The walk across the bridge to Dragon’s Breath was lit by glowing magic orb lights. The thrumb of city life, that had been buzzing when I’d ventured west earlier in the day, had dulled to a quiet hum. As we approached the tavern however, the brightly lit building was lively and well attended. The stable to one side was stocked with all manner of beasts cared for by stablehands. The double doors of the tavern stood open and the merry music of a small band of players spilled into the street.

I glanced around the ground floor as we headed in the door but couldn’t spot Fenlyn among the crowd. There were all manner of humanoids, however, from feathered to furred or scaled and in all kinds of hues and heights. Some appeared drunker than others. Some were dancing to the music. Others sang along or stamped their feet in time to the rhythm tapped out on a dulcimer.

“Fenlyn said to ask for her,” I told the others, looking for the bar. We had to weave through other patrons to reach it. The stools along its edge were mostly full and others leaned over the counter, calling orders to the bartenders. One, a stout dwarf, stood out behind the counter, mixing and serving drinks with boisterous humor. He had a bushy mustache and a long beard that hung to his waist where it was tied with a thick leather cord. His hair was pulled back in a bun and his face was weathered with age. He was adorned in heavy linen clothes decorated with brass, beads, and smoothly carved stones.

He glanced at me, clearly curious, his dark eyes assessing. “What can I get you?” He was still mixing another person’s drink as he spoke and before I could answer he’d twirled the bottle and pushed the heavy tankard down the counter. “Order up, Jayem.” A heavily feathered person turned, catching the tankard with the claws of their feathered hand. They tipped their head in thanks, lifting the drink to dip their beak into the brew before settling back on the stool with a sigh. “Well?” he said, turning back to me.

“I’m looking for Fenlyn?”

He lifted his gaze over my shoulder and shouted, “Martha! Customer for the dusty ballard!” He lifted his chin to a dainty felanine who was just finishing serving another table. Her mottled gray fur poofed around her face and her delicate ears perked at his call. She lifted her chin and smiled, beginning to weave her way toward us. Her long tail flicked side-to-side behind her, as the dwarf added to me, “Martha will show you to your friend and take your orders as you’re ready.”

I nodded my thanks.

“Be sure to tip her,” he said, fixing me with a look. She’s a hard worker and has kits at home that need feeding.” Before I could respond he was already turning to catch another order. The felanine swayed through the crowd, reaching us a moment later.

“Good evening,” she said, her voice a soft purr. He amber eyes settled on me a moment, then observed Cambrin and Ceylas who both stood behind me, glancing around warily. “Come with me.”

We followed the woman up the stairs to the second floor and down a long corridor. She knocked gently on a door and after waiting for an assenting response from within pushed it open and gestured with a hand that we should proceed her.

It was a simple room, with a small table and a handful of comfortable dining chairs. It was lit with the flickering light of a handful of tallow candles. In one corner, a young halfling girl played a soft melody on a harp. It was unobtrusive but offered a calm and relaxing atmosphere. Fenlyn stood watching the girl. The flicker of flames in the fireplace danced off her hair and gave a soft glow to her face. She turned to us as we came in.

“I’m glad you came,” she said. She placed a gold coin in a small dish at the girl’s feet and then turned to the table, gesturing to the chairs. “Come, join me.”

I stood, transfixed as I tried to capture my breath. Behind me, Cambrin and Ceylas were already heading to the table and I flushed as I joined them, taking a seat opposite Fenlyn.

She’d transformed from the filth-covered, half-bloodied and bruised warrior we’d met in the sewers. Her hair, which had escaped from the cowl of her cloak had been streaked with filth. Now it shone, clean and slightly curling, to rest against the soft pale skin of her bare shoulders. She wore a pale pink dress with shoestring straps. It excentuated the curves of her body. Her eyes, the emerald green I remembered, were carefully lined with pale pink and her lips were just a hint glossy.

I cleared my throat as I realized she’d been speaking. “I’m sorry, what?” I asked, shifting uncomfortably.

She didn’t seem to notice my preoccupation and simply repeated herself. “Before Martha leaves, shall we order?”

I nodded, turning to the serving woman. “What do you have?”

“We have two choices this evening. The first is a leek and mushroom soup starter followed by lamb cuts in crimson sauce with asparagus, carrot, and potato scallops. The other is a garden salad starter with an herb chicken and roast vegetable réglage as the main.”

