The Storehouse & The Inn

( Inn and Storehouse )

The Inn

Gaius returns to the Inn later in the day, carrying with him a small amount of grain to add to the supplies for the communal meals the Inn hosts. Before he can make it to the kitchen, though, he finds another thing addressed to him, this time in the main room. He sets down the container of grain and bends down to examine the box.

When he opens it, it turns out that there is more wine, another pair of boots similar to the ones he'd been wearing when he came out of the fountain, some wax to melt onto his tablets, and under it all, something soft and dark blue. He carefully lifts the fabric out of the box, and his hands close on soft wool, like the finest woven garments he'd had at home. There's a lot of it, several arms-lengths, but when he unfolds some of it, it's not a garment, just a length of unsewn dark-dyed fabric in the same color as the garments he'd had when he arrived.

He's so engaged in looking at it that he doesn't notice anyone else enter the room.

WHO: Gaius Gracchus
WHERE: The Inn foyer, exploring 7I, the peach grove, and back at the Inn
WHEN: August 12
OPEN TO: Everyone
WARNINGS: None yet

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morning of August 12 --> Inn foyer and outside

Gracchus had woken that morning to find another of the strange gift boxes outside his room. The last one had contained tunics, tablets, and styluses, and this time, he opens it to find an offering bowl, a small cup, incense, wine, and a stole that could be used for covering the head. Supplies for making offerings. Since he came here, he's had to rely on saving parts of his meal and leaving them with the little wooden figures he'd found. Now, he can do something properly. Not that there's a household altar here or anything like it, but there is an entrance space to the Inn that doesn't serve the same function as an atrium, but is at least in the same important location.

So before breakfast, he carefully washes and shaves, and murmurs the words of ritual cleansing, before he takes the figurines and the box he's just received down to the Inn's atrium. They're not his, not the little figures of the gods and his family kept in their lararium in his home back in Rome. But he's kept them since he found them here, because they would be enough, if he managed to get anything to make the offerings to his gods and his family that were a part of the life of every Roman head of household. He places the figurines and the offering-bowl on the edge of the desk, then places the stole over his head and shoulders. Then he holds out his hands in supplication as he begins the prayers: first to Janus, as is proper, but then to Neptune -- whatever Aristotle and the Greeks may say about the causes of earthquakes, there have been too many here, so many that a prayer and offering to Neptune seems wise -- and then on to the spirits of the household, whatsoever of them exist here. Last, he speaks to the spirits of his family: his father, his brother, and in their absence his mother, wife, and daughter. He pours wine into the cup, then into the offering-bowl, then sips it and invites the spirits to join him.

Later, after the ritual is finished, he sets the figures to one side, out of the way but still there, in the room, where they can perform their watch over the household, and takes the leftover wine in the offering bowl outside, to pour it reverentially into the ground.


later --> exploring 7I

He hadn't felt comfortable venturing out into the new area that had been uncovered by the earthquakes until now, but now that he's made a prayer and offering to Neptune, he dares the journey. Gracchus is dressed in one of his tunics, the most comfortable clothes he has here, but he's also carrying the strange pack that he'd been given when he first arrived. He has few supplies to carry with him, but he does want to bring a tablet with him in case there is anything that needs recording, since he doesn't think the whole area has been explored yet. He's heard tell of a sea that's been discovered, but he's just as interested in the land: lacking a boat, the sea isn't going to help them to escape, and he knows more about the use of the land than the sea.

It's strange finding himself in a mirror-image of the village that's been his home-in-exile in these past months, but while he's exploring, he pays attention to what he finds where, and after he's determined precisely how similar the village is, he decides to see what else is the same. There are other spots around the village he's used to that are important, and learning if they are the same or not may be significant to understanding more about this place.

It's when he gets to where he's expecting to find a spring bubbling into a deep, calm pool that he finds a major difference. Instead of the large clearing with the spring in it, there's a grove of unfamiliar trees, branching up towards the sky, some of them far beyond his head. The branches are laden with a fruit he's never seen before, round and reddish-gold, firm to the touch when he reaches up and picks one. His hand rests on the trunk of one of the trees as he looks up into its leaves, and a roughness under his palm makes him look down again. There's a symbol carved onto the trunk, one that's completely unfamiliar to him. It looks a little like a tree with a dangling branch, with a trunk and then some lines drawn across it, with another cut at an angle to the others. It's not Greek, and he wonders if it might be Egyptian, that strange language of pictures he'd heard of from some of his tutors.

Whatever it is, he carefully takes out his tablet and scratches a drawing of the sign onto the wax, before he starts picking the fruits.


evening --> back at the Inn

When Gracchus gets back to the Inn, it's with a pack full of fruits from the trees. He hasn't tried any himself, uncertain whether they're good to eat or not, but if they are, they should be a good supplement to the food stores here at the Inn, and Kate Kelly can probably use them. He heads for the main room, unsure whether or not he will have missed the evening meal. Whether it's past mealtime or not, that's usually the place where the most people can be found.

He takes one of the fruits out of his bag, and holds it out as he walks into the room.

"Excuse me," he says in English to the first person he meets, "do you recognize this?"


evening prayers --> he will be repeating prayers in the evening if your character wouldn't be at the Inn in the morning