Of stolen plates and silver spoons

Common Room(#32029RM)

This large and rectangular room serves the purpose of Common Room for the Prancing Pony. Large windows along the western end of the room peek out over the Great East Road which runs outside the Inn. There are long tables with bench seats for the patrons in the centre of the room. Nestled into the wall is a large fireplace with several bundles of wood piled next to it. Sunlight streams through the windows to mingle with the smoke that floats above the ceiling beams, and provide an odd sort of illumination that, even in daylight, doesn\'t quite reach the corners. The lamps which hang down are presently unlit.

Obvious exits:

Out

================================== Bree Time ==================================

Real time: Mon Jun 13 14:31:32 2011

Bree time: Evening on Mersday of Spring - March 1,1453

Moon Phase: Last Quarter Moon

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It\'s just about supper time, and the Prancing Pony is bustling. Merchants on their way home from market, farm labourers in from a hard day\'s work at the ploughing, householders looking for nothin more than a spot of gossip ... everyone seems to have gravitated toward Bree\'s famous inn looking for a bite to eat and some of the best ale west of the Mountains. Harried-looking serving staff bustle in and out taking the orders - even Barliman Butterbur himself can be glimpsed occasionally bearing a tray in or out.

The door bangs open loudly, and there stands a big, broad, brown-bearded bear of a man, Nate Nuthatch by name. The Archet lumberjack is rather broader about the midriff than he was in his youth, and his movements are slower, but he still cuts an impressive figure, and boasts of being able to fell a tree in a mere half-dozen strokes. His trusty axe is thrust through his belt, and over his shoulder is slung an odd, lumpen sack. \"Barliman!\" he bellows, in the tones of one clearly more used to outdoors than in. \"A mug of the strong stuff and a double helping of stew.\" Without waiting for an answer he lumbers over to a table in the middle of the room and dumps his sack down in the middle without bothering to shift the plates and mugs.

[Nob(#16122)] It is Nob who hustles up carrying a large mug of beer in both hands, and pushes it onto the table the lumberjack has chosen. Barliman only lifts a hand in greeting, and rushes on through the door into the kitchen.

As the sack is lowered, there is an odd clanking, followed by an ominous cracking sound. From either side of the strangely lumpy object, the two halves of one of Barliman\'s best china plates peek out.

Nate doesn\'t seem to notice. He fairly snatches the beer from Nob - without a thank-you in sight! - and one meaty fist lifts the tankard to his mouth. Silence follows, broken only by the sound of loud gulping, and then the mug is lowered and the lumberjack wipes across his mouth with the back of a hairy hand. \"Never b\'lieve what I found out\'n the woods,\" he announces.

[Nob(#16122)] Nob hasn\'t time to wait for a thank you - he has whirled around and is dodging back across the room for the stew when silence ripples through the room. It catches his attention just before the kitchen, and he turns to see everyone staring at the sack - and the plate(s) spilling out.

The silence catches Nate unprepared. He glances round belligerently. \"What? What you all staring at?\" After a moment his gaze drops to the broken place. \"Oh.\"

[Nob(#16122)] Nob\'s eyes lift to the man, round with horror. \"Thief!\" he shouts at last, finding his voice. \"Them there are Mister Barley\'s plates!\"

[Dirianna(#21413)] In a dark corner, not too far from all of the action, sits a lone female figure, hunched and looking none-too-young. Her hair is ragged, and everything about her reeks of filth. A secret smile plays upon her lips as she watches the scene, then takes a tiny sip of whatever liquid fills her tankard.

Nate stares at Nob, his bushy beard fairly quivering with outrage. \"Just who\'re you calling thief?\" he demands, fists clenching as he looms over the half-sized Assistant Innkeeper. \"You take that back, Mister Nob. Or-\" He\'s far too preoccupied to notice the figure in the corner.

Other folks have started to crowd round to see what the to-do is, however. A curly-head hobbit lass halts, gagging, and looks round to see where the stink is coming from. At the sight of Diriana she wrinkles her pretty nose and announces aloud, \"Phew!\"

[Nob(#16122)] \"Well, you just tell me them aren\'t Barliman Butterbur\'s plates!\" Nob retorts, putting his chin up and his hands on his hips. He doesn\'t notice the other commotion.

[Dirianna(#21413)] From where she\'s sitting, Dirianna was able to see everything that transpired. She scoots her chair from the corner, around to the front of the table, but she\'s still a table or two away - of course, this places her a bit closer to the rude hobbit lass at whom she shoots a glare. When Nob speaks out to Nate, accusing him of thievery, Dirianna moves even closer until they can probably smell her too. Quietly, nervously, she speaks with a voice that creaks as if it gets very little use: \"M-maybe he di-didn\'t ta-take them, little sir,\" she offers, twisting her hands in front of her. \"I m-mean, m-maybe he was collectin\' them from others to make it easier for you, seein\' as how you\'re s-so busy and all.\" And as soon as she makes her plea on Nate\'s behalf, she throws her gaze to the ground.

