The Dwarven Ale Room; a pub, a bar, a place of gatherings and memories. Great food and drink aplenty all within the comforts of the town of Vida. Roughly twenty thousand strong, this walled city housed a keen group of adventurers and a pair of married dwarven women.
“So riddle me this one,” Jodi spoke in her jumpy, gruff voice. “Once you met him, then what?”
Roderick was trying to paint a picture of determination amidst adversity. “So there I was, standing at the feet of this giant tree creature. I looked at him and told him, ‘I have come to this forest to investigate rumors of an untold magic—’”
The orc slammed her mug onto the table, “Bullshit Ricky!”
“The fuck do you mean bullshit?” Roderick turned to face the uncontrollably smiling orc.
“You were trembling like the rest of us. No shame in admitting it. Having Sedel vomit from her detection magic is something worth being afraid of,” Dmahdi spoke with an unusual amount of logic.
“I’m telling a story, Dmahdi. Can I at least tell it?”
Sedel leaned forward on the table. “Not when it’s a sack of crap. C’mon ol’ Ricky, you’re better than this.”
Roderick rolled his eyes once the two dwarves started laughing. “Kathanac and myself have a journey of our own. After all, how many dwarves do you see in this town?” Jodi smirked. “We got married because we realized that without each other, neither of us would survive. Escaping the gnollish tribes was no easy feat.”
Roderick was surprised. “You cannot compare gnolls to being five feet from a deity that could snap you out of existence.”
“Perhaps, but you’d be dead and gone before ye even realized it. With gnolls, there’d be months of torture.” Jodi’s gleeful chuckles fell silent, as even the memory of it was grim enough to dampen her mood. “You want to talk about facing down fears? Then picture this: The caves the gnolls lived in were previously dwarven mines. This was the Iadosh clan, one of the fiercest gnollish clans known, rivaled only by Dymreith. Far west of here, over a large span of the ocean, is the dwarven continent, now home to its gnollish invaders. Gnollish raiders besieged my home city of Gowen one night. The city’s garrison did its best to stop the gnolls, but they still made it inside the walls. The raiders took my family, along with a thousand other people, and brought us into slavery...”
The parade of rope-bound defeated prisoners marched helplessly out of range of the city and its valiant defenders. Jodi, a dwarven kid, was being carried by another adult, one who was not her parent. The older dwarf was a wounded guard, still clad in his badly damaged steel plate armor. He cradled the kid in his arms, a quivering lip held together only by the determination to keep this child from bawling her eyes out. He spoke with a gruff, smokey voice, “You’ll be alright. Gnolls don’t want children.”
For hours, the gnollish raiders marched alongside the thousand dwarf prisoner parade, bringing them to a cave far away from the city, over hills, and through a sticky marshland. Several weaker dwarven prisoners collapsed from exhaustion and were used as examples to keep the others in line and moving. The bog became their grave. The cave had structures integrated into the face and tunnels, designed and carved out by former dwarven miners. Hundreds of gnolls occupied these living quarters and storage units, all fiendishly brandishing their weapons, both crudely made in-house and pillaged.
The older dwarf held the small child beneath his waist-long dirty-blonde beard. Jodi was asleep in his arms. The man shuffled his eyes side-to-side, watching his peripherals. The gnolls were chanting amongst each other, excited to put the fresh haul to work.
The entrance tunnel led into a main chamber with dozens of tunnels spider-webbing outward. The main chamber had all the crafting and repair stations needed to maintain a mining operation and one unusual feature: a desecrated mass grave.
The man’s gaze focused entirely on that mass grave. Around it were gnollish totems, their shamans dedicating the burial pile to Thezec. Behind him, he heard a woman praying, “Syna, bless the corpses in here that they may rest easy, even when their bodies are displayed in such a grotesque way to please an unrighteous, false god…”
The dwarven man subtly turned his head to look at her. She was a priestess, still dressed in her off-duty humble robes. The blue-trimmed black robes that covered her from neck to ankle to wrist didn’t display any specific denomination. “The gods won’t hear us from down here.”
“Have faith. That young one in your arms still does,” she replied sharply. “As long as we do our part, she will have a future.”
The man quieted and lowered his head. Hours passed and the line of prisoners was sorted and dispersed. Unfortunately, they removed the small child from his possession and took him far away.
When Jodi came around, she found herself inside a cage with several other children. Sitting beside her was another dwarven woman about the same age as her. She smiled wildly when Jodi sat upright. “Oh good, you’re awake.”
Jodi was quiet, looking around the wrought iron cage, trying to get a bearing on her surroundings. “What,” her voice cracked, “Where am I?”
“A dog cage. Gnolls separated us from the rest of the people.” The young dwarven female spoke. “Name’s Kathy, what’s yours?”
