Forgetting his exhaustion, Kelek dashed over to the bar where the sagacious old man stood. The wizard peered at Kelek, moving his attention away from the scrolls he was reading over. His eyes betrayed a facet of his appearance that was not obvious from a distance. They had a faint glow behind them. It was as if tiny tendrils of magic wisped out from his pupils like a phantasmal octopus trapped behind the spheres.
“May I help you?” His voice was gentle and his words were deliberate. However, Kelek could sense a hint of annoyance in his tone.
“I’m terribly sorry for intruding at this hour, but I’m here to join the Guild. You see, I recently realized I’m a wizard myself, and I always wanted to be advent-”
“Peace, peace boy.” The wizard hushed Kelek. “You’re right, the hour is late. Now is not the time for introductions and explanations. Those can come later.” He reached for his staff, and to Kelek's surprise it leaped into the wizard's hands from its resting place against the wall.
“I’d hate to inconvenience you by ushering you off to some inn when you and your friend have clearly had a long trip. I’ll allow you to use a room here for the night. We can discuss your joining in the morning, I’ve more important matters to attend.” With a snap of his fingers, the scrolls he had been holding vanished in a puff of smoke.
“I’ve not many furnished rooms, so you’ll have to share. You can stay in the last room on the left upstairs. When morning comes I expect you both down here and we can have a proper induction.” He looked past Kelek and Renzen to the pair sitting at the dining table. “Dmitri, Renault, if you’re going to be much longer make sure you lock the front door. I don’t need any more late arrivals.” The man looked back to Kelek and gave him a wry smile.
“Come on, I’ve had enough standing, let's get to those beds.” Renzen hooked an arm around Kelek’s and escorted him up the stairs
“Thank you sir! Your generosity is much appreciated!” Kelek hollered to the sage as he was dragged away. “Come now, can’t you show a little respect? He didn’t have to give us a room like that.”
“I am showing respect by getting out of his hair. He is clearly busy and doesn’t want to have you bothering him.” Though curt, Kelek realized the truthfulness in his words.
As they climbed the stairs, Kelek took notice of the comfortable lodgings available to the members. Two doors laid open. One was empty, save for the two plain beds featuring only sheets and pillows. The second room clearly had occupants, though they weren’t present. Kelek guessed it belonged to the pair below, Dmitri and Renault. As they passed the open room Kelek observed a night table with a small locked diary next to a vase with a single sunflower. He blushed slightly as he observed a brassiere strewn across the back of a chair. Was the armor clad person a woman? He thought. Neither of the names sounded feminine to him. The thought quickly left his mind as the pair stopped at the room the wizard had told them to take. Renzen attempted to open the door, but the knob held fast.
“Damned things locked.” He sputtered.
A thought popped into Kelek’s head. “Wait, let me give it a try.” He said.
Reaching for the knob, Kelek focused his thoughts. He was confident that if he tried hard enough, he could use his magic to will the lock open. It was a far easier task than exploding a campfire, he thought. After standing in silence with his arms folded for several moments Renzen spoke.
“Are you trying to blow it up? I’d request that you don’t make such a bad first impression of us.”
“No, I’m trying to unlock it with magic.”
“I told you to hold off on that! For all you know you might actually blow it up!”
“Whatever, it isn’t working anyway.” Kelek replied with disappointment.
Kelek rolled his eyes and dropped his arms to his sides. He then stepped forward and brought his hand down in a swift motion. His fingers were straight, and he struck the neck of the handle like a guillotine. The knob was severed from the door and fell to the floor with a thud.
“What are you doing?” Kelek whispered to him in an aggravated tone.
“I’m going to bed. I’m not about to let a slab of wood get in the way of a good night’s sleep.”
The door swung open loosely as the locking mechanism on the other side of the door had also fallen in. Kelek tried in vain to repair the destroyed handle, and gathered the pieces together in a pile inside the room. Slipping off his pack, Kelek sat on the bed and turned to Renzen.
