Fiery gold oaks lined the main streets of Gilba Gilba as Autumn roared on in with the teeth of a hailstorm. Leaves were flyin’ this way and that as the afternoon winds screamed down from the Madman’s Mountains and rattled the windows of the town’s buildings.

“Arghh!” hollered Gack as he staggered down the street, arms in front of him in a vain attempt to block the knifelike wind. It cut into his beard and gave him the close shave he’d been meanin’ to get for the last week.

“Aye Gack settle down now!” yelled Hem Slonnigum SENIOR from an alley. Hem I was a middle-aged man the size of a good-sized man, rough ’n tough from his younger years as a sailor and smuggler from the Island Realm, off the coast of Assol. He didn’t talk much ‘bout them days and we won’t either. But maybe later we will? Hard to say.

Hem I stepped into the scorchin’ wind and grabbed hold of Gack’s arm and pulled him ‘tween two buildings so as to make a sorta shield-like situation from the wind.

“Thank ya Hem I, ya good lad,” Gack breathed.

“No need to add the surfix, Gack, Hem’ll do.”

“Aye.”

“Storm’s bad,” Hem observed, peeking out from ‘round the corner and into a gust o’ wind that basically blew his face right off. He retreated back into the alley. “Never seen it so bad. What’re you doin’ out there in that tussle?!”

“Aye well it ain’t clear to me at this point in the scene what I been up to and I reckon ‘taint gone be clear to me by the end, but mayhap if I ramble in and out like this for a time I reckon somethin’ will come on into this ol’ juicy fruit of mine,” Gack replied in a long, drawn-out answer as he tapped the top of his forehead with a wink and a smirk.

“No need for that,” said Hem. “How’s about we top ‘er off at the Ragged Maiden for a spell or six? My son Hem, that’s Hem II now you understand don’t you forget to add the II for him, he been slopin’ about Blom and Glen’s common room more often than I like… gettin’ outland ideas in his head, I daresay.”

“Aye, the Gilba Gilba youth are gettin’ restless,” Gack agreed. “Too young to remember them Wayward Spirits!!”

“All folk’re too young to remember somethin’, Gack,” countered Hem, remembering when his gran da told him a story by the fireside about HIS gran da bleedin’ out after Blember’s Rebellion tore across West Assol.

“Aye, all right ya young mote,” chuckled Gack with the knowledge of the older generation gettin’ a sizin’ up by one younger for once. “Let’s get back into that there Storm and find Blom. See what sorta mad tales your Hem II’s been pullin’ out of him.”