Day 25

Spent some time yesterday conversing and making deals with a traveling trader. Saw something moving in the distance, and made my way toward it. Once I got close enough, I could see that it was a large cart being pulled along by a mule with an atrophied extra leg sticking out from it's side. I tried to move so that I'd intersect his path, but it didn't look like that'd happen any time soon, so I started shouting to him, waving my arms when he looked my way.

I calmed down a bit when I realized that it had spooked him, and that he was aiming a gun my way.

Luckily, he still stopped, so I just kept my hands up and away from my weapons while I closed the distance between us. He relaxed when I told him I had only shouted to get his attention so I could trade, and that I thought I was going to miss him otherwise. Any trader likes a customer, and they like an eager one even more. Quite frankly, I think I may have spent to much time in Fest Town, and that I was beginning to miss hearing another human voice.

The cart was just piled with stuff, a mix of complete junk and useful tidbits. Got some more rounds of ammo for each of my guns, almost a full box for the shotgun. New whetstone for sharpening Disc. Couple lighters, each about halfway full. Traded away some food I had, some bits of scrap metal I had been holding onto to try to turn into armor plating. I know some folks that won't trade away food for anything, they treat it like its the last they'll ever see. I know better. Two good-sized hunks of smoked shrew meat would feed me for a day or two, but the five rifle bullets I got in exchange will let me replace that and then some.

The best thing, though, was that he had several cans of preserved fruit. Oh, the sweetness. So sweet it almost shriveled my tongue, the syrupy goodness coating the inside of my mouth. I tried to keep calm, but he got some idea of how much I wanted them. I talked him out of three cans in exchange for a book I'd been saving, one I'd found with all the pages intact. It almost hurt letting go of that, but...oh, that sweetness...