100 Words a Day 1039

The Gold Plains of Agribathia were named so not for the rich bounty they produced, but for the color of the grass during the hot summer. The brilliant sunlight made the dried stalks painful to gaze upon; travelers lacking adequate protection were often made blind by the blazing stalks. narrow arroyos occasionally cut the dry land, springing to life during the short spring when it warmed sufficiently for the winter’s snow to melt. During those short, succulent weeks, the plains were filled with rukruks nibbling at the sweet grass before being forced back to their burrows by the brutal summer.

100 Words a Day 1038

“You’ll come to my house. We’ll have no foreigner, a merchant no less, staying in anything but the finest house in cavern.”

The duergar looked at each of his companions in turn, beard bristling, and daring them to refute his claim.

“I certainly wouldn’t dispute the claims of such a renowned trader such as yourself,” one of the short, sooty men said, flicking his long, braided beard at the first speaker. “if I didn’t know for a fact that I had the finest house in the cavern. I did purchase it from the old blackbeard himself, before he retired down-tunnel.”

100 Words a Day 1037

The dust kicked up by the people at the bazaar was visible far outside the settlement. Neat rows of stalls were manned by vendors in strange dress hawking unusual wares. Black-clad security force patrolled the narrow lanes, shoving aside anyone too slow to give way. They inspected each merchant’s offerings as they passed, looking for an excuse to turn their stall over. Everyone sold contraband. And the shiny-armored patrols knew that, but they still needed a reason to search. Things on the frontier weren’t like the inner systems and people throwing too much weight around had been known to disappear.