I was in Combe! I couldn’t believe it! I was finally out on adventure, with my two friends by my side. It felt intoxicating and scary all at the same time. Combe is a rather beautiful town, I must say. It seems miles larger than Archet, but perhaps it is not. I hope I get some time to explore it on my own.
Toby, Blake and I went to the Comb & Wattle, just to check out the rumours about the bandits. A few rough looking men were taking up one corner of the common room, but they were talking quietly amongst each other. At the bar was the inn keeper, Mistress Honeymeade, Blake knows her. He greeted her and ordered us some ale.
At the bar was also a young woman, she introduced herself as Leonnie. The boys immediately fell into conversation with her. She was very beautiful, and she had an interesting sword called Marygold, so no wonder they found her interesting. I have never thought about naming my bow, but now I feel like I should. I didn’t really know what to say to her, so I mostly sipped away at my ale until I had enough courage to join the conversation. She did say that Combe was generally a friendly town and she didn’t seem overly concerned with the men in the corner, so we didn’t immediately pursue anything. It turns out she’s the niece of Mistress Honeymeade, so she comes often to the inn.
She warned us about a wolf den in the forest, showed us the scars to prove she had been there herself. Scary. My spider bite pales in comparison, I guess it is not near as impressive. I’ll prove myself one day, grow up and be a beautiful woman with impressive battle scars. Hah, maybe the boys will find me interesting as well then.
We decided to set out to speak to Constable Wren before turning in for the night. We met her on top of the hill – the view down over Combe is amazing. The Constable told us about the problems with the bandits. They seem to be plaguing Combe as well, same as Archet, though they have yet to openly attack Combe. The Constable said they are unable to spare the resources currently to go in and deal with the bandit problem. At that point I was getting real nervous, I was beginning to feel that perhaps we were in over our heads here… the Constable was taking about a rather large group of bandits in their main camp!
Luckily, Toby came through as usual. He made it clear to the Constable that we’re no fighting army and would not be venturing into a bandit stronghold. I must have sighed with relief, because he gave me a very comforting look and I saw Blake’s look of approval. We did agree that we would scout the smaller encampments throughout the woods up to the old farm, see if we could recover some items that had been taken.
As we came back into town we spoke to Mrs Woodwright, who was distraught because her son had disappeared into the forest. We agreed that we would look for him as well, seeing as we would be headed that way. Poor woman.
