Pitted cobblestones wind their way down a low hilltop, the scratchy grassland around it looking patchy and poorly tended. The road begs for repair, but no mason has traveled this way in a very long time with any intention of lingering too long. A small hamlet of clustered buildings lay near the base of the hill, windows cracked and shuttered, the few people seen outside walking with downcast eyes. Everything around the little town looks dead or close to it. The waterlogged land around it looks to have once been a successful farm, but now only meager and drooping crops are grown in the small spaces between puddles of brackish water. The only thing that doesn’t stink of decay are the large flower beds that adorn the foundations of nearly every house and structure. Roses bloom in defiance of the stagnation around them. A learned man may make the connection that these flowers once earned this small hamlet its name, their variety of colors and vibrancy celebrated across the kingdom. Now, whatever force has stricken the lives and bodies of this region, has turned the proud namesake into a perverted mockery of itself. Vile thorns grow long and sinister along the twisting stems, the bulbs bursting into petals of a dark black color with a bit of pearlescent purple.

The sun is a red ball hovering over the horizon on Kirklan Bay, nearly fully set. The glow of the waning light has forced many inhabitants indoors, the poor light of candles and lanterns glinting through the cracks of shutters. Only one establishment even seems halfway receptive to travelers; a sagging and dilapidated tavern. The sign that dangles from one hook above the door bears the chipped and peeling likeness of a beautiful girl. The name “The Lovely Maiden” can be read with some difficulty below the portrait. This poor excuse for an inn has become a beacon within the town, the fat tavern keeper rubbing his hands with greedy glee at the amount of new business he has had lately.

Inside, seated on stools, benches, or even just their own packs, are all manner of strangers. Most look like hard men and women, their belts carrying weapons, their faces crossed with scars as they drink and wait. Some of those waiting are clothed in more simple attire, reading books and jotting notes in their journals. And some are simply vagabonds, clothed in little more than rags, kicked aside by the mercenaries. Some have been here for days, others having only just arrived. All have come here for one reason: to answer the call cast out by a mysterious employer, looking to make themselves rich on gold and artifacts promised.

Today the crowd is especially anxious. Today is the day that the contract said would be the final meeting time. Today they were all supposed to meet their new employer and start this job. Yet still, they wait. The hours drag on, and as the sun sinks below the horizon and darkness falls upon the hamlet many of the gathered hopefuls pick up and leave. There are mutters and mumbles of hoax and con, curses spat and a few especially drunk patrons upturning their chairs or tables as they leave. And still no one makes themselves known. As the tavern slowly empties, there are left only the most devoted, or the most desperate. The tavern keeper returns from his back room bearing a tray of nine mugs. He places the mugs down on top of a rough linen napkin in front of nine remaining patrons casually, as if only filling an order they have placed.

Underneath each piece of cloth is a single black rose petal, and a word hastily written in black charcoal.

Stable

Although he had hitherto not perceived any indication of fatigue, despite having stood leaning against the wall near a dim corner for what seemed to have been the best part of the day, finally contriving to seat himself upon the segment of a bench vacated by a corpulent adventurer was for Ectemund a singularly relieving experience. Nor was the elation exclusively physical in nature: notwithstanding the undeniable fact that the fewer participants were eventually to set off upon this expedition, for such it seemed it would be, after all, the fewer assets its body would have disposed of, a lesser number of them would likewise have entailed less distracting and fundamentally unnecessary tangents, not to mention a lesser likelihood of provision shortages, which could certainly not be defined as an unwelcome development. Besides, the vast majority, not to say the visible entirety, of those present appeared to him to belong to such sorts as more often constituted an obstacle to one's endeavours than anything else, unconcerned as they were with anything beyond practical, palpable and often perceived benefits; not that such a stance was in itself more reprehensible than many others, he allowed, yet it was little more than a nuisance when encountered on a serious venture, similarly to stinging gnats and damp weather. Ah, as concerned damp weather...

Ectemund winced as he abruptly straightened his arms and right leg, which were beginning to wax torpid through their lengthy inaction, and their junctures snapped into place with what must have been an audible report, accompanied by a brief, yet pernicious burst of pain and an unpleasant sensation of brittleness in his limbs. The journey to Roses had led him into a swampy region whose exhalations, which a stouter and, perhaps, younger constitution than his might have shrugged off with comparative ease, had seeped into his bones, rendering them, it seemed to him, water-logged and prone to such rupture-like accesses. Truly, he had been assured by a physician some months before that such symptoms were the forerunners of some chronic ailment as inevitable as the end itself, which would have overtaken him no matter where he might have strayed; yet he was nonetheless convinced that the land he had now wandered into had at least precipitated its advent. Had Sigismund not mentioned rumours of some nefarious influence surrounding this place? Ah, the tricks blind fear of the unknown all too often played upon the imagination... There was surely nothing preternatural in the weariness of his frame, and he wondered just how great a part of those voices had been engendered by some outrageously prosaic cases of illness, as it had all too frequently been the case with "cursed" bogs and marshes he had encountered in the course of his studies.

