Akatfall was filled to the brim with people as the midday markets opened up. Friedrich, his stomach satisfied from a hearty meal, was lying with his eyes closed along the edge of a fountain as the water droplets sprinkled onto his face. Marina, meanwhile, was buried in her new tome that Hansel had lent her. She was determined to master a new spell sooner rather than later.

“I wonder what Blackjack is up to,” said Friedrich. “I thought maybe we would have run into her over the last couple of days.”

“Mhmm,” said Marina.

“Are you even listening?”

“Very interesting, Friedrich.”

“Marina!” called Friedrich, opening his eyes.

“I’m reading, shush!” she scolded him.

Friedrich closed his eyes and tried to relax again, but he was getting restless. It didn’t help matters that he was spending more kupons than he was earning. The last job he had taken was killing rats in the cellar of a tavern, which didn’t exactly pay well, but at least he got to use Kitt’s mask to be extra thorough when sniffing out the little rodents.

“I need to bring some kupons in,” muttered Friedrich.

“Then get a real job,” said Marina, sighing and looking up from her book. “Maybe be an accountant or something?”

“Nah, that would take too long and I’m not great with Mercian tax law. I would only get my clients in trouble with the guards.”

“True, I don’t think you’ve paid a single kupon in tax since I’ve known you.”

“I don’t earn anywhere near enough to make it worth collecting. No collector is going to lob off my hands for the measly six or seven kupons I owe. Don’t worry your pretty little head about me, Marina. I know what I’m doing.”

Marina lightly slapped Friedrich’s cheek and smiled at him before her expression turned angry. “Go check the bounty board and let me read!”

“Yes, my lady,” he joked, making Marina roll her eyes and slap him across the arm. “There is no need for that kind of treatment to me, your humble servant. Your wish is my command, fair maiden. I will return thusly!”

Friedrich sat up and swung around, placing his feet on the cobblestones. He stood up and walked through the square, looking for a board. In a town like Akatfall, there were no shortage of them and he quickly found one stood outside of a tavern, covered in dozens of pieces of paper.

“The Butcher of the Bay,” he said, shaking his head. “This sounds far too dangerous for the amount being paid. One hundred and fifty kupons? I don’t think so.”

Friedrich perused the rest of the notices, eventually finding one buried underneath that caught his eye.

URGENT REQUEST!

I, Reginald Gillet, require an intrepid adventurer to wander down to the nearby Blue Beard Cove and collect a basket of bellshrooms (a yellow mushroom shaped like a bell).

Bring them to me at Gillet Sundries to collect your payment.

REWARD: 65 kupons

“Sixty-five kupons for an hour of work?” Friedrich said aloud, taking the notice from the board. “What a steal!”

Friedrich ran back over to Marina who saw him coming and pre-emptively closed her book upon seeing her favourite distraction holding a notice in his hand.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Got us a job,” said Friedrich, handing her the notice. “This should be an easy one and look what he’s paying for it.”

“Are you sure?” asked Marina, looking over the notice. “That’s a lot of kupons for picking up some mushrooms. Why not go pick them himself if this Blue Beard Cove is so nearby?”

“People these days are lazy, so this Reginald Gillet must be desperate.”

“Haven’t you spent all morning lying by the fountain, eating and then lying by the fountain again?”

“And now I’m heeding the call to action!”

Marina laughed. “Fine, let’s go and get this sorted, but I need you to do something for me first.”

“What?” asked Friedrich.

Marina held out her hand. “Shake.”

Confused, Friedrich took her hand and felt a jolt of electricity run up his forearm. It didn’t hurt, but it did make his skin crawl for a couple of seconds.

“Your new spell?” he asked.

“I’m making progress,” said Marina, nodding. “It’s called Shock Touch, according to the tome.”

“Well, I would certainly say it’s an apt name. Not the most creative though, is it?”

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t know…something like Flowing Thunder.”

