"Drip, drip, drip," went the droplets as they fell from the stalactite toward the cave floor below. "Splash, splash, splash," was the reply as each of them landed in the puddle far below. The water rippled outward, and tiny rings appeared. They stretched across the distance of the puddle before reaching the end of their lifespan. The rings disappeared, and the puddle settled back into a mirror of glass. More droplets fell, and the puddle danced to and fro between liquid and glass. Peace covered the corridor as the darkness held reign. Then, a light appeared.
“Uncle Finneus, why is it that every problem we investigate ends up with us in a cave? It’s not that I have a big problem with caves. But we’ve been under ten different mountains over the last few months. I like fresh air a lot more. I don’t hate caves; it just feels like we're in them a lot,” I said to Uncle Finneus as we walked down the tunnel.
“Child quit speaking gibberish. It has only been three of the last ten tasks that I have agreed to, where we ended up underneath the earth. Now hush, I’ve just felt a change in the air. Something is coming, and there’s no reason to alert it to our presence,” replied Uncle Finneus.
“Do you want me to dim the light too?” I whispered, gesturing at the glowing orb of fire that hung above our heads.
Uncle Finneus shook his head, motioning for me to keep my mouth shut. We continued to move forward, though slower than before. All the while, I looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of the presence Uncle Finneus had been alerted to. He always seemed able to identify any movement in the vicinity, no matter how small. It felt like I was looking around, blind and confused in the dark for the most part during times like this. Sometimes, I couldn’t help but feel for all the world like a pathetic human when compared to him.
We continued walking forward with my soft leather boots making little impacts on the hard clay floor with every step. Uncle Finneus’s footsteps could not be heard at all, as usual. This made me work even harder as I sought to be as silent as he. A growl came from out of the darkness, and I froze. I searched for the culprit but was unable to find where the noise had come from. It must have come from beyond my light’s radius.
Uncle Finneus did not have any difficulties seeing in the dark and sprang into action while I stayed still. He leaped forward, drawing his sword from within his cane in one smooth motion before disappearing into the darkness. I called to the fire, asking it to grow above my head. It increased in brilliance, uncovering a battle between some sort of grotesque monster and my uncle. The elf was fighting a creature I had never seen before, in fact, I hadn’t even read about such a creature of filth. It was a reptile of some sort, with white scales, a large mouth, and a short stubby body when compared to its relative size. The strangest part of the creature was its odd body proportions. It had an oversized mouth, a short body, and a tail close to twice the size of its torso. The creature stood at least seven feet tall and was in the middle of charging toward my uncle on two massive legs with talons on the end.
The monster snapped its oversized jaws together trying to bite through Uncle Finneus’s head. The mouth missed Uncle Finneus by a hair's breadth as he dodged forward. He moved past the mouth and stabbed the creature in its left eye. With the sword still impaled, my uncle's hands shifted into claws. He stabbed into the creature's neck with his right hand, rending flesh, and causing the monster to buck about. Using his embedded claws as a fulcrum point, Uncle Finneus threw himself onto the head of the creature, pulling his sword from the monster’s eye as he went. Grasping the rapier in both hands, Uncle Finneus started stabbing into the monster’s neck and did not stop until the creature slumped onto the ground dead.
This all happened within a couple of seconds as I stood still, watching in fascination. The speed and control with which Uncle Finneus moved and attacked was something special to watch, no matter how many times I had seen it. There was something about such violence together with such grace that filled a person with awe. He was a dancer who could destroy armies.
Uncle Finneus wiped his bloody rapier on the dead monster, trying to clean it. Unlike normal blood which fell off his rapier with a flick of his wrist, this blood smelled horrible and adhered to the sword, refusing to let go. Eventually, Uncle Finneus gave up trying to flick it off and ripped a part of his cloak off to remove the blood.
While he played around with his sword, I called my orb to follow and walked over, hoping to get a better look at the creature my uncle had just killed. It was not any prettier up close than from where I had been standing during the fight.
“What kind of creature is this, Uncle Finneus? I’ve never seen anything even resembling it before,” I asked, poking the corpse with a toe.
Uncle Finneus was still wiping down his sword, giving it all the love and attention, a mother would give her child. “I’m not sure, Bartholomew. It appears to be some sort of hybrid. Created using the swamp creatures of Baroth, a wolf, and perhaps even some sort of predatory bird. If you look closely, you can see small grey hairs growing between a few scales here and there. I immediately recognized the smell of an Arkine wolf. That smell is impossible to mistake. Anyway, with the clear reptilian nature of the creature, together with the wolf hair and the talons, there is no doubt we are in the right place. The lab must be up ahead.”
