The merchant hefts the bone in her hands for a moment, then plops it on the scales. It drops precariously, making a heavy clang as one side of it impacts the table. As if to balance, her eyebrow goes up a proportionate amount.

“Well. That bodes well for you.”

I snort. “I certainly hope so. Damn near lost my life chasing it to the ends of the world.”

She starts adding weights to the other side, but it shows no signs of budging. “Not too much worse than usual, then.”

I frown at her. The worst part is, it’s not even wrong. “Take that back. I practice safe treasure hunting.”

She neglects to reply, instead pretending to adjust the weights she’s using, even though I know for a fact that she’s always been accurate to within an ounce with just eyeballing weights. Or, well, handing? Whatever the word would be.

“So? Are you going to regale me with tales of your fantastical exploits?”

“Maybe over drinks. Several of them, even.” I wonder if they’ll have any new brews down at Vintner’s. They usually come up with a new one every few months.

“Hmm, well, you see.” She pauses for a bit, trying to formulate something.

“Yes?” I go to fidget with my sword, because that’s totally not threatening. Genuinely, though, it should be fine, I almost drop it a few times.

“There’s a lot of people who go for the rugged adventurer look, but you’re not my type.”

I blink. Then blink a few more times. “What? That’s not what I was implying, sorry. I meant that I suck at story telling sober, it always comes out clipped and without enough details.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She pauses, then shrugs. “Oh. Okay.”

After that, I don’t know what to say. Sometimes, I just make things awkward. She finishes getting the scales perfectly balanced, and finally, writes down something on a nearby ledger. Probably confirmation.

“Well, that’s clearly genuine. When will the rest of the skeleton get delivered?”

I think for a second, counting on my hands. “About three days?”

“Alright. I’ll put your payment in escrow, and get you an advance for this specific piece.” She points at the bone.

“Sounds good, thanks.”

————————————————————

After about five drinks in, I’ve gathered an approximately equivalent amount of audience members.

“So there I am, in this weird labyrinth, with only the bare minimum of supplies. Oh, and a dangerous, experimental mystery item that will be important later. But I digress. Finding my quarry seems like an unlikely idea, if I can’t even find my way out.”

There’s a chorus of questions, all with the general desire to know what I did next.

“Well, the first thing I did was get lost. Really thoroughly, too.” This is my general plan, to be fair. It usually works out, except when it doesn’t. “Then, when I stopped to get a meal, I realized that I could hear movement in the next hall over. Turns out, the minotaur had been as lost as I was. Either that, or it was trying to eat me.”

They wait expectantly, as I take another sip from my stein. “The moment we were both aware of each other, we knew, too, that only one was to leave alive. It charged me nearly immediately, and I tried to stop it. But it was too big, too bulky, and I was sent flying, all my belongings scattering across the hall.”

They wanted to know, then, how did I survive? Surely not in a straight fight.

“Oh, yes. As handy as I am with the sword, I was still no match, martially. Then my only hope lay in the… lamp I had. Yes, indeed. It was supposed to be an item to emit bright light eternally, passed along from adventurer to adventurer forever. But there was a catch; the maker had never managed to stabilize his power source fully, and with enough smashing, it would go up like a forest in drought.”

Confirming their suspicions, I continued my narration.

“And smash it we would! I got up, inchingly, desperately, and made as much distance between myself and the foul beast as possible. Then with all the might I had left, I threw it, just as he began to charge me once more. Their collision resulted in the most devastating blast, as if one of the gods themselves came down to smite us.”

“Both of you?” One person asked, perhaps wondering if she was talking to a ghost.

I nodded sadly. “Though I was saved, I did not escape unscathed. The blast knocked me back, breaking some of my bones and crushing my insides. My armor was for naught, it went through without a hitch. That took a lot of time and money to recover from. But I survived, and am all the more richer for it!”

A cheer rose up from the crowd, and I basked in it, happy for a moment. But still, planning my next adventure, what I needed to survive it. Soon.