A Day in Saltley and Potential Work

After the chase to the city yesterday and a late night in the common room, we rose late this morning.  After breakfast we went to the city to buy some more supplies.  I had my first real look at a Hznaman town, the streets seem quite narrow, especially near the centre of the town.  The buildings are largely wooden, packed together, and much lower than I'd imagined they'd be.  Barr explained that this is a smaller town - cities tend to have more space, and have much more sizeable, and stone-built buildings.  We wandered around the market - where there was a surprising variety of food available considering the time of year.

There is a smell to the town, it smells of an open sewer.  While wandering around the marketplace, I chatted with a couple of the red-breastplated guards about this.  They could tell that I was a newcomer to the land of the Hznaman, and I think they were sort-of proud of their land.  They said that the sanitation in the larger towns is easier to manage, as the greater prosperity means they can afford better drainage.  In Saltley, however, the town is not big enough, yet, to afford the drainage that bigger towns enjoy.

We've purchased some salted pork and some dried beef for the journey.  We've also bought some dried fruit sealed in leather pouches.  We also bought a few clay jars sealed with wax, Mullory spent some time trying to find particular ones.  I didn't know what was inside them, so he opened one when we were back at the inn.  I was quite surprised - it was some kind of freshwater fish that had been salted and sealed into the jars. These, he says can be eaten cold and have saved him from starvation on several long journeys before.  They can also be eaten warm - you just sit the jar on the top of or just to the side of a camp-fire and  the fish will cook through while the wax melts.  You pour the wax off and then eat the fish.  Once they're open, the jars contents have to be eaten with then day, so we finished this jar off.  They smell a little strongly, but they taste great.

It was only at this point that I realised Barr wasn't with us.  I asked the others where he'd gone, and only Elenhugh knew.  He'd slipped off to see someone he met at in the common room last night; there is a potential for work here, but he didn't want to say anything at this time because there are some complications, so it may not come to pass.  We'll find out later when he's back.