The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

by Pirateaba

  “Even if it is not?”

  “Especially then. You tell them what they need to hear. And sometimes, what they need to hear is nothing. Sometimes you just hold their claw and say goodbye. Sometimes…”

  —-

  Klbkch saw Pawn walking next to Zel Shivertail and couldn’t believe his eyes. He almost didn’t believe Xrn’s, but she had seen it too.

  “What a strange thing.”

  That was all she said. She hadn’t said much, just taken in everything on the march to Esthelm. Klbkch got the impression Xrn was saving up all her words for when she’d sorted out her feelings. Guiltily, he was looking forward to her reaction when it all came out.

  But for now, Klbkch just walked with Tersk and Xrn through Esthelm, explaining things for the other two Antinium, but Tersk mainly. Klbkch kept having to pause and stare at the people working, though. He felt a little twinge in his chest every time he saw a Human look up, jump at the sight of him, and then gingerly wave, or at the very least, not flee screaming.

  They came to an open square, where the smell of cooking was making Klbkch long for dinner already. He had already explained to the others that they would be eating Human, Drake, and Gnoll foods on this expedition—this seemed to have raised their morale quite a bit.

  But now Klbkch saw Erin, standing in the center of the square, next to a grave blooming with flowers and a rather tall stone marker, speaking energetically to a small group of Humans, two Gnolls, and a Drake. She had found a [Flautist], a man with a crude bell that was probably used to sound the alarm, a man holding a harp, and a group of people who could sing.

  “Revalantor Klbkch, what is that group of people doing?”

  Klbkch paused. He was unsure, although he thought he knew.

  “I think they’re—”

  All at once, Erin broke into song. She sang loud and clearly, startling everyone around her. They stared at her as the girl started singing a song that Ryoka Griffin would have recognized instantly.

  “Dashing through the snow, in a one-skeleton open sledge, o’er the fields we go, screaming all the way! Bells on Gnoll-tails ring, making spirits bright…”

  She gestured, and the man with the bell began hitting it rhythmically. The Antinium watched as Erin tried to teach the rest of the appropriated lyrics to the others. He could hear her shouting.

  “Come on, you don’t know this song? It’s famous! Don’t tell me you guys don’t have Christmas!? I’ve got so much to teach you all! Alright, on three, okay? One, two…”

  “Revalantor Klbkch, I do not understand. What is the purpose of this?”

  Tersk whispered it to Klbkch as the group began to sing. Klbkch heard the melody drifting throughout the city, caught by a breeze of wind. It was such a simple song, and yet it had a power of its own. People began to hum the song, or join in after a few repetitions.

  “What confuses you, Prognugator Tersk?”

  “What is the purpose of such an activity? Could not these people aid in some other task to better effect?”

  “Perhaps. But this is important too. It will inspire others to work faster. And…it has a value of its own.”

  “Which is?”

  Revalantor turned his face up to the sky as the music began to spread. He smiled, and wished he could close his eyes. He could not, so he just said one word.

  “Listen.”

  3.35

  In the city of Esthelm there was a slime. It oozed along the ground, leaving a trail as it went. It was a slime, a round little pebble of liquid with no real defining features besides its dark greenish brown insides, which pulsated as it moved.

  But it was a slime, and as of such it attracted a young woman who followed it as it slowly roamed across the broken rubble of the city. Erin Solstice stared, captivated by the tiny slime. It was like a small puddle come to life, and it looked incredibly cute to her, even if she was inhaling a noxious odor from the nearby sewer.

  She wanted to touch it. Erin was vaguely aware that even the cutest of monsters could be dangerous, but she assumed that a truly dangerous creature would have been destroyed on sight. So a touch wouldn’t hurt, right? She reached out to touch it.

  Above the city of Esthelm there was a herd of faeries. They held their breath as Erin reached out.

  “Erin! Don’t touch that!”

