haute ecole rider: I had a natural laxative picked out that Teresa used to spike Vincent's drink. But it never made it into the final edit, and now I have forgotten what it was! But yes indeed, the Bravil FG is all bonding together thanks to Pappy's glue. Well, maybe not Teresa and Vincent!
What I have read about even the "regular" recurves like the Hunnish or Mongol bows that the the ears can easily become twisted when you string it, or the entire stave become unevenly bent. Many of the guides I have looked at to string them also have you sitting on the ground to do it. I cannot even imagine how you string something like that Korean bow!
Olen: "Trolling for women" is a common saying here in America, at least in Michigan. As Acadian mentioned, it doubtlessly comes from fishing. I think magic would be used for so many more ways that as you see in the game, most of them simple things aimed at improving people's lifestyles. Such as how Buffy uses frost magic to chill her drink, or enchants a bag with it to create a portable refrigerator. I introduced heat stones to be magic crystals that replace burning wood for fires, cold stones to replace blocks of ice in an icebox, lightstones to make torches or lamps obsolete, etc... I think the Mages Guild would make a ton of money selling consumer-oriented magic items like this.
Captain Hammer: Lum's complaint/amazement was actually born from Acadian's BF 1.0, in the scene where Buffy meets Lum he says the local FG guild commander was crazy for drilling people like it was a Legion camp. Of course Acadian got that from how I had shown Pappy doing just that. So I could not resist Lum voicing the same thing in the TF version of the TOA. Not just for consistency, but also because it is true, and it shows how different in skill the Bravil Guild is from the other chapters.
Acadian: Perhaps we will eventually see just why Kurz is in Bravil...
I read about that stab to the brain a long time ago. I think it was something by Michael Echanis? But I am not positive. Remember that Teresa has been training to use a dagger to parry with since she started in the Bravil FG. It was just not up until now that Pappy began showing her how to attack with it. After her experience in close quarter fighting in Culotte, she is more than happy to learn!
And yes, I did want "to" there, thank you for trolling that out of the word pond.
D.Foxy: Thank you D. I have also read that about Odysseos' bow. It would not surprise me, given the contact even the Bronze Age Greeks had with the east.
mALX: Well I hope Tadrose is not shaving while driving the carriage!
King Coin: Good guess on Teresa's Astral Temple! She will be going there more in the future.
Look for more of Teresa's ability to call upon the local spirits to show the past history of a place. I am mainly using it as a storytelling device to show what places were, and even just so Teresa can know the name of a place. It is not perfect however, and is useless for telling her things like who is in the place right now.
Grits: I think Pappy often does have his hands full!
Thomas Kaira: If she is called Teresa of the Icy Tongue, she is not likely to get many girlfriends!
Keep in mind that Teresa is using a knife, not a sword though. To her the latter is still a club with an edge.
Previously on Teresa of the Faint Smile: Out last episode saw Teresa getting even with Vincent's imbuing her with a public nickname by spiking his tea with a laxative. Also, the last episode of the BF showed a glimpse of Teresa having lunch with Aia the Wretched. Next, we learn exactly what she and Aia were talking about.
Chapter 34.14 - The Tournament Of Archers"Aia!" Teresa cried. "I knew that kissing the Lady would help me find you. I didn't see you at your usual place on Silver Avenue."
The old, shoeless Imperial woman looked up from the headstones which she sat in front of. Teresa knew three places where she could usually find the beggar. Just outside of Nilawen's store on Silver Avenue, her squat at the south-western corner of the city, and the graveyard of the Benevolence of Mara.
"Won't let me go there will the City Guard, nor Cosmus or any of the other street folk," the beggar said, staring down at the grass beneath her feet. "Embarrass the city, they say we do."
Teresa felt her ears burn hot at the comment, and her fingers curled into fists. "They are the ones who embarrass the city," she fumed. "What with that cursed skooma den doing business right under their noses, and a crimelord running the south island like it was his kingdom."
Aia shrugged, and Teresa felt her heart break. She had seen that same motion so many times in Simplicia, and had done it countless times herself when she had been on the street - it was the resignation of defeat. The inescapable knowledge that one could do nothing to change their lot in life.
