Fields of Plenty

Nell Barrow is a young and extremely talented alchemist, roaming lands on her journee path. As a friend of the tavern, we gladly keep any excerpts she sends so that one day they may be collected into an academic tome of note, or at the very least used to start the cook fire.

There is no greater friend to the alchemist in the northern reaches than the gourmand goat. Unlike its cousin, the dale goat, who will eat anything green and out of the ground, the gourmand goat only eats the common bailey grass. Indeed, this rambunctious animal roams the hills devouring bailey grasses like a sort of farmyard archeologist. With all the obscuring grass cleared, we alchemists have unobstructed access to the bounty of herbs and flowers the hills provide.

Why am I telling you about the eating habits of goats? Well, this past spring I happened to be following the trail of a pack of gourmands outside the small hamlet of Weeping Waters. After they cleared the surrounding hills and valley, I expected to find the usual collection of fox lace or bishop violets. Instead, I came across a cornucopia of over 75 different herbs, flowers, fruits and vegetable, all foreign to the northern reaches, and all wrapped around the remains of scattered bones, armor and sword.

After consulting with a local historian, I learned that the hills above Weeping Waters were the site of a bloody battle many years past. So the story goes, a pair of quarreling brothers once jointly ruled the lands around Weep Waters. Their combined titles was a misguided attempt to broker peace by their father, King Albr-Allibu…I can’t remember.*

When the King became deathly ill, the sons turned on one another. But, seeing that the standing army owed allegiance to their father, huge bands of mercenaries were hired from far and wide. With them came foreign medicines, foods, even decorative flowers apparently. The fighting was fierce, as the amount promised for victory on either side was enormous. Many lives were lost, lives that had the seeds of vale berries in their bellies or the seeds of moon glow wrapped in their poultices.

In the end there was no victor. Both brothers lay slain and any mercenaries left alive simply disbanded and marched home. The local villagers, who were war wary and disheartened, had no interest in climbing the valleys to tidy up the dead and abandoned camps. And so, given time, all sorts of immigrant plants took root and began to flourish.

I spent a fortnight documenting and harvesting as much as I could. It is truly fascinating to me, this unintentional transplanting. It makes one wonder from where all life began. Through divine intervention or perhaps some unintentional collision of forces natural? Whatever it may be, I find a great comfort in the simple truth; from death comes life.

*Note to self, update with the correct name later.