Berik did get a good night’s sleep that night, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of illimitable rage that he had felt when Euclid was speaking to him in his mind. He was pretty sure he would be paired up with Beacon for practice so he might just ask her about him. Specifically, what that dude’s problem was.
The next day was abysmally hot and sticky. Normally, the coastal winds brought a refreshing, cooling breeze from the sea, but, for whatever reason, the air was completely still. Whenever Berik took a breath, he felt like he was getting his daily recommended amount of water. Still, he made sure to don his new armor. Berik had practice today and there was no telling what was in store. He made his way to the Monrovedere mansion, hoping beyond hope to have to clean out the root cellar or something. It was always cooler down below.
He opened the front door and found his entire party sitting in the entryway. Some looked angry, some looked confused, and some others just looked sleepy.
“What’s going on?” Berik asked.
“Coach isn’t here,” Dayaka said.
Berik wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Shouldn’t he be the first one here?”
“You would think,” the giant orc said.
Berik sighed and took a seat next to Rosemary.
“If he’s not here in twenty minutes, I’m going home,” she said by way of greeting.
“What would that do?” Berik asked.
“It would teach him that my time is valuable,” Rosemary pouted.
“Come off it. You just wanted to sleep in,” Key said.
“We all did.” Thurnal adjusted his helmet, yawned, and took a bite of his bagel.
“I did not!” Rosemary protested.
Key smirked but said nothing. More time passed in silence. Thurnal tried to eat his bagel slowly, but it was eventually consumed. Coach Beardenbeard still hadn’t shown up.
“You got any more of those bagels?” Dayaka asked Thurnal.
“Sorry, that was it,” Thurnal said.
The orc crossed his arms and continued leaning against the wall. Everyone seemed content to keep waiting angrily until Euclid spoke up for the first time.
“It comes,” he said in his deathknell voice. He pointed at the front door but did not offer any more insight than that.
Everyone stopped what they were doing and peered at the front door. Everyone held their breath until a ghostly shape pressed itself through the door. A faint blue glowing orb materialized on the other side, as though it took some effort, and hovered in front of the party.
“GOOD MORNING!” the voice of Coach Beardenbeard screamed.
Everyone cried out and clapped their hands to their ears.
“WHAT’S WRONG? WHY ARE YOU YELLING?” the coach demanded.
“You’re too loud!” Key said, cringing away from the Arcane Eye.
“WHAT? OH. SORRY. MY BAD. LET ME TURN THIS DOWN.” There was a sound of rustling and of searching around for something lost in a pile of paper. “Okay. Is this better?”
“Yeah. Way better,” Key said. Her hands still remained over her sensitive, pointy ears.
The orb bobbed closer to the gathered party. “Let me just start off by saying I’m sorry I’m not there right now. I had a bit of a mishap and I have to be laid up for today.”
“What happened?” Berik asked.
“Oh, nothing major. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow. I’ll even be there with donuts and coffee,” the dwarf promised. A cheer came from the whole party.
“But before that, we gotta practice,” the magical orb said. “Dayaka and Nirlid, take that fancy tea parlor. Thurnal and Rosemary, I know you work well together. That’s why I’m having you take on the billiards room. Key and Euclid, you’re gonna chip away at the laundry room. And lastly but not leastly, Beacon and Berik are going to tackle the garden. Remember to work together, watch each others’ backs, and do your best. Now go on! Get to it! Double time!”
With a groan, the party hustled off to their respective tasks.
“Do you ever get the feeling Coach doesn’t know what he’s doing?” Dayaka said before he turned toward the direction of the tea parlor.
“The Watch was the same way,” Berik said. “We just sorta made it up as we went along.”
“That explains why I was never charged with anything.”
“Oh, was that a confession?” Berik asked.
Dayaka grinned. “Nope. No way, chump.”
Berik shrugged. “It’ll be fun when we’re paired up. I can promise you that.”
“You have no idea,” Dayaka said. “Have fun with the garden.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” Berik asked.
“I was sent out there. Had to “clear some weeds” with the dinky little gnome. Coach didn’t say anything about them being carnivorous. And he said nothing about the flickering things that flew in the trees,” Dayaka said.
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“Flickering things? What did they do?” Berik asked.
Dayaka loomed over Berik. “You’ll see. See you back here after practice. Or maybe I won’t.”
The orc ambled down the hallway, making no effort to hurry. Berik turned to Beacon. “Are you ready to do some extreme gardening?”
Beacon smiled. She looked no worse for wear after a night of drinking and listening to Dandylion’s twenty-minute-long ballads. “I think I know what Dayaka was talking about.”
Berik led the way to the garden. The entrance was far in the back of the house. The layout was surprisingly easy to remember once he stopped trying to remember what room was for what. Honestly. A tea room? Why not just use the kitchen?
“What was he talking about? Are you sure he wasn’t trying to mess with us?” Berik asked.
Beacon shook her head. “If the flickering things are what I think they are, we’re in for a lot of trouble.”
“What are they?” Berik asked again, more apprehensive this time. He opened the door to the garden and was immediately blasted with hot air. It instantaneously caused sweat to bead on his face and he thought about taking off his armor just for this particular practice.
“Sprites.” Beacon said. If she was affected by the extreme humidity, she didn’t show it. She had shown up in her customary leather armor, but it must be very breathable to allow her to keep her composure. Berik’s armor left him feeling like a can of corned beef hash that had been left too close to the hearth.