  Someone shouted at the girl and the faeries released their breath in a collective sigh of disappointment. They watched as a half-Elf ran over to Erin, scowling. Erin turned, looking hurt.

  “What? Why not?”

  “Erin, you can’t just go around touching monsters—especially slimes!”

  “Why? It doesn’t look that dangerous! What, is it acid or something?”

  “Don’t be insane. Acid slimes? Dead gods, Erin, what a thought! No, this one is…look, do you know what slimes are? How they’re made?”

  “Noooo….”

  “It’s very simple.”

  Ceria took a step back, pulling Erin away from the slime. It had begun rolling towards them, more inquisitively than with any real hostility. The half-Elf made a face.

  “Look, slimes are…well, they’re closer to Golems than anything else, although they are alive. Actually, they’re closer to jellyfish. Um. Do you know what those are?”

  “Of course I do!”

  Erin looked insulted. Ceria shrugged.

  “Some people have never seen the sea before. Anyways, slimes breed or spawn in bodies of liquid when the conditions are right. I guess some mana potions broke, or there were some already but—Erin, they take on the properties of their original liquid, get it? And this one clearly came from the sewer.”

  The watching faeries saw Erin take a second to piece this together. Then they heard her horrified exclamation.

  “Wait, you mean this is a poo slime? Aw!”

  They laughed as she practically ran away from the small slime. It wasn’t as satisfying as if she’d stuck her hand in it—or if she’d fallen and put her face in the slime—but it would have to do.

  The faeries flew across the city, pointing out more amusing sights for each other as they went. Esthelm was full of activity and four different species all trying to work together, and as such it was a highly amusing sight for the watching fae.

  That they didn’t swoop down and cause havoc or play tricks was perhaps the only sympathy the fae had to the people of Esthelm. At the moment they were content to simply be amused at mortal antics. What truly revealed their soft hearts though, was the fact that it had stopped snowing over Esthelm, even though fat snowflakes were falling several hundred meters away.

  The fae loved children, sweets, mortal fools and heroes, and tricks. Other things too of course, but those were fairly universal aspects among their kind. Only a few, the old or the odd, liked actually interfering with the fates to any real degree.

  Ivolethe didn’t like to meddle in mortal affairs, let alone Human, but she was of the mind it had to be done. And while she could watch Erin throwing rocks at the sewer slime forever, she reluctantly decided it was time.

  She chattered to her fellow faeries and flew off. She had a mission, or rather, a cause. It wasn’t necessarily fun, but she knew it was important. The reason and end was important, even if the doing of it was a pain.

  So the faerie flew away from Esthelm to a far more boring place. She flew up and up, and then sideways, and then in a direction not describable by words. Ivolethe flew through part of the world, and then flew through the air in the world and out of an empty bit of space behind a few books in a bookshelf. She sneezed and grumbled, brushing off dust from her wings as she circled the room.

  It was a very large room, and very grand too, although decorations had been forgone for a more austere, solemn appearance. This was a library, and as of such the towering bookcases, were imposing, despite the rich wood that made up their frames. The books were all first-edition, spotless, and magical too. Ivolethe flew by them, seeing the spells worked into the bindings to keep the pages from dirt or harm.r />
  And in that room sat a girl. She was Asian, dark haired, slightly darker of skin than most Humans on this continent, and taller than most Human females, if not Drake or Gnolls. She was athletic, her body toned, and could be considered attractive. Ivolethe personally thought Ryoka looked far too Human, but she had some affection for her ugly friend.

  But that affection ended when she saw Ryoka was still reading. The girl was sitting in a chair, knees drawn to her chest, flipping through a large and rather heavy tome whose pages looked like they had been gilded with gold. The girl did not notice Ivolethe flying towards her at all.

  “Stop reading, ye daft cow!”

  Ivolethe screamed in Ryoka’s left ear. The girl jumped and tried to get out of the chair and twist simultaneously. The chair rocked backwards and she hit the ground.

