The tavern is both familiar and strange to Aafna. The noise, the smell and the dank are all the same as back home in the village. It’s the faces that are different. Aafna isn’t used to being surrounded by so many strangers. The journey here was pleasant enough. She bought passage on the stagecoach with the last of her money and watched the hills roll by the window. She lost most of her first day in Hardsberg just wandering around talking to people in the street. Aafna had intended to just sketch a simple map of the city but found herself deep in conversation with shopkeeper and anyone else who stood still. Then there was the ocean. She still couldn’t quite grasp the idea of such endless water, despite having stared at it for an hour.
28 Heroines
RPG character inspiration for each day in February. Heroines with personality, depth and a problem to resolve.
Thankfully the plague beetles she killed in an alleyway had some coin in them, else Aafna would have been sleeping on a park bench. Next to her empty plate she has open her worn copy of the Adventurer’s Handbook. The discovery of this amongst her grandmother’s possessions first put “travelling ideas” into her head. The book hadn’t steered her wrong yet. It had got her equipped, albeit a bit haphazardly with gear she’d found in the barn and it had got here safely to Hardsberg. Chapter 3 – Getting Started recommended she check the notice boards in taverns for work. So tomorrow would start with a merchant with a rat problem and then she’d be off to see a wizard about some spell ingredients whilst keeping an eye out for a missing dog.
Smiling, Aafna raised her flagon to herself. Here’s to adventuring, heroines and a story worth telling.
Image Credit – Roxane by TheLivingShadow – CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0