He caught himself upon his own thoughts. Nay, sceptical jesting aside, there was, in sooth, something curious about the town and, as far as he had seen, the forest beyond it. The desolation and dilapidation he had witnessed were, in themselves, neither extraordinary nor interesting; however, from a number of minutiae he had observed in their appearance, there did seem to exist some particular set of conditions to them, the perfect likeness of which he did not recall having heretofore beheld. The local plant life was markedly bizarre, with such elements as black flowers, an abnormal proliferation of lichens on virtually any organic surface, including grass, and most inorganic ones as well, and misshapen horrors which might have been the distant, degenerate descendants of farm crops standing toe-to-toe, if such an expression was appropriate, with the hardiest of weeds. A mere glimpse of this forsaken stock would doubtless have rendered his esteemed botanical colleagues ecstatic, and had recalled to his mind a previous experience in the environs of a long-abandoned woodland shrine which, he had been told, radiated a dark corruption, and had proved a most fascinating find indeed. There was, of course, the possibility of all these splendid abnormalities being eventually discovered to originate from some perfectly explicable cause, yet was that not always the case? For now, the environs of Dunwick Manor shewed promise, and this was the utmost which could be hoped for at this stage.

Having reassured himself on this account, Ectemund cast a glance about the tavern, which by that time had grown largely deserted. The remaining figures seemed, in the evening penumbra, not to differ exceedingly from the majority of those who had gathered, with high yet fragile hopes, in the morning. Nonetheless, a sudden thought drove him to squint his right eye in alarm and attempt to repeat the survey as inconspicuously as possible. After all, what assurance did he have that one (or more, or all) of these shapes might not be intently scrutinising him, awaiting the most suitable moment to nonchalantly approach him and request "some moments of private conversation", perhaps fingering a hilt under their cloak to lend their low tones further emphasis? Had not both Erfried and Hulzen been accosted by such gentlemen within the last year, and refused to set foot without the University ever since? The warden's contact in Asterwatch was safe, of that there was no doubt; yet was there not a danger that, unbeknownst even to them, this invitation of sorts might have been a scheme to lure out the most zealous investigators of - he winced - "unsavoury" matters? Admittedly, the King probably had better occupations to fill his time than these. But the King had many subordinates, each of whom doubtless aspired to be rewarded for some display of initiative. And who, it may be asked, would be the ideal casualties of their ploys, if not the aforementioned investigators, who were of no use - no use! - to anyone either way?

Lost, despite himself, in such grim reflections, Ectemund barely restrained himself from gathering into a defensive posture when the grinning innkeeper approached him with a loaded tray and set down a mug before him. Somewhat mystified, inasmuch as he had not called for anything of that sort, he peered disconsolately at the mug's contents. It was not far worse than the usual University fare, especially now that funds were running low (they had been running low for as long as anyone could recall), but it was nonetheless not something with which he was impatient to make his throat acquainted. Thereupon he noticed a startling detail - a napkin. Not even in the most opulent taverns he had lodged in had he been treated to such a luxury, and its presence in such a forlorn place as this one was puzzling at the very least. Lifting the scrap of cloth to examine it, he saw that beneath it lay a petal of one of the curious black flowers which abounded about the town, and upon its nether side there was scrawled a word - "Stale". No, "Stable". More baffled than ever, Ectemund lifted his gaze and scanned the room once again, but could barely discern anything in the gathering darkness. Seeing no other alternative, he attempted to suppress his apprehension, which was far from being dispersed by the cryptic message, and awaited any further developments with as imperturbable a mien as he could muster.

Three days.

Head hanging low, her gloved fingers peeled and picked at the chipped, rotting wood of the bar’s countertop; a barely touched plate of food that resembled gruel and tasted like sawdust sat next to the growing pile of flecks of wood. It was a mix of nerves and impatience that drove Tanis to slowly dismantle the dilapidating bar chip-by-chip. The woman was tucked away in the furthest seat from the door, her shawl draped over her head as if it were a barrier shielding her from the rest of the tavern. On the first day she had sat as close to the door as possible so that she could discreetly inspect any of the greedy miscreants that walked through the creaky doors of The Lovely Maiden and perhaps even engage in some pleasant small talk. On the second day she busied herself at a table with her mortar and pestle as she eavesdropped on the conversations and the concerns of the treasure hunters around her.