“Jodi,” she responded.
“I like you. You actually talk.” Kathy stood up. She wore patched-up baggy pants and a ragged, soot-covered brown shirt. “The other two kids in here don’t speak. Can’t even get a name.”
“What’s going to happen to us?”
“No idea. Dinner probably. We’re too young to carry tools.”
A gnoll walked up to the cage and barked at them, then spoke in broken dwarvish, “Quiet! Two girls, follow.” He then whipped open the cage door and rudely pulled them both out by the collars of their shirts.
Jodi fell silent. The memory of what followed was too harrowing for her to speak. Kathanac placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “The gnoll that pulled us from our cage carried us to one of the barracks on the other side of the main cave. We were handed off to a gnollish cook. We thought we were dinner.”
Dmahdi raised her hand. “If not you, what or who was?”
Kathanac shrugged. “It was a meat stew, but we didn’t ask what kind of meat. It was tough, stringy, and cooked to their tastes, not ours. We knew deep down what we were eating, just glad we didn’t know who. I could see haunches, legs, and arms all skinned and air-drying on makeshift racks, some still bleeding onto the floor. It was gruesome.”
Jodi placed her head down on the table, mumbling through the shield of arms she had placed around her face. “We were helping hands. We carved up our people to feed the gnolls.”
Kathanac nodded. “We were maybe twelve when we were taken. We were too weak for the mines or forge, but old enough to handle a blade and food, at least under supervision. When we turned twenty, we made our escape.”
Jodi slowly lifted her head, resting her chin on her arms. “We planned it for months. Coincided with a dwarven rebellion conveniently enough. When the warning bells sounded, we ran for the entrance. Killed a few of the gnolls on our way out. Fortunately, the entrance was not very well guarded. We ran and ran until we got to the ports of Belmont…”
The port city of Belmont was a smoldering ruin of a gnollish raid. The stone walls of the city stood in memory of valiant defiance. They were crumbling, covered in dirt, ash, and vines. Shrubs and creeping ivy comfortably grew on piles of undisturbed rubble for years. The city itself was in no better shape. There was no smoke, but many of the wooden frames and structures were charred, showing signs of years of weathering. Their stone foundations cracked and marred by nature’s return. Fuzzy skeletons littered the streets, wearing only the most durable of materials, as clothes and linens had long been eaten away. Suits of rusted armor were everywhere, the only remaining memory of the city’s garrison. There were thousands of corpses.
Jodi and Kathanac stood on a pile of rubble at the wall. Wild animals seemed to avoid the city, save only for vultures and carrion feeders. Even the rats were nowhere to be found. Kathanac pulled on Jodi’s arm, “Come on, there’s nothing we can do about them.”
Jodi wasn’t moving. She fell to her knees and pulled her ragged, untamed hair over her eyes. “Syna, guide me.”
Kathanac pulled her to her feet. “Come on, Jodi. We need to leave this place quickly. Once we’re on the open sea, then you can pray.”
Tears were streaking down Jodi’s mud-covered face, but she remained quiet. She weakly got back onto her feet and followed Kathanac into the heart of the city ruins. They ran down the broken-up cobblestone streets, trying to not disturb the corpses. The docks were on the east side of the city and were easily visible due to how ruined the city was. They followed a straight line to the docks, hopping over the rubble of houses and workshops. They carried only the clothes on their backs and some spears they’d made of sharpened sticks.
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The docks were almost completely gone, lost beneath the waves of the grayish oceanic waters. Any sea-worthy vessel was nowhere to be found, either stolen away or sunk. There was a moldy rowboat still roped to the very edges of a dock stub. The oars laid inside it. “Oh thank Amulius, we have our escape.”
“A rowboat?!” Jodi protested. “We can’t survive in the open ocean in a rowboat!”
“What other option do we have? We got to try. They’re counting on us to get help.” Kathanac placed both hands on Jodi’s shoulders, pulling her into a hug. “We have each other and for now, that’s all we need. We’ll make it. We’ll escape this horrid nightmare.”
“Kathy, please.”
“Jodi, it’s just gonna be another week of this running and hiding, then we’re free.” Kathanac stared into the other dwarf’s eyes.
Jodi saw the unrelenting determination in Kathanac’s blue eyes. With a deep breath, Jodi nodded, “Alright. Hopefully, we’ll find a merchant ship before the next typhoon storms in.”
