<div class="floatright">(http://cymast.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/fungal-vegetal-stew-close-up.jpg)</div><br/>Jonna wears a puzzled look on his face.  As Wahida seems to recognize the shape of her dress, he raises an eyebrow in an unasked question.  But he does comment as he chops some rather withered vegetables, "Now I've seen a lot of strange outlander clothing in my days, but I've never seen a set of clothing that changed like that.  Reminds me of some of the powerful mages that I've seen pass through, they could change things with their willpower alone."<br/><br/>He looks back to his veggies and mutters, "not that I mind the view none."<br/><br/>With a grin he looks back up and suddenly his face changes.  "Five years ago you said?"  He taps the blunt end of the knife against his chin for a moment, his eyes unfocused as he loses himself in thought.  "Your story sounds a lot like another woman who came through a few years back.  Maricka?  Matinka?  Something like that.  She came through a bunch till the corruption started to take a hold of her.  Her skin started changing color and she started to grow demon horns.  She didn't have enough gems or magic to purge the corruption, so she wasn't allowed back.   See, we've only let the non corrupt people inside our walls.  We try to stay as pure as we can here.  Now we know the people wandering around out there in the demon wastes are changing, but as long as they aren't showing such obvious signs of corruption, we try to give em some leniency."<br/><br/>He paused again but it was obvious he wasn't done with his story yet.  He slid some veggies into the cook pot and moved onto a root that looked a bit like a potato. "There was a man not too long ago," he said, "Used to bring in supplies and reagents out of the wastes for our mage here in town.  He's always on the lookout for bits and bobs and such.  This guy, I forget his name exactly, was a good scrounger.  But he ate too many corrupted plants out there in the wasteland and now his skin turned all green.  Well, once that happened we couldn't let him in anymore you understand."<br/><br/>He sighed and set his knife down, "As for the idea of recruiting warriors from here or a home,"  he shakes his head and it's obvious he's going to deliver bad news, "The fact of the matter is that most of the people here are farmers and ranchers.  There's a top secret valley hidden up in the mountains that only some of the leaders of our town know about.  We blindfold the young men of the town and take them there till they feel it, and know it in their bones.  Then they can quick walk there without knowing it's location.  A few of our people live there, but it's too small for many to live there, and those that do are dedicated to keeping the valley running.  That's where we grow our crops and raise our cattle.  But we keep our home here, by the lake.  This lake is mostly unpolluted by the corruption of the land.  Certainly enough for us to live off.  Since we keep Kleine running, it functions as a trade outpost, bringing our community in gems and outside things that we can't grow ourselves."<br/><br/>"But," he says stirring the stew he's making, "While we can sell all sorts of supplies to the adventurers like you that pass through, we simply don't have the room for more people to live here.  As for warriors, I don't know... when they have old men like me and dullards like Brown manning the walls, well, you can see that we don't have a lot of strong warriors.  Maybe one or two young bloods in town might be willing to go out and adventure with you, but I don't know.<br/><br/>He pulls the stew off the fire and sets out two simple wooden bowls with spoons, "This food's not the type a princess might be used too, but I promise you it's free of corruption and it will fill your belly well.  I can at least help you with that fact, eh?"