“You can set it down here.” Dovhran pointed to the ground in what seemed to be an arbitrary spot. “This should be far enough away.”

Flip set the hatch down on the ground and began his habitual incantation to activate it as he traced the required patterns across the wood.

“So, does the hatch… dig out a room to sleep in?” Selian tilted her head towards Dovhran as she asked, but never looked away from Flip as he worked his magic.

“I have no idea how it works.” Dovhran shrugged. “I think most wizards just conjure a whole building to rest in, but it seems like the hatch is tethered to an existing space somewhere.”

Without announcement Flip opened the hatch and gently slid in head first, leaving the door open behind him. Dovhran sighed and shook his shoulders loose to try and relax.

“And now we see if he’s allowed us in.”

“Pardon?” Selian had grown more and more unsure of what was happening around her as the hatch had been placed and then opened.

“Make sure to go in head first. The whole thing is upside down.” Dovhran muttered as he crawled through the narrow opening.

Selian followed the mercenary, though she spent a moment to herself atop the plateau to look around and take a breath alone. When the elf did kneel down and pull herself through the hatch, she was surprised at the space around her. There were barrels and crates arranged precariously around a small multipurpose room. A wood stove was lit and a kettle was heating up on its surface, though the area around the stove was dangerously close to flammable containers. There was a makeshift table as well, or rather a large wooden box surrounded by three smaller crates to be used as chairs. Flip had renovated the space. He hadn’t just moving furniture and belongings back into his tower, however, he had also added a closet to the far end of the space. The small addition had been something of a strain on his abilities, as it stretched the limitations of what he could make the space be.

There was some scuffling about as Flip moved around several boxes to make higher stacks so he could have space at the stove. Dovhran seemed to be making himself comfortable on one of the crates by the table by making a more armchair-like arrangement of boxes.

“Have you got tea leaves you prefer, or are you fine with any old herbs?” Flip grumbled to the elf as she pulled herself up into the room all the way. “I have sachets of lavender and bergamot or cinnamon, peppercorn, and clove.”

“Anything is fine.” Selian muttered. She looked to Dovhran for context but only received a shrug in response.

“I prefer the cinnamon and peppercorn. It has more taste to it.” Flip lifted a sachet from a small crate at the top of a stack near the stove and dropped it in an an earthen mug sitting on the lip of the next box down on the stack.

“I know for a fact that you brought a small cask of beer.” Dovhran said with a growing smile. “I just don’t see where you put it.”

“I packed a small cask of molasses, if that’s what you’re thinking of. It’s easier to get around in a cask than a vial and the tap makes it easy to dispense.”

“Why do you have molasses and not beer?” Dovhran seemed genuinely startled to learn that there was likely no alcohol in the flat. “Do you plan on brewing something while we’re out here?”

“Dovhran, if you had asked for beer, I would have packed beer.” Flip sighed. “I know you can throw a knife from ten meters or so just as accurately while drunk as if you were sober. In fact, I thought you brought a flask for yourself.”

“I have a flask. But the last time I filled it was while I was... just before your friend dragged me out of the cellar to fight that demon.”

“Excuse me, you fought a demon?!” Selian had just sat down on a crate across the table from Dovhran and shot back up to her feet immediately upon hearing about the demon.

“You are excused, my dear.” Flip grumbled. “I would conserve what spirits you have remaining and only partake sparingly. I have no space here to produce anything more than drinkable water and tea.”

“Fine, put some molasses in the spice tea for me then.” Dovhran sighed loudly in protest. “And while you’re at it…”

“No. Stop.” Selian slammed her fist down on the box that served as a table. “You fought a demon?”

“What do you know about Builend, lady Farwysher?” Flip turned away from the kettle, where his eyes had been trained until that point, and leveled his bushy eyebrows as the elf.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“I know where it is, but I don’t usually stay in small towns for very long… Norwen being the exception.” Selian paused, visibly unsure of how much information she was willing to share. “I hail from the southern Ghavic coast, so there has been little reason for me to travel this far northwest until recently.”

“Well, you wouldn’t have known this then, but Builend has a small demon problem. And has for about the last half century.” Flip frowned through his explanation. The wizard did not want to reveal much about himself either, at least not that the problem was something of his own family’s doing.

“Explain.” Selain had gone through an array of emotional responses that Flip couldn’t keep up with. It seemed like alarm at first, but somehow it had become sort of distrust; and still it continued to evolve as she spoke.

“There is a small planar tear into the Obscure due to an arcane mishap. Roughly fifty years ago, a large demon crawled through the initial tear and destroyed part of the town, but since then the only real problem have been imps.”

“We didn’t kill an imp though.” Dovhran chuckled. “We brutalized a… oh, what did that priestess call it… a fellfire hunter?”

