by Wolfe Locke
The man leaped to his feet. “I can see just as well as anyone else! I just don’t see with my eyes. I keep aware of my surroundings—unlike you. I can sense you and your movements.”
Sven didn’t much like Basequin, but as the young man turned to go, something glinted at his waist. A sword and a good one at that
“Basequin!” he shouted as the young man walked away. “I’ve come here to the Near Islands to learn the way of the sword! I signed on as a cabin boy on the Wayfinder looking for adventure! I seek your guidance in finding a teacher who can make me a warrior!”
Basequin turned and stalked back toward him, back straight and dignified.
“This is too much information to tell a stranger,” he said haughtily. “But perhaps I can help you. The way of the sword is an honorable profession.”
From such an inauspicious beginning came Sven’s first real friendship. True to his word, the blind boy had helped him find someone who could train him in swordsmanship. The teacher he provided was old and doddering, but Sven was grateful for the opportunity and soon was learning the way of the sword, and specifically the kata.
Every morning at dawn, he rose to practice his katas and spent hours after training was done, building his strength and stamina with weights and drills.
He hadn’t seen Basequin since their initial interaction, but one day he saw the boy listening to his fight from behind the fence.
“You have talent,” Basequin said. “I’ve been watching you through the wind. You should train with me.”
They trained together from that day forward under Basequin’s master, and both grew stronger from the experience. Basequin told him stories of growing up an aristocrat in Hirado, and the frustrations that came with it and the cloistered life he was expected to lead.
He especially complained about the bland and simpering courtier he was expected to marry someday. In exchange, Sven told him of the Cobbles and his journey through Lemon Harbor, of the dreams he’d had looking up at the night sky in the Northern Lands. On the day their master told them they had no more to learn from him, they vowed to travel together through all of the Near Islands, fighting monsters and helping people.
So they did. For three years, Sven and Basequin had done just that. Sven had learned the languages and ways of the Near Islands. In exchange, Basequin had set aside his animosity toward the Northern Lands and vowed to return there with him one day.
But the vow was never fulfilled. Almost five years after they first met, Basequin was killed by an Elder Lich in a pointless battle on the Near Islands’ southernmost frontier. The Lich hadn’t even been causing anybody any trouble. It had been Sven’s idea to explore the crypt they had found, and he had never forgiven himself.
Sven wandered the Islands aimlessly for almost two years after that, trying to forget his friend, only to find himself once more back at Hirado City. As soon as he walked through the gates, Sven knew he couldn’t stay. He’d jumped on the first ship leaving the Islands and never gone back.
Back at the inn in the present day, Sven took another sip of his ale and wiped his face with a sleeve. It was hard to think about Basequin. He should be here now, drinking this piss ale with me. Even if he did swear on that cheap rice wine, he used to buy. It wasn’t fair that his friend had died young when so many terrible people still walked the earth. But that was life—it often wasn’t just, and you couldn’t expect it to be.
Thinking of justice reminded him of another friend, Rabbit the Brave, an exiled prince of the Dragon Kingdoms. Another friend Sven wished could be here with him today.
Sven had traveled for years after Basequin’s death. At first, he’d wandered out of grief; later, he did it because he liked it. Sven met new friends and enemies, seen the world, solved many kinds of unusual problems. He was doing everything he’d wanted to do when he was a kid.
He’d named himself Sven the Shatterfist after an imaginary warrior from the frozen north, but he’d never actually been there. And so, after years of avoiding it, he decided it was time to see what it was like.
One month into his trip, Sven decided he already hated it. He was in Veliky, a stark and featureless city surrounded by snowy trees in all directions. The people there painted their doors in bright colors to beat back oppression of the cold, but everything else was the same shade of gloomy gray.
The sun rose for two hours each afternoon. It struggled to clear the horizon. After the pitiful effort, it seemed like the sun just gave up and left the city in darkness for the rest of the day. There weren’t even any exciting monsters, either. Most of them hibernated all winter, except for the ones Sven wasn’t yet strong enough to handle. The only thing to do was go to the tavern, sit as close as possible to the fire, and drink yourself senseless.
