In Snowbourn, sitting against a wall, waiting for Gleowine to sober up, Lusseriel picked up the poor damaged harp, taking a good look at it.
She then almost emptied her own backpack looking for something and came up with the harp first aid kit she always had on her.
Even if she had lost her own harp in the course of their adventure. Could she send the bill for a new instrument to Saruman for that one, she wondered…
The familiar motion of trying to revive a harp in a near desperate state relaxed her and it’s with half of the content of her backpack scattered on the floor around her that she ended up picking up her notebook:
“After we got thrown out of Meduseld, and I still think a strategically placed poison would settle most problems there, if not against the king, at least against Grima. I’m sure it’s not classified as a crime to try and kill him specifically. More like… a humanitarian mission.
I’ll start again.
After we were thrown out of Meduseld, we rested a bit in the field near the crossing, and we decided to go when rain started to fall. In Andrahir’s words, we decided to “make the most out of our presence here”, and went to hunt some orcs while our… guides deliberated on what to do now.
Of course it started raining, just to add to the charm of the day.
On one of the orcs we found a poor battered harp that had obviously seen better days.
We brought back the harp to our companions as it’s clearly not the standard orcish equipment.
Corudan had some humor in the situation but showed he clearly knows little about harps: “You found this harp in battle? It looks to my eye that the harp lost that battle”
I’m pretty sure most of the damage is cosmetic and repairable.
Quite frankly have to repair a harp after it saved your life by accidentally on purpose being raised in front of orc arrows and most damaged instruments look repairable.
Alas, Horn recognized the harp as that of his mentor, Gléowine. That we found it on an orc was not encouraging news.
Andrahir suggested that we head back to Snowbourn for now, as we couldn’t do much from that field anyway.
Rolegard seemed to agree whole-heartedly with the idea of getting out of the rain.
So we headed back to Snowbourn, and tried to see if Gléowine perhaps made it here.
And yes, we found him. Full of alcohol so that he wasn’t coherent anymore, but he was alive, and relatively safe.
I say relatively because he looked near alcohol poisoning there.
I think I could have gotten drunk just on the smells of alcohol surrounding him.
Brunnadan looked about as enthusiastic as I was about the man’s situation too. I think he may have noted the danger to the bard’s health.
Or perhaps it was just annoyance, who knows?
Hm… I wonder if, once our friendly bard is sober, presenting him with all the health complications that could arise when he binges on alcohol would cure him from drinking altogether… Or should I try to test that damaged harp by singing the most high-pitched songs I know when he shows signs of getting out of his alcoholic daze?
So alright most of the songs I know in those range are mourning songs so perhaps not.
I think Ilthirian might actually have causes to try to kill me if I did. Those particular songs tend to stay in the heads of those who listen to them for… A very very long time, and considering who they were for...”
Lusseriel looked thoughtful for a moment at that.
“That might be an interesting idea if one day I feel the urge to annoy her to insanity though.
Rolegard looked a tad worried about the sorry state of the man.
Andrahir looked vaguely hopeful that the man was less full of alcohol than he clearly was and tried to convince him to stop drinking, to no avail.
With Andrahir, Ilthirian, Brunnadan, Rolegard and Ardirien, we discussed a little how to help him sober up quickly.
I don’t know if they realize that nothing really works. Once the alcohol is in the system, only time can do the trick. Well, and food and water help, I mean, but only time is a real "cure".
Some of the solutions sounded tempting though. Like throwing Gléowine in the river.
There’s of course risks associated with that. Like him drowning. Or suffering from shock. But the idea was fun to imagine if nothing else.
A woman nearby offered to give us a recipe to help him sober up.
Andrahir told us: “I might try and take the mug off his hands, but he seems fierce... and dangerous.”
I like his sense of humor, but I’ll admit I was surprised to hear him say that. So… I couldn’t resist answering him. Something about not doubting his abilities to deprive a drunk man from his cup.
I think honestly none of us could take this particular situation seriously.
But I was rather curious about that famous “cure” so I went along as we went to gather the ingredients.
Most of them sounded rather innocent but the last one… Oh... I just hoped we weren’t about to poison the bard. Not sure Horn would forgive us if we did.
Water, honey, almonds and… Cabbage from the nearby swamp.
As far as I know, cabbage doesn’t grow in swamps and doesn’t look or smell like that.
I was curious about the result thought.
We all gathered back around Gléowine, and Brunnadan made the mixture, gave it to Gléowine with Andrahir’s help and…
Nothing happened. It stank and must have been absolutely foul to drink though.
To be fair if someone just drank too much alcohol and their body hasn’t yet started to process it, it might be enough to make them throw up and avoid them getting too drunk, but apart from that I see absolutely no benefit to that mixture…
As Gléowine hasn’t dropped dead yet, I think it’s safe to consider those… Swamp cabbage safe to eat. If you’re famished and desperate that is, but at least they shouldn’t kill you.
I mean, one can never know when that kind of knowledge can save someone’s life right?
And Horn heard some concerning news from Wildermore, though apparently we’re first waiting for Gléowine to sober up before we do anything as he knows the area better.
And so I turned my attention toward trying to revive that poor harp.
Our harpless bard has enough people around him as it is.
Bit of polishing and waxing to take care of the scratch marks of a well lived harp, I’ll leave it to set and I’m for now trying to arrange the pins. Some are broken but not entirely unusable. Just… Not easily usable either. If we have time I’ll have to see if there’s someone in Snowbourn who sells harp pins that I could buy and then the harp will be good as new. Almost.
The sound will be fine, and hopefully Gléowine will take better care of his harp from now on.
I'm not sure yet whether I should give him the strings I have. I miss my harp… but right now I have no harp and so having those strings is useless.
Perhaps I should think of rebuilding one, but alas, the next time I’ll actually have the time to do so will be probably once our current… Adventure is dealt with.”
Lusseriel drew a little harp at the bottom of her page, before she started scribbling the words and notes of a mourning song from long ago, and she sighed, annoyed at herself. Speaking of annoying people with songs came back to bite her, as she was now the one stuck with a song in mind.