Fenlyn ordered her meal, adding softly, “May I have that with a glass of white wine?”

Martha nodded her head as she took our orders. “Do you have anything stronger than wine?” I asked, missing the Wild Turkey bourbon I enjoyed back home.

Martha smiled, dipping her head. “We are famous for our house title.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The Dragon’s Breath, of course. It’s a brew of long barrel-aged whiskey from crimson corn grown in the heat of the dark soils from the lands to the east.”

“That sounds great.”

Once she’d taken orders from Cambrin and Ceylas she left the room, tucking the door closed behind her. The harpist continued to play unobtrusively in the corner. I turned my full attention back to Fenlyn whose gaze had come to settle on me.

“I am glad you came, Lo’Kryn.”

Beside me, Ceylas cleared her throat slightly and I flushed, turning to introduce my friends. “This is Ceylas, and her brother Cambrin.”

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“Well met,” Fenlyn said with a warm smile. “I am Fenlyn.”

“You are a paladin, are you not?” Cambrin asked, his gaze curious. “Thank you for your aid with the alligator.”

She shook her head, “No, it is I who must thank you. Your timing was impeccable. My companions and I would not have survived the encounter had you not intervened when you did.”

“What were you doing down there?” I asked. They’d had a writ as well which they’d shown the guards at the east gate.

“Our temple had tasked us to aid the city in the matter. One of our priests had been lost to it recently when it had ventured out of the sewer and into the temple gardens.”

“Oh, goodness,” Ceylas said with a gasp. “It killed them?”

Fenlyn dipped hear head in acknowlegdement. “Yes. But please, I didn’t bring you here to speak of the beast. There’s something more we must discuss.”

“Your dream,” I said, my voice soft.

Ceylas’s gaze snapped to me and her brow furrowed. “Dream?” she asked.

Fenlyn flushed, the firelight enhancing the soft pink of her skin. “Indeed. It is nothing untoward, I assure you. Well, not as you might think anyway. My temple might think less of me for it but not for any lewd reason.”

I placed my hand against hers on the table. “It’s okay, will you tell us about it.”

She sighed, drawing her hand back and placing it in her lap as she leaned against the chair. “Please understand that it is,” she paused, searching for the word, “uncomfortable to discuss. You see, in the Temple of the Gods we support the worship of the full Pantheon of Life. We each have our chosen, in my case the god of civilization, law, peace, and knowledge, Dunerath. He is my everything and it is from him that I recieve the gifts I use to aid in his cause.”

She paused. I leaned forward in my chair as we all waited for her to continue.

She lifted her gaze to mine. “It is unspeakable, in the temple, to be chosen of more than one god.”

I frowned, not sure I was understanding. “What do you mean?”

“Even within a pantheon there is much tension. The gods and goddesses of the Pantheon of Life maintain unique domains of interest. Bahanuada's influence on justice does not compete nor contend with Dunerath’s perspective in law, for example. One would not worship both, for all are distinct and unique.”

“What has that got to do with your dream?” Ceylas said, leaping to the heart of the issue.

Fenlyn swallowed, clearly uncomfortable. “In my dream I was visited by Arawyn.”

She left the name hanging in the air. I remembered what I’d skimmed so far in the book Jovial had given me. “Isn’t she one of the Pantheon of Balance?” I asked.

Fenlyn’s nod was almost impercetable. “Indeed.” She paused as if considering how to continue. “Arawyn told me that,” she swallowed again and leaned forward to whisper, “a soul resides within me. One I must awaken. A traveller.”

I sat back, shocked. Not that she might be a traveller but that unlike Cambrin and Ceylas, or rather my friends Jake and Bec, this one appeared to be the Essaedris host coming to us.

Her fingers quivered and she gripped them tight. “If I were to speak a word of this in the temple they would perform an exorcism immediately. But I have a feeling that my traveller is important. Arawyn, she is not of the Pantheon of Power. She is of Balance. Surely that means I am called to a great quest.”

I nodded, feeling as she did that there must be something important here. “You said when we’d met that you dreamed of me?”

She nodded again, more comfortable now since I hadn’t seemed to show any kind of judgement regarding her earlier confession of possession. “Yes,” she said, lifting her hands again to lean forward on the table. “When Arawyn came to me she showed me your face. She said I must find you; that our paths are intertwined.”