“Wait, I thought elves didn’t need to sleep. Don’t you people just sort of meditate for a few hours and it acts the same as rest?”
Renzen responded with a dry single laugh. “You humans never stop romanticizing us. We require just as much rest as every other living thing. We may be quick to rouse, like a cat, but we still sleep and dream, same as you. Elves have easily thrice the strength and speed of humans, but we’re not as immortal and omniscient as your stories would claim.”
“What about age? Do you really live to be thousands of years old like the stories say? Or is that another embellishment?”
“Not quite that long, but definitely longer than a human. Proportional to our excessive strength and agility I’d suppose. A healthy elf that manages to avoid getting his head cleaved off should be able to comfortably die in sleep around five-hundred.”
Kelek was in awe. Here he was, interviewing an elf about his species, and getting answers honest and forthcoming without issue. Not even a day ago he was living the life of a poor farmer boy. Was it really that easy to experience a greater life, or was it just a turn of extraordinary luck?
“So why are you here? What made you come all the way to Tynemouth just to join the Guild? Are you not from Thorompa Giantwood? Wouldn’t it have been easier to join one of the Guilds in Feldoch or Regnarce?” Kelek continued to prod.
Renzen let out a sigh of exasperation and leaned back in his bed, but continued to humor Kelek’s line of questioning in his drab, slightly frustrated tone.
“Yes, I was born in one of the hidden elven cities in Thorompa. But that was nearly two-hundred years ago. There weren’t any Guilds in those cities back then, and I’d left there long after they finally did get built. I’ve been down here wandering around the human lands these past few decades. Before you ask, my reasons are my own. I’ve just been in the area of my own volition. I must say, the human lands are much more pleasant than the dwarves. Though still nowhere near the majesty of the elves. I caught wind that a branch of the Guild was opening here a few weeks ago, and decided it fit my desires to join up. I was working my way through to here when I happened upon your little trick in the woods and saved your life.” Renzen propped himself up on one elbow and looked across the room to Kelek on his bed. “Is your curiosity satisfied?”
“I suppose so. I don’t want to pry too much, you know I owe you a great deal for saving my life. Thank you for telling me about yourself.” Kelek bit his lip, careful not to impose, but still bursting with curiosity. “Those bandits, they mentioned the name Greith, and you said they worked for him. Who is he?”
“You live around here and don’t know? He is the leader of his own band of highwaymen. Greith’s Fist they call themselves. Greith is a notorious cutthroat. All the guardsmen in the nearby cities have posters up for him. No one is sure where his hideout is. There are reports of people seeing his face in Regnarce one day and Nasarah the next. No normal man can travel with that sort of speed, or elf for that matter. He also runs a protection racket. Bandits that align themselves with him need to pay him fees, but in turn they wear his mark. Unaligned muggers know better than to mess with his men, or it’ll come back on them tenfold. He is the head of what must be the largest organized crime ring in this half of the continent. I'm honestly shocked you’ve never heard of him. Though I suppose his men have bigger marks than some farming town absent from most maps.”
A flush of despair washed over Kelek.
“Does that mean his other men are going to come for us? Now that we’ve… killed some of his?”
Renzen laid back down and stared at the roof. “I doubt it. Much as he lauds his protection, bandits like that die every day. Besides, it's not like there were any witnesses.”
Kelek shuddered as he remembered the gruesome image of the man, Gorral, as the other man called him, with his face hideously disfigured and burned from the campfire explosion.
“No, if anyone even finds the bodies they’ll chalk it up to some camping mishap. Beasts will have their way with the bodies anyway before anyone could even locate them.”
Eager to change the subject from the gory details that Renzen seemed to delight in, Kelek said
“How did you learn to fight the way you do? You don’t have any weapons, and I hadn’t even noticed you’re not even carrying any supplies. Did you just forage all your food in the woods?”
“It is traditional in the city I was born in to train in hand-to-hand combat from a very young age.” Renzen replied dryly.
