Off to Stormhome

Nymm, 1001 YK

The airship was great. Once again, the Captain, Captain Ter’ral d’Lyrandar, had met my sister. Apparently, she was on Khorvaire briefly (that reminds me, I really need to write to her). Her great work, and hopefully my semi-sparkling personality, had me eating at the captain’s table for the trip’s duration. A Lyrandar airship over Khorvaire airspace is pretty safe and this trip goes without issue. Well, there was another passenger that I found annoying, but a grumpy Kundarak who thinks everyone on the ship should be there to serve his every whim would likely get on anyone’s nerves. He was easy enough to avoid so nothing came of that.

Stormhome is a pretty remarkable place. It’s way up north on Khorvaire and the areas around it are chilly and rainy most of the time. However, House Lyrandar (the island city’s real masters) has created an area of perfectly temperate weather that permanently covers the island, despite its northern latitude. We disembark at the Skydock (of course) which is massive. Sharn gets a lot of sky traffic but its docks are nothing compared to Stormhome’s. We dock in the Center Spire ward. There’s a very nice restaurant at the docks that Professor Rembrandt recommended so I decide to get lunch there before heading into the city. Great meal and some nice musical entertainment to go along with it. I then head over to The Winds Favor to unpack and check out my room. This place is very swanky! It’s going to go through my money fast, so I was only going to stay there for a few days before transferring to something a bit more reasonable. Still, it was worth it. Probably the most comfortable bed I’d ever been in. Great food right there with other fantastic food and drink establishments all around. It was a very pleasant, and lazy few days. Then I needed to get out. It wasn’t the money thing. It wasn’t that I offended anyone. It was boredom. Not sure how the very rich do it but I couldn’t. I checked out and headed out to see the rest of the city. Dock areas are generally pretty fun spots. Yeah, there are some rough and tumble areas but it’s generally where a good amount of fun can be found, so I head to the ward called Kraken Bay. Just so you know, I don’t really know what I’m doing. If you’d noticed, up until now I’ve usually traveled with others who made most of the travel plans and had a clue about where we were going. So here I am just winging it. Turns out that the docks aren’t really the best place to look for lodging or things to do but in this case, it actually ended up working out. I’d gotten down to the dock area to find an open market going on that morning. Seemed like a lot of shipped goods and seafood was being purchased in bulk by various restaurants and grocers. It was pretty cool, and the bargaining was fun to watch.

I was watching one woman trying to speak with a seller that had all sorts of kegs and crates of bottles. Guessing it was wines and ales, I thought this might lead to a good place to visit. The seller was an orc (sounded like she was from the Shadow Marches but didn’t look Tharashk). There was a little bit of a communication issue as the orc woman wasn’t fluent in common and the buyer didn’t speak orc. The woman was asking some questions and the seller was trying to answer them but there was a lot lost in translation. I was about to step in to help when a rude little guy just up and pushed the buyer woman aside saying, “I don’t have time for this.” The woman actually stumbled back into a kid who was holding a wheelbarrow full of meats and vegetables and they went crashing down. The rude guy just ignored that and started speaking to the orc seller, who seemed put off by this behavior. I quickly closed in on the situation. I deepened my voice some and stood right up next to the rude guy and stated in orc that he had no right to do that. He quickly turned and was about to say something into my chest. In case you’d forgotten, I’m a 6’-6” Tabaxi, and I was wearing my armor (easiest way to carry it) which gives me a bit of bulk. Apparently, a cat man snarling in orc, who is more than a foot taller than you can bring you back to a certain level of civility. At least it did for this guy. He apologized and stepped away to do other business. I helped the woman and kid up and began helping put the meats and veggies back in the wheelbarrow. Turns out the kid was hers. I introduced myself and she thanked me and told me her name was Marta and that she and her husband ran a tavern called the Nixie. She seemed very nice and I told her I’d be happy to help her with the orc as I spoke the language fluently. She said she’d appreciate that. She didn’t normally deal in rarer drinks like this but had a half-orc patron that had become a bit of a regular and she wanted to try and get something a little special. I noticed the seller had a couple crates of Orc Blood Ale. This stuff is great. A full-bodied red ale with a bit of a kick. She decided to get a keg along with a crate of some of the more reasonably priced wines. There wasn’t room on the wheelbarrow so I offered to carry the keg (it was a little heavier than the crate and I was trying to be gentlemanly—we had to switch half-way to the Nixie as Marta is a sturdy woman and I am neither sturdy nor a woman).

As we walked to the Nixie, Marta and I talked. I told her (very briefly believe it or not) about me being from Xen’drik, me going to MU and having written a book that did well enough for me to take a little vacay here, and that I was now looking for a place to stay that was a bit more reasonable than The Winds Favor Inn. She said the least she could do is to give me a room at the Nixie while I got my bearings in town. I told her I’d be happy to pay but she said I should see if it’s to my liking before agreeing to that. Anyway, we got there, and Marta and I brought the crate and keg in through the front while the kid wheeled the rest around to the back. The Nixie was exactly what I thought it might be. Perfect. Not ritzy and ostentatious and not run down and dirty. It was nearing the lunch hour and there were more than a few people inside already. Definitely some interesting characters, I thought. I think I’m going to like it here.