Chapter 29: 2.10 – Secrets of Wyndham Wood

Robin’s stomach gurgled as he watched Eli carefully pry the top of the bladebeak egg off with a sharp shard of flint. They were in a small room of the tower that amounted to the kitchen or mess. That meant there were places to sit and tables to work at.

Eli’s bag sat on the other side of the cleric from Robin. Packets and satchels and chunky minerals were heaped in it, some spilling out across the table. Those would provide the pigments. In fact some already had. There were scavenged containers with various plants steeping to release the colours Eli was after.

Closer to Robin were two stones. One was smaller and rounded at the end, the other large with a shallow depression in it. It was a far cry from a proper mortar and pestle, but the arrangement would do for some basic grinding.

Eli had walked Robin through the process a couple of times, and now the cleric was dipping out egg white and mixing it with dried and powdered bedstraw root: a practical demonstration.

‘If the root is fully dry, then the paint sticks better, but if it’s still a bit wet, the colour is richer,’ Eli explained as he worked, ‘though if you do it that way, your paint will flake off faster.’

The mixture in the small bowl Eli was working with definitely looked like paint to Robin, though perhaps not the glossy acrylic he was used to from art class.

‘It’s a nice red,’ he said, more to take part in the conversation than out of an inherent admiration for the shade.

‘Can’t have an offering to Beauty without something red,’ Eli replied. ‘Right, I need to apply this fast or it will clump and that would definitely ruin my chances with Vané. I will be back in a few minutes.’

The priest hopped to his feet and swept out of the room.

Robin didn’t follow. Eli had forbidden him from seeing the masterpiece before it was finished. Something about not risking drawing the Deity’s attention to it too soon.

Fortunately, Robin had something else to busy himself with, now that Eli had finished his demonstration. His quest completion had finally pinged.

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