Foraging - It's Not Just For Rangers
by Aryss Wyndham

Although it may make some people wrinkle their nose to think of getting their fingernails dirty, foraging is a challenging investigative skill. Whether you are a full-fledged ranger, or someone packing a treasured scroll with the foraging spell on it, it's a fun way to spend a little time away from the hunt/rest/hunt/rest drudgery of normal life, and get a bit of fresh air.

Not only can common medicinal herbs be found by foraging, but other less known herbs, ie yabathilium fruit, cothinar flower and cuctacae berry. You can also forage various flowers to enhance your wardrobe, and spearmint leaves for better breath. Sticks can be foraged and imbued into imbeddable wands and rods, as well.

It seems that kneeling does help a bit. I have an easier time finding some of the more difficult herbs when I'm closer to the ground. The round time for each foraging attempt varies depending upon what you are looking for. Some things are harder to find, and therefore require a longer search. When you successfully find something, it will end up in your left hand. If your left hand is already in use, it will remain on the ground for you to pick up. If you get the message that an area has been foraged recently, you need to wait just a little while for it to replenish.

Rangers are often very protective of their favorite foraging spots. I've even gone so far as to nonchalantly stand in a treasured area until people walk by before attempting another foraging attempt, to protect my secret. Consider it a rare privilege when someone shares foraging locations with you.

It's exciting to find new places to forage, and takes just a little free time and a desire to explore. Think about the type of area you're foraging in. For instance, if you want to find lichen, consider that it's most likely to grow in a damp cool area, then find your nearest cave and start looking.

So, if you've got an investigative spirit and want something fun and different to do, try foraging some time. After all, a manicure is a small price to pay.

Imaera, The Emperor, and the Slave Girl
A Tale of Solhaven
By Nofret Hrist

Now, as you all know, any slave who enters Imaera's temple or shrine on Jastatosfest and who, in the sight of three people, touches the goddess' altar, is free. Thus it has been for so long that most have forgotten when or why this tradition began. Yet it happened here in Solhaven over a thousand years ago. Listen, while I tell of an emperor's fury, a goddess' compassion and a maid who honored her parents, even unto death...

Over a thousand years ago, just after the House of Kestrel fell and Jasdurel Burzost was proclaimed Emperor of Turamzzyr, there dwelt in the fishing village of Solhaven a cleric, his empath wife, and their daughter Aoyagi.

Both cleric and empath were well-beloved by the Havenite for their kindness and compassion. Unluckily, folk were not so eager to proclaim their gratitude with their coin as well as their tongues, so Aoyagi and her parents remained pitifully poor, with every spare silver spent on food and shelter. Rare indeed was the occasion when a spare gem came into their hands which they could afford to offer to Lorminstra.

Then one day the kraken appeared on the town's opal-flecked beaches.

A kraken is a vile beast, part octopus and part crab, with one enormous red eye in the very center of its forehead. Its sting is poisonous, yet woe unto the man or woman stung by it who escapes, for 'tis said that such a person is now doomed, at each swell of the tide, to become a kraken as well.

One kraken would be curse enough on a town. Solhaven's beaches were the breeding grounds for the things. Time and again, the town was laid waste by the kraken, and time and again, Aoyagi's parents would try to aid the injured and comfort the dying. At last they wore themselves out in the service of their neighbors, and died just as visiting sages from the east were discovering the answer to the kraken problem.

Aoyagi was stunned to learn that her parents had died destitute, without even a silver to see that they were properly buried. She resolved to honor them in death as they had not been in life--with a fine marble tomb carved by the best of the Dwarven stonecutters. Moreover, it was to be set in holy ground that had never been plagued by undead...a rare and costly thing in Elanthia. The only way Aoyagi could think of obtaining the money was by selling herself into slavery. The thought was repugnant to her, yet she could see no other way to honor their memory.

In vain did the Havenites try to beguile and persuade Aoyagi not to do this, but such was her grief and pain that she could not be dissuaded.

Soon after, Aoyagi traveled to Tamzyrr, and hastened to the oldest and largest market, where debtors and convicts, as well as slaves, were offered for sale. She seated herself upon a bench of stone, holding a piece of parchment bearing her name, the list of her qualifications as a laborer, and the price she was seeking.

Many people glanced at the price, shuddered, and passed on without a word. Others openly mocked her, saying that she could make better money lying down than standing up. Still others asked curiously why she wished to be a slave, and, on hearing the answer, either gazed at her as if she were touched by Zelia or mocked her for her childlike piety.

But at last the Duke of Aldora, the Lord Tuathal, read the parchment, and, upon learning her reasons for doing this, bought Aoyagi at so high a price that she might have built twelve tombs with the money--though she could never hope to repay it. The thought must have pounded in her very bones: 'Aoyagi, you will never be free again.'

Thus was Aoyagi able to build a small but magnificent tomb for her parents, wrought by the most cunning of artisans in black and white marble, with a silver frieze over the door. Soon enough, it was blessed by the eldest of the clerics--a place where her parents might sleep, untroubled by the undead.

For fourteen long years did Aoyagi labor in the wheat fields of the Duchy of Aldora, far to the south of her hometown of Solhaven. It was back-breaking, bone-cracking, mind-numbing work, and Aoyagi, a girl from a fisher village, was never to get used to any of it--sowing, weeding, harvesting, or threshing. Nor did the other slaves make her servitude easier. Few indeed could understand her dialect or she theirs, for Solhaven was and is far to the north of Aldora.

Then, too, most of her fellow field workers thought her mad to have sold herself into slavery, for in those days slavery was not a thing to be coveted and sought out.

