Clonk seemed to have no trouble hoisting the male elf onto his shoulder, as the man had fallen unconscious from the spider venom. The suit of armor carried him back to where Gideon, Grimsby, and the female elf were standing. Clonk began to whistle nonchalantly. Despite the life-and-death situation, this seemed like a pleasant hike as far as he was concerned.

The elf woman seemed panicked, shouting frantic words in Elvish at Gideon and Grimsby as she gestured to her companion. Unfortunately, Gideon had never learned to speak Elvish, and judging by the way Grimsby looked back and forth between them, slack-jawed, neither did he.

The woman had eyes that gleamed like emeralds as if they glowed with an inner light. It was said that elves could wield magic even without the system and were somehow closer to the divine than humans, but Gideon had always wondered if that was true. It seemed like the kind of thing an elf would tell you, even if it weren’t. In Prospera, there was an elvish enclave on the city's outskirts, but he had only been there a few times, and the elves who lived there were mostly bilingual.

“I’m sorry,” Gideon said, hoping the woman understood at least a bit of Gleurican Common. “We don’t understand.”

Remembering something from a book he’d read once, he placed his hands together and crossed his fingers in front of the woman. He was pretty sure this was the Elvish hand sign for peace. Either that, or he’d just made an obscene gesture.

Thankfully, the woman looked at his hands and seemed to calm down somewhat. She made the same gesture back to him, then began to speak another rapid-fire sequence of words that flew past far too quickly for Gideon to begin to decipher, even if he’d had an Elvish-Gleurican dictionary.

Which he did not.

“We mustn’t tarry,” Clonk said. “The venom is already spreading.”

“Right,” Gideon said. “Back to the castle.”

Gideon tried to gesture for the woman to follow them, and thankfully she seemed to understand his meaning from context, if nothing else, for she soon fell into step at the rear of their group, close behind Grimsby.

“I don’t suppose Uncle Kelvan speaks Elvish, by any chance?” Gideon asked.

“Nah,” Grimsby said, “Lord Kelvan does not.” Gideon felt the skeleton would have given him quite the side-eye if it was anatomically possible. “Thankfully, Ondine is fluent.” He stroked his beard, which Gideon thought was a funny gesture to see a skeleton perform. When Grimsby spoke again, his voice had a softness that was quite unlike him. “Ondine spent many years in the free elven cities to the west. She’ll know what to do.”

As Clonk slowly pulled away from them, they pressed on.

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“Guests?” Kelvan asked, raising an eyebrow as he floated in circles around the group. They had just entered the castle's central hall when the mirror swooped down from above them. “I didn’t realize we were running a shelter. Who are they?”

“Elves, Lord Kelvan,” Grimsby said, and Kelvan scowled.

The elf woman looked at the mirror above them and screamed before slinking backward. She looked around the castle, frowning at the dusty furniture and the half-filled buckets of water.

I’m not a massive fan of it either, Gideon thought.

“I’m not blind, Grimsby. What are they doing here?” Kelvan looked at the man slung over Clonk’s shoulder as Clonk headed towards the castle's east wing, where the rooms were located.

Grimsby looked at Gideon and took off his sun hat. The elf backpedaled and screamed as he did so, pointing at the top of his bare skull.

“They were being attacked by the spiders on the road,” Gideon said. “They would have died if we hadn’t found them.”

Kelvan turned his mirror towards Gideon and nodded. “Very charitable, Nephew. I suppose we can dedicate the scant remains of our meager financial resources to housing these two stray pups. Why not?”

Grimsby chuckled. “I warned him, Lord Kelvan. I told him we usually do not involve ourselves in these types of occurrences.”

“Indeed,” Kelvan replied. “I dare say, if we helped every poor soul who came wandering through these mountains, I would have to transfer myself to a smaller mirror!”

“Not all of us are completely heartless, however. I’m quite happy to help,” Ondine said. Gideon jumped—she’d managed to float in behind them without him noticing. “I’ll prepare an anti-venom potion.”

Ondine turned to the elf woman, who was staring in mute horror at Grimsby, and began to speak Elvish in a slow, calming tone.

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The woman breathed a sigh of relief, and soon they were in conversation.

“Lord Kelvan, there’s something I wanted to ask you about,” Gideon said. “Just thinking out loud here, but in the long run, couldn’t we maybe improve our financial resources if the mountain pass wasn’t completely infested by spiders?”

“Ah, by selling the ichor?” Kelvan stroked his beard thoughtfully. “Yes, yes. Back before a certain catastrophic incident, we made a good income selling monster parts.”

“And what about before that?” Gideon asked. “Back when this place was Castle Moonstone?”

Kelvan’s eyes darkened. “How do you know about that?”

“Uh,” Gideon said, scratching his head. “I found this tourism guide when searching the library.”

“Tourism guide! Bah.” Kelvan rotated to face Grimsby. “Did you know about this, Grimsby? What did you tell him?”

Grimsby raised his hands. “I said nothing, Lord Kelvan! I swear. I’m afraid your Nephew has gotten it into his head we could make some money inviting folks up here to stay at the Rattlebandit Inn.”

“The what!?” Kelvan screamed.

“That’s not the name,” Gideon said, sighing. “That was never going to be the name.”