\"Course they\'re Barliman\'s plates,\" Nate returns. \"Why d\'you think I was-\" He breaks off as Diriana\'s soft words reach him. \"Like the lady says,\" he blusters on without turning round - his nose, after all, is inured to such things as bodily odour, in which he is not lacking himself. \"I /found/ em, and I reckoned someone might want \'em back. Now, d\'you want to hear or not?\" He casts a knowing glance round the room, and only then does he set eyes on Diriana in person. Those eyes grow suddenly rounder.

The sensitive hobbit-lass, still holding her nose, turns around and rushes for the door, making choking noises. No gossip is worth /this/!

[Nob(#16122)] Defiant, dubious, Nob crosses his arms. \"Well, right then,\" he says. \"Tell me. You found them...\"

[Dirianna(#21413)] Since Nate picked up on her excuse quickly enough, and nobody has shooed her away just yet - which is always a fear when you smell and look as she does - Dirianna offers a few more words. \"He found them on tables,\" she says a bit more bravely, with far less stammering. \"\'least from my table, he did. Was a nice \'nuf man, asked real polite-like if he could clear it for me, just as he did the tables next to mine.\" She nods her head a couple times as if it makes it more believable.

\"He never did!\" someone objects to Diriana. \"He\'s just walked in through the door.\"

Nate crosses his arms to match Nob - except that he has twice the height and probably well over than twice the girth. He lets the Assistant Innkeeper stew in silence for a little, then begins. \"Well. It was like this, see?\" He looks round to check that everyone is listening. \"I was out felling, way far in the Chetwood. There was this old oak, see. Tough as nails it was, but no match for me. So I out with the axe and hack, hack- what?\" Belatedly Diriana\'s words penetrate, and he uncrosses his arms so that he can tug on his beard. \"No, that wasn\'t it,\" he mumbles, sounding completely bemused.

[Nob(#16122)] Nob looks back and forth. Tables, oaks. Oaks, tables. \"So,\" he says suspiciously, \"What was it?\"

[Dirianna(#21413)] \"It was earlier!\" Dirianna shoots quickly across at the person who first objected to her story. Her bout of shyness seems to have abated, at least for now. She hastily jumps in where Nate left off. \"Oh, don\'t be sellin\' yourself short there, mister. What you done was a nice thing,\" she says, then looks at Nob. \"It\'s like this. He were in here earlier, see, and started out by trying to help but then just up and runned off out of here.\" She glances at the first person to call her out for a liar and says, \"And he JUST returned, but he was here before, helping he was. So he probly remembered that he done forgot something out by Chetwood way and comed back over when it was done. Makes sense. My brother used to do that, and he was a lumberjack out by Chetwood way too, he was.\" She crosses her arms in front of her, and this time doesn\'t even look down after she finishes speaking.

It takes a while for Nate to pick up the thread of his tale. He keeps looking at Diriana with that confused expression - /did/ he do a nice thing? How come he doesn\'t remember all this? - but eventually he shrugs and seems to give up on the puzzle and neither confirms nor denies Diriana\'s account.

\"I was in the middle of telling you,\" he reprimands Nob. \"Some folk just don\'t listen. Anyway, like I said there was this oak,\" he raises his hands now as though wielding an imaginary axe, \"and I went hack, hack-\" Each \'blow\' stops a mere hairsbreadth short of the mug-lined wooden table. Eventually the lumberjack seems to realize that folk are unnerved by this and hurries on, \"I cut it down. Turns out there was this hollow inside, and there there at the bottom ...\" He gestures wordlessly to the sack, which may or may not hold more than plates.

[Nob(#16122)] With each mock blow, eyes grow wider, until nearly the whole audience is jerking along with the animated lumberjack. \"But,\" Nob protests, more confused by the varying stories than doubtful just now, \"Trees don\'t grow plates!\" Several people murmur agreement to this.

\"I don\'t understand!\" pipes up someone from the back. \"He were here, helping pick up plates, an\' then he run \'cause he forgot his oak tree what was fallin\' down, and there in the bottom was his plates?\"

[Dirianna(#21413)] Quickly turning about, Dirianna levels a hard stare in the direction of the last person to speak. \"What kind of daft coney are you?\" she asks unkindly. \"Of course there weren\'t no plates in the bottom of the oak tree. Trees don\'t grow plates,\" she reminds, echoing the person who said that just seconds before.

