On a seventhday I made my way to the market. I went there looking for candles I could buy for a reasonable amount of silver. This was the month of the raven, so winter was hovering at the door and the days were getting shorter. Soon I wouldn’t go to bed as soon as the sun went down, so I needed light in my little hovel.
I didn’t like going into town. My parents had died only a season before and I was still unmarried. Yet somehow being around all that noise, all those people, made me feel even more alone. My purpose was to find a chandler as quickly as possible, buy from them, and get out of Avartha and back to my humble farm.
I slipped through the maddening throng of market day, gliding between stumbling drunks and con artists calling out for folk to take a chance, to wager, to buy a potion guaranteed to restore hair or curse an enemy, or spend some coin on fucking some unfortunate young whore. I felt the energy leaving my body like smoke from a fire.