“I’ve spent years honing my body in sparring matches against other elves. It was expected that you become a master of your own body in my home. Instruments of war like swords and bows are seen as barbaric and blasphemous to my people.”
“Elves?”
“No, my people. The people I was born with. Are all you humans alike? Do you have the same customs as the people in Feldoch?”
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Kelek shook his head, embarrassed at the obvious rude assumption.
“I thought not. The same is true with elves. My tribe is very different from those in far western Thorompa. They believed that total body mastery could be achieved through rigorous training and meditation. So that’s what I did, because that’s what I was taught. That is why I can kill a man with my bare hands as quickly and easily as you could a dagger. Does that answer your question?”
Renzen’s voice held a hint of sorrow to it. Kelek could tell there was information he was withholding, but knew better than to prod him anymore.
“Yes, thank you Renzen” Kelek yawned and settled into his bed.
“Goodnight” Kelek called to Renzen on the other side of the room. Renzen let out a small dry laugh that could almost be mistaken for a cough, and was silent the rest of the night. As Kelek nestled into the starched white pillow, his eyelids grew leaden. He had never exerted himself as he had that evening. His mind raced with thoughts of what reasons Renzen could possibly have that would lead him to desert the forests of Thorompa, especially after he admitted that they were so much more majestic than the meager woods of the south. A few theories stuck fast in his mind, each equally probable to him.
Perhaps he is an outlaw. Maybe he murdered one of his tribesmen, or worse, he’s a serial killer. That would explain his macabre fascination with death. Or maybe he was just a kindred spirit that longed to travel the world and explore. Though that wouldn’t explain why he would refuse to tell him the reason. Maybe everything he had said was a lie. Maybe he isn’t from Thorompa at all, and from some other tribe of elves, or an entirely different race altogether under the guise of an elf. He definitely looked different than he would expect from an elf.
Kelek let his thoughts jump from one muddled conclusion to another as his deliberations slowly morphed into dreams. The seeds of his thinking sprouted into vibrant images of Renzen performing feats of athletic prowess. Acrobatically leaping through treetops and swinging his limbs into formless creatures of shadow, scattering their essence into the background of his imagined visions. After a while, Renzen disappeared into shadow, along with the surrounding landscape. A flash of light illuminated a familiar scene. Kelek could see the clearing with the campfire he had combusted. The tiny grove was devoid of the woman and bowman, but to his chagrin, Kelek could see the body of the boar-roasting bandit lying on the opposite side of the firepit. Kelek protested the movement but his body did not heed his will. He took one aggravatingly slow step toward the lifeless husk. Then another, this time faster. Kelek tried to close his eyes to shield himself from the horrid sight, but to no avail. His pace quickened until he was standing not three inches from the body. He gazed into Gorral’s empty eye sockets. Wisps of brackish smoke wormed their way from the body. Kelek lifted his hand to his mouth in horror and disgust. Then Gorral’s mouth began to twitch. Kelek’s heart leaped in his chest. The neck of the corpse cracked with a sickening snap as it jerked to more directly face Kelek, and its jaw undulated as it spoke
“Murderer…”
The ghoul let the condemnation linger on his lipless mouth as the word pried into Kelek’s heart.
I didn’t mean to! It was an accident, a reflex!
“Murderer…”
It was self defense! You and your friends were going to kill me! I had to!
“Murder-”
The third verbal assault was cut short, as the animated corpse’s skull was shattered by the stomping foot of Renzen. The remainder of the body scattered into the wind, as if it were made of ash being blown away by a gust. Kelek locked eyes with Renzen, whose fists were clenched and matched Kelek’s gaze with a fierce stare. His mouth moved wordlessly, and Kelek shook his head in confusion. Renzen repeated his message, but it fell on deaf ears. With an irritated roll of his eyes, Renzen raised his arms and gave Kelek a hard shove. He fell backwards, and the scene of the campfire clearing sped away from his sight. A whorl of colors danced around Kelek’s peripheral vision, before finally resting into a sea of black void.
