"Elbowing Up to the Bar"

There were a good dozen taverns and inns in the town of Vexdale, some of them inside and others outside the city’s modest stone walls. But since the guards that manned the Eastern and Southern gates were usually drunk even during the daylight hours, the distinction between who was an “in-towner” and who was an “out-of-towner” was rarely enforced.

Those patrons who chose to frequent the establishments inside the walls usually did so for matters of status as well as comfort: the food was generally fresher, the plates and flagons cleaner, the beds softer and less prone to infestation, while the establishments beyond the walls were a little more affordable but a lot more boisterous. There were also those who chose an inside-the-wall location for matters of security: one was much less likely to be robbed during the night. It was only during checkout that the actual thievery occurred.

One particular morning in the Rearing Stallion Inn, just down the street from the Broken Arrow Guildhall, the occupant in the room at the top of the third flight of stairs was still snoring a good hour past sunrise. His chain hauberk lay across the back of a sturdy wooden chair, his helmet on the chair’s seat, while his glaive leaned against one side of his bed, its wickedly sharp blade lodged against the mantlepiece of the room’s sole fireplace.

Though an observer wouldn’t have known, the sleeping dwarf was deep into a dream of strange locations, set behind swirling round frames of orange, red and silver, and populated by a disorienting mix of cheerful street merchants and roaring green-skinned monsters.

His snoring was loud enough to mask the noise of the patrons two floors below, already deep into celebrating whatever was important enough to be toasting one another so early in the day. But an almost imperceptible scratch from the narrow window opposite the fireplace had him awake instantly. His right hand had already grasped the haft of the glaive before his eyes could even focus on the closed curtains.

With all the stealth he could muster, he slid out of bed and crept cautiously to the window. Still grasping his weapon, he slowly pulled back the curtains with his free hand, prepared to fight whatever fell beast thought it could invade–

“Oh! Excuse me, sir!” exclaimed the halfling on the ladder outside the window. He held a scrub brush in one hand, and maintained an unsteady grip on the rickety ladder with the other. “Didn’t mean t’ wake you, sir, but I’ve got a million chores t’ do today, starting with these here–”

Pellanor harrumphed and let the curtains close on their own. He stumbled back to his bed and sat heavily, still partially engrossed by the powerful dream he’d been woken from. This was the third or maybe the fourth time he’d had that same dream, an unsettling mixture of his conversation with Moradin, and the disturbing scene shared with him through one of the gates the god had opened.

There were other elements of that encounter that had stayed with him this past month, a series of lingering doubts and worries. But he knew that the only way forward was to continue with the mission he’d agreed to, no matter how dangerous, no matter how impossible it seemed.

Holding his glaive in his left hand and using only his free right hand, he washed his face with water from the pitcher and basin on the small table by the room’s sole door. He pulled on his hobnailed boots, then struggled into his hauberk, made all the more difficult because of the dwarf’s reluctance to let his glaive lay more than a hand’s width out of reach at any moment. He inhaled a bit to put on his traveling belt, adorned with several attached pouches and a few dangling potions, along with his trusty dirk, then swung his stained leather backpack around his shoulders. He slid a dented wooden shield across his left shoulder and partially over his back. Finally, he topped off his outfit with a simple pot-and-nosepiece steel helm.

With a deep breath, he swung open the door and headed for the bustling main room downstairs. And as he had done countless times during the month he’d stayed at the Inn, he accidentally hit the low overhead beam in the hallway with the blade end of his glaive.

A couple more weeks, he growled silently to himself, and I’ll cut right through that thing.

The jingling of his chainmail and his boot heels on the stairs alerted the barmaid-slash-innkeeper’s wife downstairs, a strong gray-haired human woman whose name Pellanor in his four week stay had never bothered to ask. She greeted him with a cheerful “Good mornin,’ sir!” which he simply ignored on his way out through the oaken main door.

She harrumphed her own retort, then turned to her portly human husband, stacking mugs and tankards for the late morning regulars. “Always the same wi’ him,” she remarked, tossing a thumb over her shoulder. “Never says howdy, never asks what’s on the menu fer t’night, never so much as a ‘How’s the weather this fine day’.”