“A fellfire pack hunter… which we were lucky to encounter after it had split from its pack.” Flip grimaced.

“Oh, that would have been a nightmare.” Dovhran was laughing at the thought of what would have most certainly killed him. It was the sort of joviality that Flip had experienced from the dwarves, it was almost suicidal.

“And you just decided to kill what I imagine was a very dangerous demon? No pay? No reason?”

“When I was a much younger man, the town made a point to let me know that if a larger demon ever attacked again and I didn’t kill it or die trying that I’d be hunted down by what few remained.” The wizard paused. “Also, I wanted to kill it. I had research to do.”

“Ah, that’s right. Selian, our wizard here specializes in dealing with demons and creating strange magic. I did not know about the demon part until after I had decided to hire him, but it was definitely an added bonus.”

“Do you expect us to find many demons in the waste?” Selian asked the question, but Flip was thinking it.

Flip hadn’t at all considered that the plateau would be a perfect place for demons to create a tear into the Obscure, or that he would encounter one away from Builend. But both seemed more and more likely the longer Flip thought about them. What if the pale shade was some form of demon? Some demons were capable of draining life essence and several were even known to abduct humans to create a more convenient feeding crop. A umber of demons were also known to have pale white skin, which would make them perfect ambush hunters in the pale wastes as they would blend in horrifyingly well with the dull rock that seemed to stretch out forever.

All of these thoughts stormed through Flip’s brain as he was sure that Dovhran was probably answering Selian’s questions. She seemed nervous the more she learned of the possible dangers they might face, but Flip was on the verge of panicking.

“Faengil, your robes are on fire.” Dovhran sighed.

The announcement shook Flip from his thoughts and he quickly patted out the flames that had begun to burn away the back of his skirt. With his back turned to the stove, the bottom of his skirt had gotten caught on the small metal door that could be opened to deposit fuel and slowly caught flame. Once the flames were extinguished, Flip patted the soot from his hands on the now even more worn skirt. With little else to say or do, he returned to minding the kettle knowing full well it wouldn’t make the water boil any faster. Though, as Flip thought that, he pressed a finger to the side of the hot kettle and spoke an arcane word to provoke heat through magic.

“Excuse me?!” Selian seemed up in arms all over again.

“Pardon me, I will mend the skirt shortly if the sight of my legs offends you so greatly.”

“WHAT?!”

Dovhran burst into a fit of raucous laughter at the confusion and dissonance between the wizard and the navigator. He, of course, knew exactly what was transpiring and where the disconnect originated. Selian, her ladylike facade now completely broken by the impossible level of obliviousness Flip was displaying, was not making the laughter any less enjoyable for the mercenary. The elf’s face was red and her eyes wide, almost furious.

“Oh. Ah. Yes.” Flip mumbled as he gradually worked through the events that had led to the outburst and pieced the confusion together. “I cannot be harmed by normal flames or heat. A benefit of my experiment while killing the fellfire hunter.”

Flip had no intention of mentioning the bracelet of departure to Selian, let alone what it did or how valuable it was.

“Faengil.” Selian groaned, her hands pressed firmly to her face in an extremely unladylike manner. “Clearly, you don’t… you don’t understand that the rest of the world does not exist in the same magical realm as your mind. And I mean you no ill will when I say this, but the next time you say anything remotely strange I am going to ignore you.”

“Very well.” Flip responded solemnly before turning his attention back to the kettle and pouring water into the awaiting cups. “Do you still want tea?”

“... yes.” Selian sighed her response as she reached out to take the cup of warm tea from Flip’s outstretched hand.

The elf dunked the sachet of herbs in the water until a consistent cloud of flavor spread throughout the cup. Dovhran’s laughter had died down but persisted until he received his own cup and began to tentatively take sips of the contents; the mercenary seemed too impatient to allow the herbs time to diffuse through the water. Flip took his own cup and sat on the remaining box, feeling comfort in the warmth of the liquid in his hands, though perhaps to a lesser degree than his companions.

“I’d wager we only have about twenty minutes to a half hour before the sun’s all the way down, and we can proceed from there.” Dovhran muttered over the rim of his cup.

“I don’t need to wait out the whole of the twilight hours to see the stars.” Selian hummed, breathing in the steam rising off her tea. “Or is there another reason to wait until dark that I don’t know?”

“Less likely to be kids out on the edge, it’ll also make it harder to see us from the quarry… or anywhere else in the distance. There is apparently something that lives out there, though I doubt it’s what people think it is.”

The three of them were silent after that last comment. It left a subtle tension in the air around them, but none of them wanted to admit or comment on it. For the next hour, they sat there, pondering the potential dangers of the wastes and sipping on their progressively harsher tasting tea.