Well not today, Teresa vowed. She reached down and helped the grey-haired woman to her feet. "Come on, let's go get something to eat," she said, "then we can go to the tournament together."
"Not allowed there either am I!" the beggar exclaimed. "Throw me in the dungeon they say they will if I try."
"And I'll throw them in the Niben," Teresa grumbled. "You have just as much right to go there as anyone else, and the Fighters Guild will see to it."
"Oh Teresa, not into trouble you'll be getting yourself in over me," Aia said. "Used to it am I."
"That's the point," Teresa said. "You shouldn't be. No one should be."
The wood elf dragged the old woman down Lady Street to Silver Avenue. As they had been since the beginning of the tournament, the streets were busy with people. Now more than ever that the finals were only a day away. She saw more than one City Guardsman on the street, but Teresa's hard stare was enough to keep them at bay. Or at least she imagined that might have been it.
They stopped at the front door of
A Fair Deal. When Teresa held the door open for Aia to enter, the old woman simply shook her head.
"Just wait out here I will," Aia said, looking nervously through the door at the interior of the shop.
"If you're worried about Nilawen, it will be fine," Teresa said as soothingly as she could. "She's not like those soldiers. She won't mind you being in the store."
"Not that it is," the old woman said, her eyes darting at the roof of the porch overhead. "Just don't like going inside do I. It's better outside. Much better."
As if to emphasize her words, the beggar stepped off the porch and back onto the pavestones of Silver Avenue.
"Okay, I'll be right back." Teresa could not help but to puzzle over the old woman's strange behavior. Ever since she had known Aia, she had never seen the Imperial indoors. Not even in the Benevolence of Mara, in spite of how much she loved to linger outside of the temple. What was it about buildings that the beggar feared?
Teresa returned a few minutes later with a pair of Nilawen's Redguard-style wraps. Teresa's was filled with refried beans, greens, and cheese, while Aia's packed with strips of beef and the same vegetables. The old Imperial bit into the sandwich with a look of surprise and delight.
"Beef this is!" she declared. "Are you knowing how long it's been since meat I've eaten?"
"Probably months," Teresa imagined aloud. Meat was rare enough for working class people, but even they could usually afford it once a week. Beggars were not nearly so lucky. Teresa could remember what it a treat it was, back when she had still been able to stomach meat. As it was she did her best not to think about the poor animal that died to make the wrap, and instead she simply focused on the happiness of the old woman.
"Years," Aia mumbled through a mouth full of spicy Redguard food.
"Let's go find a place to sit down," Teresa murmured. Looking around, she saw the street was packed with people going to and fro. Her eyes set upon the alley between
A Fair Deal and
Silverhome On The Water. Motioning for Aia to follow, she led the old woman inside and found a place to sit. She handed her own sandwich to the beggar for a moment and produced a bottle of Tamika's from the Thieves Bag at her hip. Drawing forth a pair of red-glazed pottery cups a moment later, she poured one for each of them.
Screenshot"Teresa, too good for me this is!" Aia exclaimed as she took a sip of the fruity alcohol. "For fancy folk are drops like this."
"And there is no reason we cannot be fancy," Teresa said as they sat with the alley wall to their backs. "It isn't every day we have an archery tournament in town is it?"
"Nor every day compete in one you do," Aia smiled slyly. "Heard about you have I. A seventy six! Never told me you were such a champion did you!"
"I wasn't that good," Teresa felt her cheeks grow warm as she look down at her lap. "There were plenty who scored better."
"Pfft!" The old woman waved a hand at the Bosmer. "Not giving yourself enough credit again, are you? What would your sweet old mother think if she knew that competing you were? Imagine how proud she would be!"
That made Teresa only turn more red. It was true that she had already sent one letter to Simplicia, jotted down immediately after returning from qualifying the previous day. But the wood elf imagined that the Black Horse Courier would bring the news of the next day's finals to the Imperial City before her letter arrived at Jensine's shop. What would she be writing to Simplicia tomorrow? That she had won? Or that she had been laughed from the field?
