text: [Themes: fantasy, spiritual]
  
  As nice as it would be to earn a little more coin before the journey, this might be your last chance to walk around the town and recommit it to memory.
  
  Few people recognize you in your Pilgrim garb, so you can drift through the town without being asked to share a last story. It might be a few days before they realize you've left, or perhaps they will think you have died, but you don't want to waste the whole day with awkward goodbyes.
  
  You drink tea at your favorite sidewalk cafe', listen to gossip in the market (Rajita and Soren split up again! Mage soldiers have been spotted on the southern continent! Will Erisma finally confess her love to farmer Deg?,) and smell the roses at the flowershop as Ivani always did. You skip stones at Lake Firayah, almost imagining you can see your wife skipping them beside you out of the corner of your eye.
  
  Ivani was a beautiful woman, far too good for you. She was hundreds of years your elder, for muses could live a millennia, and yet she'd always teased you as if you were her elder. "I made you a scarf, Dusty. It will warm your old bones," she'd laugh. Or on rainy days, "I made soup. (Terrible soup.) Eat up or you'll catch a cold."
  
  Eventually, you'd realized her mothering held a deeper sorrow - the knowledge you would die long before her, and leave her behind to continue on as she always had - alone. Yet as fate would have it, your were the one to grow up and grow old without her.
  
  Soaked in memory, you return to the town square. The Monument of Muses beckons, the statue of your wife looking dreamily passed your shoulder. But as you move towards it, you bump into a heavy-set man headed for the sausage stand.
  
  "Pardon me," he murmurs and moves on, not recognizing you under your hood. But you recognize him. It is Talsum, the baker, and the closest person you have to a best friend in this place or any other. He will likely take your disappearance the hardest, especially if you don't tell him where you are going, and why.
  
  > say goodbye to Talsum
  "Wait -" you ask, and Talsum turns back to you. "It's me." You pull your hood down, then replace it quickly.
  
  "Dustan? Why are you dressed like that?"
  
  "Not here," you gesture towards the direction of the permanent shops, and the two of you walk to his bakery. He takes you to the back and cuts up a loaf of bread for the two of you, slathering it with a generous heap of butter.
  
  "What's wrong?"
  
  "Not wrong, exactly..." you glance around.
  
  "No one's around. I turned the sign to closed."
  
  "I've decided to leave, on a pilgrimage, to the Grove of Muses."
  
  "Understandeable, but why now?" Talsum takes a bite, chewing thoughtfully. "You haven't shown the slightest interest in taking the journey before, not even when you were much younger and far fitter."
  
  "You don't think an old man can make it?" You laugh, but it catches on the crust and turns into a couph, leaving you wheezing.
  
  Talsum laughs with his belly, apparently assuming that you are choking as a joke, and wipes a tear from his eye.
  
  You gulp some water and take a deep breath. "It's not just to see Ivani," you admit. "There is something...wrong. If I'm not senile or mad...the memory of the muses is being lost."
  
  Talsum nods. "I've suspected it. I thought you might know why, being the closest to the muses of all of us."
  
  "Only Ivani," you sigh, "and even she was more mystery than real sometimes. The other muses barely tolerated me. I'm pretty sure Sandman wanted me dead. But no - I don't know why this is happening. Or why now."
  
  "Could it be the mages?" The baker passes you another slice of bread. "I've heard some odd rumors. Burning books, kidnapping storytellers - did you know they've banned Remembrance Paper in the Mage Court?"
  
  "What?! But, why?" You gasp, clutching Ivani's Book of Tales reflexively. The book isn't just special because the tales in it have yet to completely fade. The endpapers, the blank pages at either end, retain the power to transfix tales or other fictional accounts and keep them from vanishing for a time as well. Many in the world pay well for such paper, and to use, not collect, so the supply of pre-Sacrifice Remembrance paper is coveted and scarce. Why would anyone seek to ban the treasure?
  
  "Who knows why the mages do what they do?" Talsum shrugs. "But be careful out there, especially around the mages."
  
  You nod, savoring the last bit of your bread. It's one of the comforts you will miss on the long trek.
  
  "If you are going to leave -" your friend stands and goes to one of the cupboards, searching high on a shelf for a hidden latch, "then I have something that could help you."
  
  He returns with a box, inside of which is a ring.
  
  "I hope you're not proposing..."
  
  He chuckles. "No, this is a signet ring from my cousin Novrice, the Captain of the Whisper at Dawn. If you go through Ashen Veldt up to Logvorn, you can find him at the docks there. Give Captain Novrice this ring and tell him I sent you. He'll give you free passage to the main northern continent."
  
  "Really?" You take it and tuck it away, safe. "Thank you. This means a lot."
  
  "I'll miss you." He stands, looking out the window at passing villagers. "We all will. But if anything can discover what is happening to our memories, it's you."
  
  "Goodbye, friend." You rise, dusting the last crumbs off against a cloth napkin. "I'll miss you as well, and your bread. I trust you'll watch over Dreaming Village while I'm away."
  
  He nods, and you sweep the hood back up over your head. It's time to be moving on.
  
  > acquire transportation
  You head for the east block of the town, where the Stables are. It will be the best place to buy an animal for the long journey. And while your back hurts just thinking about the hard ride ahead, it's the only way.
  
  The proprietor is a portly, balding man, but still younger than yourself.
  
  "Mr. Palmer! Welcome!" he greets, grabbing hold of your thin hands with his sweaty ones. "Dressed for a journey, I see!"
  
  You nod. "I'm going to the Grove of Muses."
  
  "That's quite a ways, quite a ways. None of my beauties will get you there, of course, they can't swim that far!" He tries whistling and laughing at the same time, which comes out something like the sound a mad hyena might make. "But I can get you to the shore of Syphyr." He rummages around his cluttered desk and comes up with a map, dirty and creased enough to be at least a decade old, which he spreads before you. "Here are a couple routes you could take:
  
  "From here, you could take a donkey northwest through the Ashen Veldt. It's pretty desolate out there in the plains, and ashy, but it's flat ground - even an untrained rider can make it. Plan to camp, as it's a two-day ride to Logvorn. From there, you can catch a boat.
  
  "And if you are a little foolhardy, but want to see some amazing things along the way, you could take a horse through the Pass of Night northeast. It will weave through the mountains until you reach the Cathedral of Havor. You'll need a guide, and it's a difficult ride, but the Cathedral is one of those places everyone should visit once in a lifetime. A bit dark for some, since they serve the blood gods, but great inspiration for a storyteller, right?"