" You want to hear the strangest thing? I've been losing two sheep a week to something big and vicious. But everytime I go to check the flock, sitting in a pool of sheep's blood are a few of those weird square gold pieces. At this rate, I could buy four more flocks in a month's time!"
"Did you hear that Count 'Martial Law' had his lords attack the King? At this rate, we're all gonna die."
"That damn fool went to the proper with that damn pumpkin on his head. Hear tell he was handin' out gifts. Guess cuttin' out his tongue wasn't enough to shut him up about that damn great pumpkin. Gonna have to find him and put him to the sword, less he makes us all look foolish."
" I swear it was right in that huge field! White as a ghost and shrieking at the top of its lungs! It kept pointing down at the ground. When I got up enough nerve to get close, it disappeared. In its place was blood. But then the ground sucked it up like it were water! No, I have not been drinkin' again!"
"That dirty gypsy stole what was rightfully mine! Them dwarves didn't own a thing! I'm gonna take it out of his thieving hide!"
"...and then he just blanked out, no warning, no nothing. He just stared out into space and started mumbling, something about sinners and saints and heretics and then a bit about a noose... I wish I could remember..."
"Could have swore I saw her. Just a little bitty girl sitting under the tree, crying, said she were looking for her pa. Then I blinked - I mean it, just a blink of the eye. She were gone..."
"I just don't know. Seven years I've been working this land, been a hell of a seven years. I've been angry at 'em, been overjoyed to see 'em come through and shove out the baddies, been sad even when they pass sometimes, Galladell rest poor Sir Rallenfolly. These 'Heroes of Travance', we give 'em a lot of grief, but I really do think they're trying the best they can. Maybe this place just ain't fit fer common folk like you and me. Maybe it's time call it quits, stop chasing dreams of a free land, a frontier. Is land really worth this price?"
"I be collectin' the toll from the latest Rift crossing and this fellow says he's Lord Maxillian Reins' man and he's ta pay the toll for all his Lord's men. Pays only in newly minted gold though. Says his Lord needs ta keep da silver for the...what did he call it...da projennitor wolf, whatever the heck that means."
"This upcoming Feast will be the thirteenth anniversary that them witch hunters and priests came and took my wife away, saying she was possessed and consorted with dark forces. I can still hear her screams as they lit the torches under the stake they tied her to."
"Harvest season is upon us, boys! Get to work and clear them fields fast else we be caught out there after dark and them scaremortals come walkin' across the fields."
"Had me a 25 pound turkey was going to bring to Market Faire to sell. Last night, I hear this squeal and a horrible slurping noise. The following morning, I find my turkey, shriveled up and nothing more than a dried husk, like something drank it dry. What kind of beast would do that?"
"If'n I hadn't seen it wif my own eyes, I'da nevah believed it. A tentacle da size of my wagon reached outta da ground, grabbed Bessie, my prized heffer, and dragged her inta the very earth! Who knows where that tentacle might burst forth an' grab someone?"
"Ol' Lord Pyre, sittin' by the fire, drinking a cup or three..."
"Had one of those 'hocus-pocus' types in here. He was calling himself "Aga-somethin in the third person and tried to pay me in funny stones. Ain't no gem's I ever seen before. Like that ogre always says: magic make you crazy."
"Strangest fellow I ever met! Dressed all in strange purple clothing and carryin' a mandolin with black strings that shead some sort of light. I bet you he was one of those fairy-folk."
"Something's not right, the weather is off. Last week, there was a freak snowstorm, and now the weather's decent again. I wonder if them druids are up to something."
"What do you mean you got robbed at the Bloody Stump? I bet you just got drunk again and bought rounds for everyone!"
"Heroes of Travance? What rubbish! Sure, they'll save your life if there's monsters to kill and things to take, but did you hear about the Kallis Farm? They had to go into the Proper begging for their own crops back just so they could make it through the winter! If I were them, I'd have those so-called heroes brought up on charges! To think, saving that boy's life just to let him and his sister face either starving or freezing to death."