“Thunder is a noise.”

“I know, but it sounds much more exciting.”

Marina started laughing and then placed one of her fingers on Friedrich’s neck, giving him another tiny shock. He winced and pulled back as Marina laughed.

“Okay, now we can go,” she said with a big smile on her face.

The two asked a couple of locals how they could make their way to Blue Beard Cover and were directed towards the docks at the western side of the city, where they could see a dozen ships already moored and being loaded with goods. Friedrich stared at them in awe, longing for the day when he would have a ship of his own and set sail.

Halfway down the hill and before they got as far as the pier, they took a small path to the south and followed it along the cliffside until it brought them to a sandy shore. There were small crabs scuttling along and minding their own business, but upon Friedrich and Marina coming close they burrowed their way into the sand.

“They’re right to flee,” remarked Friedrich, “I feel like eating crab for dinner tonight.”

“Focus on the task at hand,” said Marina, but she would have happily eaten crab too.

Keeping a careful eye on the cliff towering above them, the two young Mercians kept walking. A few minutes later, they came across a large cave entrance that opened up into darkness.

“This must be the place,” said Friedrich, “I was starting to wonder why he asked us to come to the beach to get mushrooms.”

Marina took the notice from him. “It doesn’t say go to the beach…it says go to the cove.”

“Either way, this must be the place,” shrugged Friedrich.

He walked over to the entrance and saw a signpost wedged in the sand. It was so jagged and mossy that it blended in with the cliff from a distance. He used his shield to scrape some of the moss to see what the sign said.

“Welcome to my humble dinner party,” read Friedrich. “Please come in and enjoy a wonderful feast.”

“Alright,” said Marina, turning back. “That’s our cue to leave.”

“Why?”

She looked at Friedrich incredulously. “Dinner in a cave? Why would we stay?”

“Sixty-five kupons for a few mushrooms.”

“But the sign!”

“It’s old and battered. I bet whoever made it has long moved on.”

“This seems incredibly risky, Friedrich,” said Marina. “I don’t like it at all. Are you sure we can’t just turn back?”

“Alright, you can wait out here and I’ll be back in a few minutes. I doubt this will take me too long.”

“No, don’t leave me alone out here!”

“Then come on!”

“But…”

Friedrich marched into the darkness where the sand faded into stone, leaving Marina standing uneasily on the beach. With a heavy sigh, she lifted her feet and followed him, but she wasn’t happy about it in the least.

The early afternoon light followed them into the cave, but it was difficult to see. More than a few times, the two bumped into each other and tripped over loose pebbles. Friedrich was tempted to pull out his fox mask, but he still wanted to be able to pick the mushrooms before waiting for the magic to dispel so he refrained.

There was a sudden dull thud and Marina let out a small yelp. “My head!” she said.

“What is it?” asked Friedrich.

Marina felt around and, to her surprise, she had walked into a wooden door and not the rocky wall. She moved her hand close to her waist and found the metal handle. She pushed it ever so slightly and it opened without resistance, letting a touch of light in.

“Great, we’ve found a door, but still no mushrooms,” said Friedrich, looking around now that he could see a little better.

“We should turn back,” said Marina, closing the door.

Friedrich moved past her. “Not a chance. The mushrooms could be through here. We haven’t seen anything sinister so far, have we?”

“No,” Marina admitted, “but I still have a terrible feeling about this. Why would there be a door down here?”

“Tell you what,” said Friedrich. “If things go badly and we still get paid for the mushrooms, I’ll give you seventy-five percent instead of fifty. Of course, that’s on the condition that you don’t say that you told me so.”

“Fine,” said Marina, grumpily, following Friedrich through the door.

The duo walked along more of the cave and towards the light. It was only moments before they emerged into a large clearing surrounded by cliffs and trees, but they took little notice of those. What caught their attention was the large dinner table sitting in the centre of the clearing with an entire party gathered around it.