Kathanac made rowing motions with her arms. “We were rowing for days. Fortunately, it had rained on us enough to keep our thirst down. Finding some wooden cups along the way helped too. We bumped into a Vikan schooner and were brought onboard…”
The wooden sailing ship had a single mast and sail of massive proportions. On the deck were its caravan guards and its sailing captain. The whole crew was human. The captain was a tall man with a fanciful goatee of raven black and a pair of brown eyes that glistened with opportunity. He was not older than his third decade, rather young for a merchant sailing ship captain. He spoke with an upbeat tone in the human tongue, “Welcome aboard Fortune’s Maid, the best single-mast sailing ship this side of the Adriatic.”
Kathanac and Jodi looked at each other and then back at the well-dressed captain. “I’m Jodi and this is Kathanac. Thank you for pulling us on board.” Because of humanity’s influence globally and the spread of human nations on nearly every continent, the human language is the common language across all nations, human or not.
“It’s not a problem, lass.” He spoke with a thinned-out accent from a culture unfamiliar to the dwarven pair. “The name is Grimmolf. To these lads, I’m Captain Boesson. We’re heading to port in Rykensvik.”
“Rick-en-what?” Kathanac struggled to pronounce the name that was spewed out.
“no, no, no, it’s called Ry-kens-vik,” he stretched out the syllables for her to better understand. “It’s a human nation just over the horizon east of here.”
Kathanac shrugged, giving up on pronouncing it. “That’s fine, as long as it gets us far away from here.”
The captain raised a brow curiously. “I know the gnollish tribes have been a problem for the Dwarven Kingdom, but it can’t be that bad.”
Both of the dwarves’ heads lowered sorrowfully. “It’s a losing battle. We escaped, but there are thousands of dwarves in servitude.” Kathanac had to be careful with how she phrased their escape unless she wanted to give these sailors a new pair of slaves. “How long until we reach this foreign land?”
“About two weeks if the winds continue to be favorable. Come, no free housing on the boat, but we’ll pay ya for the extra hands.” The captain said, leading them below deck.
Kathanac took a sip of whiskey from her wooden mug. “Either the gods had a wicked sense of humor, or one of them really wanted to remind us that we weren’t free women yet.” Setting the mug back down on the table, she stood up and tapped Jodi’s shoulder. “I’m gonna go check on the other tables real quick, tell them the rest of the story.”
Jodi picked up a honey roll and took a bite. “They tasked us to be helpers to the ship’s cook.” She took another bite of the dinner roll. “For about two weeks, we helped him make slop and stews for the crew. Unlike our time under gnollish slavery, service to this cook was actually a lot more tame and tolerable. When we docked, it was surprising when the captain handed us money for our help…”
The captain held out a hand-sized chest filled with gold coins. “For your help. Our cook was struggling badly until you two showed up. Really, I appreciate it.”
Jodi took the chest with both hands, as it was very heavy, and took a peek at the treasure within. “There must be a hundred gold in this.”
“Four hundred, actually. Two hundred gold for each of you, double the normal rate. If you two ever hit the seas again, I’ll be more than happy to give you both the position of cook.” The captain had a slightly downer undertone to his otherwise cheerful demeanor.
“We appreciate the offer, Captain,” Jodi said. “we’ll keep it in mind.”
Kathanac held out open arms, “If it’s not too improper, Captain, a hug for the journey.”
The Captain smiled softly and gave them both a very solid hug. “The lads and myself are gonna miss your cooking. We’ll be here for a few days before we break for open seas. Huma is our next destination.”
The pair of dwarves nodded and made their way onto solid ground. “Don’t have too much fun without us!”
The streets of this foreign town were not nearly as built up as the dwarven city of their childhood. The streets were unpaved, consisting mostly of gravel and packed dirt, most buildings were of wood and thatch. To the pair of dwarven women, it was like stepping backward in time. However, their short stature drew a lot of eyes from the port city’s residents, most of whom were rather tall humans, nearly double the dwarves’ height. Amongst them were a few elves and kin species, both of which looked completely alien to them. There was one thing that gave both of them a huge wave of relief. There was not a single gnoll to be seen.
Like any traveler, the pair entered one of the taverns and took a seat at the bar. The loot chest they’d received from the Captain was carefully tucked into Kathanac’s clothing to avoid drawing unwanted eyes to it. Behind the bar were a couple of people, two human men, a pale elderly elven woman, and one wheelchair-bound orcish male.
They lifted the wheelchair to bring the slender olive-skin orc to eye level with most customers using large-diameter wheels. It appeared to be very cumbersome. He spoke with a brash tone, although not in a hostile tone. “What can I do for you two?”
Kathanac spoke up, “We’re new to the city and looking for work and a place to stay.”
The orc smiled, showing one yellowed tusk on the left side of his mouth, “Yo! Amber! We got new hires!” He yelled back to the others.
