert though, don'b'fraid to ashk for Rashk." He took another drink, draining half of the remaining rum. "I liv'd there m'whole life."

Sidewinder asked for more rum, something which Eclipse wasn't sure was a wise idea. It didn't exactly sound like he had a high threshold for holding his liquor. All the same, it wasn't exactly her place to anything. He peered at the map in response to her question about where he got the map.
"Right'ere," he said, indicating Angband. "There wash thish drunk, h'dropp'd it, sho I pick'd it up. I'hope he'sh'not missin' it."
Eclipse smirked. With the type of people that could be found around Angband, there was a chance that the original proprietor of the map was livid from having it taken, and perhaps was ready for anything to get it back. But perhaps, if the man had been drunk enough for the Sidewinder to notice - he seemed to be a fairly habitual drunk himself, perhaps the original owner hadn't yet become sober enough to notice his loss.

Eclipse watched the man take a long gulp of his replenished rum. Decidedly, he had table manners (or a complete lack thereof) that would cause most 'well brought up' people to pale, and then lose their appetites.
Eclipse wasn't quite so delicate, but she wasn't completely insensible to some vestige of table manners either. She was still more content to continue eating her food with an 'old-fashioned' fork and knife.

"Y'shee," continued Sidewinder, "I'm sheeking a'group'o folk. Shome tha'c'n read t'map, othersh t'jusht help out, find t'stash o'shtuff. We'd all shplit t'shtuff equally'n'shuch, there'sh bound t'be more then'nuff for'all." Eclipse nodded, somewhat annoyed that this new opportunity for treasure seeking had to be in the middle of the desert.

"Well thatsha shame. If yer eva'in t'desert though, don'b'fraid to ashk for Rashk. I liv'd there m'whole life." Eclipse nodded. Rashk? she wondered. He probably meant 'Rask'. Sidewinder, as she has suspected, was probably a nickname of some sort.
"Well I'll keep it mind," she said. "I do feel sorry for not going along for the ride. Usually with treasure-seeking I'm the first to pack up and go. But I s'pose that I'm about as likely to be seen in the desert as you are to be seen on a ship in the middle of the ocean."