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Carissa and Korva land in medieval Iceland
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So they are probably not in very immediate danger, at least. She slips her boots off to rub her toes, which are sending stabbing pain up her feet. 

"Well, I'm feeling optimistic about not getting murdered before the morning," she says, which is - not true at all, actually, she is feeling very doomed, but objectively in a practical sense most people do not murder random women, so she should be feeling optimistic.

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She's staring very intently at the women who are spinning thread. She knows what a hand spindle is, but she's never actually seen one in use. Her family always had a wheel. 

"Probably. At least until they determine whether we're useless, or realize we're Chelish. Do you - will you have Comprehend Languages in the morning - "

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"Yeah. Though I can't do that and two of Mount and two of Endure Elements and we'll need those, if we're gonna flee and try our luck at a different random farming village, which we might need to. - I figure I have better odds if there's someone watching my back, so I want a plan to get us both out -

If they'll let me I can do Share Language, it gives them Taldane and lasts all day. Might do Tongues and try to convince them of that and save the first-circle slots for running away if we need to. - I'm probably not thinking of something because I'm not thinking great at all and I don't wanna pull out my spellbook, 's worth a lot more than I am -"

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Nodnodnodnod. The bit about it being better to have someone watching her back makes her feel a little better, that's - sensible and not wrong and a reason to keep her alive. 

"Maybe once they're asleep. Depending on where they want us to sleep, I guess. And whether you have a light prepared. I'm no good at planning but I'm hoping if I watch for a while maybe I can - offer to do some spinning or something once my feet are back to normal, that'll at least answer the question of what we can do that might make it worth feeding us - never done the kind of spinning they're doing before, though, I don't know how hard it is to get it right - "

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"I have a light. I haven't done any kind of spinning but if you figure it out and can explain it I'll try it. - I don't want to be obviously a wizard but also I'm going to look awfully useless at everything else, probably. Do you know if the way we do it in Cheliax is better, maybe you could teach them..."

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"It's better but I don't off the top of my head have any idea how to successfully reinvent and assemble a spinning wheel. I don't even do that much spinning, I'm not going to be very good at it, just, I learned how to do it when I was a kid, so - I'll work on it."

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She nods. 

She sits there and tries to look very boring and tries to keep track of each of the people in the room and how dangerous they look.

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When she's stared at the other women for long enough (and is no longer freezing), she heads over and attempts to gesture for them to give her a spindle. They have extras.

She's very slow, compared to them, but she thinks she's able to follow the process well enough to create passable yarn. When she's sure she has the basic motions down, she waves Carissa over to see if she can explain.

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She can also try to learn to make yarn, though she is even worse at it. It's also awfully demoralizing - you get so little yarn from so much work. It is - weird that there's not a spell for this, actually - presumably someone would've tried - 

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One of the women is laughing at them. Another is occasionally looking over disapprovingly. Mostly they're ignoring them to chat with each other. She is not incredibly optimistic about successfully demonstrating that she can do useful work. Maybe she'll be able to pick up the pace with a little more practice, though.

"Maybe you could figure out how to get an unseen servant to do it? But I think unseen servants are mostly, uh, more expensive than just getting people to do things. I guess I don't really know how it comes out if you're a wizard."

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"Unseen servant could probably do it. You can sell first-level slots for more in a city but probably five hours of spinning beats whatever else I could offer them here on a random farm." She glances around. "It'd be really conspicuous. Probably wanna do it tomorrow once I can defend myself if they decide they want the spellbook." But the idea is cheering. She smiles at Korva very slightly.

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She smiles back. A little. 

 

Eventually it is dinnertime. There's a lot of dinner, for a lot of people seated at the table. They have loud, animated conversations, and eat half a dozen different kinds of food.

The two of them are given bread and beer and little bowls of mostly-broth. She is not sure whether they're supposed to sit at the table or not, and isn't very sure how to ask, so she eats it on the floor by the fire. It's warmest here anyway.