  “Ivolethe! Damn it, don’t do that!”

  Ryoka swore as she picked herself up. She reached for the book and made sure it wasn’t damaged before she glared at the faerie. But the little Frost Faerie was full of far more wroth than Ryoka; she buzzed around the young woman, shouting angrily.

  “Put down that book, fool! Go outside and do something! ‘Tis been forever and a day since you decided to stay here; stop dawdling and act!”

  Ryoka scowled. She put the book back on the table and turned to it.

  “It’s been only a few days. Two, Ivolethe. That’s not forever. Leave me alone and let me read, will you?”

  “Forever is a thought, not a number, fool. And I will not let ye waste away! There are things to be doing! Anything is better than staring at dusk and dead leaves and ink of the past!”

  Ivolethe sneered at Ryoka as she hovered in front of the girl’s face, getting in the way of the text. Ryoka swatted at her; Ivolethe danced aside and flew back in the way, impossible to touch.

  “Fine. Let me just finish this passage and I’ll go. Happy?”

  The faerie scowled and crossed her arms. She blew a stream of icy air upwards, but then acquiesced less than gracefully.

  “If ye must. But promise to put aside the book! Promise it!”

  Ryoka rolled her eyes, but she did promise. It was an oath made to a faerie, and she would not break that lightly.

  “I will be done in thirty minutes. Is that enough?”

  Ivolethe shook her head.

  “One!”

  “Twenty.”

  “One!”

  “Ten minutes, okay?”

  “Well…fine. But hurry up!”

  Ryoka sighed as Ivolethe floated back over to the bookshelves, to go see if Erin had found the dead raccoon corpse that was bobbing in the open sewer main. The young woman turned back to the book, frowning as she lost herself for a few more minutes in the tightly-written scrawl of words.

  It had been two days since the attack on Magnolia’s mansion. Two days and Ryoka had not left yet for Invrisil. Because she had had a thought. And that thought was…

  —-

  I really don’t like faeries. I mean, okay, they’re nice to be around sometimes, and they’re wondrous beings of nature and otherworldly marvels and yadda yadda, etc. But they don’t read. I don’t even think they keep written records; they were around far before the invention of such things, after all.

  So they have no patience at all with reading, except I guess if it’s about them. I can imagine a bunch of faeries finding a book about King Arthur or the fae. But they are like children in some respect.

  Noisy, angry children who can turn a library into a blizzardy hell if they get bored.

  Yes, I’m in Magnolia’s mansion. Yes, it’s been two days since she was attacked. The assassins are all dead, everyone’s patched up—hell, all the damage in the courtyard was gone the next day and I’ll just bet her sitting room is as perfect as it used to be. Magnolia and Ressa left the day after the attack, heading farther north to her estates.

  She left me with promises of assistance, subtly dire threats, and Reynold. Apparently he’ll be my guide in Invrisil, which will open some doors I guess. I could go check out the city and get all I need done at any time; hell, I can even take the carriage since I’m going with Reynold. Apparently that’s the second-hand one; Magnolia went off in her personal vehicle which can probably fly and shoot lasers. There’s no one stopping me from leaving.

  And yet, I’m still here. Yeah, that’s sort of surprising, but the reason I stayed is simple enough. Or rather, it’s a mix of reasons.

  One. I don’t have to go to Invrisil…at least, not to get some good work done. The best thing about being in a mansion full of [Butlers] and [Maids] and [Manservants] is that you can get them to do things. Like haul a bunch of artifacts over to the most reputable [Enchanter] in the city to get them appraised. Magnolia even suggested that bit; she’s willing to foot the not-inconsiderable bill to get them looked at, although I’ll have to be the one to pay for any repairs or what have you. I guess she wants to know what Ceria and the others found.

  As for all the deliveries, well, they can wait. Two days of waiting for their delivery is still a lot faster than you could ask for, especially since they’re coming all the way from Ocre.