He shrugged off the feeling. If he had taken off his armor every time he felt mildly uncomfortable or it was too heavy or too hot or just too much that day, he would probably be dead.
He looked around, searching for glittering flickering things said to be lurking in the treetops. Now that he had taken a moment to gather his bearings, he realized the garden was similar to that of the pantry. The space the garden occupied was way too big to fit in the domain of the mansion. Berik had a sneaking suspicion that if he were to look at the yard from outside the estate, it would appear to be a perfectly normal-sized garden. But once someone stepped through the mansion door, things didn’t have to obey the rules of physics anymore. It didn’t matter how large the outside dimensions of the mansion were. Inside rooms could be as big as they wanted to be.
And it looked like the garden hadn’t been tended to in years in the same way a jungle hadn’t had its trees pruned in too long. Every growing thing was primal, potent, and wild. The flowers blooming from the verdant bushes were beautiful. But, by that logic, so was a tiger. Gorgeous colors and shapes and vitality, but both the flowers and the tiger would kill you without a second thought.
“Where the hell are we supposed to start?” Berik asked.
Beacon frowned. “Let me check my character sheet.”
She made a gesture in the air and a scroll appeared in her hands. She unfurled the parchment, made a swiping motion with her finger and frowned harder.
“We’re not supposed to clean this up,” she said with a sigh. “We’re supposed to remove the sprites.”
Berik laughed. “That sounds a whole hell of a lot better than kneeling in dirt and yanking at some plants.”
Beacon turned to him, admonishment written all over her face. “Sprites aren’t rats. Sprites aren’t just pests. They’re thinking beings, just like you or me.”
“Seriously?” Berik scratched the back of his head. “Now we have to think about whether or not it’s right to slay monsters?”
“Sprites aren’t monsters,” Beacon said. “They’re fey. And they deserve to be treated with the utmost respect.”
Berik wasn’t too sure about any of that, but he checked his character sheet just to find out more.
QUESTS
* Feisty Fey: Remove the pesky sprites from the garden. 0/20.
Berik scowled and looked around the garden. Where was that glowing blue orb? Was the coach even watching them? After searching for a bit, he finally saw it bobbing gently behind a bush like it had been caught doing something wrong. The dwarf might not have even been watching from wherever he was.
“I can’t imagine what being in an official adventure is going to be like,” he said.
Beacon dismissed her character sheet. She had a gleam of mischief in her eyes, like she had figured out how to get away with cheating on the quiz without having the teacher find out. “Well, let’s get to work.”
“What, you’re okay with slaughtering little sprites now?” Berik asked.
“The quest said nothing about killing them. Just removing them,” Beacon said.
“That’s even harder to do!” Berik said. “Back in the Watch, we always had to follow the path of least violence. Even if someone was acting out in the market, say running about screaming with two knives but no pants, we couldn’t just take the guy out. We had to apprehend him. Even if he was completely wasted on two gallons of whiskey, high as a kite, and shouting about having the power of the gods on his side, we had to arrest him as gently as we could.”
Beacon stared at him. “Would you have preferred to take their lives instead?”
Berik sighed. “No. No, I wouldn’t. But I thought the monsters used in the Dungeon League weren’t real monsters. Like they were summoned out of pure magic.”
“Maybe they are. I don’t know. But, just in case these sprites are really real, I’m going to remove them. Not kill them.” Beacon turned to him and he felt like he was melting under the gaze of her warm brown eyes. “Will you help me?”
“Of course!” Berik scanned the treetops. “But…where do we start?”
Beacon grinned. “Sprites are tricky creatures. They can hide for as long as it takes for you to drop your guard. And then, when you least suspect it, they come out and get you.”
“Get you? What do you mean? What do they do?” Berik asked.
Beacon ran a hand through her wildly streaked hair. “It depends on their mood. Sometimes they’ll set your tent on fire. Sometimes they’ll replace all your arrows with pinecones. Sometimes they’ll just steal your boots and laugh and laugh as you try to find them.”
“It sounds like you’ve got a lot of experience with sprites,” Berik said.
Beacon smiled. “Oh yes. And at the end of the day, you just have to remember that they just can’t help but be little assholes.”
“Then how do we remove them if they’re so good at hiding?” Berik asked.
“Easy!” Beacon said. “We just pitch a tent and go to sleep.”
“Oh, okay.” Berik looked embarrassed. “Except I don’t have a tent.”
Beacon looked at him like he had just said he forgot to bring his sword. “Didn’t you grab a pack?”
“There were packs?” Berik asked.
“They were right by the front door!” Beacon said.
“I thought those were for…” Berik struggled. “For guests?”
“What, would Lord Monrovedere invite his posh friends to go on an impromptu camping trip?” Beacon began unpacking the large rucksack on her back and produced a bedroll, the supplies needed to build a tent, a kit for making a campfire, a canteen, a tin of dried foods, a first-aid kit, three torches, and a shimmering red potion.
Berik only had his sword and shield. Feeling useless, he helped her put the camp together as best he could. And as the day passed and the sun began to sink low in the sky, they had a tent erected and a fire crackling. They huddled around the warmth and tucked into their dried berries and hardtack.
All the while, tiny unseen creatures drew closer. They sat and waited, hidden in the branches, waiting for the perfect time to strike. The two humans wouldn’t see it coming. What fun they would have!