Her husband watched the dwarf’s form getting smaller in the inn’s large front room window. “His gold spends like any other’s, and he causes no trouble nor ever complains.” The fellow slid a handful of forks into a tumbler used to store them for quick access. “Far as I’m concerned, he can keep his troubles and whatever occupies his thoughts to himself.”

Outside, the Westway was busy with travelers heading north and south, some conducting business for the Lord of the Kingsmire Keep, others visiting the nearby shops that catered to the nobles and other higher-borns. Children on their way to classes darted through crowds of laborers slowly heading for jobs at the stables and the blacksmith’s. Few of them gave the grumbling dwarf more than a sideways glance.

Beside one of the many public fountains, a pair of wiry teenage human boys were laughing as one of them dangled a backpack over the fountain’s pool. The girl that the pack belonged to was leaping up to try and snatch it back, all the while trying mightily to hold back a torrent of tears. But her efforts just seemed to make the two boys laugh even more.

Don’t get involved in the Locals’ problems, he remembered telling himself when he first wandered into this town a month ago. But Pellanor was never one to let bullies abide. He took another deep breath and changed course, now heading right for the trio.

“Hey!” he growled in a commanding voice as he approached. “Best you give that lass her bag back.”

The taller of the two boys, the one dangling the backpack, glanced over at the dwarf and laughed again. “Best for whom?”

Pellanor halted about fifteen feet away and wrapped both hands around the haft of the glaive, which he held upright. “Best fer you, lad. Trust me.”

The two teens eyed each other and laughed even more. “Go back to your second breakfast, old man.”

Old man?! Pellanor’s eyes flared. Without a second thought for diplomacy or measured persuasion, he drew upon his god’s divine power and roared a single word: “Comply!”

The two boys reacted like they were hit with a church steeple: they both dropped to the ground and wailed in terror. The taller teen held up the backpack to the little girl with a single quivering hand. The amazed little girl grabbed her backpack and clutched it tight to her chest. Without any words, the two teens scrambled to their feet and ran off to the south, wailing in regret as they fled.

With a polite nod to the somewhat amazed little girl, Pellanor hefted his glaive unto his shoulder and turned to continue his trek north.

With its audibly creaking wooden sign and its brick walls in serious need of a good tuckpointing, it was clear that the Broken Arrow Guildhall had seen more prosperous times. But it was still the only place in the region to find honest work for mercenaries and other fighters-for-hire. Pellanor had made the same pilgrimage to this Hall from his lodgings every day for this past month, but nothing quite what he was looking for had yet appeared. Maybe this morning, he thought, as he climbed the three high stone steps that led up to the Guildhall’s front door.

The air inside was cool and a bit musty, made a little more palatable by a waft of fresh beer and the aroma of cooked meat. Off to the left was the Main Hall with half a dozen tables under its sweeping ceiling of dark beams and painted white sheathing. To the right sat a slightly smaller hall with several private tables and a few booths with windows displaying the courtyard outside. Between the two, facing the main door, stood a wide front desk where visitors would be encouraged to sign up, and regulars could check on what new missions might be available.

The place was nearly deserted this early in the day. The silence in the Main Hall was broken only by the pop and crackle of the small fire on its central hearth. In the private hall off to the right, a trio of adventurers huddled over a map that Pellanor could just make out as a view of the woods to the north of Vexdale.

Before he could inquire about what the trio was planning on doing with that map, Pellanor was greeted by the stern, gruff voice of Guild Mistress Brenda Calliope, a tough, no-nonsense human woman with coal black hair and arms almost as thick as Pellanor’s, with a barely visible mustache on her upper lip. Without even asking the dwarf’s business, she turned and appraised the leftmost section of the assignment board on the wall behind her.

“We still gots only three missions available for Copper Tier members. One’s to deal with a pack of goblins what’s stealin’ apples from one of the southern orchards. Another’s to retrieve a stolen necklace from an in-town jeweler. Then there’s reports of a pack o’ wild coyotes out near the eastern swamp, who’ve been stealin’ loaves of bread from incoming caravans for the Harvest next week.”

“Coyotes stealing bread?” Pellanor replied. “Not exactly their normal diet, wouldn’t you say?”

“I don’t make no judgments,” Brenda replied coldly. “I just take the info they gimme, an’ post it up here.”

Pellanor scratched the chin under his beard. “That jewelry store robbery sounds interesting. What can you tell me about it?”

