To find a man like Avery filling his belly with mead at this hour was perhaps the most ordinary thing about Paradiso, as of late. Those with more discipline had already called it a night and returned to their loving families. Avery was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a quitter. “By the end of the night, you’ll be carting me out of here,” he said, taking a huge gulp. He wiped his moustache with the sleeve of his blue cloth shirt, burped, and leaned back on his wooden stool.

“I should hope not, Avery. They don’t breed horses with backs strong enough to carry a belly like yours,” the innkeeper said. He was busy inspecting his glassware for stains.

“I can’t help the size of my appetite,” Avery said. “Is this how The Crossroads treats all of its valued customers?”

“No,” he said, stowing away his mugs as if they were precious jewels and preemptively grabbing a bronze jug from behind the bar. “Only you.” He filled Avery’s mug to the very brim, smiled, and disappeared into the back to do who knows what. Avery grabbed his mug and grinned. The innkeeper was always bouncing between tasks and keeping himself occupied, and his business thrived because of it. On most nights anyway.

The tavern stayed quiet for most of the night, despite the inhuman amount of alcohol entering –and sometimes leaving– people’s bodies. The surge in demand wasn’t a surprise to anyone given the circumstances, but it was definitely a problem: tavern casks all across Paradiso, many of which had been operating non-stop for generations (and certainly as long as Avery remembered), were running dry.

And so were, as many suspected, the grain stores. You didn’t need to work in agriculture to see it either, so long as you paid close attention; carts nowadays were leaving town with a fraction of the produce. Even the Lord of Paradiso, despite his cleverness, couldn’t hide the stark realities. The citizens were asking a lot of questions, but not getting any answers.

Five years had passed since curious children first started reporting to their disinterested parents that the rivers were shrinking, to which many simply nodded their heads and said something like “That’s nice, now go back outside and play!”

Only a few weeks later, those same kids found hordes of dead fish washed up on the riverbanks. Thousands of them. And sure enough, a few of them got together and concocted a brilliant little plan: to carry a bunch of floppy wet corpses back to town as undeniable proof. The fishermen and shop owners were just as displeased as the parents, to say the least of it, but however vile it looked and smelled, the townsfolk couldn’t ignore the signs anymore.

Times were changing.

As for when Avery noticed the changes firsthand: he didn’t. He wasn’t particularly fond of the outdoors, as bugs seemed to flock to his nose and mouth wherever he went, and pretty much every sign imaginable eluded him. In fact, he spent most of his days aimlessly wandering between taverns, making friends with the owners, and listening in on people’s conversations. It was a wonderful way for him to keep a finger on the pulse of society.

People from all walks of life could be persuaded to share their opinions with a surprisingly small amount of alcohol, and this knack for releasing others' inhibitions in order to stay informed was something he took great pride in; that and his ability to swing heavy pieces of metal.

In the past year, he noticed a lot of trends. Violent crime was up, and charity was down. No amount of salt and pepper improved the food. The water had a sulfuric smell and a flat taste. And on top of all of that, people smiled less. A lot less.

It used to be fairly common for those who came into the taverns with frowns, to leave drunk and happy: but now, he watched as downtrodden men and women alike went home at the end of the night with their faces looking hollow and pale, regardless of how much they ate or drank.

Everywhere he went, he saw the same patterns. People were afraid. And deep down, for reasons he didn’t understand, maybe he was too. It’s not like he had anything to lose, so why should he worry? That was a question he couldn’t find a satisfactory answer to.

He chugged down most of his drink and rested his forehead on the bar for a quick nap. That always seemed to help him forget.

"Give us your best, we’ve had quite the journey,” a man growled. “And some water for our pet,” he said, laughing so obnoxiously that it woke Avery from his drunken slumber. He lifted his big head from the end of the bar and looked over at them, but they ignored him. The ringleader sat in the middle, and his posture was that of a hyena looking for its next meal; he elbowed one of the men sitting next to him as if to wake him from a daze, and nodded towards the door. “I think she –I mean it– is a little thirsty.”

Avery sipped on the last of his mead and pretended that his mind was elsewhere, but he quietly watched out of the corner of his eye. The joke didn’t land with the cackling hyena’s young friend, who stared off into the distance and stood motionless at the bar. The guy opposite him, an older gentleman with a longsword swaying in its scabbard, didn’t think it was that funny either but he feigned amusement to keep his boss happy.

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“And don’t stand behind me like that, my hands start to feel naked without my dagger. Sit,” he commanded. The young man did as he was told. “Good dog! Now if you’d please, my throat is getting dry. I’ll be having that drink now.”

“All out, sorry,” the innkeeper said quickly, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. He wiped down his last glass for the night and started to take off his apron. “We had some very enthusiastic customers tonight, I’m afraid. They cleaned me out.”

