Cold Springs. The village is at the source of a stream that flows into the Ashaba. It consists of a dozen farms, a smithy and a tavern (no accommodations) called the Waters of the Dales. There also is a mill about a mile downstream from the village and a small shrine to Chauntea near the mill.

Cold Springs

Cold Springs is just below the hill where the Cold Rush Creek has its source. The village lies in a slight depression within a lightly forested landscape of very low, gently rolling hills. The road that leads into Cold Springs from the Tethyamar Trail dead ends in every direction but the north, where the old road becomes overgrown and soon dwindles into a little used but still visible trail to the ruins of Sunstone, once a village a few miles/kilometers to the north.

The village is unprotected and has occasional troubles with roving orcs, brigands and Zhentish stragglers, but the Freedom Fighters come to town often enough to chase these unwanted visitors off. Cold Springs is a small farming village that survives today as in Zhentish times because it has a market in Tethyamarside and Dagger Falls to the north.

Dagger Falls has no mill. Its only sources of flour are Sidwell's Mill in Tethyamarside (see the map of Tethyamarside on the FR Interactive Atlas CD) and the Coldstone Mill south of Cold Springs. Cold Springs also is one of Dagger Falls' main sources for horses.

The Map of Cold Springs

1 - Cold Springs. These springs, which bubble out of a hillside rock formation, are the source of the Cold Rush Creek, which runs east of and parallel to the Tethyamar Trail, to a point south of the ruins of Castle Daggerdale, where it turns eastward, flowing into the Ashaba in a gorge in the lower Dagger Hills (see the Daggerdale map).

2 - Harmon Dindel, Blacksmith. Dindel is a skilled smith, but those skills end with farm equipment and similar items. He knows nothing about making or repairing armor or weapons.

3 - Waters of the Dales Tavern. Smith Tyler who earns most of his income as a farmer, runs the Waters of the Dales, which is little more than an evening meeting place for many of the village's men. It opens daily at 6 p.m. The tavern is too small to justify having its own brewery or malting house. Tyler simply hitches up his wagon every five days and rides off to Tethyamarside, to buy a barrel of house brew from the Billy-Stoat Inn. Travelers coming to Cold Springs will find only Billy Stoat Beer, at 4 copper thumbs per quart/liter tankard, and cold smoked ham slices on dark rye bread, together with horseradish and a dill pickle, at 5 silver falcons a serving.

4 - Tomm Darty's Horse Farm. Darty runs a small horse breeding operation. The Asquith family operation and the Equine Exchange in Tethyamarside are the only sources of horses for Dagger Falls. Darty's Cold Springs operation is one of Equine Exchange's main purveyors.

6 - Coldstone Mill. Miller Jan Hrethian grinds wheat, rye and spelt flour, and his hammer produces thistle and sunflower oil. His main customer is Wendell Dunn a marketplace merchant in Dagger Falls, who comes with his wagon to Cold Springs every three days, to get new supplies.