Parry stood near the street, drawing in the fresh, if slightly dusty morning air, listening to the sounds of a small trading town slowly waking up. He hadn't the slightest idea which way to go.
You were sick, someone brought you here to recover, paid for a healer, supplied medicinal herbs, pre-paid enough to give you a few extra days if need be. You're an apprentice shaper, maybe even a valuable enough gofer to your master to be worth the expense?
Could it have been himself? He tried to imagine staggering into this hostel with all the signs of 'ochre fever,' tossing his knife and coin purse on the counter, squeaking out "room and healer, whatever the cost!" and collapsing on the floor.
That didn't fit. The matron didn't treat him with even a glimmer of respect, he was no paying guest. And could he even have afforded all this?
Moving to the side of the building, incidentally surprising a couple of combative roosters (who took their argument elsewhere), Parry fished out his meager funds.
Five coppers, one silver--enough for a satisfying pair of lunches and a dinner. He examined them carefully, the corners of his mouth turning down into a slight frown. The coppers were worn and didn't have any real clues, but the silver, if it was a local coin and relatively new, it was his first clue.
Guntav XII, Prince-Bishop of Tyryn Palisade, the fat one with the comely daughter.
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It had been several dozen lifetimes since Parry was last reincarnated here, so far to the west. He assassinated Guntav a few lifetimes before that, had a marriage of convenience with his daughter in the next, and a few times went to war with him.
"Was he dead yet?" Parry asked himself. "Seems a new enough minting, not much tarnish, but then, the last few years of his reign he debased the currency to pay off his armies." The silver wasn't clipped, but it felt suspiciously heavy, likely all cheap alloy by now.
Parry always remembered his most recent life best, so he tried to build a timeline out of it. "Overlord Parry--Young Master Parry, I should say--would have been sixteen when Guntav died. So I'm back about thirty, perhaps as much as thirty-five years. No wars between the major powers, the Great Mud Quake was a few years off, the Fourth and Fifth Ruins hadn't been uncovered yet. This should be around the time of one of the Awful Hours. Which one? Hour of Fear, or Hour of Penance?"
He let himself amble up and down the one road of this town, glancing at the few shops and offices. It wasn't much: tax and customs house (yes, that's Tyryn Palisade's heraldry, no question), the hostel and a slightly more upscale hotel, an inn, lots of stables and wagon yards (on a trade route, typical), a fortune-teller, livestock pens. If the local healer had some kind of office or shop, he couldn't spot it.
Assuming my Master had me brought here for recovery (and to keep 'Ochre Fever' out of his workshop, no doubt), he wasn't located in town.
That made sense: shapers, like any crafter--especially spell crafters--wanted secrecy and control, particularly regarding their workhouses. So he was out of town, and the road went either east or west.
Can't ask anyone, how strange would that seem. "Excuse me, where do I live?"
Wryly, Parry flipped his sole silver coin. It came up heads.
"West it is."