  Right, so I don’t have to leave the mansion. But why would I want to stay? The answer’s simple for me, and I realized it the moment I saw Magnolia heading off in her carriage. When the cat’s away, the mouse has got to play*. Or in this case, the runner girl gets to poke around in her private home and find out all of her dirty little secrets.

  *Damnit, I don’t want to be a mouse. How about a rat? I could live with being a rat.

  …Anyways. I failed on that venture. Polite servants get less polite the more intrusive you get, it seems. And while Ressa the ninja-maid is gone, Magnolia’s got some scary maids. The Gnoll one is especially intimidating.

  So I failed to pry, but then I remembered that Magnolia has something else which is priceless: books. Frickin’ books. To be more accurate, a library, which is not a common convenience in this world.

  And she’s one of the most powerful women in the world. And this is her personal library. How could I not spend some time here figuring out, well, everything? My god, there’s probably more pieces of the puzzle of this world in this room than anywhere else. And…

  Yeah. It’s sort of boring trying to do research here. I won’t lie. Ivolethe has a point. It’s been two days. I’ve skimmed through over a hundred books at least, and read from dawn till dusk. I want to burn down this entire library and never read a word of cursive again. If I find the asshole who thought curly writing was a good idea…

  At least I have a way to read the books. I push back the pair of bulky lenses over my eyes as I peer at the book in front of me, trying to make the script out. I need these glasses, as ill-fitting and heavy as they are; they’re magical and can translate the multitude of languages in these books.

  But somehow, they still don’t translate weird handwriting. I swear, this was written by someone with two left hands. Which, considering the species in this world, might not be too far off.

  “‘In the fall of the Strygian Empire we find peace for a time. And yet, the dead still rise from every grave and haunt the few souls still living. Something still calls them back, and Ghouls are but the least of the undead who continue to reanimate. Fifteen Wraiths wiped out a village in one night, and I fear that the curse of the Untombed One still lingers on our land…’”

  Heavy stuff. I’ve got a pile of history books around me, and I’m currently reading through an account of some empire which fell a few thousand years back around these parts. I flip past that section. As fascinating as the history might be, I’ve read countless stories like this one.

  The history of this world is…vast. As far as I can tell, some accounts claim that civilization was flourishing even twenty thousand years ago. That’s incredible. You’d think that such a world would have entered into a modern or post-modern age, or at least come up with some sort of industrial revolution by now. And yet—

  When you read through the ac
counts of histories, skipping past the triumphal bullshit and the rewritten bits that make out each [King] as the one true savior and so on, it’s a simple picture.

  War dominates this world. War, and little else. Each record is the same. War. Peace. War again, after a few decades or just a year. A border conflict between two grand nations escalates; proxy wars break out in five different nations. War drags in an entire continent into war; a second continent begins to fight that one. War. An armistice is declared. More war.

  War.

  Few nations have the time to develop properly, I guess. Well, they might reach new technological heights, but that’s by this world’s standards, which means it generally comes in the form of mage-powered inventions, not science and steel. But in time, each nation or city will eventually find themselves fighting a battle to the death with someone else.

  It’s not Human nature. It’s the nature of all these species. That’s the issue, as I see it. There are countless species in this world and while one species might be content with peace, the others are angry, touchy, prideful, jealous bastards who’ll attack if they think things are unfair, which is, of course, always.

  And yet, by the same token, there’s never an end to the cycle, never a victor because it’s too hard. This world is far larger than our own; huge nations the size of the United States or Russia are normal countries around here, or even small. Forging a large empire that would put an end to wars by conquering everything in sight always fail due to a number of factors.

  The first is size. It’s too hard to expand and keep supply lines going. Too, a larger nation faces a much greater risk of internal strife or dissent from within. And even if a nation gets a proper transport system and bureaucracy running, such empires usually fail simply because the [Emperor] or [Warlord] gets old and dies.