Reeve took in the room as her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

Pipe smoke. Check.

Windowless dark interior lit only by gnarled candles in—what were they called? Sconces? That was probably too upscale a word for them—whatever. Check.

Suspicious and dangerous-looking patrons at every table. Check.

Bartender with facial scarring. A missing limb. I feel you, buddy. Check.

Empty seat at the bar where I could conveniently talk to the bartender to get information. Check.

Reeve let out a long breath.

There must be about three thousand XP of trouble waiting to go off in here, she thought. And there’ll be little chance for me to survive to reap any of it if things get ugly.

Light from behind her momentarily bathed the tavern’s interior and revealed just how filthy every surface was—from the worn, broad-planked floors to the worn, downcast faces of varying hues and degrees of hairiness…and greasiness—and then the tavern’s door closed and the darkness again hid the filth, though it could not be cleansed from Reeve’s mind.

“Well, that’s all gross,” she said quietly.

“We should speak with the barkeep,” Dusk said when she reached Reeve’s side.

“Hey, hold up.” Reeve grasped the half-elf’s arm as Dusk was starting toward the bar. Dusk shook off her hand and glared at her. “Waste of time,” Reeve said. “Plus,” she glanced at the roughly-carved and creatively spelled signs above the bar, which had a long list of drinks that were, thanks to the game knowing her age IRL, all non-alcoholic and, as a result, probably not sanitary, “I’m not thirsty.”

“But why not ask the barkeep where we might procure a guide?”

“Because,” Reeve said, “the guide we need is over there. She pointed to the dark back corner of the room where a single, hooded figure of difficult-to-discern proportions sat alone at a table, three empty seats around them.

“They? How could you know?” Dusk eyed Reeve with incredulity.

“Hooded figure sitting alone. Only empty seats in the house, other than the one by the bartender. This isn’t my first rodeo.”

Dusk narrowed her eyes.

“There’s this black ops first-person shooter,” Reeve said, “I play with a couple friends every now and then. They say that ‘rodeo’ thing on the server all the time.” She looked at Dusk. “Know what? Never mind. Let’s go.”

Dusk gave a half shake of her head but started toward the table in the corner.

“Not that way.” Reeve again caught Dusk’s arm.

Dusk spun on her. “Stay your hand—“

“Listen. Every person between here and that table is looking to start a fight.”

“And you surmise that how?” Dawn said.

“Um, hello? Have you ever seen that many face and neck tattoos all crammed together in a place that didn’t turn into a huge brawl within minutes? No way we’d squeeze through the crowd without starting something. Come on. We’ll go around and use that side door from the outside.” She pointed to a small, partially ajar door near the hooded figure, turned, and pushed out into the sunlight, again not waiting to see if Dusk would follow.

When Reeve stepped in through the side door, there was barely room to move, so crowded were the tables, but there was a narrow path down the wall that she sidestepped along to reach the corner table. Without asking, she took a seat in the one vacant chair that provided a view of the entire tavern, loosely holding with both hands her naginata so that it rose vertically between her knees. She nodded to the chair that had the best of the remaining views, and Dusk sat, tossing her braid over her shoulder.

“Well met, travelers,” the hooded figure said, her voice like someone whispering a song. Slender hands with skin that looked like aged, yellowed parchment reached from inside the cloak’s sleeves to lift a steaming wooden cup to unseen lips.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Dusk recoiled. “You’re fallen.” Her words were more hissed than spoken.

“Then we are more akin than not, half-human.”

Only once before had Reeve come across an elf that had been cast out by its brethren and lost its nature mana. That fallen elf had gotten along fine with everyone in her party, except the other elf races.

“I don’t care if you’re a monkey,” Reeve said to the hood, then glanced frustratedly at Dusk. “We seek safe passage to Fellgrave.” She looked warily back over the tavern’s crowd but found nothing to cause her concern.

Dusk crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “Such an unworthy heir to Wurmslayer. And now you will associate with a Fallen?”

“Sheesh. Park your pout,” Reeve said and looked back to the fallen elf.

“It’s a simple enough journey,” the fallen elf said.

“We were told the bridge is washed out.”

“By a man of the Council?”

“Gate guard.”

The hood rocked slowly from side to side. “That is one account of how it was destroyed.”