Teresa thought she smelled bergamot, and looked up to see a Bosmer walk past the mouth of the alley. The slender woman's hair was the color of spun gold, and was tied back behind her head in a long ponytail. Her eyes were liquid blue, and while not haughty, bore an expression of quiet confidence. The other elf wore a dress of russet flax that was nearly identical to Teresa's own. She walked with her head turned, and looked Teresa in the eye before her steps took her beyond the alley.
That was the same woman she had seen in the stands with Daenlin the previous morning, Teresa realized, Dame Buffy! What a strange chance to see her on the street in a city nearly doubled in population since the tournament began?
"So do you know anything about Dame Buffy?" Teresa asked, "Or Daenlin?"
"Oh everyone in Bravil knows Buffy," Aia proclaimed. "Such a sweetheart she was when she was little. In the Mages Guild her mother was, an alchemist like you, so she was always over in their hall. That was before her parents… well… before died they did. Her godfather was Daenlin, so while Nilawen took her into her store to live, he's the one who taught Buffy right from wrong. Like the old saying: to ride, to shoot straight, and speak the truth. So proud of her he is now that she's a knight."
"So how did she become a knight?" Teresa asked. That had puzzled her since Tadrose had told her of the other Bosmer the previous day.
"Well, when she came back from the University did she, Buffy went down to Leyawiin for some reason or another. Don't remember exactly why. Down there she met up with this orc named Mazoga. That's it, just Mazoga her name is, no gra-something like other orc women. Tore up the local bandits for the Count down there, the two of them did, and made them both knights of Leyawiin did he. They live down there in this big fancy lodge by the river they do, and keep the countryside safe for them folk that live down there or travel through."
"Wait, you said the University?" Teresa wondered. "Do you mean the Arcane University?"
"Aye," Aia declared. "Went there she did when she was young. She's a real magician, and good friends with all them others over at the Mages Guild. Practically grew up there when she was little after all. Even friends with that Ungarion from
The Warlock's Luck she is. I hear they were at the University at the same time."
A knight who was a magician, born from common stock. Teresa's mind whirled. Who would have imagined such a thing? She had thought all knights were finely bred men like Valerius Nasica, riding beautiful horses, wearing armor, and carrying lances. Not wood elves like herself, much less magicians and archers!
"So how could she have paid for the Arcane University?" Teresa asked. "With her being an orphan and all?"
"Paying for most of it was her godfather Daenlin hear I," Aia said. "But helped did Kud-Ei as well. Cold-blooded them lizard-folk may be, her heart's as warm as Mara's, that one's is."
"They aren't cold-blooded," Teresa said off-handedly. "People just think that because snakes and lizards are. But what about Daenlin? What is his tale?"
"Oh, here in Bravil for about forty years he's been now," Aia explained. "From Skingrad he came. Was in the Imperial Legion over there, or the City Guard. Which I'm not sure. I don't think he's originally from there though. I hear he was born in Valenwood. Came up to Cyrodiil for the work he probably did is my guess. Lots of Bosmer do."
Teresa nodded. Parwen had said the same thing herself.
"Real good friends with Buffy's parents Daenlin was - Superior and Terry Ann. Like brothers he and Superior were. Broke his heart it did when Superior never came back from his last vampire hunt. Ever since then Buffy's been his life. Never admit to it he will of course, being a man he is."
"I hear he's the best archer in Bravil," Teresa said.
"What they say, that is. But maybe not anymore." Aia winked at Teresa. "The best bowmaker in these parts he is, that's for sure. Makes them longbows like you got, and those funny bent bows they use in Valenwood. Arrows he makes too, and sells all sorts of things like them and quivers at his shop on the south island."
Teresa thought that over as she finished eating her wrap. Washing it down with the rest of her cup, she rose and helped Aia to her feet. Then taking the old woman in one arm, she led her north along Silver Avenue.
Vincent, that sly dog! I love Teresa’s reaction, use his face as a target instead of losing her cool. 
more wood elves being wood elves
That's why I was thinking diuretic, not a laxative!