The pale elf, roughly six and a half feet tall, slender with silvery chin-length hair, walked up beside the orc and threw a glance at the pair of traveling dwarves. She spoke with a soft silken voice, a stark contrast to the disabled brute beside her. “We’re always looking for extra hands in the kitchen. Tahm here is limited by his dead legs and our two humans are what we call, ‘Reenev filanks’, erm, ‘spice blind’ in common.”
Jodi and Kathanac let out a sigh of defeat. Another cooking job to remind them of their servitude. However, they were getting good at unusual recipes. Jodi spoke up before Kathanac’s disapproving gaze could manifest into words. “We’d be more than willing. We were cooks ourselves for some time and spent two weeks aboard a trading ship as cooks. We’ve got experience in the kitchen.”
There was a sudden gleam of joy in the elf’s eye. “Good, good. I like the sound of that. Come, come, we can get you two permanent rooms upstairs. Oh, my name is Amber, Amber Feath.”
The blonde dwarf smiled. “I’m Jodi, and this is my friend Kathanac…”
“At the time, we were just friends. Good friends. Been through hells and high water to get freedom. We just celebrated our,” she paused for a moment to speak. “Hey, Kathy!”
From way back in the kitchen, a voice called back, “Yes?!”
Jodi smiled, “how long have we been married?”
There was a minute of silence. “Almost a century now.”
Roderick’s jaw dropped. He’d forgotten dwarves had doubled the lifespan of a human. “Holy hells, that’s a long time.”
“Aye, it is. We were thirty when we married and started dating about a year into our new lives as cooks at a tavern no different from this one.” Jodi sat upright in her seat. “Yona blessed us both with each other. By the time we married, we had accumulated enough gold and platinum to buy ourselves not just a home, but our own tavern. However, we didn’t want it in the city. Anslo was too expensive, too big for us small folk. Coming northward to Gelwood was the best decision. During our ten years in that tavern, we’d become its owners, buying it from Amber who was by then, wanting to retire and return home to her home country.”
“What happened to that tavern?” Sedel asked.
“We sold it to our replacement cooks. A young pair of tropical kobolds. Since then, I have no idea. Kobolds don’t live for a century, so I can only assume it’s been passed on to a different owner.”
Finnegan raised a paw. “What happened to the gnolls?”
Jodi let out a quiet, defeated sigh. “We tried to get help on a national level to liberate our people from gnollish slave camps, but the warring nature of the Basar clans and constant meddling from the Solists and Arkinics just never allowed Rykensvik to help. I even sent a letter to Amber asking if she could petition the council of elven kingdoms for support. As long as Valfurum stands, every dwarf will have a king and a home. I just don’t see it standing for much longer.”
“I wish there was something we could do.” Roderick said. “The both of you have taken care of this warband in ways I’m not sure we could ever repay.”
Jodi shook her head. “We escaped and lived the quiet life that our parents would’ve wanted for us. That’s all either of us can ask for.”
Dmahdi had an idea. “What if we went in and liberated your family?”
There was a moment of silence and a stone-grinding head turn towards the orc. The raccoon-kin groaned, “Dmahdi, what do you expect us to do? We’re not a professional army.”
“Exactly!” Dmahdi exclaimed. “The gnolls would expect a full-on army and have plans to beat it. They are not expecting an ambitious warband.”
Roderick placed a hand on his chin. “Since when did you have good ideas?”
Dmahdi shrugged, “Dunno. I just want to beat up some gnolls. “
Kathanac walked back over, wiping her hands dry on a towel pinned to her waist. “Hey Jodi, you’ll never guess who’s here tonight.”
Jodi turned to Kathanac, “Oh? Who’s the special guest?”
“As the winds would have it, Captain Boesson.”
“He’s still alive?!”
“As luck would have it, today’s his 115th birthday. Come, he wants to see you again.”
The entire party looked between each other, then toward the supposed ship captain they’d heard about. Seated at the bar was a very elderly white human male in a fancy suit with his suit jacket hung over his shoulders, but no arms through its sleeves. Its blue and red were sun faded and several off-hue patches could be seen. He was gaunt and wrinkled and a hefty wooden cane leaned against his seat. He leaned against the bar counter and sipped from his mug of drink through a wooden straw. The pair of dwarven women hastily made their way to his side to strike up a conversation with the old sea captain.
Sedel smiled. “Isn’t that both sweet and one hell of a coincidence?”
Roderick turned back to Dmahdi. “Are you really sure we could do that?”
Dmahdi shrugged. “Defeat an unknown amount of gnolls without dying? Only one way to find out. If nothing else, Magarath would find such a thing entertaining.”
“Riddle me this one, Dmahdi,” Roderick pinched the bridge of his nose. “Why do orcs worship the god of madness who is, by all known accounts, actually medically insane?”
“Because he is funny,” the orcish woman said nonchalantly.