Easthaven

Easthaven holds many memories for many people. Peaceful fishing. Meeting friends and making new ones. Harsh winters. In many ways it's still that same place today. At least from an outsider's perspective. But the truth is that nearly every building was destroyed two decades ago. Giants. Barbarians. Devils. Demons. Heroic sacrifice.

Gone is the Temple of Tempus. Gone is the Winter's Cradle tavern. Gone is Pomab's Emporium (though nobody misses that place). Gone are the ramshackle huts that housed the people. The only structure that survived the Battle of Easthaven was, miraculously, a small shrine to Lathander.

Today, the town has been built anew. A Temple of Torm and an order of paladins now protect the sealed portal from the Abyss. A new tavern was constructed atop the old one, with a reputation of having the best cooks in the Ten Towns. The town is now twice as large as it was, with cobblestone streets and sturdy houses. And Lathander’s shrine has become a full-fledged House of the Morning Lord, with seats enough to hold the entire town﹘which it has on several occasions.

And in the center of the town is a life-size statue of Easthaven’s favorite hero. The one who first instituted Feasthaven. The one who sacrificed his life to save the North. Ug the goliath!

Rumors say that the loincloth adorning the statue has been enchanted so that no wind can cause it to fail.

It is here in this town that our next tale begins, as would-be adventurers gather around the statue of Ug...

Rift stands back hesitantly, watching the scene unfold. His parents (Mother in gnome form) are talking to some people, but he doesn't know any of them. So he stays back, finding a shadow to stand in, because that would make him mysterious.

As if an almost five foot tall silver dragonborn wouldn't be strange anywhere.

The music doesn't appeal to him, although that could be because he doesn't understand the words. Glancing around him, he notes all the different ways he could get onto the rooftops. And then imagines himself climbing the walls, flipping and jumping, practically flying; wowing the crowd with his skill and agility. The thought makes him smile, sharp teeth shining out of his little patch of shadow.

While most in the town square fixate upon the musicians, Sheemish focuses on the statue of Ug. Not that the music was bad (he enjoyed percussion) but he was old enough to have a personal connection with the depicted goliath. While the statue did the famous barbarian justice in likeness, it didn't appear to completely fit in Sheemish's mind. This statue stood tall and bold, with a strength and power to it. The Ug Sheemish remembered in Bilewing's lair was exhausted, spent, but somehow still standing. He represented more of a suffered determination rather than a rallying beacon, tattered and torn but always getting back up. Kind of like his loincloth, Sheemish thought with a smile. Speaking of, he thought to himself, if a statue can hold so many memories, what would loincloth hold? if that really was the original garment there, could there by chance still be something inside. As Sheemish didn't know anyone in their right mind that might dig through a, if the rumor was correct about him being frozen in ice, centuries old barbarian groin girdle, there just might be something interesting in there. It had held a magical crystal shard back in the day . . .

Not wanting to be seen sticking his hands into the loincloth of the statue of the towns hero, the young blacksmith turned artificer had a different idea. As the towns people where still distracted by the (orc)estra Sheemish pulled from his pocket another contraption he had been working on, a mechanical beetle of sorts. Leaning nonchalantly against the statue, he wound up in trinket in his hand and let it crawl up his shoulder. The goal was to have it explore the pockets and relay any information in vibration tones back to Sheemish. The reality was a small piston popped inside of it launching the little mechanical bug to ground amongst the gathered crowd. It was instantly trampled by a girl running to awkwardly hug her apparently introverted melancholy friend.

Whelp . . guess that one still needs work too. He sighed and turned his attention back to some of the gathering crowd. There was certainly a lot more people here than at home, and diverse too. His keen eyes (an inherited trait from his mom) noticed a shadowed figure in the back- was that a silver dragonborn? It wasn't hard for Sheemish to recall memories of Bilewing in his mind, an encounter like that tends to stick with you even after 20 years. He had picked up quite a few phrases from his captor at the time, mostly insults and threats. But isn't that what most people learn first with a foreign language? He might have to brush up on that, could prove more useful than he thought it would.

Moving to a shadow not too far away from the dragonborn Sheemish attempts a greeting in draconic. Best to start of simple and work from there he thought.

"First time in Easthaven?

Rift is startled as a strange man tries to talk to him. It takes him a second to figure out the garbled Draconic words coming from a human mouth.

"First goat on this here Easthaven?" the man asks.

"What about a goat?" Rift says in Common, his voice squeaking. Realizing the man's intended question, Rift stands up as tall as he can and lowers his voice. "I mean, I have been here before. Just visiting with my..." He glances at his parents. "Colleagues. For business... stuff."

He nods solemnly, quite proud of himself for this conversation. Just small talk between two ordinary citizens. Grown men of equal standing (if not height).

Yes, he is nailing this adult city life, even if he isn't exactly an adult in his mother's eyes. He might even be older than this man, although it is hard to tell with humans. They seem to look the same for their whole short lives.

"Uh..." Rift glances up at the large stranger.

Thankfully, he is rescued from having to answer by the strangest looking goblin he has ever seen. It isn't until he hears it speak that he recognizes that this must be the legendary Dok. Rift's father didn't tell many stories of his past heroics, but when he did, they involved this goblin.

Rift watches in amazement at the goblin's speech and fire-sneezing, and happily joins the applause. But with an appropriate level of cheering. Definitely not any form of crazy over the top behavior. Moderate clapping. Some head nods.

Is his mother watching? He doesn't check. He just stands by the grown-up strangers, effortlessly making small talk, and cheering very normally. Man, he is good at this!

Rift sneaks forward to see what the amazing Dok is doing. While the goblin is drawing what appear to be sigils, the young dragonborn creeps right up to the newly nakedified Ug statue and peers around it. A portal blooms into being right in front of his eyes and Rift watches some heroes jump through. Candlekeep! Wow!

A tickling on his hand grabs Rift's attention for just a moment, until he realizes that the tickling is the hairy legs of a big brown spider. With a very manly scream, he pulls his hand away, stumbling past the statue and straight into the open portal.