“Did she say where that path might lead?” Cambrin asked, his eyes dark as he absorbed all she was saying.

She glanced at him and shook her head. “No.”

“What about us?” Ceylas asked.

Fenlyn blinked. “You?”

“Yeah, us. Me and Cambrin. If some god came to you and showed you Lo’Kryn why didn’t it show you us as well?”

Fenlyn lifted a shoulder. “I am uncertain,” she admitted. “The way of the gods is rarely transparent. All I know is that I must awaken my traveller, and that somehow this connects to you, Lo’Kryn.” She fixed me with a look as if she too were searching my soul for answers. “I was hoping you would know more.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling a weight growing around me. “I honestly don’t know much.”

I turned to my companions, catching their eye with a question. Suddenly, in my mind I heard Ceylas’s voice, soft and worried, “You can’t trust her, Lo’Kryn.”

I blinked confused but let my thoughts wander, sensing she heard my response, “Maybe she’s one of us.”

“It’s too convenient.”

“What does Cambrin think?”

She scowled and looked away from both of us. “Stupid boys,” she muttered out loud. Fenlyn gave her a curious look.

“We should tell her what we know, Lo’Kryn,” Cambrin said, placing a hand on his sister’s shoulder. “I know Ceylas is of a cautious mind but if this paladin can connect directly with the Pantheon of Balance, perhaps they can aid us.”

“Siria had said she’d spoken to Melvanis. I don’t know why these gods don’t just talk to us directly if they’re so able to reach into the minds of others.” I gave Ceylas another look but she was plainly ignoring me. So I turned back to Fenlyn. “The truth is, Fenlyn, we know very little ourselves. But I’ll tell you what I can.”

Over the next couple of hours, as we ate the meals brought to us, I told Fenlyn about being called. I shared what Siria had told me, about connecting to the roll of the dice, about sensing the game within and the way we’d come from an other world. Even as I talked about it I knew it sounded insane. There were times when Fenlyn didn’t seem so certain she should be listening to us. But she heard it all.

“And you say I house one of these, otherworlders, within?” she asked as we’d finished our meal and pushed our plates away.

I picked up my glass of dragon’s breath. It was a smooth drink that gave just the barest hint of a burn down my throat as I took a sip. “If we are to believe the dream you had. Then yes, perhaps they are sleeping, in the same way my host feels mostly dormant within me.”

She blinked, took a sip from her wine and then placed it carefully back on the table. “Why are you all awakened when my traveller sleeps?”

Now this was something I wasn’t sure about. When I’d first arrived in this world it had been like I’d always existed here to some degree. I just was. There wasn’t a point where I was stuck in Lo’Kryn’s mind while he was running the body. “I don’t know.”

“Maybe there is a relationship with the strength of one’s mind,” Cambrin said, tilting his head as he concidered.

“What do you mean?” Fenlyn asked.

“He means, maybe you’re stubborn and strong-willed and aren’t letting our friend come through?” Ceylas said sharply.

“Hey,” I said, putting a hand on Ceylas’s arm.

“Well she has to be, right? I mean Akimi is such a tender-hearted sweety. She’s super polite. And this,” she gestured at Fenlyn, “warrioress is hardly that.”

Fenlyn frowned. “I am not polite?”

Ceylas groaned, shaking her head. “That’s not what I mean. I mean you’re clearly more dominating. You have to let her come through.”

Cambrin looked at Fenlyn then turned to his sister. “What makes you think it is Akimi?” He, Jake that is, and Akimi had been dating for months. Cambrin looked incredibly uncomfortable to think she might be inhabiting the body of this woman who was twice his current height and three times his build.

“Well, I mean it could be Erica,” Ceylas admitted.

“What makes you think it’s either of them? It could be anyone at all. It could be people we don’t even know.”

She fixed him with a look that shouted at how stupid she thought he was. “Honestly, what are the odds of that. It’s you, me, and Nik. You think the gods are just randomly scooping people up and happened to score us three?”

I bit my lip, concerned that Ceylas was exactly right. The odds of us three being randomly selected from the world meant there must have been something that tied us together. Maybe it was the game, hell, probably it was the game, which meant if there were other travellers it would be our other players. Akimi, and Erica.