The journey to your home town is relatively uneventful - you are just another traveler, abeit one who doesn't eat or sleep, which allows you to make good time.

It's odd. While usually you were coming from the OTHER side of town everything feels slightly off somehow on this journey. Of course, you'd never been as far as the previous city, and you'd never been dead.

Perhaps it is a matter of perspective: now you are really seeing things as they are, the decay and their resistance. Still, you do recognize the major landmarks, which is reassuring.

It takes several uneventful boring days, but you make your way to your old town. Like many spots in this area, it borders the desert, however, an underground spring makes the ground muddy and surprisingly fertile compared to most of the outlying regions, allowing the town to exist.

Silver Stream is somewhat paradoxically named - the river flows underground, and the clay like soil makes it difficult to dig. Still, the water does allow the town to build regular wells, though they have to be reconstructed regularly. The water is palatable enough, but even filtered, it tends to be a bit cloudy with clay and mineral deposits.

The clay houses stretch out in every direction, an endless parade of low brick buildings: at least all but the absolutely destitute do not long for shelter. Some houses have fallen, others have been raised since you've been gone: this is not surprising, as the clay houses generally only last a few years. At least building materials are readily available.

Towards the centre of town, the stone buildings rise a few stories up, constructed by richer people who could afford to quarry in stone from the mountains, or build by the community to store food and water.

As you approach, you spy a Silver Spur: having a low, broad town with muddy streets requires a fairly independent, freeroaming guard. They ride sure footed ponies, known for their hardiness and sure footedness, even when walking or the cracked clay streets during the punishing summer or the mucky clay mess when the rainy season hit.

You did not recognize the guard in particular. He approaches, and carefully sizes you up. He relaxes, a bit when he sees you are alone and unarmed. "Fair travels, my friend. Odd to be coming into town so late. Particularly alone." He does have a smile on his face. It wasn't very likely he was shaking you down: the Spurs were not known for their incorruptibility, but they generally simply charged a small tax to merchants. Spurs also operated alone or in pairs at best, so didn't like to antagonize too many people.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 06:26, Tue 04 Dec 2018.

Upon seeing the guard on the distance, Plaga made an effort to look exhausted. It would be easier to sell her story that way.

"Greetings. It was not my plan to arrive at this hour. My horse gave up on me on the road, and I had to walk all the way to town. Could you point me to the nearest inn, good sir?"
This message was last edited by the player at 12:57, Tue 04 Dec 2018.