“ The accepted mode of getting otherwise unobtainable information is to go visit the cranky old hermit living in the mountains. It's just the sensible thing to do. So, naturally, everyone takes their monthly excursion to the hermit's hovel to consult him on everything, from lock-jaw to lovesickness, necromancers to nasal viruses.
Now, if everyone's always visiting the poor old hermit, there's going to be an enormous queue... 'Wellcome to the Hermitt's Hovele, Please Take Ye a Number and Have Ye a Seate' reads the sign outside the packed dwelling.
Imagine the poor hermit, having retreated into the mountains to escape this precise situation...”
“ There are those as rich as kings but dress as peasants and worry not about funding. To visit their true homes one would see wealth of untold value scattered as dirt is in a hut. They know the monetary value of their possessions but they have long lost any true value to their owners. Experience is their currency and their curse. They dispense secrets of the ages as if discussing the weather. Few things have they not experienced so that very little gives them joy. They are the lost ones looking for new life while humoring the mortals around them.”