The third day, however, she kept to herself. There was something about this town that was weighing down on the Fae woman that just exhausted her, as if she spent her hours lugging around a heavy pack full of herbs instead of sitting around a dumpy tavern or taking long walks through a sad, little village. The atmosphere in Roses was peculiarly heavy, largely from the shadow of the manor looming on the hilltop above like a guillotine’s blade. However, the rest of the backwater added to her unease as well, from the humid air to the shifty peasants. She almost felt ill, although perhaps that was just a minor case of food poisoning—three days in a row she had dined in the tavern, although only because she was certain the fat, greedy owner would rent her room to another (perhaps one that’d buy two or twelve of his overpriced drinks like the rest of the riff raff that seemed to be drawn to this place) if she did not spend any extra coin.

Tanis knew what the real problem was, however, or at least she convinced herself that it was the source of her discomfort. It wasn’t the dark and dreary hamlet, nor the unfriendly and suspicious hayseeds, nor was it even the throngs of cutthroats and cutpurses that surrounded the elven apothecary in that rundown, hodunk little town. It was because Tanis believed that she, the little Fae kitchen girl from a foreign empire with a nasty habit of biting the hand that feeds, was the most, if not the only, educated person in the area. There was a disturbing sense of loneliness that came with that arrogant thought, and it was a sadly common feeling she had while travelling in the countryside. Roses was uncivilized; Tanis decided once she was done here she’d go to more civilized cities, and then she chuckled under her breath at the ridiculous idea—as if the “intellectual” people in cities were civil to the Fae. She was just as likely to hang swinging from a beam in the ritziest of hotels as she was in a dump like this, with the only difference being the quality of the rope.

No, there had only been one place, or rather in a place with one person, that she felt both equal to and at ease with, and that person was now gone thanks to the same damned cretins that filled this shithole. Her yellow eyes glanced up at the mirror behind the bar to cast a spiteful, judgemental glance at what she assumed to be a room full of mercenaries. One of them, certainly, possibly, hopefully knew who were responsible for the slaughter of the Ashworth Company and the murder of her, her—Tanis felt her chest ache as her throat tightened. It hurt as much to think about it as it did to try and forget it. Taking her shawl, she dabbed her eyes clear and picked up the wooden spoon that was desperately trying to escape from the gruel before reluctantly shoving it into her mouth. It was disgusting and cold and strangely sour, but the nasty taste was distracting and she needed to eat to settle the acid bubbling in her stomach.

A mug clanked down in front of Tanis, startling her with a jump. She looked up at the grimy, overweight man as he fixed on her a frown. Quickly her eyes darted back down to the countertop.

“Sorry, sir,” she said, unsure of why she was apologizing outside of the fact that it was a force of habit nowadays. “But I didn’t order this. I don’t drink,” she clarified, as if it would somehow matter in resolving the bartender’s error.

Yet clearly the man did not think he made a mistake or he just did not care; already he was dropping mugs off at other tables. Tanis sighed and sunk into her seat, gazing into her own reflection in the dark mug of ale before her. She had only ever drank once before, and that was only because a human lordling that had wandered down into the halls of the kitchen in a pathetic attempt to seem caring had insisted that the staff join him in a beverage. It had made her sick, and years later when she was studying for her trade and read more about alcohol she became convinced that it was absolutely idiotic, no, suicidal to ever imbibe in such a thing. What sort of lunatic would fill their body with a weak poison that lowers motor skills and impairs judgment? When she left her sheltered world from the Roth’s Estate and saw the effects of booze on men in full force, Tanis was absolutely certain that she had made the correct choice in never touching the swill to her lips again—although ale did serve as a good agent for masking the flavor of other, more instantaneously lethal ingredients.

And they had all been drunk the night of the attack.

All of them but her, of course. She pushed the drink away in disgust only to slosh some of the liquid over the lip of the mug and cause it to splash down on her wrist. Grumbling and quickly grabbing off her glove so that the ale did not seep into the material, Tanis lifted the mug up and pulled out the napkin beneath it. A rose petal fell free from the cloth and beer dripped from her wrist as she looked at the message scrawled upon the napkin: Stable. She smiled and shook her head, but wasted little time in dropping a few coins onto the table, drying her hand and gloving up, brushing her pile of woodchips unto the floor where they mingled with the rest of the garbage, and standing up with a stretch. The sooner this was all down with the better; she had already wasted three days in Roses and at the rate the innkeeper charged for the dives that he called rooms she would not be able to justify three more. If this all proved to be a kind of hoax, a dead end, then at least she’d already be in the stables: her saddlebags were already packed.

Tanis took a look around the room before she headed towards the door, curious to see who else had been chosen by the innkeeper. It was a fast, unhelpful glance because almost instantly her yellow eyes met with the stare of a haggard, pale man and quickly her view returned towards the floor in front of her. Quickening her pace, the Fae pushed through the door and stepped out into the nearly abandoned hamlet of Roses. The dying light of the sun hit her directly in the eyes. The added warmth forced her to pull the shawl down from her head as she shielded her eyes with her palm, her hand unintentionally brushing her hair to the side allowing for her scars to peak through. Her boots stomped through muddy excuses for streets as she made her way to the stables, passing by a few silent households and a bucketless well that had seen better days.

