Greetings fellow exiles,

Today (before shadows appear), an old man walked into town he said that
he was selling stories. We gave him some coins and here's the story he
told us .
Hope you'll enjoy it (and figure out what's cooking ;-))

Keemhan says, "Now let me get on with the story. I know you've heard it
before, but you asked for it, so listen. Well. Tsrrin's life wasn't
easy, but it wasn't too hard either. She worked in her family's garden,
and sang, and danced. Sometimes she traveled to the neighboring village
to visit her cousins."

Keemhan says, "You see those three planets up there."
(Keemhan gestres with his staff.)
Keemhan says, "Well, everybody knows that when they're lined up in a
row - like they almost are now - strange things can happen.."
Keemhan says, "This time I've been talking about, Tsrrin's time, what
happened right around then was a Darshak raid. All right, maybe that's
not so strange during a war. But it was a terrible tragedy. Tsrrin came
home from a visit to her cousins' village to find her home burned, the
garden trampled. Her friends and family had vanished, every one, carried
off by the Darshaks for some unspeakable purpose. Tsrrin may have been
young, but she was brave and resourceful.

She followed after the Darshaks, tracking them through the hills, until
she found their camp shrouded in darkness and smoke and a feeling of evil
you could almost smell. Off to one side, packed into a wooden pen, huddled
her entire village, overcome with exhaustion and fear. Guarding the pen were a
handful of Thugs and a crowd of hooded corpses, and in the center of
the camp stood half a dozen priests, chanting something over a blood-red
flame. With scraps of cloth, mud and leaves, she disguised herself as a hooded
corpse, and lurched into the camp under cover of darkness and fog.
Carefully she wandered nearer to the captives' pen.

Keemhan exclaims, "You'd be careful too, alone in a camp full of
Darshaks. She was brave, but she wasn't an idiot!"

"She managed to attract her brother's attention, then get close enough
to stumble against the latch on the gate. Out swarmed a crowd of
villagers, taking the thugs and corpses by surprise. The heroine Tsrrin
stripped off her disguise and joined her family, running from the camp
before the priests knew what had happened."

"And so, every couple of years, when the planets line up like they are
now, we celebrate the Feast of Tsrrin. We put on disguises like she did,
dodge the sinister carved Darshak and rescue candy."
"Ahh... but you know all that, of course, and I you're not likely to pay
me to hear it again."

Spad