The Halfway Inn
Evereska lies hidden in the Greycloaks. Our paths to it are secret, cloaked by natural features and magical guise. No significant human settlement stands within a hundred miles west of it, and to the east lies the hungry desert sands of Anauroch.
Strange, then, that the Halfway Inn should stand where it does. Perhaps it is there because, as humans put it, “It is halfway to everywhere.” A small village surrounds the titular inn, which is itself not a single building, but a small compound that includes stables and other outbuildings. The folk who live here year-round are hunters, trappers, gold prospectors, gem seekers, smallholders and their families, and it is they who staff the inn when traders come to see what goods can be reaped from the region.
Evereska is self-sufficient, but its citizens in their travels sometimes stop at the Halfway Inn and, if traders are present, exchange goods with them. Whenever I return home, I make it a point to spend at least a night at the inn to see old friends (often much older since last I saw them) and learn what has passed since my last visit.
Elf artisans sometimes come out of the Greycloak Hills to sell their goods here, and some of the best-known can sometimes spark impromptu bidding wars over the right to purchase their wares. My kin don’t do anything so pedestrian as set up booths or tables for themselves, but instead deal with a few traders who might be at the inn at the time. These agents then travel out and sell the elven crafts to others, which has given the Halfway Inn an undeserved reputation as Evereska’s trading post.
Permit me to state this in as clear a fashion as writing allows: don’t venture into the mountains seeking Evereska unless you are in the company of a citizen of Evereska. You will not find such accompaniment easily, for we are determined over the whole of our lives that no outsiders may gaze upon our homes without invitation from the eldest among us. If strangers need to meet with any of us, that is the purpose the Halfway Inn fulfills.
Strange, then, that the Halfway Inn should stand where it does. Perhaps it is there because, as humans put it, “It is halfway to everywhere.” A small village surrounds the titular inn, which is itself not a single building, but a small compound that includes stables and other outbuildings. The folk who live here year-round are hunters, trappers, gold prospectors, gem seekers, smallholders and their families, and it is they who staff the inn when traders come to see what goods can be reaped from the region.
Evereska is self-sufficient, but its citizens in their travels sometimes stop at the Halfway Inn and, if traders are present, exchange goods with them. Whenever I return home, I make it a point to spend at least a night at the inn to see old friends (often much older since last I saw them) and learn what has passed since my last visit.
Elf artisans sometimes come out of the Greycloak Hills to sell their goods here, and some of the best-known can sometimes spark impromptu bidding wars over the right to purchase their wares. My kin don’t do anything so pedestrian as set up booths or tables for themselves, but instead deal with a few traders who might be at the inn at the time. These agents then travel out and sell the elven crafts to others, which has given the Halfway Inn an undeserved reputation as Evereska’s trading post.
Permit me to state this in as clear a fashion as writing allows: don’t venture into the mountains seeking Evereska unless you are in the company of a citizen of Evereska. You will not find such accompaniment easily, for we are determined over the whole of our lives that no outsiders may gaze upon our homes without invitation from the eldest among us. If strangers need to meet with any of us, that is the purpose the Halfway Inn fulfills.
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