Early Morning (Grail)

The fog rose in the earliest parts of the morning as the sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon, but Grail Hillfire was already up and on the move. She'd left the Treant behind at the camp site, his gnobby rod still erect as he sat leaning against the largest redwood in the copse. The thing about wooden cocks was that they didn't go soft.

The Treant had, despite her warnings, tried to 'sap' her and she was still feeling sticky because of it. "Fuckin' trees," she grumbled, adjusting her pants again as she strode along the edge of the farmer's field. It was nearly harvest time and the cornstalks were looming over her.

Grail had been traveling Varisia for her entire life, but had never been so close to the coast before - the morning fog was thick here, cloaking the low parts of the terrain as rolling hills and scattered copses of trees broke Grail's sight lines. The easiest way to travel, without a road, was keeping the large shadow of the nearby limestone escarpment to her right. The directions she had received yesterday from a local farmer had told her that the Devil's Platter shielded the little peninsula that Sandpoint was built on.

_Never mind that it's just a normal thing to call an escarpment the Devil's Platter around here!_ Grail shook her head and glanced up at the ominously named shadow in the half light of early dawn. Varisia, from the mountainous Storval Plateau in the north down to the Mushfens in the south, was scattered with big tors and bluffs, but this Platter was the largest single formation she'd seen short of the cliffs of the Storval Rise. It was like a true and proper mountain had gotten sheared off at the base, leaving behind a rocky stump.

That was silly though, right? Where was the rest of the mountain, then?

The hills grew steeper, and Grail was **** to circle a few in the fog rather than climb. Then, all at once, she topped a hill and was treated to a vista the likes of which she had never seen before in all her travels. The water glimmered like an opal in the morning sun. The Ocean.

It was stunning. Immense. Beautiful. Terrible.

"Too much water," Grail finally decided, shaking her head. The base of the hill she was on sloped down to a road dotted with carts and travellers heading north. She descended and joined the sparse flow of travel, walking alone for another twenty minutes before there was a soft descent as the road made a turn, and Sandpoint was spread out before her.

A small bay and a river bordered the southern side, the town accessible by a wooden bridge. The bay had been turned into a small harbour where several little ships (or big boats? Grail wasn't quite sure of the difference) were docked and being unloaded. The town rose slowly from the docks on a gradual rise, the one and two story buildings mostly combined brick and wood structures, all with pleasant panelled facings and wooden slat roofs. There were other, larger buildings scattered throughout the town, but the two most dominant structures sat across at the north end. One was huge compared to the rest of the town, with three low domes on top and well constructed stone arches.

Pretty good, for human work, she thought. It was obviously the newly constructed Sandpoint Cathedral. Word of the major effort had swept through the Varisian for years, along with the story of their last chapel burning down around the heads of the Priest and his adopted daughter. A blessed Aasimar girl touched by the divine.

The other looming building was little more than a ruin but stood at the highest point in town, looking over everything around and out to sea. Grail could tell at one time, in the ancient past, it would have been some sort of immense tower. Now only a single portion of the wall still stood, circular and cupping the highest point of the town in a peaked shadow.

Grail followed the road along with the merchants and locals walking it, down the final slope to a wide, squat wooden bridge. It was the only real barrier, crossing a short river that fed into the bay that served Sandpoint so well as a port. An offshoot trail of the road followed the bank of the river up towards what looked like a small community built on the bluff opposite the bay and docks, but everyone was headed for the bridge, so that was where she followed.

A sign, rough and rustic, was planted prominently beside the well maintained wooden structure.

Welcome
to
SANDPOINT

Please stop to
See Yourself
As We See You

A polished mirror hung in the centre of the sign, reflecting Grail's face back at her. She was dirty, face smudged with the dirt of travel, her hair a mess after her toss and tousle with the Treant. Still, she thought, at least I'm cute.

The dwarf sighed and didn’t step onto the bridge, instead heading down the bank to the river edge and the smooth, crystal clear water. She cupped her hands and splashed some over her face, the bite of it cool and refreshing this early in the day. Then she did it again, and started to scrub her hands clean before moving on to her face and fixing her hair.

It was a Festival Day, after all. I can’t just go about looking like a wild person, she thought to herself as she cleaned. Especially if I want my warnings taken seriously. These people need to know that doom is coming for them. If not today, then some tomorrow, the giants are going to march to war.

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