“Of course not! Because the name is Castle Kastorus.” Kelvan shook his head. “Not the Rattlebandit Inn. And not Castle Moonstone, either.” He sighed. “Not anymore. In any event, we should discuss this later, Nephew. I can only be properly vexed by one thing at a time. I do not enjoy multi-tasking.”

“That’s fair,” Gideon replied nervously. “Sorry. Forget I brought it up.” He hadn’t realized it was such a sensitive topic. Of course, Grimsby’s interjection hadn’t helped things, either.

As Gideon looked over, he saw that Ondine had led the elf to a rather dust-covered couch and was speaking to her in a soothing tone. Their guest was already looking much more relaxed.

Clonk must have already taken the wounded man up to a room, for he now returned, his feet heavy on the stone floor. He stood awkwardly, still as a statue, as if unsure what to do next.

Ondine looked up at him, then turned to the elvish woman and smiled. After a few words of Elvish, she turned to Clonk. “Please show her to her brother’s room. I’ll prepare the necessary potion for him.”

Without any hesitation, she floated up from the couch and passed directly through a nearby wall.

The elf began to scream again, pointing at where Ondine had disappeared. She looked towards Gideon, her eyes wide, as if hoping he had seen it too.

“Yeah,” Gideon said, nodding to her. “That was my first reaction as well.”

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Later that evening, Gideon returned to the library to continue hunting for the [Appraise] skill book. With Ondine preparing the anti-venom potion, there hadn’t been much for Gideon to do. The elf woman, whose name, according to Ondine, was Shylvena, had insisted on staying with her brother up in his room. His name was Berenyn.

Sadly, Gideon’s search had proved just as fruitless as the previous night. However, he did find an interesting book on intermediate-level geomancy titled Digging Deeper: The Mirthful Mole’s Guide to Earth Magic that he thought might be worth studying.

As he flipped through it, he found a few spells he wanted to learn, such as [Seismic Wave], [Shape Earth], and [Geosense]. [Geosense] was particularly interesting, as that one hadn’t been in Gideon’s old book. It was based on [Seismic Wave] but used the waves to locate things underground rather than as an attack.

While he was at it, he grabbed The Wanderer’s Guide to the Frostpeak Mountains, which he’d set aside, and decided to take it back to his room to read through it more thoroughly. While there were a couple of reading chairs and a desk in the library, they were all currently covered in piles of books that made using them impractical. And Gideon was getting tired of reading while seated on the floor.

He wanted to clean and organize the library, but there were too many other things he also needed to do right now. Gideon added it to his mental list of everything he wanted to tidy up when he got around to it. It was a long list and seemed to grow longer the more time he spent in the castle.

On his way back to his room, books in hand, Gideon spotted Grimsby carrying a tray of food down the hallway. When Gideon saw what was on the plate, his stomach rumbled. He’d forgotten about dinner. He had a bad habit of neglecting such things whenever his nose was in a book.

On the tray were some salted meats, a couple of fried eggs, a stack of fluffy pancakes, and some buttered grits. Gideon felt his mouth water.

“You can cook pancakes?” Gideon exclaimed.

“Of course I can, bub,” Grimsby said. “I was Lord Kelvan’s chef, you know, back when we required food to survive. I suppose I was inspired by the breakfast you made yesterday morning. I hadn’t seen a pancake in over a hundred years, but I thought it looked nice.”

“Hey,” Gideon said. “Wait a minute, why didn’t you ever offer to help me? You just sat there and watched me struggle in the kitchen!”

Grimsby chuckled. “Who do you think made you that soup you had when you first arrived? As for helping you, I don't remember you asking. Besides, my skills are a bit rusty from centuries of disuse.”

“Huh.” As Gideon looked at the spread, he couldn’t help but think Grimsby’s skills were still quite sharp. The food smelled delicious, at least. “And here I thought you were the Rattlebandit. I never knew you were the Rattlechef.”

“Don’t call me that,” Grimsby said. “But sure, yes, I’m a skeleton of many talents.” He gave a little bow and passed the tray to Gideon. “Here, you take this to the elf. If I go in there, she’s liable to start screaming again.”

Tucking the books under his arms, Gideon awkwardly took the tray. Looking down at the food, his stomach grumbled once more. It was cruel, he thought, having to carry this without getting to eat any.

“Why’d you make breakfast for dinner, anyway?”

Grimsby cackled. “She’s an elf, Gideon. Don’t they eat sunlight and leaves and shit? How would she ever know the difference?”

Gideon laughed and shook his head. “I take your point.” With a sigh, he headed down the hallway to deliver the meal.

“Don’t worry, bub. I’ll make some chow for you, too.”

Gideon stopped and smiled. “Really? Thanks, Grimsby.”

“And I only want one thing in return.”

Gideon shook his head and sighed. “And what’s that?”

“Do me a favor and oil Clonk for me, will you? He’s been bugging me all evening, but I’m busy feeding these hungry mouths you decided to bring to the castle.”

Grimsby turned and headed back towards the kitchen without waiting for an answer, his laughter echoing behind him.

Gideon chuckled softly to himself. By now, he should have known there would be a catch.

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Copyright © 2023 Tater Prince. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in any manner without the prior written permission of the copyright owner, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

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