Image created by AI
OOC – Author’s Note:
This story recounts a live RP session held as part a weekly series called "Signs Along the Road". Each week there is a new RP hook. If you would like to come along, please reach out to Naridalis. The series does refer to the Company of the East Road and can be used as a way to ICly introduce your character to the kinship (whether you wish to join is entirely optional).
Additionally: This piece was shaped with a little help from AI. It provided assistance on things like the structuring, some names, shortening some verbose language/ideas as I'd written them, and it gave me the odd turn of phrase here and there. The heart and shape of the story are my own, but I realise it is important to be transparent about my use of AI assistance.
This Week's Hook:
Word has reached the Company that a merchant of Bree has begged for aid. A farmer in Staddle owes him a heavy debt for seed and tools, yet refuses payment. The Bree-watch won’t stir themselves over "farmer’s squabbles," but the Merchant’s Guild is whispering about it, and so the Company is approached to mediate and, if need be, collect.
Ordinarily Naridalis would not choose such a task herself: it smacks of coin over cause, and her patience for petty disputes is thin. Yet she reasons that if the Company does not step in, then rougher folk might... brigands or debt-collectors of a harsher hand; and that would bode far worse for farmer and merchant alike. So, she will set out towards Staddle, with any who would assist.
Morning rain still clung to the cobbles at the Staddle Gate when Naridalis and her companions gathered. She said little of the work before them, yet her tone carried sharp distaste. To be sent as collectors of coin sat poorly with her. Such tasks were too close to brigandry in her eyes, but she would rather it be settled with calm words and kinder hands, than left for true villains to seize upon – as would often be the case with disgruntled merchants seeking repayments.
A man she did not recognise, called Theodrid, joined her. He muttered that a job was a job though seemed to carry equal disdain for such affairs, while Garibald the hobbit, whose assistance on prior occasions had proved invaluable, simply hoped they’d be home before supper (perhaps a joke made to improve all their moods). All three knew this was no errand of honour, and it weighed upon them as they set out.
The bustle of Staddle’s faire met them soon enough, with bright stalls and hobbit laughter at odds with the purpose of their visit. They found themselves in the centre of the Farmer’s Faire; truly a hobbit festival but one which had crept in to be celebrated in Bree-land in recent decades.
Naridalis forced a smile at the colours and music, though inwardly she felt the shame of walking such roads for merchants who pressed debts upon small folk. Still, she told herself, better that the Company stand between debtor and creditor, than a cudgel raised in anger. Through the throngs of hobbits and men they pressed, ears open for whispers, until the faire gave way to a quieter lane and the first hint of trouble.
A Bree-guard named Holik was leaning against a tree along the way. His bow was ready, his eyes sharper still, and he warned them that the farm ahead was not as it should be. Carts overturned, livestock gone, and no smoke from the chimney. No farmer had been seen since last eve. Naridalis urged him to join them, for if harm had come, they would not stand idle. His orders bound him to the road, yet with some persuasion he accompanied them, uneasy at the situation.
The sight that met them was bleak. The farm yard lay torn as though by storm: chickens slain, a cart wheel splintered, the barn doors stained with blood. No sound stirred within the house upon their investigations.
Naridalis crouched, her fingers brushing the dark streak across the timber, tracing its path into the grass beyond. Garibald’s searching by the damaged cart uncovered a locket, worn and marked with a woman’s name… Milla. Recognition struck Naridalis; the farmer’s wife bore that very name she recalled from the contract. If such a thing lay discarded in the mud, it spoke of violence. Her heart sank.
The trail of blood led them uphill through tall grass, winding toward old ruins left by long-forgotten folk. Each step grew heavier, for the three feared they would find the farmer slain.
At last the ruins opened, and dread gave way to shock.
For there sat the farmer, wounded but alive, bound and bloodied, yet surrounded by the corpses of three brigands he himself had slain. A pitchfork and a stone had served him better than despair. Both relief and horror gripped Nari especially, and Garibald rushed to bind his wounds.
The hobbit farmer, named Fendi, told through broken breath how the merchant had lost patience with him owing his debt and had sent thugs to take his goods. They had thought him easy prey, but he had proven otherwise. For he had once been a bounder in his youth, and knew well how to defend himself.
The Company listened, shamed that such work had been placed upon them at all. Holik, the Bree-watchman, bent over the brigands, recognising them as known malcontents, and Garibald returned the locket into Fendi’s grateful hands. The farmer’s voice cracked with joy at its sight, for his wife and children were safe away in Bree, and the sight of the locket seemed to buoy his spirits, if not salve his wounds.
Image created using Google's Gemini AI to superimpose characters on in-game screenshot
Yet fear lingered in Fendi’s words. The merchant, he said, would not stop. He would send more, harsher men, until the debt was claimed. Theodrid met his eyes, resolve to help the man burning strongly and Naridalis promised that this debt was ended. A debt that should never have been paid in blood, was now soaked through.
The brigands lay dead, and Theodrid and Garibald found a letter among them bearing the merchant’s own seal, proof enough of his unlawful actions in hiring these brigands. The law would not side with him now. Holik would see to it. Instead, bounty coin from the slain men would cover Fendi’s losses and free him from shame.
So the day closed with a bitter lesson. The party’s disdain had not been misplaced… this was ill work for the Company, unworthy of their purpose. Yet had they turned away, the farmer would have bled out among the ruins, his courage unseen, his victory hollow, his family without a husband and father.
Good had come, though it was born of cruelty and deceit. One merchant unmasked, three brigands slain, and a farmer’s life preserved. The road was safer, but Naridalis carried with her the weight of knowing that such tasks stain even the best intentions along the road.
You can find more tales along the road here: "Signs Along the Road"