Brenada looked up at the ceiling above her as she recalled the details. “The necklace was a large silver thing with a big ruby hangin’ from it. The store itself was robbed a good three-four days ago. The owner thinks it was done by magical means. No signs of a break in, nor of any in-truders settin’ off the trip wires under the doors.”

She leaned across the wooden desk and looked the dwarf up and down. “But as I tol’ you the last five hunnert times you come in here, these missions are fer teams, not individuals. You’ll need yerself at least two more warm bodies if’n ya wanna take on any of these jobs.”

That had been the challenge halting Pellanor’s progress so far: finding other teammates who’d be both willing and capable of tackling these challenges. Vexdale was a sizable community, true, but the number of decent adventurers passing through lately had been slim.

But there was that trio in the front room…

Without another word, he turned to his right and headed for the front room, and the table with the three adventurers gathered ‘round it. Pellanor could discern each adventurer’s expertise just by observing their gear.

On the left was a massive human fighter with muscles that wouldn't stop, and little more than a bearskin pelt covering his chest and torso. He carried a heavy two-headed battle ax, draped across one shoulder as easily as a streetwalker would twirl a parasol.

On the right was a half-elf warrior with gleaming silvered armor and a plumed helm under his left arm. His weapon of choice appeared to be a long two-handed sword, so long that he had to carry it in a back sheath behind him. Something about his seriousness and the color of his eyes suggested that he too was a paladin, like Pellanor, though of a deity with which the dwarf was unfamiliar.

In between the two, leaning on her hands spread wide across the map, was a fetching middle-aged woman with a large golden holy symbol on a chain around her neck. Her mace lay on the table before her, and a strong metal shield lay propped against her chair. Maybe a cleric? Pellanor considered.

“Greetings,” Pellanor said as he approached. “Y’ look likes yer about to do some adventurin.’ I wonder if I might join yer group, and do a little adventurin’ m’self.”

As the dwarf spoke, the barbarian fighter on the left let out a noticeable snicker. The female cleric in the middle whispered something inaudible to the paladin on the right, who chuckled and nodded in reply.

The lady cleric finally addressed Pellanor, with a slightly apologetic bow. “Sorry, shortbeard, but it looks like you might be a little out of your element here.”

The barbarian on the left made a motion with the elbow holding his battleax. “You could pro’lly find better counterparts at Peebleway’s, the Lowside tavern. They’s pro’lly more yer style.” He smiled at his own insinuation.

The half-elven paladin on the right simply spread his hands wide, as if there was nothing he could do.

“That so?” Pellanor said, neither angered nor surprised. He’d been underestimated for most of his life, even by other dwarves. Three Otherfolk who couldn't see his true worth would just be the latest additions to a long list. But he wasn’t willing to just turn tail and slink away. He needed to make a statement. His pride demanded it, even if it wasn’t good etiquette.

Shifting the glaive to his left hand, he grasped the edge of the table with just his right. He strained a little at first, then managed with all of his might to lift it off the ground, even with the cleric’s heavy mace still resting upon it. The three stared at him with equal amounts of surprise and alarm. He managed to get it a good two feet off the ground, though he shook with the effort, before dropping it back to the floor with a loud crash.

“Yeah, yer right,” he said, as he looked each of them straight in the eye. “I’m clearly out of my element here.” He spun about on one heel and headed for the main door.

As he greeted the morning sunshine, he thought about what the barbarian had said. Pellanor had heard mention of the tavern and inn known as Peebleway’s, located outside the eastern gate and down the road a ways, though he’d never visited it before. Looks like it’s time to broaden my horizons, he thought to himself.

As he passed under the barbican of the wide eastern gate, he noted that the three guards there looked considerably drunker than one would expect. Pellanor chalked it up to boredom and them being near the end of their shift. New day, same barrel, he mused.

Peebleway’s Place occupied a small hilltop on the north side of the Eastroad. That was where Pellanor headed, as his mind turned to thoughts of purloined jewelry and rude clerics.

Elsewhere to the east of Vexdale, a young half-elf named Darian ran barefoot beneath an orchard of fruit trees, chased playfully by a halfling girl named Celia. The half-elf sported curly dark blue shoulder-length hair that flowed like a river over his tan skin. His green and purple tunic bore embroidery along its length, though the fabric was too rough to be that of a nobleman’s son. In one hand he carried an old fiddle, and in his other, a worn but serviceable yew bow, which identified him as a minstrel of some sort.

