Marta Peskryk
The Eastside in Termalaine is where most visitors in town stay. What looks from the outside like separate houses turns out to be a single structure with rooms connected by underground passages, with cozy guest accommodations in the cellar.
The innkeeper is Marta Peskryk, a willowy teenager who spends much of her time tending to her bedridden father, Clyde, a retired fisherman and noncombatant. As she performs her daily chores, Marta sings the following song to herself: Ahead of winter’s wind she came— The lovely woman with no name; Draped in a fur-lined cloak of red, To the icy waters she fled; The wind pursued her all the same— As sure as night she’s dead. If asked about the song, Marta recounts the following tale. Fifty years ago, a mysterious woman in a fur-lined red cloak stopped at the Eastside on her way to the capitol. Because the woman was alone and frightened, the innkeepers—a pair of retired adventurers who happened to be Marta’s grandparents—tried to console her. The woman gave them a ring as payment for their hospitality. Not long afterward, a howling wind burst into the inn and tossed the woman about like a rag doll. The innkeepers intervened, giving the woman time to escape. The evil wind battered Marta’s grandparents unconscious before resuming its hunt. That was the last anyone saw of the woman. Marta wears the mysterious woman’s ring (which she has inherited) around her neck on a chain. It is a ring of warmth, and Marta will part with it only if she can be convinced that it can help bring an end to the wintry curse that besets Icewind Dale.
Comments