Day 11,

The Village actually has a small corps of guardsmen (and women).  You can pick them out by their gambesons and spears.  Crime’s basically nonexistent here but every now and then a wild animal will get into one of the farms or someone will get lost in the woods or stranded on an outlying island.  If I’d realized we had people patrolling the main roads at night maybe I wouldn’t have been so diligent about leaving town well before sundown each evening.  Then again, it’s only a small handful of guards on patrol on a big island, so that’s no guarantee of help being there when you need it.  As I’ve seen for myself.  Their other main job seems to be acting as mediators in Village disputes.  Complaints about fairness of trades, arguments over market stall positions, noise complaints, that sort of thing.

The nature sprite followed me out of the house today.  Kept breathing on my neck and tapping me on the shoulder then scurrying off laughing every time I jumped or turned around.

Another heavy rain on the way back home this evening.  Not near as bad as the storm that drove me to the church though.  But when I got back there was someone huddled on my porch taking shelter from the rain.  When I called out to her she scrambled to her feet and ran off into the woods though.  Another nature spirit of some kind?  She had bright red skin at any rate.  But why would a spirit make an effort to get out of the rain but then go back into it when they saw someone coming?  And why just huddle on the porch instead of going inside?  It’s not like I can lock the door behind me when I leave.  Another mystery for the growing pile.

Sprite, if you can hear me talking as I write this or you’re reading over my shoulder, let me know if you know who that was, will you?  Can you even speak?

In other peculiarities, once I got out of the rain myself, I swear I wasn’t as wet nor muddy as I ought to have been from walking down a dirt path in the rain.  Perhaps there really is something to that ring?  Or maybe the bracelet?