It wasn’t shortly after the stables came into view that the uneasy feeling inside of Tanis arose again and forced her dead in her tracks. There wasn’t anything particularly unnerving about the stables themselves, really. It was no more rundown than the rest of the village, and she had been there days ago to drop off her donkey and secure her supplies, yet the sight of it now filled her with an inexplicable dread. Taking a deep breath, Tanis tried to pretend that the feeling wasn’t there and pushed forward until she was upon the darkened entrance. She couldn’t hear the sounds of her donkey braying or chewing on hay and that struck her as odd, for usually the animal was anything but quiet. Apprehensively, with every bone in her body screaming and straining to force her muscles to turn and go the other way, she set one foot inside the doorframe, followed by her hands gripping the edge, a curtain of brown hair, the tips of her ears, and her golden, shaking eyes.

“Hello?” she called out into the dimly lit stables. A sudden concern gripped her: she hadn’t actually been invited. True, the letter was vague, but the letter sender might have sent it only to certain people. Quickly, she spewed out her cover story into the air: “I’m sorry if I’m intruding, but I overheard some mumblings and thought that perhaps I could maybe offer some small assistance. I know a thing or two about medicine and, uh, I...”

She clammed up and there was an unnerving silence. A chill ran through her spine and the woman stepped backwards away from the entrance, shaken by her mind playing tricks on her. This pathetic, oppressive town was getting to her. She smiled at her own childlike behavior and took a start towards the entrance only to reconsider before her boot even pulled fully out of the mud. Embarrassed at herself even though she was certain nobody was watching, Tanis pretended to be distracted by digging through the contents of her bag. Surely one of the others from the tavern would arrive shortly and then she would follow after them into the stables, but there was no way that she would go in alone. Absolutely not. Call it a sixth sense. Call it a woman’s intuition. Call it whatever you like, Tanis knew what it was. It had been creeping around her these past few days, and now it had finally made itself apparent.

She was afraid.

It was nigh sundown by the hour young Maralefe reached the ruddy, pathetic excuse for a tavern. Aye, she resided in a slum in Asterwatch, but this unruly hamlet made her home region seem as a luxury palace. The closer to the establishment she drew, the more she desire to turn tail and venture back to the streets that she knew better than anything else in the world. However, she had a goal to reach, therefore she trudged on.

Presently, she stepped from the dark street and into the musty tavern. The foremost sense that reached the girl was the foul stench of poorly brewed ale, nearly bringing her to gag at the smell. The second was the sight of the mass of strangers that patronized the barkeep's pocket. She could not possibly entertain the thought that this mud hole commonly held this amount of drunken sods.

The young girl adjusted her dark blue hood to rest upon her head and cover her bladed ears. She brushed a lock of brown hair and brushed it to the side, clearing her vision. As her blue eyes adjusted to the low light of the room, she surveyed the space for an empty seat. Her face drew into a scowl as she found no vacancy, the scar through her right eyebrow becoming far more visible. Whatever pathetic shred of optimism residing within her faded as she spotted an overturned bucket in the farthest corner of the tavern.

With her spirits slightly dampened, she crept over to the corner. As she moved, she could feel the eyes of several men land on her, fully aware that her figure betrayed her young age. As she turned to sit, she saw that there was only one scrawny man remaining that looked at her. She placed her satchel on the floor, drawing her coat from her shoulders, but leaving the hood of her blue tunic upon her head. Now with the absence of her coat, she gave the man a clear view of the flintlock strapped to her backside. No it did not fire, but Maralefe was the only present with such knowledge. To her satisfaction, the man averted his gaze.

She placed her rump on the overturned bucket and leaned against the wall. She was frankly unaware of any possible next move. She had come to this rancid place looking for her promised fortune, but she had foolishly come with no idea of where she should proceed next. Unfortunately for her, she was rather impatient, therefore as the minutes passed by, she came to feel as though she'd been waiting for an hour. She closed her eyes as the excruciating pain of waiting tore at her mind.

She sighed as she felt the exhaustion of travel peeked at mind, so she forced herself to keep her eyes open. She spent nearly two weeks journeying from Asterwatch. The only relief she'd received was when she had snuck onto the back of a merchants caravan. Unfortunately for her, she'd only been on the caravan when one of them quite literally threw her off, leaving her to walk to the nearest village. This exhaustion reminded Maralefe that she was very ready to sleep, but she fought against it. Her fight did not last long, however, as her eyes slowly drifted shut and she fell to her exhaustion.

Her slumber lasted to the moment when a hand touched her shoulder, jolting her awake. Per a instinctive motion, the girl ripped her knife from a leather strap on her thigh, but stopped herself from striking when she observed that the barkeep had woken her. The fat man placed a mug on the now-vacant stool a few feet from her, then lumbered back to his bar.