The young halfling that chased him was dressed like a baker’s apprentice, with a long white apron and traces of flour still in her hair.

They raced towards a third person, one of the younger town guards, a spry human named Fern, who’d already spread out a checkered cloth for their picnic. He’d tossed aside his short sword and sheath, and for good measure, flung his flat helmet nearby.

Darian won their foot race easily, as he and Celia collapsed laughing in a heap beside the picnic basket Fern had brought. They began to dig ravenously into the food, which surprised the young guard, who’d planned on spreading it out a little more formally.

They laughed some more as they ate and drank mulled wine, and described their plans for their futures. Fern wanted to rise through the ranks of the town guard, though not for better pay or more notoriety, but just so he wouldn’t have to take orders from the louts with more rank than he. Celia wanted to open her own bakery, once she’d saved enough coin. Darian was a little harder to pin down. He’d studied magic with one of the more talented patrons of his parents’ tavern, when the old fellow wasn’t drunk to the gills. The kindly mage thought Darian might be talented enough to be an adventurer himself, and skilled enough to seek his fortune in the great wide world, where the brave could steal a fortune when a dragon’s back was turned.

Darian wasn’t so confident of his abilities. But he was confident of his skill with a fiddle. He bounced up, and began playing a happy little jig, one that was so peppy and exuberant that both Fern and Celia just had to join him in dancing around their unfinished lunch.

They danced and sang to Darian’s tunes until almost sunset, when they finally dropped into the sweet smelling grass, exhausted but still laughing. Fern found himself lying almost on top of Darin, whose boyish good looks were too much for the young guard to deny. Fern leaned in, bravely willing to risk their friendship for a single kiss on those sweet lips–

SLAP!

Darian was awakened from his dream by his adopted father, the goblin Blorbin, who’d whacked him across the face with one of the fish that would be the tavern’s main course this evening. Darian shook his head, trying to clear his mind of the recent dream, while shaking off a few fish scales. He reached out and grabbed the fish before his father could get in another full swing.

“Ya gots woik ta do!” Blorbin hollered. “You was s’posed to be up helpin’ me clean da fish an hour ago!”

As strong as Blorbin was, Darian was just a tad bit stronger. He held his father’s arm tight against his own chest, then pulled his head down till it was just a few fingers’ width from his own face. With his free hand, he reached up and tousled the few hairs on his father’s nearly bald green head.

“You’re right, father,” Darian said. “I’ll get cleaned up and be downstairs shortly.”

“Yeah, thought so!” Blorbin replied. He jumped off his adopted son’s bed and trundled downstairs, dragging the soon-to-be-prepped-for-dinner fish along the hallway and then flop-flop-flop down the stairs.

Blorbin never was one for clean food, Darian sighed, as he did his best to wash the fish smell off of him.

When he eventually made it downstairs, Darian could see that Peebleway’s was already busy, even this early in the day. His adopted mother Faye, a gnomish woman with yellow-white hair and a perpetual smile, yelled over at her husband. “Blorbin, please! Just wash your hands in between touching things. You might give someone food poisoning!”

“How many people have gotten food poisoning this week?” Blorbin replied, almost insulted. “Tell me, how many? Not more than five this week! That’s a new record!”

Faye spotted Darian coming down the stairs. “Come on, lad, we’ve got hungry customers that need serving and tables that need bussing! The Harvest Festival’s just a few days away! Lots of farmers are already coming into town. Tradesfolk, too!”

Darian slipped right into his role as wait staff, table-clearer, and jovial entertainer, all rolled into one. He took orders from two tables while clearing plates and flatware from three others, and still found time to crack jokes with a couple that had just entered the main room.

As he leaned over to retrieve an errant fork, one of the bigger fellows in the main room, a tough-looking ex-warrior named Jeremiah, clapped him on the back. “I hear the Guild’s been looking for new members, Dare. You could make a fortune with your skills, as much as twenty gold a day, I ‘spect.”

Darian laughed and shook his apron, and the silver within its pockets rattled. “It’d be nice if I could do both my normal job and some adventuring on the side. But my parents need me here, so leaving town on some wild griffon chase? That’s out of the question.”

