Snippet #1450101

Duran stuck a wooden bowl in his pot of now-cooked rabbit stew, ladling in as many large pieces of meat that he could with the vegetables he had collected from the woods not a day before. He was a druid after all, and druids didn't just survive off the land; They thrived on it. He did feel a little bit of a guilty pleasure when it came to eating meat, however. Though it wasn't against any of his druidic tenants, it wasn't something his family would be thrilled to see. Without utensils, he sipped, slurped, and chewed his stew from the bowl while Goma watched, drooling. Duran looked over at his wolf, and rolled his eyes with a smile.

"Here you go, girl."

Duran offered Goma his bowl, and she happily lapped up the broth, trying to devour as much rabbit as she could before Duran withdrew the stew. Most people would find it incredibly unappealing to share utensils and dishes with wild animals, but Duran was not so squeamish. In all honesty, there was probably an orc inside that had a more disgusting mouth than his own wolf. He stuck his bowl back into the pot, trying to get more rabbit morsels, since it appeared that Goma had eaten them all.

From outside the Boulon Brother's Inn, Duran could see the shadows of people moving around, and hear jovial noises. Jovial was probably a generous choice of words though, he thought. He got up, and looked in through the window, getting a look at everybody in the bar.

The halfling lieutenant was there, along with an orc, and a harpy. It appeared as though they were having an in-depth conversation about something. Duran might as well have been able to read lips when it came to halflings, since a favorite topic involved tall-folk, and any amount of incompetence, inferiority, inequality, or some other stereotypical injustice.

It appeared as though the couple of female dark elves were in the bar as well. He had never spent much time around a dark elf, though previous interactions led him to believe that they could be at least as trustworthy as regular elves, and stealthier to boot. He just kept coming back to one thing: The blind mage. It was an odd choice of profession for a blind individual; Duran wasn't sure exactly what kind of magic she practiced, though he didn't like the thought a magical projectile being let loose from somebody with such an impairment. It was probably best that she was a dark elf since they were probably the most accustomed to being in the dark for long periods of time.

The two deep humans were sitting at a table together, it seemed. A sense of racial comradery was probably the reason, though he couldn't blame them. It was the only thing that a lot of people had in these trying times. It also didn't help that the dragons were exterminating each race one at a time. It was probably a useful adaptation to be a Deep Human. Duran wasn't completely sure if the dragons would have the same problem killing off the Deep Humans as they had killing off plain Humans with their genocide spell, although things wouldn't fare well for them either way if the dragons decided to focus fire on them next.

In another area, the Human Berserker set to be in his squad was sitting by himself, drinking out of a bottle that was no doubt filled with something alcoholic. There was probably a story there, though Duran knew better than to ask somebody capable of flying into a murderous rage about their past. He kept an eye on him, patting Goma on the head as she unwittingly devoured the contents of his soup bowl.

Any normal person would probably have just gone inside and started a conversation, but Duran was very out of place when it came to these kinds of situations. It wasn't necessarily that he was anti-social, he just didn't "connect well" with the kind of people who would rather sleep inside than look up at the night sky, feel the grass on their skin, and experience the satisfying grit of dirt between their toes.

He didn't really try to keep a low profile as he looked through the window, thought it would probably require at least a second glance to notice him between the darkness outside and the light inside.