The stormy March is come at last

[baldrshand]

Who: Ethlyn and you!
Where: The event center (or just outside it), or out and about for foraging trips
What: BBC historical immersion documentary Helping you soft modern people get to grips with the way it was! AKA mingle log for learning some skills. (If your character wants to learn or teach something not mentioned here, feel free!)
Warnings: None to start with!


Without any electricity to run lights and music, Ethlyn's engaged the events center to run her day of tutorials on how to live... well, like she had always lived up until she was whisked away from her own death to this strange world. Admittedly, she didn't have as much expertise as she would like to be more useful; as a noblewoman, servants carried out many of the tasks like cooking and making lights. Still, being a soldier on campaign had forced her to learn, in a rough-and-ready fashion--and soliciting every willing medieval person she could find, she was determined to share those skills with Chosen and townsfolk alike until they figured out how to make the sparks fly once more.

Throwing open the shades to let in as much light as possible and starting at sunrise--as though sun to sun wasn't a perfectly sensible way to live one's life!--she was ready to help.

Making rushlights: Rushlights are just that--rushes, soaked in fat/lard/oil to use as purely sufficient but inexpensive light source. Since Aldrip doesn't have much in the way of rushlight holders (barring a few antiques), there's also a pile of coathangers and pliers to work at some improvised fixtures.

Fires to last: Do you know how to build a fire? Congratulations, you're going to learn. And also you're going to collect wood for it! Start with little twigs and build up to bigger pieces of wood slowly.

Of course, this isn't an appropriate activity for inside the convention hall, so both this and the below will have to happen outside.

Cooking: Since most homes don't have wood-fire ovens, it's going to have to be wood-fire outside. There's a lot more to it than just hot dogs and s'mores. If you've got grain, you've got pottage. If you've got some vegetables that need using up, they can go in the grain that becomes pottage. Limitless variety!

Foraging: It's winter, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to eat. There's black walnuts, wild cranberries (lowbush and highbush), beechnuts, pine nuts, chickweed, watercress, rosehips, and more--and some skillful local artists hired by Ethlyn have put together some sketches for edibles to be found in the wild.

Comments

[feintofhart]

Don't you worry about that. That part is my specialty. I know everything about what out here might kill you, make you sick or, according to some rumours, make everyone extra amorous. [ He winks at Ethlyn. ] We'll give those ones a miss. I don't think people around here need any help on that front.

[ Still, he seems to be in a merry enough mood as they walk slowly down the expanse of land before them, eyes roving around for anything that comes to his attention. ]

I had no idea how few people here know how to deal without all this technology, [ he muses. ] You're doing them a great favour by whipping them into shape.

[baldrshand]

No, they certainly don't. [Ethlyn might have been raised a proper lady, and the other healers did their absolute best to make sure that the daughter of Chalphy had to deal as little with the seemy side of healing as possible, but... once you're a healer whose job is treating the aches and pains of soldiers, you learn just what the aches are and how they got those pains. She's less scandalized than exasperated.] We'll stick to ordinary medicines.

[Ethlyn can't help but chuckle. Throughout this, she's been doing her best to be empathetic to the citizens of Aldrip and other other Chosen, who after all haven't done anything to deserve this punishment (minus whoever it was that attacked Ketsora).

But you know what, that's been a conscientious effort. It's a relief to be alone with someone who isn't going to complain about how primitive her normal daily life was.]

You'd think that we'd all been pushed out onto an ice floe in the ocean, the way some people are behaving... I wonder how they thought their ancestors ever managed? It's not as though, I don't know, we're particularly more intelligent than they are. But we managed to scrape through our woefully deprived lives just fine.

[feintofhart]

I like to think of myself as a man of progress. Some of the things they have here, I wouldn't mind bringing home with me. But to be honest? For some things, I like our way more.

[ It's not due to stubborness or habit, Claude thinks, as much as any person could be immune to all that. But when he's up late writing, he's never thought a lightbulb could beat a candle for cozy ambience, no stovetop could retain heat quite as well as his cast iron pot bubbling over the fire, no fancy gadget replacing his mortar and pestle. ]

I daresay roughing it for a little while is good for them. A little self-sufficiency goes a long way.

[baldrshand]

[Ethlyn giggles. It's a rare sound from her these days, after all the tumult and uncertainty of the past few months--uncertainty that hasn't exactly ended with this sabotage by Ketsora, either. But she can't help but laugh at Claude, putting voice to feelings which she has very diplomatically not been expressing.]

It will help them build character.

Oh, I've spent the past week or so being so polite--so tactful when i hear people complain about not having light at the flick of a switch or needing to heat up water over a fire instead of pushing a tap to the left. I know this town isn't built for the way we're used to living, but it's still nostalgic, you know? It's like a little bit of home.

writers note: yes. yes, it is the better way to live.

