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Visiting Holbruth is like visiting a ghost town before it becomes a ghost town. Everything looks temporary, but it's been there for 20 years. The 5 buildings around which the town revolves have been added to and added to. The original structures are still just tents, and each year a new, more permanent structure was added to them. First, just a sturdier tent to make the a separate space for the merchant's family to sleep from where they were buying and selling what folks have and what folks need. Then a wooden shack for the master magician to keep the herbs for his potions dry. Then some real carpenter came to town and built a proper house for town meetings to take place. And a mason came to town and built a proper silo to gather grain against a poor harvest. And finally the minstrels came, and the whole town dug an ampitheatre for them to play in every night.

But in between each of these permanent impermanent structures are tents and shacks, and even the tavern looks like it's only a tavern because it's full to overflowing with friends carousing. Nobody is here because they BELONG here. They're here for answers, and even the children that have been born here know they'll leave as soon as someone figures it all out.

Everybody is visiting. Most for only a day or a week, but many have been visiting for years. Holly has been visiting since she was born. She's 16 now, and knows that they're only visiting, but she can't imagine what a real city is like, and so, unlike the mass of creatures, she journeys away from the World Tree for the first time. If everyone is coming here with questions, maybe the answers are actually out there. She packs a waterskin and her second best knife. She "forgets" her best knife with Cadlen so he'll have to follow her. You can't keep something that isn't yours, after all.

And she walks toward Morraw, the largest city the folk coming in have talked about. It's just along this path, she can't miss it. She hears all the folk talk about streets paved with stone, and great trees at every corner the bear every fruit imaginable. They haven't seen the World Tree yet, but still it sounds... unbelievable.

Image source: Art by a friend, commissioned by me of the oldest tree on my parents' farm, given to them for my dad's birthday years ago