Maralefe squinted at him. What was this bloke's ruse? He wouldn't just hand her a full pint of ale without her paying for it. Perhaps he expected her too. If he did, however, he would take his own jest, as she hadn't a single coin on her person. She also didn't drink any kind of intoxicating drink. She knew what it'd done to her father, so she made positive to stray from it's effects.

She was about to turn from the pint, but the corner of her eye caught a sliver of white, trapped beneath the cup. She frowned, then picked up the mug, seeing a cloth underneath it. She almost shouted the profanities that passed through her head as she saw letters etched on the cloth next to a black rose pedal. She snatched the cloth and placed the mug back down, looking back at the barkeep, but he was preoccupied elsewhere.

She gritted her teeth and laid her head against the wall. Of course, after all this time, all this traveling, the factor that destroyed her chances of wealth was her damned inability to read. She felt frustrated tears peek at her eyelids. Tander would be fuming at her for taking a job so mysterious and stupid. She pound the back of her head against the wall a single time, trying to think of what to do.

The girl looked around the room, dread filling her throat. She was about to give up and leave, but her eyes widened as she spotted a woman across the room, from whose mug fell a white cloth, just like hers. A black pedal also fell from the cloth and onto the table. She watched the woman stand, and Maralefe discreetly copied suit, sliding her jacket on and shouldering her satchel. She waited as the woman left, then quickly followed after. She stepped outside onto the muddy road and wasted until the woman was of ample distance away, then scurried after her. When the woman stopped near a stable, Maralefe ducked into the adjacent alley. She climbed upon a flimsy building, pulling her small body onto the thatch roof, carefully balancing herself so that she remained out of site, but could still see the woman.

She sat and waited.

---

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Hundreds of wooden skeletons splintered off their branches when a great whistling gust blew through the woodlands, throwing their snapped carcasses to the sloppy earth until a menacing dartboard lie hidden amongst the scattered leaves, a forested minefield thrusting a million jagged hands out for the next foot to trigger an explosion of pain. A shadow crawled over the hidden danger, then meaty toes stomped down on several spikes, crushing pine needles inside each fleshy pad.

“A-youch!”

The distressed foot dragged backwards through the muck, wiping the sharp intruders against the slick mud only seemed to deepen their hold. The foot sprang up onto the exposed knee of torn leggings, a brawny hand snatched at the wooden thorns attacking the calloused underfoot. Reuben curled his whiskered lips inside his mouth at each painful pluck, and though his foot had gone smooth his toes still throbbed like the heating coils of a stove. A sigh puffed out his nostrils and the abused foot settled atop the other one, standing cross-footed as his navy eyes swept over the downed leaves in search of a makeshift booting. Another sigh blew past his parched lips upon finding none, and his hairy chin turned down to the stretch of jagged mud before him, “If I knew I’d be walking over the devil’s mud I mightn’t have loan my boots to that nun. Good thing I didn’t see this comin’.”

Reuben bent towards the prickly mud and pinched his thick fingertips around a shaft, plucking the woodchip up from the brown sludge and over his shoulder. A playful melody bounced around his chest as his plucking hands cleared out a pathway through the minefield, though his eyelids narrowed into a wince at every sharp thing to push at his bare soles, “…missed another one…” His browned cheeks were speckled in mist as his hunching figure approached a thick fog curled around the tree line, and his brow crinkled at the low visibility ahead, where the forest had been reduced to ominous shadows standing in the sunset bleeding through. His lips parted in a moment of silence, then a breath curled away from his mouth, “Roses.” His nose immediately scrunched up into a tooth-baring grit at the stomach-churning sound, and a broad hand pat onto the dirtied shirt covering his stomach, “Bloody Hell if there weren’t a more snot-colored name than Roses.”

Mud encrusted his beaten toes with the consistency of a bucket of vomit, vomit that had gone dry sitting under an open window all noon and hardened into a drippy paste against the pale’s interior, crawling inch by inch down those wooden planks as a trail of snot would a leaky nose. Reuben’s mouth crumpled into a wincing frown at every squish, squash, squick! of his bare feet sinking deeper into the brown vomit. “Stop thinking about it.” Reuben banged his tightened fists against his temples, darting his crumpled face up to the ceiling of fog drifting overhead. Roses are yellow. Violets are green. That gory fellow, is drinking his spleen. “Stop. Thinking about it.” Reuben’s hands clamped onto his tussled hair, nails scraping across his scalp as yesterday’s potato stew cooked itself again inside his warming belly. He stood in place amidst the darkened forest, his clenched eyelids traveled to the warmth of his wife’s bosom squished under his cheek at night. A sharp breath finally shot out his nose, and his square head shook side to side, “I absolutely hate this town already.”

His feet slapped down on tiny pincushions littering the soil until his toes finally brushed through slick grass upon passing the tree line. He immediately scrubbed his soles clean against the blades, a cold wind swept through his chocolate bangs spinning chaotically before his squinting eyes, and both hands flipped up the collar of his shirt against his unshaven cheeks, ‘There she is.’