[feintofhart]

Hah! Look at us! [ Claude slings a friendly arm around Ethlyn's shoulders as they stroll, giving her a friendly squeeze, as a brother may do to a sister -- as her brothers may have done to her, once upon a time. ] Two nobles, lecturing the commoners on how suffering builds character! I never thought I'd see the day!

[ He turns to her with a grin. ]

But to hear them say it, commoners of their time live far more grandly than even the most esteemed Queen of the land. You're not wrong to be a bit annoyed by them. If they kept an open mind, they might even like it. There's something to be said for... my gods, they must call them the old ways.

You're right. It's a little taste of home. And I do wonder how sustainable the way we've been living is. If something as simple as a power outage can cause all this chaos, is that truly the better way to live? That's a real easy way to render a whole town inept.

I PERSONALLY LIKE THE ASPIRIN AND THE SANITARY WATER

[baldrshand]

[Ethlyn laughs as Claude's arm falls around her shoulders. It is just like walking along with Sigurd, back when they were both young and lived in Chalphy. Those were good days. And she's quite positive that Sigurd would tease them both mercilessly for acting like a couple of aged dukes.]

We'll be waving our walking sticks and chiding them for treading on the flowers next.

But our current predicament really does show how true that is. Imagine if the Rumpiturans had come upon us while we were running around trying to reconstruct the most basic daily needs and tasks... they wouldn't have bothered with that elaborate deception, they'd have just kidnapped us while we were distracted doing things like foraging in the woods.

[And speaking of...]

Ah! There's some fungus. [She points at a bright orange formation on a rotting log.] Edible or poison, Sir Herbalist?

[feintofhart]

Hmmm... only one way to find out!

[ All that talk of common sense? Out the window. Claude immediately crouches down beside it, breaks down a small piece of the orange flesh, and pops it into his mouth. He won't say this is how he's tested all the local plantlife around here... but it's certainly how he's tested a lot of it. He's built up quite the resistance to poison over the years, and he intends to keep it that way. He makes a show of chewing thoughtfully, running his tongue over his teeth. ]

Yeah... yeah, that checks out. I'm almost entirely certain that it's edible. Though if it weren't, we could just harvest it for different reasons. [ He grins. ] Kidding! I know this one. Sometimes people have funny reactions to it, but I've seen people have funny reactions to milk, so I'd say we can feed our unsuspecting victims this particular breed of fine fungi.

[baldrshand]

Claude...!

[Ethlyn reaches out too late to try and stop him from just EATING FUNGUS out of the WOODS. She's hastily trying to remember everything she knew and has newly learned about poisons and how to treat them--

--he's kidding. he knows what this is. Of course he does.]

Goodness... I should have known. [He wouldn't have eaten it unless he was sure so she naively assumes.] I'm surprised it advertises itself with a color like that, for every mischevious herbalist to find.

[feintofhart]

[ Claude can't help but crack up, a wide grin splitting his face and straining at his cheeks. ]

Pffft---bahahahah! You should have seen the look on your face, Ethlyn! [ He plucks the mushroom, then plucks the ones growing around it, dispensing them in her pouch with a care and tact he is not showing in his expression. ] You really believed I just poisoned myself, huh?

[ He places a hand over his chest. ]

You have my promise that I will never knowingly poison myself in front of you, for fear of either incurring your wrath or being the cause of your grey hairs.

[ Not in front of her? Fair game. ]

Sometimes things that appear dangerous aren't so, you know. These guys are just one good example of that. The ones you have to really look out for are the ones that seem indistinguishable to the common fungi to the naked eye.

[baldrshand]

Good. I'd make sure to find the most unpleasant remedy possible if you did, just to make sure you didn't do it again.

[She has no idea what dastardly deception he's engaged in mentally. Obviously if it would be absurd to do it in front of the town healer, it would be even more absurd to do it not in front of her and risk a swift death.]

I've heard of a few of those--white mushrooms especially. You either have something delicious or deadly, and little in-between. [She shakes her head.] Even if we were starving, I would be loathe to take that kind of risk.

[feintofhart]

Those have other practical uses. I did tell you I have a history in poisons, didn't I? I know exactly what to use to give someone an absolutely wicked stomachache.

[ He doesn't use them often. And he doesn't use them to kill either, though he's not exactly above it. But if he needs someone to sit out of a meeting so that he can get a new rule passed... then so be it. It's only fair. He spent the bulk of his childhood getting poisoned, so the good old Count can believe he's got a vicious hangover for a day or two.

He straightens up with a groan and a stretch. ]

The good thing about that is that knowing what is poison means that you usually know what isn't poison. Though if we were in such dire straits, we'd probably wind up just eating grass first. Which isn't my first choice, but it won't kill you.

[baldrshand]

Hm, well I hope you only use such knowledge for good.

[She isn't sure she could actually put it past Claude to ruin the evening of someone who was sufficiently annoying.]

I hope it's a long time before it comes to that. [She's heard tell of it--the last resort of those desperate in famine. Sometimes, people report that it's happening in Thracia.] It would take more than losing the flick of a lightswitch or an electric spiral burner for that to happen, at least.