Morning broke with a bright beam of light shining directly into Kelek’s lidded eyes. Their room had a window that faced east, directly overlooking the Argentum Sea. It was a beautiful sight, but Kelek wished they had thought to close the curtain so that they might be able to rest a bit longer. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Kelek glanced around the room to find Renzen absent, his bed unmade. Kelek grimaced at the rude gesture before rising from his own bed and making both of them. The task helped ease his mind from his frightful nightmare. A clamor of noise could be heard below as Kelek made his way down the hallway. The pleasant and familiar scent of cooked breakfast meats reached his nose, forcing a reflexive smile. Once the row of doors ceased and he reached the right angled stairwell, he looked out over the bannister to observe the Guild hall. He saw Renzen speaking to the blue-robed wizard. The knight and bandana-wearing man sat at the same table they had the night before. Three new figures were present as well- all sat at the long bar two stools away from Renzen, eating a meal of eggs and sausage. One appeared to be a woman with lightly curled dark hair wearing black-dyed leather armor. He couldn’t make much of her features from his position on the second floor. Another figure looked to be a young man with blonde hair. He was wearing a gambeson with a chain shirt, and a long blade was strapped to his back. The third figure was much shorter than the others. He was a man with bright ginger hair, and a tanned shirt. He was wearing a leather apron that held a multitude of tools, presumably some sort of mechanist.
Was he a dwarf? Kelek thought to himself. He had never seen one in person, much like the elves, he had only read about them in books. Unlike the elves, whose wooded land of Thorompa stretched all across the northern edge of Panpatriam, the dwarves' homeland was in the foothills along the southwestern coast. Both were a far trip from Kelek’s home village which lay a days' travel from Panpatriam’s eastern coast. Kelek took flight down the stairs, eager to treat himself with a proper cooked meal. As he reached the bar, he overheard Renzen’s conversation with the wizard.
“You’re in luck that applicants are a rarity in this remote area. Normally I wouldn’t entertain filling a room with two unproven travelers that didn’t even have the common sense to bring their own weapons.” The wizard asserted.
Renzen replied with a wide grin.
“I’d wager fifty gold I could beat any so-called warrior here barehanded with one arm tied behind my back!”
His boast was unexpectedly answered immediately.
“I’ll take that wager!”
The leather clad woman leaned forward over the bar to meet Renzen’s eyes. She had a sprightly voice and a smile that showed off bright white teeth. Her face was full of cheer, and simply looking at her made Kelek want to share in her infectious smile. Her shoulder length hair framed her white face in slightly twirling waves. She had a small nose that pointed upward smiling, accentuating her youthful visage. Kelek thought her far too delicate to be a warrior. The rest of her figure was obfuscated by her dark leather armor, but it was clear she had an athletic build. Her arms were thicker than Kelek’s, but she stood nearly six inches shorter, and well over a foot below Renzen.
The wizard raised an inquisitive eyebrow toward Renzen, appraising how he would respond to the challenge.
“I see not all humans here are cowards.” He aimed his words at the woman. “Tell me, who do I have the pleasure of sending to the infirmary?”
The woman continued to smile with what appeared to be genuine glee and hopped off her stool.
“Imperisha, but please call me Imp.” She extended a hand to Renzen.
Renzen looked at the outstretched hand with a scowl.
“Go fetch your weapon. This’ll make a great morning exercise.”
Despite the elf’s boorishness, Imp retained her smile and giddily pranced up the stairs to her lodging. Renzen windmilled each arm around to stretch his shoulders as he made for the front door. Kelek looked toward the wizard with a bemused smile. The wizard returned Kelek’s focus with a hearty chuckle.
“Doesn’t hurt to have spirited members that don’t shy away from a battle. So long as they don’t hurt themselves too badly.” The wizard produced a plate of warm bacon, eggs, and toast from somewhere underneath the bar and offered it to Kelek.
