Getting acquainted

Jp with Lucian, Winteroak and Bandorchu

The short farmer notices Alexis' apparent interest in his tinkering and beckons her over. He holds in his hand a small black bag of sorts but she gets the impression the material is made of its not leather or any material she recognises. It's the size of a large marble and she notices all sorts of concoction in the table where he is working. Powders, twine, pastes made of the strange peppers he grows, something that looks like paper and an assortment of strange looking tools.

He asks her to stand aside and throws the small bag into the ground a few metres from them. Upon impact it explodes against the ground releasing a reddish cloud into the air.

He grins as the smell reaches them. Alexis chokes tears back a bit imagining how potent the mixture would be close by.

Hearing the bang nearby, Tarmen sees Alexis and the short man amidst some sort of cloud and rushes over, noting her reaction to whatever just happened.
“What was that? Are you ok?”

Alexis rubbed at her eyes, and coughed a bit, suitably amazed. By the man’s grin, that was exactly the result he was hoping for.

“I’m fine. I think. Panolis, that stuff is strong… I think it’s a projectile of sorts? If that thing bursts close to you, you’re really not going to have fun…”

She could easily see that very effectively hinder a rushing attacker. It might not be meant for that, but it certainly didn’t seem build for entertaining guests during a feast.

Although Alexis felt somewhat uncomfortable to steal the young shaman‘s time, given his apparent importance for the village, she finally did politely request him to translate for them and the farmer.
He had been about the only person other than Berus that had been friendly towards them and she didn’t even know his name, let alone anything else, starting from where he might hail from.
Other than that, his tinkering impressed her a lot. Nicolaus would be the only other person she could think of accomplished in experiments in such a way, and she wondered where he had picked up those skills and how he would end up a farmer with capabilities like that.

Tarmen was drawn to follow Alexis’s interest in the farmer and his odd curios.
The explosion, while it had worried him at first, had also perked his own curiosity. He had known folk back home that could fashion all sorts of gizmos from scrap, either selling it or using them on jobs. He had begun to wonder how similar this man would be to a Kru’ll ‘scrap rat’.
While still an enigma, the shaman certainly was proving his usefulness in translating, though Tarmen tried to pick up on words himself. No use traveling if you never learn how to ask for directions.

The young boy told Alexis and Tarmen that the short farmer's name was Ekero. He hailed from the north of Arcadia, past the Great Desert of Skulls, from a place called Hel's Maw. He had settled in Desdem for almost twenty years. He lived as a bit of an hermit which suited him greatly it seemed. He had brought with him many advancement in farming tools and seedlings.

Alexis was glad to finally be able to address the eccentric man by name. She asked Berus to convey their thanks for the genial attitude he had shown them.

Still very curious she inquired if he was willing to tell them a little about his old home and his people, and what had drawn him here, to this small trading village.
She had no intention to press either of those points. She came, after all, from a city full of people that left behind their old lifes, and often times were not too inclined to share their reasons for doing so.

Furthermore she expressed her curiosity for his experiments. Were there specific fields he liked to delve into? Had he made other inventions like the one he had shown her?

Ekero struck her not quite like Nicolaus who seemed driven and inquisitive in his research. How should she put it? Almost like an artist. Following wherever creativity led him, just not with paint or quill, but with an alchemist’s tools.