The Road North

The day has been uneventful. If I've learned anything in my years, that ought to be a concerning sign.
 
I purchased munitions and a new weapon on my way from town, a sawed-off shotgun from a furtive dwarven shopkeep. I hadn't known people were so squeamish around firearms in the better parts of Zadia--they're only tools, after all.
 
I'm honestly not certain why I bought a shotgun--where my primary weapon is a pistol, I really ought to go about getting a rifle, something with more range to it. Although... I can think of some improvements I might make to my Griffon which might eke out extra distance from it. I'll have to get to work on that. Still. I need to remind myself not to indulge in vanities like this. It was a hasty decision. If I'm worried about over-encumbering myself with a longarm, I can just keep some things in my saddlebags.
 
It was odd meeting an elf at the Crimson Market. Not that it ought to have been--the Diaspora is plentiful--but living around so many folk with lives like the blink of an eye, I forget sometimes when someone sees as I do. Then again, this elf was an ass. It was refreshing speaking Low Elven again, but even that was met with scorn. Some folk cannot be pleased. Perhaps if he knew the esteem my family is held to, and the riches our lifetimes-old armory produces, he'd look upon me with greater deference. I care not for that sort of thing, though. He can keep peddling his useful weeds.
 
Those I travel with now are the standard tough company. A Zack, an Oswald, a Toomi--she will be handy to have around, at the very least. She's the sort of person with a marked disdain for dying before her time, although it would seem she certainly enjoys picking fights. It will be interesting to see how she responds if this trip becomes dicey. I almost feel pity for the soldiers she wiped the floor with at the outpost we are spending the night at.
 
I met a soldier there as well--Bill, I think--who remarked how strange it was to think his shining city of Zadia was about to be plunged into war. It's funny--such a thing only seems natural, in the span of a civilization's years. I remember hearing distant news of the Tosic War, internal strife in the Imperium... but I suppose even I have never seen conflict on this scale before. I'm certain my family will be making quite the sum in wartime supply commissions.
 
Not that I intend to see this crusade up close. No, I'll be keeping my head down, my eyes up... and Toomi just close enough where she'll shoot back at anyone shooting at us.