Nate gives his unasked for ally a long look. \"That\'s right,\" he concedes to Diriana after a while. \"Trees don\'t grow plates. But they was there all the same. Not just plates,\" he clarifies. \"There was all sorts of stuff, more\'n I could carry. Reckon my laddie and I\'ll got back tomorrow.\" Cupidity flashes across his broad features. \"But the plates, I reckoned belonged here.\" He reaches in to his sack to lift out no fewer than half a dozen plates, three of which are now broken (the portion of his face visible twixt hair and whiskers reddens a little at that realization). \"An\' these,\" he breezes swiftly on. \"Are they yours too, Mister Nob?\" He gropes inside the sack, and this time draws out a handful of very fine hobbit-sized silver spoons, each one marked \'B.B.\'.\"

[Nob(#16122)] Nob looks back and forth between the two - the perplexed frown on his face deepening with every word. \"Right,\" he says at last, grasping the one fact he does understand. These plates belong to Barliman, broken or not. The spoons, he eyes covetously, but at last shakes his head. \"No. Don\'t reckon I know who those might be.\"

[Dirianna(#21413)] Dirianna\'s head pivots back and forth, watching each speaker in turn, before finally nudging her way a little bit closer - which isn\'t all that difficult, since people tend to back as far away from her as possible. When Nob finishes speaking, Dirianna pauses for a few moments before huffing loudly. With another glare for the hobbit, she scolds him. \"Now, don\'t you feel bad to \'ave accused this gentle, well-meaning person for stealin\' plates and things, when all he was doin\' was returning \'em to youse?\" She unfolds her arms and reaches out to pat Nate on the back - assuming he doesn\'t back away from her, that is.

Nate looks down at his prize, ill-concealed relief in his voice. \"Fine, then, I\'ll just-\"

\"Hold it there!\" cries one of the Little Folk looking on. \"Those spoons were made for a hobbit, or I\'m a potato! We should keep them here, ask around ... What\'s that writ on them?\" It\'s a little hard to see the details when said spoons are clenched in Nate\'s fist.

Nate does not avoid Diriana\'s pat on the back - indeed, he seems to have no awareness that it\'s coming. When it lands, he lets out a surprised huff of air and a few flecks of spittle.

[Nob(#16122)] Nob has all but forgotten the accusation of thievery - until Dirianna reminds him of it! \"Yes,\" he says, suddenly trunculant, \"But what I wants to know is how he got them, to be bringing them back?\" He stretches up onto tiptoe, trying to see the spoons better.

[Dirianna(#21413)] Her other hand, the one that wasn\'t use to pat Nate on the back, makes a frilly, dismissive waving motion in the air. \"That don\'t matter none. What matters is he got them from whoever put them wherever they was and has brung \'em back to you.\" She shakes her head and lets loose a flurry of dandruf - and other things - and says to Nate. \"These peoples just ain\'t never grateful to be getting thir things back, they just gots questions about when and where and how and why.\" Turning her attention back to the hobbit, Dirianna\'s voice grows louder. \"THANK THE MAN, WOULD YOU?!\"

[Nob(#16122)] Nob backs away, clutching the plates to his chest. As the woman starts shouting at him, he turns tail and basely flees.

\"I told you how I got them!\" Nate returns indignantly, holding the spoons out of Nob\'s reach. \"An\' it says here ...\" He squints at the delicate inscription on the spoons and then gives up - evidently book-learning is not much sought after in the tree-felling community. Instead he holds one spoon out to Dirianna without really looking (he seems quite unaware that there are flecks of white on his shirt and something unmentionable is now crawling about just above his ear). \"What do you reckon it-?\"

The words cease at Dirianna\'s bawling. \"Here now,\" he remonstrates, \"he\'s not deaf.\" He watches Nob\'s abrupt departure, then announces loudly (though not quite a match for his advocate), \"Hope he\'s gone to fetch my food.\"

[Nob(#16122)] One of the hobbits makes a snatch for the spoon. \"Look,\" she says vociferously, \"They\'re /our/ sized! Now you just give them over, and we\'ll find out who it is as owns them. IF,\" she adds reluctantly, \"They\'s not owned by anybody, then I reckon they\'re yours by right of finders.\"

\"What, an\' have them disappearing?\" Nate looks quite indignant at the hobbit-lady\'s suggestion. \"There\'s some that wouldn\'t stop at filching a spoon as wasn\'t theirs, oh no they wouldn\'t!\" After a moment he adds magnanimously, \"How about I leave one of the spoons at the Pony to be put on display. I\'ll have a word with Mister Nob when he comes back with my food.\" Nodding firmly as though that settles it, he seats himself down on the nearest bench with a thump to wait a much-anticipated meal.

What with the mugs of ale and the full belly and having to retell his story several times over, there\'s little chance he\'ll leave for Archet tonight. Will others locate the fallen oak and its mysterious treasures before he can return? Only time will tell ...