Local codger Bimmer “Possum” Coots is at the Circle Market, of course, as he is every week, selling cups of “possum punch” from his wooden cart not far from the old well at the circle’s eastern side. She pays 2 copper for a cup, which is reasonable, but when she tastes it she understands the low cost. It is not good. It is sweet from the fruit juices added, but the base alcoholic quality could peel wood off of a side of paint. The one thing that really helps it sell in addition to its cheap price, though, is that he has managed to have it chilled, which is quite the benefit of a drink purveyor on a late summer's day.

Alandra finds herself enjoying the simple act of people watching, and there is a good flautist that has scored an early set. As she is halfway through her cup, and suddenly realizing perhaps possum punch isn't as bad as all that, Alandra gets some more company at Possum's cart. Oh, there are other people there, including the barely-perceptible nobodies of men who drone in her ear, thinking she is either listening or cares about their lewd or shrewd discussions, when a strange woman catches her eye. Perhaps not otherworldly strange like the white-furred woman earlier, though this woman does carry for the theme of white hair.

This woman is nearly a foot shorter than Alandra and very trim (5' 3", 115 lbs.). Her physical features definitely show she is a Tian woman of Minkaian extraction, yet a lot of her clothes and manner betray that much of her time was spent not in that distant continent, but as one of the many Tian peoples that must have come across the Crown of the World and settled in Kalsgard and the Land of the Linnorm Kings. Even then, though, there is a singular way about her dress that seems to incorporate both the accidentally revealing of the seductress and the a complete doubling down of the whole "white-haired witch of the woods." She even has an obvious familiar - a red fox - trotting at her side, though that is unusual for a red fox comes from much more southerly climes.

Her gear is spare. She has a backpack, but it practically is folded in on itself for want of material to contain. She carries a staff which, while ornate, might do better as a ritual piece than a weapon. She does have a light crossbow and two cases of bolts strung to her backpack. A symbol you don't know, wreathed in actual plants, hangs from her neck. The oddest thing about her, though, is that the shadows seem to cling much longer than they should to her dark clothing.

She comes up to the cart and sets down a gold, to which Bimmer obliges with a cup of possum punch and 8 silver as he takes the gold away. As she begins to drink, she catches Alandra's eye and seems to be lost in thought. "Do I know you? You seem very familiar for some reason."