The Hermit's Haven

"Let us settle you in first. We can have our storytelling this evening." Jethru led the three people into his house.

As the door creaked open, Lara was welcomed into a spacious room that stretched approximately fifty square meters before her. The air inside was thick with a mix of earthy scents, coming from the dirt floor, which stood raised about sixty centimeters above the ground outside. 

In modern times, Galeya's Throne was built upon a rugged natural platform hewn from resilient rock. This elevated structure rose 50 centimeters above the surrounding terrain and sprawled across an area of fifty square meters. It resembled a diminutive plateau perched atop a larger one, creating a striking visual that complemented the landscape around it. The sturdy surface, thought to have been shaped by the elements over time, offered a sense of majesty, inviting observers to marvel at its unique form and significance.

Lara's brow knitted as she absorbed the startling revelation. The legendary half-elevated platform, revered as Galeya's throne cushion, was not a natural formation but rather a creation of human hands!

She gazed down at the black ground beneath her feet, where, in a twist of time, the once soft clay soil had undergone a dramatic transformation over the course of a millennium, solidifying into hard rock.

Jethru coughed when he noticed that Lara was looking stupidly at the floor.

'What is wrong with this girl? Is this her first time seeing a house with the earth as the floor?'

Lara lifted her head, and her gaze roamed around the room.

On the right side of the room, a round wooden table crafted from a tree stump, accompanied by a single wooden stool, sat snugly against the wall. The walls were constructed from neatly stacked tree trunks and smeared with layers of clay, their natural texture adding a rustic charm. In the far right corner, an earthen stove sat on the ground, with a clay pot resting atop it. Beside the stove lay a pile of carefully arranged firewood.

Stretching from the far left corner to the middle of the room was a counter made of slatted wood, known as a banggera. It extended outward by half a meter from the wall but sheltered under the eaves. Wooden plates and clay pots were neatly stacked in one corner of the counter, while a pair of inverted wooden cups perched securely on the ends of wooden sticks.

Five woven bamboo baskets of varying sizes lined the slatted wall of the banggera. A large, dark earthen jar stood on the ground in the left corner. Slightly above it, a wooden peg jutted from the wall hung a wooden dipper, ready for use.

Near the door on the left side was a bamboo ladder, its sturdy rungs leading to the loft. Beside the ladder, a massive tree trunk had been repurposed into a bench, its smooth surface a testament to years of use.

A wooden cabinet stood against the wall beside the bench. It had a door, so she could not see what was inside. 

She heaved a sigh of relief. It seemed she hadn't traveled back to the Stone Age after all.

"You can place the meat jerky on the banggera." Jethru pointed his mouth toward the slatted counter at the end of the room.

"Tonight, you will sleep upstairs. I will sleep here on this bench. In the next few days, I'll try to make an extra room for Lara and Reya." 

Jethru left the house and went to the back. Lara passed her bundle to Reya and the bamboo tubes to Sandoz, and then she followed Jethru outside.

She saw the white-haired man remove a piece of meat hanging on the eaves. Upon close inspection, she saw that it was smoked.

There was a stone oven outside the house. Jetrhu moved fast, and in no time, the meat, which she guessed to be approximately one a kilo, was put on a wooden skewer and grilled over fire.

"Don't just keep standing there. Go tell Reya to boil sweet potatoes. I supposed she knew how to cook. The sweet potatoes are in one of the baskets on the banggera."

Lara hummed and went inside the house.

"Reya, how are you feeling?" 

"I am feeling well, Miss. I heard what Grandpa Jethru said. I have already found the sweet potatoes and will cook them. How about you go upstairs and rest?"

Lara nodded, then took her time unbundling the cloth on the table. The night before, she had not had the chance to check the contents of the other bundled cloth.

She hung the sword on the peg protruding from the pillar. Then, she took the big knife, walked toward the banggera, and inserted it on the slatted floor beside two other knives. 

The small knife which was similar to a hunting knife in modern times; she kept it in the sheath tied around her thigh. Since she did not have her gun, she wanted to keep it with her at all times.

She returned to the table and examined the contents of the smaller bundle of cloth. Two sets of decent-looking men's clothes, she found, might have belonged to the leader of the human traffickers, the one they called Hook.

There was also a small pouch, and when she poured out the contents, she found more than 50 silver ingots. Lara took the silver ingots and weighed them in her hands. Who would have thought she would have a chance to hold an actual ingot? She had only seen them in museums.

Lara examined one of the ingots closely. While she was focused on the ingot, she noticed Reya and Sandoz coming up behind her.

"Wow, Miss. You are amazing. You managed to steal the ingots from the bastards." She blurted out excitedly, and then she paused. "But what if they come after us? That is a lot of money, after all."

"They won't suspect us. They will think somebody else stole from them," Lara said confidently.

She tidied up the bundle's contents and brought it as she scaled the bamboo ladder.

Like the ground floor, there was only one room. There was no bed or furniture, aside from a wooden open shelf in one corner containing a few sets of clothes, mostly gray, or they must have been white previously but turned gray.

She went back to the ground floor and exited the house. She wanted to check the shed she saw on the northeast side of the plateau.

When she opened the door, she stepped back. It was an outhouse sheltering a pit latrine.