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At this point, let me take a step back and tell you how Uncle Finneus and I ended up wandering through a cave system at three in the morning on a Tuesday. Of course, I cannot explain in full detail, as Uncle Finneus was the one who dragged me into this particular cave system without enough pertinent information. He claimed that the illegal lab we were searching for had to be here, and that was that. He did not bother to explain how he could have known that, but such is the life of the nephew of Finneus Burgeon, the immortal elf.
The day we started the investigation, which led to me staring at that dead monster, began like any other day. Perhaps even better. The weather was bright and beautiful. The breakfast I made was perhaps my best ever. Little did I know that such a start to the day would end in misery for myself. But how would an adventure happen in the first place, if there was not at least a little misery?
After the quite enjoyable breakfast, I went out shopping for supplies. We needed medical caches and clothing after a fiasco that ended with most of the apartment being scorched, and all the more fragile accommodations burnt to the ground. Angry wizards with some grudge against Uncle Finneus had stormed into the house, planning to kill us both. It didn’t work out the way they had hoped, as Uncle Finneus killed all but one of them with just his bathrobe and a spatula. While he was killing the other would-be assassins without a complaint, I fought the last one and almost destroyed the entire block when my fire grew out of control. I ended up defeating the wizard but at the loss of all of my belongings and many of the mundane possessions my uncle owned. The event did help me learn two things. The first is that I need better control over my magic. The second was about the existence of wards, and how placing them on specific belongings could help protect them against most types of damage, including fire.
Anyway, after spending twenty gold pieces, and stuffing everything into a purse of spatial magic my uncle had lent me, I made my way home. When the house at 102 Golden Trout Lane came into view instead of an empty entryway, I saw twenty heavily armed human guards. Each of them was covered in weapons, armor, and tribal tattoos from head to toe. I stopped and stared openmouthed. They stared back closed-mouthed. I looked at them, and they looked at me. I waved a cheery hello, and they stood and stared. When the soldiers didn’t make a move to attack, I shrugged and continued walking forward. They stood at attention on either side of the walkway and towered over me as I walked past. Yet not one of them made a move to stop me. On edge, but otherwise undamaged, I opened the door and walked inside.
When I entered the house, more tribal guards were standing in the hallway, making the already cramped space even smaller. I had to duck and weave to move past their large frames as I tried to make my way to the sitting room. For I could hear Uncle Finneus talking in there. Pushing through the last bunch of guards, I saw Uncle Finneus sitting across from an old human, who was also covered in tribal tattoos. He, unlike the rest, was without weapons or armor. He instead, bore scars on every part of his visible body as a testament to his prowess. Or perhaps as a testament to his inability in battle. But considering who he was, and who his guards were, I doubted it.
“Ahh, there you are Bartholomew,” said Uncle Finneus. “Don’t worry too much about the guards. They are nicer than they look.”
I glanced around me at the men who looked ready to tear down a city and shook my head. It was obvious that Uncle Finneus's view of the world was far different from my own.
As I was looking around, Uncle Finneus kept talking. “I’m sure you’ve guessed already, but these are tribesmen from the Narjee. Sitting across from me is Garnachi, the chieftain of the tribe. He is a great man whom I had the pleasure of meeting a few years ago. He visited the city to discuss renewing the peace treaties between his tribe and the empire. Our paths happened to cross in between his meetings when we were both having lunch at a particular café. You know it, Bartholomew, it's called ‘The Blue Moon’. I was having tea with some fine-cut meats, while Garnachi was eating a rather large steak. We just so happened to start up a conversation and found a grand friendship in it. But come, sit down, Bartholomew. Garnachi was telling me of his troubles, and you should come listen. You can learn many things from what he has to say.”
I nodded my head and took a seat in my usual spot. Uncle Finneus turned back to the old Narjee chieftain and offered him a slight bow from his seated position, “I apologize, Garnachi, for making you wait until my nephew arrived to finish your story. Please, tell me everything. Do not leave out a single detail, even if you deem it too small. Tell me. And if you wouldn’t mind, could you start from the beginning? I want my nephew to have a clear understanding of what is going on. It will help me in my process as well.”
The old man, who had remained silent up until now, stood from his chair and offered a low bow, first to Uncle Finneus, then to me. I had thought Garnachi was just an old man with scars when I walked into the room, but when he stood up, I found that he was a head taller than all the rest of the Narjee warriors, and they already stood a shoulder above me. When Garnachi spoke, his voice sounded like that of the earth rumbling. “Thank you, Finneus, and you, Bartholomew, nephew of Finneus. Thank you for taking the time to listen to my story. It is a long tale, so make yourself comfortable and listen well. What you do after, with this information, will affect the history and fate of an entire nation.”