A tribe of thatched roofs squatted over the rising hilltop, coughing smoke clouds into the setting sun through weathered chimneys missing several of their bricks. Brown grass rolled over the hilltop as if the sun steamed away their vibrant color, and the few trees spanning their canopies over the rooftops hunched over the muddied streets like old men. “Man these people live worse than slaves.” Reuben crossed both arms over his hunching chest, trembling hands tucked into his sweaty armpits as another cold blast sent his eyelids squinting behind his tussled bangs, “Why’s it so bloody cold out here? My island blood could cube a glass of water by now.” His narrowed eyes darted towards candlefire glowing down the middle of closed shutters, and his caked nails scrubbed at the back of his stocky neck as a puff of aggravation blew out his nose, ‘Where is this damned place alread…’ His head snapped towards a heavy door standing on his right and his eyes crawled up a chipped sign shapened into a woman’s figure, “Ah, almost missed it. Did you miss me?” His mouth crumpled into a frown at the unamused door.

Reuben pressed a hand to the oaken door and pushed it forward a mere inch – a clamor of wild strings never smacked him in the face, nor the roaring of drunks bruised the other eardrum, only a silent wind blew out this tavern. “Well then. Perhaps a little odd for these hours.” A creaky groan announced his entrance as the heavy door squeaked forward in its hinges, and the broad-shouldered man standing in the doorway swept his crinkled eyes over the bowels of the tavern. Any cutthroat would tell you never to sit with your back facing the entrance and his eyes immediately hopped to the round tables seated along the corners of the room, though poisonous shadows tended to lurk there. His chin raised to afford his eyes a better glance over the metal heads seated down a lengthy table stretched over the center of the tavern, and his muddy feet strode that direction on instinct where he could see everyone walking through the front door.

Reuben stepped foot over the splintered bench, dropped his bottom to the creaky seat, and his reddened nose scrunched at woodchips stabbing through his thin leggings, ‘Maybe I should have looked with my eyes instead of my bum.’ He glanced over his right shoulder at a shadow inching across the floorboards that grew into a barmaid balancing a wooden platter upon her fingertips before he felt comfortable turning away. He folded his burly hands together on the worn tabletop, staring down at brown nicks marking his thumbs before lowering his wrinkled forehead onto them, ‘I feel like I can’t close my eyes in this place.’ Though his eyes were turned to the table, his ears were still open, following the steady thump of approaching boots. The bench shook under the weight of another patron, and Reuben turned his head up to an armored man raising a mug to his bushy mustache, guffawing at a crew of bandits shielded in silver armor and furred hats squishing down their unruly locks as they smashed their overflowing mugs together.

‘Wonderful. I was in need of a distraction.’ Reuben shot upright in his seat, and widened his drowsy eyelids to a gaping stare at the front entrance. A gloved finger aimed across the table at his swollen eyes amidst a hearty chuckle: “Look like ya seen’ed a ghost good man.”

Reuben merely cocked a brow at a bearded helmet seated further down, “Indeed I saw the maiden of sleep calling for me and made my eyes wide to discourage her.”

“Ah sleep.” The barbarian dropped his tankard to the tabletop, rum splashed over the scuffed wood and wet his curved knife drawn across the panels. His gloved hand stroked the tarnished steel and a hay-colored beard hanging below his helmet shook as he chuckled, “Can hardly sleep a wink with all these bastard thieves and elves rolling through – ain’t caught eyes on any ‘a those have you?”

Reuben’s eyelids squished together, and for a few moments all he could muster was a rasping exhale through his nostrils. He opened his blue eyes to the brute awaiting his response, and raised both brows, “No. Haven’t counted any thieves in these parts.”

“Elves too.” He waggled a thick finger at him, before the hand fell onto the rim of his mug. “You see any goddamn elves, thieves, grave robbers, general scumbags stroll through these parts you holler at us.” Reuben furrowed his brows at them for a moment, eyeing their armor for any insignia and finding none but old dents and scrapes from the battlefield. He leaned closer to the man seated across the table, resting his weight upon his forearm, “Why do you care?”

The man only chuckled and flashed his yellow teeth through the hairs curled over his mouth, “Don’t want any competition.” At that moment a gnarled hand dropped out the man’s beard. Its broken fingers sprawled across a rusted plate like a gutted octopus.

Reuben’s cheeks fattened into a courteous smile, and he dropped back into his seat, where the smile dropped into a purse of his thin lips and a deep breath pushing down his chest. ‘Idiot.’ His eyes widened at the severed hand standing upon its grimy fingertips, pummeling its nails across the table towards him.

“Don’t! Don’t! I’m sorry Kristof!”