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This almost definitely communicates something about their standing here and it's probably not anything great but they really just need to go twelve more hours without being killed - or, well, prevented from sleeping - and then they'll be able to talk, and figure out where the nearest city is and whether they can make it on horseback, and then they can go be found. ...hopefully she won't be in trouble for deserting. She thinks probably being kidnapped is not the same thing as deserting but it can't possibly come up very often and maybe it's treated the same by law. (Should she, instead, run - but, no, having considered actually deserting would mar the extremely reasonable "I was kidnapped and returned as soon as possible" defense considerably.)

She eats her bread and broth and drinks her beer and tries ranking the men by dangerousness in her head.

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A lot of these men look pretty dangerous. It is hard to rank them precisely, but a lot of them look like they probably know how to fight.

Eventually dinner ends and various couples and children and friend groups break off and head to different rooms, or in several cases outside, presumably to some of the other buildings. No one gives them any particular direction about where they should be heading.

One of the young women comes back out of her room and hands them a blanket. 

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"Thank you," she says, even though they won't understand her. Gesture at the floor near the fire to ask if they're supposed to just sleep here?

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The woman seems to think that's fine. She leaves without pointing them towards anywhere else.

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Great. 

She wants to - say something, but there's not much to say, right, they're not friends, they're just mysteriously stuck here and it's entirely possible Korva knows more than she's saying about why they're here and they'll obviously both be talked to pretty thoroughly, at best, when they get back -

She does a light, and pulls out her spellbook, and makes a plan for the morning.

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That's reasonable.

She doesn't have any plans to make. She's not going to be able to earn enough money for transit back, not unless Carissa wants to pay for it, and there's really no reason to do that, is there, so - she's probably stuck. She can probably manage not to starve. Maybe manage to pick up the language the long way, even if this seems ridiculous and impossible right now. Kanir will be fine. She's trying not to think about Zara. 

She says some quiet prayers in infernal, and then - there's not a lot else to do, is there. And she's tired.

"We good - sharing the blanket, under the circumstances?"

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"Yeah, for sure. - as long as you're not really squirmy or something. Not trying to be difficult company but I need to sleep."

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"Yeah. I will try to be very still."

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Then they can share the blanket. It's not a very big blanket. Carissa is not in the cuddliest of moods but it's a lot better than being alone, really.

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At least it's warmer this way.

It is, in fact, very difficult to sleep under these conditions. She tries very hard to keep herself perfectly still, and it still takes her a long time to drift off, probably hours. She hopes Carissa isn't having the same problem, that would be a rather significant problem for both of them.

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She's a wizard in the army, it is probably one of her core job skills. (She was so close to having saved up enough for a Ring of Sustenance.) She sleeps tolerably. 

 

When she wakes up she prepares Mount and Endure Elements and Share Language and an Unseen Servant and Detect Thoughts and Tongues. Swaps out Mage Hand for Jolt which is useless in combat unless you want to murder commoners but does let you do that. Wishes she had invisibility, or flight, or mage armor, but she wasn't going to be an adventurer -

And then after that she prays, only half because it seems like an appropriate situation for prayer and half because she wouldn't want Korva thinking that she didn't, very often. This is wasteful, she says to Asmodeus. I am very obedient and I have worked very hard for your cause and our people and I shouldn't die here, I can do more. 

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She wakes up with the sun and finds herself miserably tired. She spends about a minute remembering what's happened and trying not to cry. Won't do any good, and will make her look very stupid in front of the wizard.

She gets out a spindle and wool from where they were put away last night, and starts practicing again, trying to remember how the other women did it. She mouths words to herself in infernal, silently, so as not to distract Carissa. She doesn't ask for help. She never asks for help. She offers praise and asks to be shown what she should be doing in order to serve Asmodeus. And she focuses on her spinning.

Eventually other people begin to file out of the rooms and go about their business, cooking and spinning and going outside to tend the crops and animals.

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Well, here goes. She has Tongues twice in case they have to flee this place for somewhere else. She casts it. Walks over to one of the women. "Excuse me?"

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