"Yes," says Sajan emphatically, who otherwise would have had the watch tonight. "Yes. it. does."

While Bokken does his best to be a host, and he doesn't mind company .... and his potion-making skills seem to carry over into him being a decent cook .... still it should become obvious as the night wears on that while a few strangers are welcome as a rare treat, the seclusion promised at this location is too much for the hermit to resist.

Bokken will broach the subject of when Beltin and his friends might go southwards to look for fangberries for him. It turns out that somebody recently purchased all but one of his potions through trade (gee, I wonder).

Further, he’s likely to mention his younger brother if any conversation is allowed to go on long enough—Bokken spits as he does so, bitterly holding up his right hand and indicating his missing pinky finger: “Bastard cut that offa me the last time he hit my mother, Desna rest her soul. But he took off right after to live in a hollow tree down south rather than face the guards, so I guess it all worked out well enough.”

Bokken decided to become a hermit a few years after his brother (whose name, like many other details of his childhood, he can’t quite recall due to senility) left home and their parents passed away. Originally, Bokken had toyed with the idea of tracking his bully of a brother down and getting revenge, but the wildlife in the Greenbelt was too frightening and dangerous, so instead he settled down not far from the edge of Rostland to live the rest of his life in nature.