There’s a hunting lodge in Bree! We went there, and I immediately felt at home. This is my kind of place for sure. Furthermore, they offered good rewards in return for us doing a few jobs for them. They had some smaller jobs in the Barrow Downs, which apparently are those ‘mountains’ I could see from the Midgewater Marshes. Turns out they’re only hills, but big hills! I didn’t think any further about what the Barrow Downs might be, but it turns out they are literally that, old barrows… full of dead and, well, not so dead dead! The Hunting Lodge might be paying us handsomely for these collecting shards and gathering ancient texts, but I have never been so scared in my life as I was when I saw the dead walking towards me. I don’t know how they have risen or what have compelled them to do so. Maybe they never rested in the first place. Luckily it turns out you can shoot and kill the walking dead, though in the process your will feel a chill to the bone and your heart with harden. The cold of death is something else, and not in a positive way. I want to try and capture it here in my diary, but I have no words for it and do not wish to dwell on it for that long.
We came out of those barrows alive, but I had changed. I don’t know about the boys, they’re hard to read, but I have seen the dead and I have felt the misty cold that shrouds them. It makes you think about your life in a different way, but for me it also put some perspective on this adventure we have set out on. I feel safe with the boys around, they look after me, and I am starting to feel confident with the bow in my hands. I’m getting stronger and my stamina is better. I still want to see the world, but I am homesick, I miss having a ‘safe place’ to retreat to. It is not an easy life being on the road and facing the type of dangers we have done. So little time has passed, but I feel years older already.
Maybe I’ll feel better if I write a letter to Lizzie. I will leave out the part about going into the old burial mounds, she will not enjoy reading about that, she’ll just want to hear that I have had fun in the Prancing Pony and that I have bought myself a new dress and got my hair done. Maybe even that I’ve met a handsome young man who has swept me off my feet… but I’d have to make that part up, as I’ve mostly seen goblins and bandits, and they did try to sweep me off my feet in a fashion, I guess, but for no romantic reasons whatsoever. Eurgh.
We spent a chilly night resting around a campfire in safety from the dreadful barrows, and though I slept little, it was kinda special to sleep out under the stars. I have been homesick recently, missing a bed that is my own, but that does not take away from the experience of opening your eyes and seeing the stars watching over you. Nevermind the fact that it is uncomfortable and very cold sleeping on the ground. I was desperately cold and crawled in between the boys to steal their body heat, I have no shame. The next day we agreed to head back to Bree to drop off some of the shards we had collected and I for one realised I’d need a warmer cloak for staying out at night.