That’s what Sven was doing when he met Rabbit. He was a long-legged hare the size of a man with big yellow teeth and a mandolin. Rabbit frequented an inn called The Crooked Cane which was a reference to its madam and not a bird. When he got too drunk, which was often, he would bang ineptly on the strings of the mandolin and sing a wailing tuneless song from somewhere far to the east. Rabbit was not popular in Veliky, but nobody tried to harm him, believing it would bring bad luck and ill fortune.
Sven was trapped next to Rabbit at a table one day, already half-drunk on cheap ale, when Rabbit started singing again. This one told of a maiden who hoped to wed a handsome bard but whose father had promised her to a ghost. It was impossible to tell what the rest of the story was because Rabbit cried throughout most of the song.
“What’s your problem?” Sven said, feeling more irritable than usual. Veliky was getting to him.
Rabbit turned his beady eyes on him. “Pardon? Did you say something?”
“You’re always singing on about craziness. What’s that about? Why are you crying?” Sven wanted to know, Rabbit’s persistence gloominess was interfering with his ability to get a buzz.
“You know,” Rabbit said, setting the mandolin down. “You’re the only person who’s ever asked me that.”
It turned out that Rabbit was not, after all, a washed-up drunk, but a dragon prince in exile. He had been trapped in the form of a man-sized rabbit and forbidden on pain of death from ever going home. All a punishment for attempting to seduce a more powerful prince’s concubine. He had not dealt with the situation well.
“And I don’t know if I’ll ever see the flaming spires of Merusdas again,” Rabbit wept. “Or my sister Kalzra, Destroyer of Men, and all of her little half-dragon hatchlings. And you’re all so hideous. I can’t fly. I can’t breathe fire. Everything in my life I enjoyed has been taken from me.”
Sven wanted to be annoyed with Rabbit, but he just felt conflicted emotions. Something that lay between empathy and amusement.
“Can you fight?” Sven said. “In this form, I mean. Not as a dragon.”
“Yes,” said Rabbit, eyes suddenly cold as ice. “I can fight. I’ve done it before, and I can do it again. You’d be surprised how many hungry animals think a giant rabbit is a worthwhile meal.”
Sven was surprised to learn that the dragon prince who had nothing more to lose was an absolutely terrifying warrior, at least by his standards. Sven hadn’t yet registered with the guild, but he would have been a Bronze ranked at the time. Not wanting to adventure alone, Sven took Rabbit out on some raids out of pity—nothing too serious at first, just some monsters that stayed active through the long northern winter—and was both impressed and disturbed by the hare’s dedication to battle. He wasn’t fully stable mentally in the fray of things, but Rabbit could be a whole lot of fun to watch.
“Yow ow ow ow,” they sang drunkenly one night in The Crooked Cane, making up a strange and clashing harmony. “Yow ow ow ow. And the maid could not be found!”
The other patrons edged away from them, shaking their heads. Sven scanned the room. He was growing bored. It felt like it was time to leave Veliky.
“Rabbit,” he slurred. “I’m heading south when the ice melts. Catch so
me real monsters, do some campaigns. Larger scale than we’ve been doing. Do you want to come?”
Rabbit grinned crookedly. “I’d like nothing more. And eventually—you want to know my dream?”
Sven did. “Tell it to me.”
“I want to go back to the Dragon Kingdoms. I want to reclaim my true form and my birthright. I’ve seen you fight. You’re a great warrior. Will you help me do this?” Rabbit asked him.
Sven agreed. He tried to help. They spent a year traveling together in all seasons and all manner weather, and Sven tried to convince himself that Rabbit’s dream would come true. Rabbit was crazy. Which was fair, but dragons were crazy, or at least Sven assumed they were.
What did Sven know of dragons, anyway? They had some good times and some great battles, but when they turned east toward the Kingdoms, everything went wrong.
Ten miles from the Dragon Gate, a shadow blocked out the sun, and the horses reared, terrified. Rabbit looked up.