Reuben’s head snapped up from his hands, chest heaving as widened eyes stared down at warm spit coating his knuckles, thick as cupcake frosting. He knocked a fist against the hard tabletop, and a shaky breath poured through his lips when a familiar thud greet his ears. He stretched a hand over the empty tabletop beside him and drummed his fingerpads against the splintered wood, “Can’t sleep in this town, can’t sleep. Eyes open Reuben. Glory is yet upon you, shining her sweet rays—”

He jumped when a shadow crawled over his arm, and turned his head towards a plump tavern keeper lowering a mug to the table. Reuben crinkled his brow at the retreating shirt creased under the fatty rolls padding his back, “Sir, I didn’t…ah, whatever.” Reuben’s hand slipped around the mug’s handle and tilted the tankard towards himself. Nothing but darkness filled his cup. “Mmm, strange.” He dropped the mug to the tabletop, and watched it roll sideways into a crusted pepper shaker. “Now who gives a man an empty cup? Am I being insulted?” The corners of his mouth jerked into a childish pout, and his hand snatched at the napkin where the blasted thing sat. “I can drink as much as I want…” His forefinger froze atop something slick, and his wrist turned the napkin over before his crinkled brow, eying a rose petal trapped under his finger. His thumb stroked the velvety texture, and his whiskered lips muttered to themselves, “How did a midnight rose get here?—oops.” The petal fluttered down to his muscular thighs, and his eyes caught a word crudely scribbled into the napkin. Stable.

“Eh? Surely I am being mocked.” He brought the napkin close to his narrowed eyes, “Sss,” A hiss blew past his grit teeth, “Stah…” His slits stared long and hard at that first syllable as he would a criminal, “Or is it stay-bull. Stable!” His cheeks brightened upon discerning the word, though his eyes rolled upward at a woman rushing through the main entrance, the door barely caught its frame before another woman squeaked it open on her way to the streets. ‘What’s going on here?’ Reuben stood upright and stepped over his bench into the aisle, glancing over his shoulder as his footsteps carried him towards ragged curtains draped over a weary windowframe. He slipped his face through the curtains which shone a soft brown in the evening ambiance, and squinted his eyes at the first woman traveling down the muddy road to a wooden stable nuzzled against the tree line. His tongue sat between his parched lips and his crinkled brow attracted more wrinkles when the woman stepped backwards from an invisible threat. ‘I thought stable was referring to a sane mind and not a place for horses—wait, did she see it too? The note?’ He glanced over his shoulder at the few heads seated around the tavern, one of which repelled hair from its ashen center and was surrounded by chestnut locks like a nest seating a great egg. A chuckle scratched up Reuben’s throat which he hid behind a robust hand, and his browned face turned back to eavesdropping on the curious woman rummaging through her purse, ‘And I thought I looked like hell until I saw the devil himself – what the heck happened to that guy?’ Even on these grimy windows did the image of an elderly man shine, and when his skeletal hand reached out for a napkin Reuben furrowed his brows at the dim reflection, ‘Is this a tea party or a job recruitment?’

---

He could not have pinpointed any particular transitional moment, yet the tavern seemed all of a sudden to have grown remarkably animated, considering the quantity of its tenants. Indistinct mutterings began to reach Ectemund's ear, and soon afterwards two of the figures rose from their seats without having so much as raised their kegs and made for the door. One of them cast a glance at him as it passed, and it seemed to him that her eyes, for the brief moment they were within his sight, harboured a somewhat unnatural - clumsy a definition as that was for an innate anatomical feature, he could not conceive any more fitting one - hue, of the sort common among the Fae. Mildly unnerving as the look might have been, he perceived himself safe - no self-respecting royal enforcer would probably have employed a Fae as an agent. Such a prejudice was not altogether comprehensible to Ectemund, in whose view, as far as he was aware, these creatures were in their current state neither far worse nor far better than the average human peasant, and would in fact have been indistinguishable from the latter were it not for their physiognomic peculiarities. Curious as it might have seemed, their potential academic value was likewise roughly equivalent to that of a farmer: their cultural wealth of occult lore, frequently, he suspected, of more than hearsay quality, was often offset by their a reserve as unnerving as it was stubborn, and most of those he had himself spoken with had responded to his queries by gazing at their feet and mumbling some unintelligible gibberish. Nevertheless, the presence of a Fae in that forsaken town at that conjuncture was mighty intriguing. What business could she have had here, seeing as many of her kin seemed to have no business anywhere throughout the land?

