Oasis really lived up to its name.

The town was built around a reservoir that was built before the Dark Ages, with about half of the buildings sitting on the Ruin itself. Being in such close proximity to one of the ancient structures put Beck ill at ease, but according to the locals, nothing had come pouring out of the place in years. In addition, the number of water-aspected Elementaren was significantly higher here than in most other towns in the Rusts, thanks to the presence of a gateway to the Plane of Water somewhere up higher on the mountain.

While the history and demographics of the town was certainly interesting, Beck and his friends were more concerned about their current financial situation. Beck and Mason had both left home with little more than what they had on them at the time, and most of their trade beforehand had been barter as opposed to using coin. That, combined with Kenna's recent gambling, meant that none of them had a single coin between them.

Which led them to the local saloon. The sun was setting when they arrived, and the place was bustling with activity. Music and the clamor of voices spilled out from behind the batwing doors. Beck was the first in, and immediately stopped in his tracks. Almost every race that he could name was present here. Elementaren were still the most common, but he could see gnomes, orcs, humans, halflings, Moon Elves, even dwarves and dragon-men. Goliaths and centaurs were the only exceptions, but neither would be expected. Centaurs kept to their herds, from what he heard, and the enmity between the Dragon and Giant blood was still present, despite the thousands of years since their war.

Mason bumped into his back a moment later, jolting him back to reality. There were no empty tables or seats at the bar, so they simply stood along the wall.

It didn't take long for a fight to break out. Really, such things were inevitable with this many drunk people in a single place. The only warning they had was the quieting of the crowd before fists began to fly. Some people ran out, while others joined the fray, with a few left around the edge of the brawl simply watching.

Beck, Kenna, and Mason all elected to stay and watch. The problem for Beck was that he couldn't see much of what was happening, besides the wild flailings of some of the people on the edge. He turned to Kenna. "Pick me up."

"What?"

"I can't see. Pick me up."

The big woman shook her head and chuckled. Still, she crouched so that he could climb on. Once they had established a hold on each other, Kenna rose once more to her full height, which allowed Beck a full view of the fight. Honestly, the middle wasn't very different from what he had already seen, with one notable exception.

An orc and an armored gnome with what looked like a cloud covering the top half of her head were at the center of everything, wrestling of all things. Despite the size difference, the gnome was holding her own, darting around the feet of her opponent, lifting one of his legs in the moments before he was able to track her. At one point, she slipped between his feet and, as she turned to repeat her tactic, the orc kicked back into her chest. Unfortunately for him, she had already braced, and so when the foot connected with her breastplate, she barely moved. Before he could withdraw his foot, the small woman wrapped her hands around the offending appendage, at which point she lifted the limb as high above her head as she could. Then she pulled.

The way she moved, the orc didn't have much choice; go down or let her break his leg. He went down like a sack of bricks, and before he could recover, the gnome had already latched onto his head. By the time he had stood, she had already locked her legs around his neck, her ankles pressing into his throat to cut off his air supply. His attempts to dislodge her were futile, as well; her hands were free to tie up with his, and the twisting of fingers ensured that he was unable to maintain a grip on her legs long enough to buy any room. Before long, he fell once more, though, this time, he didn't move from where he had fallen.

The gnome woman hopped off shortly before he hit the ground, and soon, Beck lost sight of her within the throng of people. After a few long seconds, the orc came to, getting unsteadily to his feet with a hand on his head. He looked around for a moment, and, seeing that his previous opponent was gone, started to push his way through the fighting. Once he had left, Beck gave Kenna a couple of pats as a signal to let him down, which she did.

Within a few minutes, the local Sheriff arrived. Not before a few hotheads had tried to pick a fight with Kenna, but those had been dealt with rather swiftly. The Sherriff was a human, surprisingly enough, wearing a Spellgun on his hip and the silver badge that signified his authority on his chest. When he spoke, the entire establishment stopped and turned as one to listen. "Alright, y'all done had enough fun. Now, if ya ain't done, you can take it outside. I'm sure Mr. and Missus Aue already have enough property damage to make up for a week a' sales." When nobody moved, he stepped to the side of the doorway and jerked his thumb towards it. "Git!"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

That got the fighters moving. Those still standing walked or limped outside, leaving only those who had decided to stand or sit aside and watch, including the gnome table and Beck's little group. The Sheriff himself strutted over to the bar, where the bartender, a man with a greenish-blue tinge to his skin, set down a single brown bottle. Now that he was looking, Beck noticed that, at the far end of the bar, the cloud-headed gnome had taken a seat not too far away from the table with the rest of the gnomes. The bartender slid her a mug.