“G-great-grandfather?” he stammered. “Sven this is bad.”
Swooping down to land in front of them was a dragon larger than Sven could ever have imagined. It was the size of a small island. A small, incredibly angry looking island.
“He’s the patriarch of my family line,” whispered Rabbit. “Do not upset him.”
“Why doesn’t he seem pleased to see us?” Sven said, stomach-dropping. He’d assumed that Rabbit had been mostly honest about his exile.
“Why are you here castoff? You know the law of exile.” The Primordial Dragon boomed in a voice of absolute authority.
“I’m the son and heir—” Rabbit stammered.
“A castoff is the heir of no one and son of nobody. I asked you, why are you here? You knew the consequences should you return.” The Dragon said.
Rabbit’s eyes went blank and scared. “I don’t—”
“Dismount your horse.” The Dragon demanded.
“I can’t—” Rabbit stammered
“Dismount your horse!” The Dragon yelled, louder.
Silently, looking like he was about to cry, Rabbit dismounted and approached the Dragon, and it turned a malevolent eye on Sven.
“Be gone fool,” it said to him. “and do not return to the Dragon Kingdoms on pain of death.”
“I—” said Rabbit, but he never got to finish his sentence. The Primordial Dragon opened its mouth, and the exiled prince was enveloped in flames that burned too intensely for Rabbit to even scream.
“Leave now with your life or join this castoff in his fate,” the Dragon said to Sven. Sven didn’t need to be told twice. Spurring his horse, he took off in the other direction as fast as he could and left the Dragon Gate far behind.
Sven never forgot the sight of the Rabbit on fire and made a vow to avenge him one day. One day, I’ll be strong enough.
Poor, crazy Rabbit. He was probably a bard, not even a prince. He had been brave, though. His friend must have known all along what would happen if he returned to the Kingdoms. But he’d had a dream, and that had kept him going through his long exile. It would have been hard for him to give that up, even if he knew it was a lie.
Sven realized it was late in the night, and he was most of the way through a cask of ale, so his thoughts turned where they always did when he’d had too much to drink. John Finley.
They’d met on a campaign in the Plains of Vittaria and bonded over their growing weariness of the near-constant travel and fighting that made up an adventurer’s life. Both had been born poor in a small city, both had been raised by their mothers, and both had worked on ships when they were very young. They’d had so much in common that they’d stayed in touch after the campaign ended, writing to each other via eagle messenger. The head of the adventurer’s guild had recruited them both.
Sven’s days of adventuring just for the fun of it had ended, so they never traveled together in the same way he had with the friends of his youth. But they joined each other’s campaigns and missions when they were able to. Finley was a good fighter—not as talented but Sven, and hadn’t aged well, but a good fighter just the same.
When they talked about the future, Sven had never been able to envision a life outside of what he was already doing: raiding, adventuring, monster-killing, on into old age. That had always been his problem. Finley, though, had known he wasn’t long for the game.
“Aye Sven, you know I’ve got a few years on you. I’m about done. I’ve almost got enough to buy a little house by the sea,” he’d said. “Just one more raid. One more.”
Unlike many of the adventurers who were always claiming they were on their last campaign; Finley had actually meant it. He got out. He would write to Sven from that house by the sea, and his descriptions were so vivid that Sven almost felt like he was there. Even in a miserable dungeon or windswept moor, he could close his eyes and imagine that neat little house with walls the color of the summer sky.
“Come visit me next time you’re free,” Finley had said. “I’ve got a spare room. We can drink and fish all we want. Or go into the city, I can introduce you to some girls.”
Sven had planned to. He really had. But there was always one more monster, one more party to escort, one more dungeon to raid.
In the end, he’d never gone. Finley had made some enemies in his time abroad, and one of those enemies from his past had followed him home one night. His maid found him dead in the morning, throat cut, blood all over the bed.
It had kept Sven up nights to think of it. Finley had left the adventuring life, but the life hadn’t left him. And if even Finley, who’d known exactly what he wanted, hadn’t been able to do it, how would Sven?