“Oh yeah? Business was good tonight then?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

“That’s great, I’m happy for you!” he said, a conniving smile on his face. “And by the looks of it, you made a fair bit of gold,” he observed. His dark, beady little eyes glinted as he feasted them on a pile of coins sitting on a backroom table. They looked shiny enough to eat. Anyone possessing strong enough bowels and teeth would be shitting gold for weeks. It was the dream of many in Eterna: gold, gold, and more gold. At all costs.

Though the innkeeper hid it well, Avery saw the panic creep in. He wanted to kick himself for not hiding the coins better but it was too late for that: these men weren’t local, and they weren’t about to pass up on the opportunity.

Out of some combination of habit, nervousness, and dread, he grabbed the glass mug closest to him and started to scrub away his problems. Crime was on the rise all across the realm, and part of him marvelled that his business remained untouched for so many years.

The Hyena quickly leaned over the bar, swiped it, and smashed it against the back wall. “You’re thinking awfully long and hard for a man that should be going into that room back there,” he said, pointing, “and packing up my money.” Avery’s eyes followed the innkeeper as he retreated into the back without protest. He looked over his shoulder for a moment to make sure the place was empty, then made his way over to the group of men. Avery stood behind them for a second, waiting for one of them to turn around, but they seemed unbothered, save for the young man: he looked deeply uncomfortable with everything happening.

Avery rested his gigantic hand on the leader’s shoulder. It felt more like a bear paw, and the sheer weight of it startled the man, though he didn’t let himself react. “A pouch of gold for your head,” Avery said. “You sure you wanna make that trade?”

“Do your fat little hand a favor and take it off my shoulder before it gets sliced off with the rest of your body parts and burned to a crisp. You have no clue who you’re fucking with.”

The nasty tone didn’t sit well with Avery, who thought about his next move very carefully. There were three of them, two of which were armed, and he was still drunk despite the nap. The odds weren’t in his favor. But then again, he thought, they never were. He needed to strike first, and strike fast. He’d ask the Gods for forgiveness later.

Avery unsheathed the old man’s sword with his free hand, spun around, and swung it. It sliced through the leader’s skinny neck like warm butter. His severed head flew over the bar. It landed by the innkeeper’s feet, who dropped the pouch of gold and froze. The decapitated head stared up at him with eyes that wished to ask “What just happened? Am I dead?”

And indeed, he was. The Hyena was no more.

The other two men ran for the door, but Avery cut the old one down too; the blade impaled him through one of his shoulder blades. The force of it eviscerated one of the man’s lungs and pinned him to the floor. Blood sprayed from his mouth.

The old man's screams quickly turned into bloody death gurgles. And within seconds, he met the same fate as his fearless leader. Avery figured the tavern would need a lot of soap to clean the blood spatters before dawn, but wasn’t going to stick around long enough to see it: once the guards arrived, they’d throw him in jail for murder.

He ventured outside to question the last of the crew, to no avail. It was the dead of night, and frigid winds blew through his beard. The only thing he could make out for certain was a small covered wagon with horses waiting restlessly nearby. “Listen, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m unarmed,” Avery shouted. But there was no response.

He cautiously approached the wagon, and what he heard surprised him: a faint, muffled scream. That alone interested him, inspiring him to take a quick peek inside. A young teenage girl, bound in chains and gagged, looked at him with great uncertainty. She laid perfectly still and waited for his next move. The fear in her eyes said everything.

He jumped aboard the wagon, shaking it, and pulled out her gag. “I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. Are you ready for it?”

She didn’t speak, only nodded attentively.

“The good news is: I killed two of your captors. Bad news is that the third one took off, and I’m too drunk to go searching for him. So how about we ditch this place and get you back home?”

She nodded again, more excitedly, and reached out to grab his hands. Both of hers were tiny enough to fit in only one of his. And even though she knew nothing about him, she felt relatively safe.

“What’s your name, kid?” he asked.

“Arpina,” she said, “Princess Arpina.”

Avery looked at her in disbelief. “Of course you are,” he said, taking her in fully. He tugged on the chains, then sighed. Of all the kidnapped young girls scattered across Eterna, he had to get the princess. It was a fitting punishment. He pulled away his hand and sat it on his lap. Without knowing anything about her, he suddenly wanted to throw her out of the wagon and go on his merry way. But for the moment, he resisted the urge.

“There are three things I don’t like,” he said, readying his fingers for the countdown: “thieves, kidnappers, and royalty.” He paused, then lifted a fourth finger. “And bugs, I almost forgot. I hate them most of all.”

They looked at each other for a moment, Avery with a stern look on his face, the girl with youthful innocence in hers, then she started laughing. His face reddened as he scooted towards the front of the wagon and begrudgingly readied the horses. He knew that he no longer had any say in the matter.