Was that just sitting there this whole time? It looks fresh. Kelek quickly shook the thought from his head and indulged in the delectable repast.
“I fear I’ve still yet to introduce myself. I am Bayin Amadeus. Also known as Bayin, The Wise. I am Guildmaster for this Tynemouth branch of the Brandt Adventurer’s Guild.” Bayin removed his oversized hat and gave a courteous bow.
“I have given my blessing to your companion, Renzen, to join the Guild. He has a crude temperament, but his elven physique alone puts him at a stark advantage. I spoke true when I told him that applicants were rare. Though I have no intention of providing membership to just any urchin that wanders through the door. I would request that you provide your reasoning why you should be chosen to join our ranks.”
Bayin regarded Kelek with discerning eyes. The ephemeral shimmering of magic continued to glow behind them. After swallowing the last of his meal Kelek responded
“Yes, of course.”
Kelek explained in lavish detail, though with some embellishment, his discovery of his magical ability. He explained the rudimentary experiments he performed in the weeks leading up to his departure from Barkroot. How he filled a cup with water and could cause it to freeze and boil in seconds at the touch of his finger. Though the memory pained him to recount, he also divulged the details of his encounter in the forest and the ensuing campfire explosion. Bayin nodded sagely, as if he had expected each word Kelek had uttered, and the events played out as he predicted.
“What do you know of magic, Kelek, son of Boris?”
Kelek was startled that Bayin knew of his father. He hadn’t even told Renzen his father’s name. Embarrassed, Kelek replied.
“Very little, to be honest. It is heavily shunned in my village, and what little I have read comes from children’s fairy tales. I’m not sure how accurate they are.” Kelek flushed red, feeling foolish before the sagacious wizard.
“You would be surprised how accurate a child’s story could be.” Bayin replied with a wry smile.
“Approximately one twentieth of the population of Panpatiram are able to naturally awaken to magical power in the way you have, Kelek. It is a coveted talent, and for good reason. Through rigorous training and instruction, it is possible for most people to grasp the fundaments of magic and cast simple spells. But only truly sensitive individuals can wield the Ether with enough skill to call themselves true wizards and sorcerers. These people are naturally attuned to that energy, and are referred to as Harnessers. I had not expected that fortune would smile on me enough to grant a Harnesser as an applicant so early. I shall allow you to join the Guild, under the condition that you prentice under my tutelage until your grasp of Ether is sufficient.”
Kelel couldn’t believe what Bayin had told him. It was too good to be true. All of his desires, from joining the Guild, to finding a learned magician to instruct him, were being fulfilled.
“I am beyond honored, thank you so much Master Bayin!”
“Please, just Bayin is fine. Tradition requests that I introduce myself properly, but I have no love of titles. And my name is ill-suited for such an honorific” Bayin unleashed a small chuckle as a cacophony of clanging metal clamored down the stairs.
Imp ran into the main hall carrying what appeared to be an entire armory’s worth of weaponry on her back and limbs. Daggers lined her boots in fastened leather sheathes. A handaxe laid against her waist and ran down her right thigh, attached to one of her belts. Her left leg supported a sheathed shortsword. Several javelins rested in a patchwork sack over her right shoulder. A black dyed yew longbow wrapped around her shoulder opposite the javelins, with a quiver of arrows sat perpendicular across the small of her back. The final instrument of war seemed to be a shortened halberd that jutted out from behind her head. Kelek took note of the man at the table with the knight across the room. He placed a boot up on an adjacent empty chair, and his smirk was clear even beneath his bandana. The knight made a wordless gesture and the two rose to leave and watch what was sure to be a spectacle. Kelek turned to the short ginger-haired man and the blonde squire. The diminutive mechanist rolled his eyes at Imp’s display of armaments and returned to his meal, while the blonde haired man wore a look of dumbstruck fascination. Imp stopped in the middle of the hall and interlocked her fingers before stretching her arms above her head and remarking.
“I love it when they’re cocky.”