This was Beck's first time seeing a Sheriff in person. The Deputies never did visit Sandwood. He left Kenna and Mason standing where they were and made his way to the human. Nervously, he took the seat directly next to the man, acutely aware that he had no money with which he could pay the barman. The young Elementaren closed his eyes, drew in a breath, then let it out. When he turned to face the Sherriff, the older man was staring at him with piercing gray eyes.

"Ah, uh, sorry, sir, I, uh, just wanted to uh, a-ask a question?"

The man's face remained impassive as he took a pull from his bottle. "What can I do for ya, son?"

Beck took another moment to collect himself. "I want to be a Deputy. I was hopin' you could help with that."

At that, the Sheriff's face fell, and he leaned in. "That's a serious thing, boy. You sure you're up to it?"

Beck gulped, then nodded. "My Pa said he'd trained for it, but we didn't get to talk much about it before-" The words caught in his throat. The memory brought tears to his eyes, but he fought them back. Now wasn't the time. A single drop of moisture escaped down his cheek. "Before the Rotters killed him. Killed everyone. Me and Mason," he jerked his head at his friend, "are all that's left 'a Sandwood. Spent a month with the Kode. They taught me to shoot, and a few other things."

Those gray eyes flicked to his companions, then back to Beck. "Alright. I'll give ya a shot." He snapped his fingers twice to get the barman's attention. "Give the kid a root beer or somethin. My treat." While the barkeep grabbed another brown bottle, the Sheriff turned back on the young man. "Got somethin' that's been getting put off for a while now. I ain't got time to teach you nothin', but if you live, I'll take ya on."

Beck simply nodded. "I need this, sir."

The old man simply sighed and leaned over the bar, facing the gnome woman at the end of the bar. "Got you somebody, Clink. Try not to get him killed."

Now that he was paying attention, he noticed a few things about the small woman. Firstly, her hair was actually made out of cloud, instead of simply looking like one. Her dark skin contrasted it nicely, though it was mostly covered by her armor. The hand that wasn't occupied with her mug pushed the mass of cloud out of her face, revealing pointed ears and dark, round eyes. She looked him up and down. "Just him?"

Apparently, they had been talking loud enough for Kenna and Mason to have heard enough, because Kenna grabbed him by the shoulders and rested a good portion of her upper body weight on him. "He's got us with him. Assuming that you'll be paying him, that is."

The gnome laughed at that. "Don’t worry. Anyone that goes into a Ruin is comin' out rich, or damn near it. But this isn't the place to be talkin' about that." She tipped her mug up and gulped it dry, then slammed it onto the bar. "Hoo! Oi Trent, go ahead and put it on my tab. Something came up." The barman nodded at her before she hopped down from the stool. "Clink" motioned for the three of them to follow, which they did.

On the way, Mason decided that he wanted to walk right next to her. "So, your name is Clink? Where'd that come from."

Beck only barely made out the smile on the girl's face when she turned to look up at his friend. "It's a nickname. Armor's comfortable for me, so I wear it whenever. My real name's Cora, but I don't tend to use it unless its something official. Like church."

"So you're a cleric, then?"

The small woman nodded once. "That's me. Most of Clan Folkor, too. Entropa blessed us with this place a few hundred years before I was born, and we've been trying to get it working again. Once that's done, we'll leave a couple families behind to keep it going and everything, then move on to the next one."

That got Beck's attention. "Wait, you live in the Ruin? And you're trying to fix it? How? Why? Aren't those things full of demonspawn?"

The gnome just waved him off. "We've got the top floor clear, and all the entrances to the lower floors are blocked up. Nothing's come through since I was a toddler. We don't have to worry about any of that until we're inside."

That wasn't the end of the questions, though. "Another thing. I didn't realize when I agreed to this that we were going into a Ruin. Don't get me wrong, I'd probably still go even if you had told me, but I assumed it was gonna be something like guarding a shipment a' goods or something."

The woman simply looked back and smirked over her shoulder at him. "Well, you didn't ask. And I did tell you pretty soon after. Besides, as far as we know, the only things in there are the elemental imps. Really nothing urgent, seeing how the Sheriff's treatin' it. You are just three kids, even if you do have a bit of experience."

It was Kenna's turn to speak up. "And how old are you, anyway? Gnomes live a long time. How long's it been since you were a toddler?"

The gnome stopped at a set of steel double doors set into the dam, the turned to face them. "I'm only twenty-three."