Chapter 5

It was the scent of old pipe smoke that evoked a thousand memories. The gray haze from freshly lit pipes and cigars comingled into a cloud of bitter and sweet, and yellow-stained boards on the walls and ceiling seethed an older smell from generations past. Like a fine whisky, the timber on the walls and ceiling had been aged with fire, and each cut of oak would be worth scrolls for its tobacco marbleization, and character if auctioned to the wealthy. Innumerable breaths from laughter and somber intonations alike gave the building itself a personality.

Talk of the dragon was on every slurred conversation, from the tall tables on the right, to the booths on the left farther back where Elle, alone and silent, seemed to be patiently awaiting his attention. Three men squeezed around Miles and exited the pub. The slamming door punctuated the fiddler’s eighth beat, and he bent low, sweeping his instrument with passion in the corner by the fireplace: warmth often a musician’s only payment.

Elle escalated her efforts, no longer relying solely on intense eye contact. She raised her hand in salutation. Miles sighed, his breath joining the thousands of others throughout History, embedding into the oak ceiling. Like a river around smooth stones, he stepped aside swaying bodies as he made his way to her, gently guiding the less-sober with careful pushes and nudges. Busy nights were the norm, tonight especially since it was the start of the weekend. With a few hundred voices in constant chorus, and a poor fiddler trying to out harmony them all, a little conversation about Artifacts and Team-building between two in the back corner would remain hidden.

Miles sat across from his colorful-eyed counterpart, and she did that terrifying grin again, as if she knew something he did not. Folding her hands, she leaned forward. “Hello, Miles Albion.”

“You have me at a disadvantage,” He replied, “I don’t know your surname.”

“I don’t have one.”

A backwater bumpkin from a small village wouldn’t have any need for a last name. Dissatisfied with his lack of knowledge of the girl, he furrowed his brows and stabbed the table between them with his finger. “I’m still not convinced, Elle,” he said, seriously. “You had better make a good story for yourself if you really want me to trust you, and go with you on this ridiculous adventure of yours.”

With an air of wonder and sorrow, she slightly tilted her head. “You don’t want to go?”

Just then, Mini came and asked for their drink order. A sophisticated barrel-aged ale for Miles, and Elle readily ordered a red mead.

As they waited, Miles sat back, crossed his leg, and tapped each finger atop the table returning Elle’s quiet stare. Their drinks arrived, and each leaned in to speak.

“I want to know everything about you, Elle,” Miles said, then took a sip of the bitter, smokey ale. His chest warmed.

She drank from her glass mug, set it down, then gently pushed it aside. “My name is Elle.”

“An inspiring revelation.”

“My village is not far from the river that runs to the ocean, and in its waters are many fish. We gather sweet berries and roots along the river’s bank, and drink from its clarity.”

Miles found her voice soothing, and word choice interesting. She went on. “The village wall is made of timber pikes, and this is enough to keep the monsters out. Most monsters can be slain with sharpened poles or hammers in my region. Werehounds are the most dangerous among our lands, though a few years ago a behemoth wandered across the southern fields, kicking up yellow daffodils in the setting sun.”

“Let’s not forget the killshrooms,” Miles said, sarcastically, and drank.

Elle smiled, and didn’t seem to take offense. “They like the forest to the north. I found a rusted sword in the yellow fields, keeping it secret because the other villagers don’t like to explore or kill monsters. It was years ago I found it, and I began practicing, by myself, killing the little red weird things. I like to watch the lights come out of their bodies when they die.”

She was referring to the anima of monsters, the little glowing spheres that rose out of their body and into the sky and shot away whenever a monster was killed. Miles had only seen them from a distance at night, sitting on the city’s outer wall and staring across the wheat plains. He always wondered what they were. Souls of the beasts some say, even though there were no lights from human or animal deaths. Only monsters.

She looked into her glass, seemingly with memory. “No one in my village wants adventure. But I did.” Intensely she met his eyes and, as though telling a story, said, “Through the forest and into the hills, where it becomes rocky and water trickles from grey crags, I came face to face with werehound. It’s eyes, blue like ice, turned and found me. We stared at each other, me breathing heavily, and it standing stone-still except for the tentacle on its head slowly waving along its spine like a tail.”

Miles gulped. “What happened then?”

“It stepped once forward, and I knew it wanted me, so I raised my jagged, rusted blade, and as it leaped I swung bringing the tattered metal down on its neck. I killed the werehound.”

Miles wanted to kill a werehound.

Elle laughed. “I felt like I could do anything after that, so I kept exploring. That’s when I found the little cavern, it’s entrance, all moss-covered, just small enough to squeeze through. Inside, on a hewn stalagmite was this.” She held up her silver brace again. “I used it once, immediately, just from excitement and to see what it would do.”

Miles wanted an Artifact.

She shook her head with a small laugh. “I nearly killed myself with it.”

Miles drank and sat back. He was beginning to trust her more since she was so open and willing to talk. “Your parents let you come all the way out here?”

Her smile fell a little. “My real father abandoned me. He’s out there somewhere or dead. My adopted father is old. And my mother died. My birth killed her.”

Goddess that’s depressing.

“Well,” Miles replied with a hopeful energy, “family is who you make it to be. A Team could be a family too, you know?”

She lit up again, and that made Miles happy. “So, Miles, you really will come with me?”

“I think I will, Elle.” Oh, goddess, what was he doing? Too late, Elle already ordered a second round – on Miles’ tab—to celebrate their new Team.

Was it really too late to take it back?

They drank. And Elle won him over with her stories and her voice, telling him about her friend Lesli, who was eighteen years older than her. She told him about the big trout that swim upstream once a year, and she told him about the mulberry tree that grew huge fruit. Even though she ran away from her village to explore the world, she still seemed to love the people and places of that little country town. And Miles was so charmed by her uninterrupted joy, enthusiasm and wonder, that he found himself wanting to see her again.

They parted for the night, Elle assuring him she had a place to sleep, and went their separate ways.

The following morning, Miles prepared himself for another, more terrifying encounter. Finding his best, unstained black pants, and his white buttoned shirt, he worked out their wrinkles and put them on just as the sun was rising. All the while the word Adventurer repeated in his mind. Even as he looked in the mirror in his parent’s room and stared at himself, affixing his hair in a more sophisticated slicked back style compared to its usual waviness. Yes, he looked handsome enough to appear in the same vicinity as Celest.

His father came into the room, pipe in mouth, and held Miles proudly by both shoulders and staring at the mirror with him. “Remember son,” he said, in mumble-speak with the pipe bouncing in his teeth. “Marry a woman who wears a white dress, and waits for doors to be opened for her.”

“Baron Cosmico will put his rapier through my heart one day,” Miles returned. Celest’s father terrified Miles.

“Nonsense! He loves you. Old man Cosmico is just doing his duty for his daughter.”

And with that, Miles was pushed out of the house and on his way to the Higher Hills, where those who sponsored Adventurers lived. Teams were outfitted with the best armor, weapons, and scrolls the nobles could afford, then they explored around the forests and valleys outside of the city, and in return for the sponsorship, shared the bulk of the discovered treasures with their nobles.

Miles took Hark Street, the widest and longest road that went straight up north to the Higher Hills, walking briskly and dodging horses and carriages. He waved to his comrades, the shop owners down Loop Street, and once past it, a carriage came skidding to a halt right beside him. The black door shot open, and a big man grasped Miles by the collar and pulled him inside so quickly, Miles hadn’t a moment to think, resist or even shout for help.