But Aoyagi endured, and persevered. If she wept hot tears of grief and frustration betimes when she prayed to Imaera for strength, that was no one's concern but her own.

At this point, the Emperor Jasdurel died, and his son, Trynius--now known in all the history books as Trynius the Tyrant--ascended the throne. Trynius, a bitter, sour man who looked like a molting eagle, decided that he wanted something spectacular to celebrate his ascension. Consequently, he gave orders that a great hunt take place at the time of his coronation, a hunt in which he would take part.

But this was not to be an ordinary hunt, oh no. Ten slaves were to be hunted as though they were animals, according to the ancient laws of hue and cry.

The first nine would perish by sword and arrow, as was fitting for dumb beasts. But the tenth was to be taken to a pit that had been dug for the occasion and then buried alive--thus giving Imaera a companion who would remind her, should the goddess forget, that the Imperial Lands required a bountiful harvest.

The slaves chosen for this hunt were selected by lot. And, naturally, Aoyagi was one of them.

She and the other nine slaves were brought to the outskirts of Tamzzyr by the Imperial Guard. There they were stripped of their clothing and possessions, and each was given a thin white cotton tunic as armor. There was no question of weaponry, of course--no slave could attack a free man unless the slave wanted to suffer the torments of Luukos' Realm while he still lived.

Then Trynius himself proclaimed the rules. As he leaned down from his black stallion, his stoop-shouldered body seemed twisted within and without, like a thing diseased. A cruel and malicious smile lit his sharp features as he spoke thus unto the trembling slaves:

"Hear me, O Things! For I shall recite these rules but once. Ye have but three days to escape me and my men. If you do, you shall be gifted with forty acres, a mule and your freedom. If you do not, you shall perish utterly, as the gods have destined. If you take this chance, you may experience great happiness. If you do not accept, ye are the most ungrateful animals the world has ever produced and Imaera herself shall weep for you. Well, what say ye?"

The slaves glanced about at the guards by Trynius' side, all armed with halberds and greatswords. They knew too well what their fate would be should they refuse. So all accepted.

The hunt started at once, and Aoyagi, who at least was in familiar territory, took off as if she had the wings of Jaston. The others were not so fortunate. Some were old, and one was crippled, and the guards and Trynius made short work of the lot. Before the day was through, only Aoyagi was left--the destined sacrifice, though she knew it not.

Now, since she had realized that hiding in Tamzzyr was useless and knowing the way from Tamzzyr to Solhaven, Aoyagi had had no clearer thought than to run to Imaera's temple and hide herself there.

Her feet were soon bloody, her tunic little more than rags. Armies of orcs and trolls attacked her as she ran. Seoths whispered the wrong directions in her ear, hoping to get her lost so that they might have a fine meal. Cobras slithered from the swamps and bit at her bare feet. Rabid jackals stalked her, their eyes gleaming redly in the shadows. Demons cloaked in night whispered to her that her parents had been as foul within as they were good without, and that they now dwelt in Luukos' Realm--making all her sacrifices worse than useless. Starvation wracked her body, and unspeakable thirst burned her throat. But she kept on.

Over mountains, over streams, down the waterfall and into the marsh she ran.

At last, she scrambled through the marshes into Solhaven, and, gasping, limped to the temple. Indeed, she had to crawl down the Esplanade on her hands and knees.

But at last she got there, and was creeping about the altar looking for a hiding place when Trynius and two of his guards burst in.

Trynius was bitterly angry that Aoyagi had eluded him for so long. He felt a slave--a mere soulless thing, after all--had mocked and made sport of him, and he planned to punish her foully, until she begged for death.

But as he uplifted his sword, he felt a grip like vultite on his arm, forcing it down.

As the sword fell from his hand, a larger-than-life figure appeared on the altar--that of a matronly woman with a stern expression. Her eyes were wide and hazel, and acantha leaf, asters, amaranths and autumn leaves interwove her long auburn plaits. She was garbed in ten thousand shades of green and brown. A golden nimbus surrounded her, and she addressed Trynius in a soft but carrying voice.

"Hear Me, mortal man! Aoyagi is Mine, under My protection. She sought to honor the dead--now, I give her her life and her freedom.

"And any other who comes to My temple on this, the feast of Jastatos, shall be able to claim complete freedom forever, if they but touch My altar in the presence of three, as she has done before you and your two guards. Go now, and never again seek to send Me helpless slaves whom you have buried alive for your own pleasure. I neither desire nor require such sacrifice."

As Imaera spoke, Aoyagi's hurts and wounds were healed, and her wretched rags transformed into a silken gown of forest green, embroidered with white deer and golden sheaves of wheat.

Outraged that he, the Emperor, should be reproved and that such favor should be shown to one he accounted nothing,Trynius drew his dagger and made as if to plunge it into Aoyagi's heart.

But no sooner had he attempted to do so than Trynius found himself transported back to his capital--sitting in mud and offal in the middle of a pig sty. There he stayed and there he stuck until he muttered a vow to Imaera never to avenge himself on Aoyagi, lest he be transformed into a pig forever.

Aoyagi lived a long and happy life thereafter as Imaera's ranger, ever guarding Imaera's plants and creatures from harm.

And as Imaera said, so it has been for over a thousand years. Every year in Solhaven, slaves do gather in Imaera's temple touch the altar before the priests and priestesses and thus gain their liberty.

That is why Jastatosfest is a time of such great joy--and why the Empire has banished the festival from its calendars. Oh, yes, it is a day when the harvest is welcomed in. But more importantly, it is a day of freedom.