The room was gray with pre-dawn light by the time Sven had finished the cask of ale. But he had made his decision. He knew what his new inn was going to be called. It was a tribute to all the friends he’d lost along the way and a way of keeping them in his memory. Hopefully, their spirits could live on here in peace, even if they were long gone in body.
As the sun rose, Sven strode outside, a wooden sign in his hand. He basked in the warm sunlight for a moment, then hammered the sign into the dirt with two powerful blows. Then he stepped back to appraise it.
No, not quite. Sven reached into his [Spatial Ring] and pulled out a charcoal pen and quickly scribbled a lyre, a sword, and a dagger to represent the friends he’d lost who’d set him on the path of adventuring. He would remember them, even if no one else did.
He smiled at the sign, and at the inn, and at its new name: The Adventurers’ Rest. His great work, his new dream, was about to begin. He passed by Lloyd on his way back inside, the old bartender already ready for the day. “Don’t wake me anytime soon.”
Chapter 9: The Clumsy Barkeep
It turned out that running a tavern wasn’t as easy as Sven had imagined.
Lloyd had helped to get him set up, but the bartender’s time was divided between staffing the bar and developing The Adventurer’s Rest’s soon-to-be signature ales. That took up a lot of time and left Sven to man the tavern alone more than he’d like. While he was excited about Lloyd’s creations, he found himself wishing they could just use The Crazy Pony’s ale for a while until things got more settled. Besides, serving the drinks is harder than it looks.
Sven had trained for one career all his life. He’d been an adventurer, and he’d been damn good at it. Foolishly, he’d assumed that any job he did after that would be easy. But the skills that were required to be a good tavern owner seemed to be the exact opposite of those required to be a good fighter.
For starters, Sven wasn’t as agile anymore as he needed to be. He had a lifetime worth of scar tissue and damage to joints and ligaments, that outside of a fight, was hard to ignore and Sven really hated the idea of having to limber himself up before his shift to serve drinks.
He barely fit behind the bar, and every time he tried to pour a stein of ale in his large hands, Sven found he struggled to work the taps. When he and Lloyd worked together, Sven felt ridiculous. He was three times the
bartender’s size, and where Lloyd could easily squeeze between casks and crates to grab a patron’s obscure request, Sven was totally unable to do so. Often, when he was working the bar alone, he had to tell customers they were stuck with ale and ale alone—the only thing he could reach. Every time that happened, Sven felt like a clumsy oaf.
This was clearly a mistake. I should have made the bar bigger. I should have thought about this. He shook his head and looked out at the smiling, very drunk patrons and answered with a smile himself. A problem for another day. "Salut! Salut!" The cheer was answered to the roar of laughter as most of the patrons took a shot.
Despite Sven’s personal difficulties, the tavern was immensely popular right from the start. His idea of creating a place where all adventurers of every level could come together was a huge hit and sorely needed in the adventuring community. It helped that the tavern was conveniently located on the route to most of the popular dungeons and a guild controlled waypoint for fast travel.
Almost every table was full every night, even on Mondays, Sven’s slowest day, when most adventurers were recovering from the fighting and debauchery of the weekend. It warmed Sven’s heart to see C-Rankers drinking at the same table as A-Rankers. The C-Rankers learned skills and wisdom from their elders, and the A-Rankers were reinvigorated by the energy and enthusiasm of their younger comrades. Everyone won in this situation. Sven laughed, seeing more than a couple of the adventurers have to rush outside and hang over the rails. And everyone learned that ales before liquor never been sicker.
On Tuesdays, Lloyd staffed the bar alone and Sven was able to mingle with the customers. He comped the rounds and would roam the tavern, mingling and laughing at people’s jokes. He listened to the excited stories of young adventurers who’d just come back from conquering their first dungeon. Each time he got a few nervous looks from people new to the bar and put off by his size and power, but they quickly learned to love rather than fear him. Everyone had suggestions, and he took all of them to heart.