452 NR Year of the Tasked Weasel

14 Alturiak

Once again it is “not Valentine’s Day” The Grand Revel, full of dancing and merriment and at least for me, the time for decidedly avoiding looking into any of the nearby houses. I made that mistake checking on Yeena last year, and now Luint is around. She’s a cute baby I guess, but I’m in the camp that babies generally all look the same. Came out healthy though and Yeena’s mother was back to good health after a few weeks.

The actual festivities were enjoyable though. Big public dances, good food and dance, and some excellent bardic performances filled the day for me. I never really cared much for music back on Bet, but here it plays a pretty important social function. A lot of stories and news travel with bards and merchants, and bards are the ones to spread it in the taverns.

It’s an interesting medium for learning things, not as detailed as the actual scholarly texts I tend to read with Orsik, but the delivery ends up a lot less dull. Rather than some notes about a local warlord getting defeated by a band of adventurers it’s a tale talking about all the different important people and some character traits. Certainly exaggerated, and it’s unclear what level of artistic licence is applied to have it rhyme, but I assume that a lot of it is probably true to some level.

Strange how it seems a lot of the world's problems get solved by smaller skilled groups rather than larger squads or armies. You get city-states going to war with tribal bands and other armies, but I guess it takes quality to defeat quality at times. Sort of like capes in that sense, in that a random person with a spear isn’t really going to do anything other than get toasted by a dragon flying through the sky.

One thing to keep an eye out though is one of the older kids named Mary. She’s a Tiefling of some sort. Long tail, with little curly horns sticking out her bangs, and skin a little too orange to be a tan. Orsik talked to me awhile back about how they work, people born with some sort of connection to the “Lower” planes and the fiends that live there. She’s a sweet girl though, with a positive attitude even if I see a lot of people being a bit dubious about her for her heritage, kids in our group included sometimes.

I’m also fairly certain she has some level of crush on my brother. She’s always curling her tail around her left leg when she’s interacting with him, something I noticed she doesn’t do with the others. I think Pelsot is one of the nicer kids to her, whether that’s his natural inclination or because I was spending a bit of time with her after my arrival I can’t say. It’s a crush from a ten-year-old though, so it's not something I’d take too seriously. Still, better try and make sure Pelsot doesn’t accidentally make an ass of himself.

19 Alturiak

Today was my, Tayvra’s, seventh birthday.

It’s been nearly two years now, huh.

Anyway, today was nice. I spent a lot of the day at home having good food, some minor presents given. Tulgor gave me a set of wood chisels, I guess to go along with the knife from last year. I have been working on my woodcarving over the winter at home since there isn’t much else to do, and so I am literally whittling away the hours. Pelsot has requested I make him some toy wooden swords to duel with the other kids, which is… It’s nice that he thinks I’m actually good enough to make something decent for him.

I’m at least able to avoid cutting myself though when doing it, which is probably better than a lot of people. Good eye-hand coordination. Given how the hands of the other kids who clearly tried to carve their own tend to have a lot of bandages and noticeable nicks on their hands sort of makes it obvious why he’s handing the task onto me.

Not like I have a lot better to be doing though, better than playing the same games with Jespa and Pelsot for hours. Three-player games tend to be a bit more messy than two-person. Only so much housework we can really help with, and a lot of days so far have been in climate this season so it’s hard to trek across the city to the library or justify going out to the workshop.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I’m almost old enough to apply for tutelage with the Watchful Order of Magisters, as they set the bar for application to their school system as being at least eight years old. Their typical school year for beginners starts in Eleasis, so about a year and a half from now.

Learning magic would be… It’s something I’ve been interested in for a while. Orsik isn’t really interested in the art of teaching others magic in general, and (probably correctly) doesn’t trust young children with the ability to set things on fire. He has given some amount of positive feedback on the idea of applying to one of the academies in the city to learn though. That actually matters a bit, since having a member vouch for your learning makes your application more likely to be taken more seriously.

12 Ches

Winter is hopefully going to be finishing up soon, meaning that I can more properly expand the workshop with a larger variety of arachnids. The winter has meant I wasn’t really able to collect the larger arachnids I would have been interested in, especially with the knowledge of how valuable venom can be to sell.

Silk weaving is still more important long-term to me and Persvek Casein. Reinforced and insulated clothing is desirable to both parties, even if the monetary value is likely less. It’s something that can’t be easily bought with gold from what research I’ve been able to do.

The lack of larger spiders and tarantulas sucks though. Raw money is more useful in the short term for buying supplies, and that’s the type that I’m actually lacking in. Not that silk weaving hasn’t begun on some level, but I honestly lack the numbers to really scale up production to be very significant. I’ve managed most of a jacket sized for Chief Balthsvk as a sort of… gift? I’m being paid for it, but honestly, it’s not really worth weaving anything for myself given how I’m likely to grow out of it soon anyway. Not exactly worth spending months on something I’ll outgrow in a similar period of time until I can justify it with surplus available material.

The venom sales have been fairly good though, if a bit sparse. Part of that is because the lizardfolk aren’t making the journey often through all the snow that’s piled up on the road, and the other is to make it seem more like they are just randomly harvesting it from killing spiders near their clan instead of a farmed source. Plenty of money that gets reinvested in more equipment for the workshop. Really just extra shelves to get filled when the warmer months arrive and I can actually start collecting more to fill them. There are two different sizes now for the drawers, the larger venom milking ones were pretty cramped if they fit at all in the old ones.

I can’t exactly do a lot for breeding the species that I want. They take too long to mature for reproduction or to large enough sizes for milking significant amounts. Much more practical to just go out and collect them than wait years to build up from the initial population. When it’s actually warm out anyway.

So far this winter, we’ve done well to keep what I had collected alive and well-fed. Laraek and Durah have been doing their job of keeping the building warm with our fireplace and going out to collect scraps of leftover food or spoilage from food vendors and grocers. Most people are probably assuming they are eating it themselves thanks to an impressively durable digestive system, but the majority is actually brought here and stuffed into a few barrels.

I basically have colonies of scavengers living out of them, mostly types of flies and worms. It’s pretty easy to bulk out their population and use them as a convenient food source for the spiders. I’m unsure if I’ll be keeping it up into the spring though. I might if only to avoid increasing suspicion on the lack of them in the docks. The lack of fleas was noticed a little while ago, but nobody really had any idea on the cause for it so nothing came from it.

19 Ches

I am now even more certain of Mary’s crush after how she acted today. Fey Day has a handful of public performances in the parks and markets, and I noticed how closely she was staying with our family. Not sure what was the deal with her, but she got invited along to go with us. Tulgor had no issue with it anyway, and she wasn’t the only one from our friend group to tag along.

The way she tagged along with Pelsot though was a bit more noteworthy. She barely left his side today, and seemed a bit sad when it came to a close. Maryl must be head over heels for him, I guess. He’s a nice enough guy, good outlook on life, and confident. It’s weird for me to think about though, given he’s my older brother. Good for him I guess.

I’ve suggested to him to maybe invite her over for dinner at our place sometime soon, so I guess time will tell how that pans out.