After dealing with the lunch rush and honoring a few requests for a fiddle-and-jig, Darian finally had time to check on Blorbin in the prep kitchen. The place was surprisingly well organized, considering the head chef was a goblin who never understood the concept of sanitary. The main courses–four large platters of pre-cooked and seasoned lake fish, plus a small ham and three large stuffed fowl–were all ready for a final roast just before dinner. The Remorhaz cooler was stocked, too, filled with large pitchers of milk, juice, mead, and cider, along with pots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and a couple dozen boiled eggs.

Sprawled across the prep table in the middle of the room was Blorbin himself, barefoot as usual, snoring contentedly as he snuggled up to an enormous loaf of warm rye bread.

Darian draped a folded tablecloth over his sleeping father and headed quietly back to the main room.

He was there in time to see a visitor arrive, a sturdy looking dwarf with an ochre-colored beard and a polearm easily twice his size. With the best smile he could manage, Darian approached him with both hands out. “Sir, we have a no-weapons policy here at Peebleway’s.”

The dwarf made a proper bow. “I give ya m’ word, I won’t be startin’ no fights in here.”

He wasn’t sure exactly why, but Darian felt like he could trust this fellow, so he said nothing more about the weapon. “Can I get you something to drink, sir? We have four local brews from kegs, and a dozen more in the cellar.”

The dwarf looked embarrassed for a moment, before he leaned in closer to the bar and almost whispered, “Have ya gots any… milk?” As if his request might be thought a joke, he explained further. “I’d prefer goat’s milk, although cow’s milk would do in a pinch.”

Darian blinked for a moment before resuming his cordial host-waiter persona. “Why certainly, sir, we have…uh, that vintage for you. Won’t be a moment!”

The half-elf ducked into the prep kitchen and quietly opened one of the coolers–kept cold due to the peculiar physiology of the ice-cold Remorhaz magically bound into its topbox–and retrieved a large pitcher of milk. He grabbed a tall tankard with a hinged lid and filled it close to the brim.

He returned to the main room as triumphant as an owlbear home after a successful hunt. “Here’s your ‘ale,’ sir!” he said with a wink, sliding the covered vessel towards the dwarf.

The dwarf leaned his glaive against the wooden bar, though he kept one hand on it just the same. With his other hand, he rummaged in a pouch under his chainmail armor and retrieved three silvers, which he placed in front of the half-elf. “Thankee kindly, friend. The name’s Pellanor,” the dwarf said, as he took a deep drink of the cool white liquid, “and I do appreciate yer hospitality. And you are?”

“Darian, they call me, and right back at you, squire!” the half-elf replied, scooping up the coins and depositing them into a thin-necked iron vessel that acted as the tavern’s till.

“So, young Darian,” Pellanor said, wiping the white remnants off of his upper lip, “would ya know of any adventuring types ‘round these parts?”

For the first time that day, Darian was at a loss for words. “When you say ‘adventuring types,’ whaddya mean, exactly?”

“I mean, strong, tough folk that would be willing to tackle some challenges, for good pay,” Pellanor replied.

“I dunno,” Darian replied. “We have plenty of retired warriors that come in here, like old Jeremiah over there.” Darian pointed at the big fellow who’d slapped him on the back. “But most of our clientele are farmers and traders, and most of them have come into town…”

Darian continued on, explaining the upcoming Harvest Festival in a few day’s time, but Pellanor’s attention had drifted away.

Now I know what those three meant when they suggested Peebleway’s would be more my style, he muttered silently to himself.

“...But if you hang around here long enough,” Darian said, just finishing up his lengthy explanation, “you might just find the right sort of person. Heck, even I’ve been considering the life of an adventurer lately.” He wiped the top of the bar with a more-or-less clean rag, while he stared out of the main window at the hills and meadows further east. “Life on the road. Living fully, freely, day to day. No one to answer to. No one needing you to clean this or prepare that. Living by your wits and the strength of your arms.”

“Ah, lad,” Pellanor sighed, “you make it sound more enchanting than it really is.”

Darian nodded. “Still, I’m sure there are plenty of folk out there who enjoy their freedom just the same.”

Just then, less than a mile away, a different half-elf had just suffered a blow to the head, and was seriously doubting if life on the road was really the dream she’d imagined it would be.