Day Two-Eighty-Six: Lookin' sharp

I woke up this morning with the floppy hat of my dreams sitting on my chest. With it was a note bearing this message:

'I thought it prudent to provide you, the newly-minted politician, with headware befitting your station. It looks terribly stupid, and thus, should match your brain. Enjoy. I included a pair of knee-high socks and a floppy-sleeved shirt to give you the appearance of a dandy, and a nice cloth mantle to replace your chainmail. Wear it all or you'll regret ever learning of my existence.

Cheers!

June the Witch

PS - If you turn down my tea again, I'll ensure that you never get voted out of office.'

Shit. Now I'm a mayor AND I have to eat roaches floating in herbal water. I'm not sure which is worse… and these socks are pretty stupid looking, so it might be a three-way race.…

Libby still doesn't trust me enough to untie me from our bed, so I've been ruminating over the problem of establishing a settlement while covertly gnawing through the rope on my wrist. Neither problem has a happy outcome, as far as I can see, though the rope IS less troublesome than the settlement looming in my future.

Settlement. Should I call it a settlement? That's so bland. I guess it's gonna be a village. At least at first. But what do I CALL this village of mine? See, another problem. My life is a giant string of problems from birth to death to rebirth, then, probably, up 'til I die again. Which I hope isn't TOO far in my fuecdewdwed

OW. You snapped shut on me, diary. What in the hell? My… grip must've slipped, or… something… argh. That HURT. I'll take it as karma and NOT talk about dying again. I was just kidding anyway. Yeesh, somebody has it out for me…

The task of establishing a village is just as daunting now as it was last week, and I've made NO headway on figuring out the logistics. I'm not prepped for this task at all. Let's look at my resources:

- One mayor, clueless
- One diary, private
- One wife, preggers
- One child, currently baking in his/her oven
- One bard, lyrical
- One noble, largely irrelevant
- A small horde of other nobles, faceless and blob-like (though one has a bunch of neat hats)
- One Weekendist, wears glasses
- One witch, crazy
- One librarian, apparently held captive by the witch
- One dragon, missing
- Many questions
- A floppy hat

This equates to a fair amount of manpower - more manpower than I'VE ever commanded, to be sure - but very few material goods. Where am I gonna find wood for houses, or seeds for crops, or carts, or animals, or ANYTHING? I can't house everyone in my floppy hat, nor can I use it as a food source to keep 'em all well-supped. At best my hat would feed a single person at a single meal, and it wouldn't be a good meal.

Unless it was deep-fried. Everything's good when it's deep-fried. Still, one person, one good meal, and many questions about sustenance thereafter. I do not envy my situation.

I have but one hope, diary, one tiny, rude, green hope: Grylock. He came to visit today - he's been visiting often since I snapped out of my funk - and I pled with him to appeal to King Gok for supplies. Anything he could spare, though preferably wagons, animals to pull 'em, food to keep us all going for a few months, some money, maybe plowing tools to get us started on rudimentary fields… axes… planks of wood… a couple of posh chairs to keep the nobles from bitchin' too much…

Yeah. Okay. I asked for a lot. King Gok is one of the bastards who put me in this situation, so it's only fair he pay up. Forget that he's been providing us all with shelter and food for the last few weeks, he owes us! Totally. We require compensation for our answers. Our… many… answers.

Answers. To questions. Questions asked by everyone. Questions aimed at me regarding what happened in our old castle. Questions I'm… not ready to answer just yet.

But I have to one day.

Ugh. Not looking forward to the moment when I have to share that our 'departed' friend The Baron is a horrifying traitor.

Enough complaining. I'm strapped to a bed, both terrified and bored. My teeth hurt, and my wife has crushed my lungs three times today with her mighty hugs. My overall condition… leaning towards the negative. Though it's nice to be appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dragomir the Mayor