Southmere & the Deep Wold

South of Runmede the barge road follows the Emberrun down the locks, under the willows, and past the fen to Southmere: the last town before the wild, where the mere opens silver and the wold rises dark behind the south gate.

Getting there

From Runmede's Barge Docks, go SOUTH along the towpath. The familiar town-to-town sequence remains available as a learned quick crossing, while the official Lockwater Towpath opens fourteen represented miles of barley freight, locks, queue bollards, mule crews, and river work. The old rope ferry and gravel islet are signed hunting branches; the freight trunk stays quiet.

The road & the fen (levels 4-7)

• Fen adders and bog curs hunt the reaches and the fen edge; black fen tuskers wallow in the drowned coppice east of the fen turn.
• Footpads hold the long stair some seasons. They carry coin, and sometimes a lockbox.
• Everything with a hide skins; the netmender in town pays 140 in the hundred, the valley's best rate.

The town

Southmere is a sanctuary — no blades inside the stiles.

Where	Who	Service
The Mereside Green	the mere crier	all the news, delivered loudly
The quay	Quaymaster Dorn	odd jobs (WORK)
The Weighhouse	Weighman Copperwick	bank: DEPOSIT / WITHDRAW
Market Row	Provisioner Wren	travel gear, rations, lockpicks
The Herb Stalls	Herbwife Tarrow	herbs, salves, healing, fenwort tea
The Anvil Yard	Branna Ironmantle	full weapon rack, arrows and bolts
The Bulrush Armory	Tolm Oakmantle	armor light to plate, shields, quilted jacks
The Held Breath	Goodman Pyle	food, drink, CHECK IN to train in the eaves room
The Hearthhall	Hearthwarden Essa	healing, the region's rest and waking place, and an ember shrine: lay down an offering, RING BELL once
Tallow Lane mews	Posy Underbough	the kennel — see below
The Moot Porch	Reeve Serra Vane	WRIT board, town law
The Netyard	old Harrel	sells fishing gear, buys pelts at 140%

Behind LOCKWARD, twelve connected civic interiors make the town's public life explorable: gauge hall, compact archive, fen survey office, rescue guild, public boat shed, hospice, moot chamber, mere shrine gallery, wardroom, and the records that connect family rights to newcomer obligations. Flood-Reeve Mara Quill can open a public case over a disputed release. PETITION, inspect the field evidence, and return to testify; the outcome creates Southmere standing and can unlock restricted records.

The kennel

Posy Underbough's mews tower keeps the best animal company in the valley — eight companions, each one of a kind: mere-bred hound pups, barn kittens, a raven, an otter, a harvest mouse who lives in whichever pocket you offer her, and a dun wren for a shoulder. SHOP at the mews to meet them and BUY to adopt — your new companion follows you out the door. Every animal in the tower knows a party trick and performs on request, buyer or browser alike: SPEAK a pup, PLAY a kitten, TOSS for the otter, PEEK the mouse, TUNE the wren, and the raven takes no requests, she simply repeats what she overhears, when it suits her. Feed and stroke yours to build the bond and the acts deepen; buy a withy carrier basket to carry it stowed, or PERCH a small one on your shoulder. Sold is sold: when a pup finds a home, that pup leaves the listing permanently. See Pets.

The Deep Wold (levels 10-16)

Past the south stile the wold begins, and the reeve's map spends one word on its far end. The principal dangers, in rising order:

• Wold-stalkers (the grey cats of the alders) and iron-elk on Wolfwind Rise — premium pelts both.
• The toll-takers: brigands who price the old track at knifepoint. Woldcutters and blackbow archers on the track; their captain Vess Harrow holds the palisaded steading east of the burned waypost. The reeve's bounty on him is the largest figure on the town's books.
• The Mireback Sink: black-pooled bog, fen-trolls, and at the causeway's end the Mireback itself — a fen-troll of legendary tonnage whose hide would buy a barge. Parties have gone south to price it. The sink keeps a larder.
• Beyond the Sink: the official Sunfall Causeway now represents all thirty-four inhabited miles to the Sunfall Shire. Its road crown is safe freight ground; signed branches descend into Bell-Shell Marsh (12–15), the Drowned Farms (14–18), old drainage works (17–21), and a feral tithe orchard (18–22). Shrines and peat workings provide quiet exploration without obligatory combat.

Escorts

Two regulars pay for a steady arm:

• Oska the eel-wife waits at the quay with her baskets — ESCORT her up the adder-haunted tow-path to Runmede's market green (180 silver).
• Gurt the prospector waits on the green with a pack of stakes and unreasonable confidence — walk him into the deep wold to his claim at the burned waypost (400 silver, and the wold will referee).

Omens

Southmere watches the sky like it watches the wold. When storms break, comets hang over the Frostspine, or the aurora dances over the north, you will hear about it — on the green, from the crier, for days.