The second departing figure Ectemund believed he recognised as the young scoundrel who, some time before, had seemed to try and intimidate him by shewing him some firearm. These devilish contraptions were a truly fearsome thing; that they might be so easy to procure as to place one within the grasp of such an outwardly unassuming individual was slightly alarming. Yet the chief conundrum concerning that character was not her possessing a singularly destructive weapon, but rather the fact that, as the Fae had done, she had stridden away without quaffing from the mug the innkeeper had set down before her. To his knowledge, those of her ilk often left without paying for what they had drunken; yet he had never heard of one leaving without drinking what they had paid for. Whilst the yellowish orbs of the first departing patron had reassured him, the unusual demeanour of the following one engendered a new train of suspicious thoughts within his mind. Had this one been a hired agent - the hired agent dispatched to track him, and had she gone to report to her employers, who were mayhap expecting her without that very door? Then again, this conjecture was opposed to reasonable intuition. A spy of that sort would certainly have acted in a less conspicuously odd manner. Although the ensuing conclusion assuaged his apprehension somewhat, it yet did not explain the event he had witnessed.

Then again, was he truly certain she had paid for what she had not drunken? Ectemund himself had, after all, been served his beverage without a price being demanded of him, in what he had assumed was some sort of display of "courtesy of the house". Had the offering been spurned owing to its deplorable quality? It seemed improbable. Or was it that...? He glanced at the crudely inscribed napkin in his hand, then at the vacated corner, but the shadows prevented him from seeing anything definite. He was about to stand up and approach the spot, but at that moment the man who had been muttering when the commotion began rose from his seat and, dragging what seemed to be his bare feet across the grimy floor, walked toward the window and peered through it. Unwilling to attract unnecessary attention by appearing to follow his example, Ectemund remained still, and reverted to pondering the meaning of the unorthodox missive he had received - as far as he knew, he could have been the only one, or the only one whose message was "Stable". And what, pray, was stable? The liquid in the mug? Though he was no aspiring alchemist, he was fairly certain that it could not be restless as quicksilver, and its stability was not one to require a label. What else, then, could it be? The promise of the expedition? That it should be confirmedly stable was, of course, a relief; yet why would anyone send such a confirmation without further instructions to accompany it? He resolved he would, in spite of all, verify whether such a note had indeed been bestowed upon anyone else.

Slowly and cautiously, yet firmly enough, Ectemund rose from the bench, and his left knee snapped once again. With a soft, though slightly shuffling gait he stepped toward the corner with as neutral an expression as he could convey, and, as he passed behind the bare-footed man, he casually directed his eyes toward the window, and was somewhat surprised to glimpse the Fae who had departed from the tavern beyond it. For some reason she stood in the middle of the muddy street, rummaging through her satchel before the ill-kept wooden shack which passed for a- Hark, now. It was a stable - nay, a stable. Why, the prolonged parsing of formally-worded documents must have occluded his linguistic clarity! Why had he so insistently considered the word "stable" as an adjective? Had he truly forgotten that it could designate a structure such as that which he now saw? Verily, he could only hope it was not a sign of the approach of one of longevity's more pernicious companions - the fading of one's acuity and memory, followed by a dramatic weakening of the mind altogether. To be struck by such a condition when he had yet accomplished so little would have been aggravating beyond words' expressive capacity. However, he was not quite so aged yet, was he? Having sufficiently rebuked himself for his oversight, he concluded that the most logical course of action would be to see whether the message was effectively an invitation to betake himself to the stable, as there seemed to be nothing to gain by remaining further in the tavern - and seeking other napkins would now have been an unnecessary occupation at best. Conscious of the fact that he had remained in a spot for what was probably a suspiciously lengthy interval, Ectemund quietly strode toward the door and stepped out into the vesper air.

The street's yielding consistence was not improved by the palpably nondescript temperature of the mud beneath his feet, which conferred upon it an unpleasant oozing sensation, promptly transmitted into his feet. Yet he heeded it little as he virtually slid his way through the decaying hamlet, lifting his beaten leather soles to a barely visible height above the soil, his attention being altogether drawn to the mysterious errand at hand. It occurred to him that the stable might have been the ideal site for an ambush, had a scheme involving one effectively been set in motion by his hypothetical persecutors, and his steps grew slightly slower. Then he reflected that, whatever the case might be, he would surely not be so reckless as to simply blunder in there, and would devise a plan to probe the ground in all safety. His right hand slid to the handle of the dagger he had concealed at his belt beneath the folds of some inconspicuous rags. Although the weapon's sinister appearance and the ominous conjectures concerning how it might have been employed before somehow finding its way into his family's chests, there was, beside the ever-compelling lure of shadowy mysteries it evoked in him merely by virtue of its existence, in it a strange soothing power that never failed to fill him with a vaguely impersonal boldness, nay, even pride, which he perceived to be more than the mere sensation of carrying a potential instrument of death.

Having reached the street which ran before the stable, he paused, seeing that the Fae was, oddly enough, still standing where last he had seen her. The other receiver of an apparently unsolicited beverage was nowhere to be seen. Ectemund was initially vaguely irritated at perceiving what seemed to be an obstacle upon his way; then, reflecting that the Fae might very well prove to be the diversion he required, he decided it were better to observe her motions, preferably without being apprehended himself. He therefore slid into a patch of particularly deep shadow upon a nearby wall and stood still, gazing in the direction of the stable.