Sitting in the darkness, fatigue settled again on Reeve, and she shook her head and rubbed one eye. “Look, I don’t have any interest in or time for politics or intrigue. Whatever the deal is with the bridge, we need to get to Fellgrave.” She shifted the naginata into her left hand and jerked the thumb of her right toward Dusk. “My companion and her twin are apprenticed to a mage who’s now captive, they believe in Fellgrave. But we hear that the ford route requires a guide, so…” Reeve gestured at the table and, by association, the conversation.

“How many of you?” The fallen elf said.

“Four.”

“A half-orc, two half-elves, and…?”

Reeve let out a tired breath and leaned her forehead against the naginata’s shaft. “A halfling, and two animal companions who will rejoin us outside of town.”

“Mounts?”

“Only the halfling,” Reeve paused as the tavern’s main door opened. She squinted against the light that overwhelmed whatever figure stood without, but then the light was blocked again. “Pony,” she said, turning back to the fallen elf.

The light at the door suddenly relit, accompanied by a deep rumble, and then the door slammed shut. Twice seared, Reeve’s eyes were slow to recover, and she noticed the drop in conversation across the tavern before she was able to see its cause. Just inside the door stood a juvenile twiceling. Reeve had never seen one of their race. Related to both trolls and giants, they had some official name in canon, but she’d only heard them referred to as twicelings, due to their resemblance to a halfling of enormous size. The twiceling squeezing itself into the tavern had apparently been what briefly blocked the light between the door opening and finally closing.

“Jeezy creezy,” Reeve said quietly, knowing that twicelings were only marginally accepted members of society, disliked as much by most races as fallen elves were by their kin.

“Grrrhhheeee,” the twiceling rumbled in a language or with an accent Reeve couldn’t understand.

“All are travelers who can handle themselves outside the safety of city walls?” The fallen elf said.

Reeve considered how to answer the question while watching the twiceling trundle to the bar, banging its head on every crossbeam it passed. “We can hold our own,” she said, lowering her gaze to stare at the floor as she held her naginata in the crook of one elbow and used both hands to tighten her ponytail. “We were three weeks in the wild coming here.”

“Hey!”

Reeve’s head snapped toward the angry cry. The twiceling had left the bar and was weaving between the crowded tables, sidestepping as though it thought it would be able to squeeze itself through the nearly nonexistent gaps. An angry leprechaun had jumped onto the seat of his chair and turned to shout at the twiceling after being nearly knocked to the floor by its passing.

The twiceling started to make its way around the edge of a large, round table adjacent to the corner table at which Reeve, Dusk, and the fallen elf sat. A dozen gnomes were sitting at the round table.

This may not go well, Reeve thought, knowing how short-tempered and quick-to-a-fight gnomes were.

The twiceling bumped against the back of one of the gnome’s chairs, and the small creature, face already flushed from drink, was pushed against the table’s edge, liquid sloshing from the flagon that was nearly as tall as he was. “Galumphing oaf!” The gnome roared in his small voice, looking up at the towering twiceling, “Do ee’ again, and I’ll cut you down to size! My size, ya mountain of stink! One o’ me fellows here has more brains and fight than ten o’ ye!”

The twiceling looked down to where the incensed gnome sat, near the twiceling’s knee, and bent to use a giant hand to pat the gnome on its head, pushing the gnome’s stocking cap down over the sputtering creature’s eyes as it did. The twiceling turned away and continued its slow path through the crowd, not seeing the gnome, now incandescent with rage, lunge from its chair and miss the twiceling’s thigh, disappearing below the table as the other gnomes’ curses became mixed with laughter.

“Ten silver a head,” the fallen elf said evenly.

“What?” Reeve turned from watching the slow progress of the twiceling and the wake of cursing gnomes it was leaving. “That’s highway robbery!”

“That is what it will cost you if you wish to avoid highway robbery, or worse.”

“Grrrhhheeee,” the twiceling’s rumbling voice said from above them.

Reeve closed her eyes and let out a tired breath. “Halfling pony show. Bridge down. Highway robbery. Inexplicable twiceling magnet.” She looked up at the creature towering over them. “I’m having quite the day.”

“Grrrhhheeee,” the twiceling’s rumbling voice said from above them. The creature placed its left hand on its hip.

Reeve’s eyes watered, relief and exasperation competing to push her over the edge into tears. “Wanda? Mom?”