I didn't wake up until the brightness of the rising run compelled my eyes to open. Fernau had watched over me part of the night but slept himself after a while. Not the best camping etiquette but I’d given him no choice. Sleepy hero indeed.

I felt a bit bad for inconveniencing him and thanked him, but he didn't mind much. We resolved to give the catacombs another look around and found once more the darkness within them was different. Natural, instead of almost fog-like as it had been. Putting down what dead had been raised seemed to have extinguished whatever hex was placed on it.

He tried to give me my spear back, but I had little want to take it. I insisted he keep it, if only to protect himself a bit. He didn't need too much convincing, he took to that spear well. He carried it like he'd been holding it for years. Wasn’t burdened by it at all as we walked back to Duskdown.

We made a small bit of conversation but not too much. Nothing stuck until I broached the subject of his debt again.

“How much do you owe Dallow again?”

“Maybe another year, or half a year, of labor? Depends on how the seasons go. What livestock or crops make it.”

“That’s a long time.”

“A long time for Elida to be waiting.”

“The girl?”

“Ya, the girl,” he replied with a wistful, saddened smile. Another year working just to be able to pay off his debts and live his life. Not unheard of, but still unhappy to see it.

"I could give you some pay in exchange for helping guide me and all that," I offered with a smile.

"Okay, I'll take that."

I snorted, I couldn't help it. And from it spilled a louder laugh.

"What's wron-- oh, were you only jesting?"

"No, no. I was being entirely serious. I just, I don't know. I expected you to decline."

"Why would I?"

"It’s a thing people do. To be honest, I don't know. We can sort that out when we get back to town. We'll figure something out."

Though my boots fit wonderfully, and they were of good make and comfortable, my dogs were barking. I hadn't walked this much in a long while. I thankfully wasn't getting any shin splints but I could feel how agitated my feet were by the time we reached town.

The only thing that was keeping my spirits up and mind off things, as our conversation quieted, was the environment. I had been through here just the other day, but in the rush, I hardly paid any of it much mind. It was splendid. Nothing absurd, or otherworldly, but this helped make me feel somewhat at home.

Still among the plant life was that thin underbrush of small grass stalks in the coarse earth. Thin slivers of purple streaked the green shoots, shaking in the low breezes. Birds, and bugs, buzzed and chirped all around us. The occasional white noise of familiar insectoid buzzing accompanied strange and new calls.

A string of high notes followed by a long and breathless hold of a low gurgle. It was quite a funny sound, and even more so when I saw the creature making it. Perched high up on a tree's limb was an avian no larger than my palm. It was of solemn blue perked up on the wings and crest with black highlight, and a belly of white. Its chest puffed up greatly after the burst of high chirps and slowly deflated like a balloon as it expelled its absurd gurgle.

So striking was the little bird and its call I stopped to snicker, forgetting my aches and pains and pointing. "What's that little guy's name?"

"Oh, it's a scrub-bub. There are lots of them around here." My laughter must have been infectious, as Fernau snickers at me, clearly not getting why I found this funny little thing so amusing.

"A what?" I snorted, and the croak of my joy sent the scrub-bub flying off to the sky.

"A scrub-bub? What's wrong?" Fernau begins to peel off and continue walking, watching the bird dart away. I catch up behind him quickly, my face caught in a smirk. It's the little things that keep one going.

Tangled roots and gnarled bark nudged our path this way and that as we wove the last few steps back to town. After all the excitement of last night, a nature walk was pleasing - even with the soreness. The air was cool enough that it made what skin I had exposed tingle pleasantly when met with the otherwise warm sun. It provided a certain uplifting energy. A person does need sun after all, and filtered through the tree tops it was just enough.

There was a certain undercurrent to the scents on the air of natural displeasantness. But it was masked by the mostly clean and clear oxygen that was here. Without the corruption of smog-like back in the city I lived in, the air brought a lot of pleasure. It felt good to breathe in, and more than once I found myself expressly gathering lung fulls of it.

When finally getting Duskdown in eye, Fernau catches my attention and smiled, a look of satisfaction and contentment rolled over him, and I returned the sentiment.

"We did good," I said under my breath, but not so low he couldn't catch it. I naturally veered away from Dallow's home and Fernau followed along. The few townsfolk out and about regarded us both with uncertainty.

They addressed Fernau, not me, when they spoke and asked about our success. We replied in the affirmative, but I quickly learned to let him do the talking. Words I spoke went ignored at best, or were met with frowns and distaste at worst. I did appreciate the sympathetic pat Fernau gave my arm after one particularly ruffled-up old man spat at the ground near me.

"If it helps any, I don't think you're so bad."

"Thanks," the bluntness of his statement evoked a wiggling grin out of me in spite of the down feeling.

It was then that the same boy from before once more came to tug at my sleeve, right below the bracer. I turned my head down at him and smiled in earnest, softening my voice. "Hey there."

He said not a word, but looked from me back up the road and pointed. His mother, the kindly woman. I waved and she waved back.

"That's Jenica," Fernau said just over my shoulder.

"Should we go talk to her?"

"Why not? Get to look at her more." He poked my side.

He was onto something. Her hair was a nice tawny, done up in a braid laid over her chest on the left. Her chest was heavy as one may expect of a woman up in her years and modestly bundled in robes of a faded and deep green with white trim and fittings here and there.

She offered a warm, unassuming smile to us both and beckoned us further along to her home. It was, like many of the others, a simple construction of wattle and daub, latticed and woven together branches sealed with some type of mortar or mud. Its exterior was run over with modest streaked highlights of blue on the threshold's brace but was otherwise the light brown of woven wood.

The inside was a few degrees cooler than the outside and significantly darker. The home only possessed a few small windows. Slats of morning light cast themselves here and there into the home. A bit of rough living, but this area was detached from anything too significant.

The boy ran over beside his mother, holding onto her skirts and hiding behind her a little, looking up at the two of us. She petted his head softly, brushing his hair back. "Hello there, Fernau and friend. I am Jenica and this is my son Pip." She patted Pip's back. I waved at him to hopefully help ease the nervousness. I was far larger than him and armored, so I understood the fright.

"I'm Alex, it's nice to meet you. I got your note but couldn't read it."

Jenica looked to Fernau immediately and he shook his head, which produced an 'ah' from the matron. "It was merely a greeting and reassurance that not everyone here is so discomforted by your presence."

I rubbed the back of my neck and looked away from her, a pang of anxiety washing over me. Getting shunned wasn't something I'd experienced, even a little, and in a new and strange place with no safety but that which I created it didn't feel good. "I am still getting my bearings with all this. People here have been very wary. A lot of them won't even look at me."

"They think if they help you, you'll cast off your glamor and reveal yourself to be some hobgoblin inspector. I can tell you're the real thing."

"Huh? How? And, glamor?"

"A glamor is a concealing illusion. A magical enchantment to make one thing look like another. A hobgoblin made to look like you, for example. It's expensive and difficult to maintain at a distance. It's one of the reasons I doubted you were anything but the genuine article."

This heightened my spirits. "Thank you, really."

She offered a swift and polite nod and followed up with a serious tone. "I am afraid we don't have too much time for pleasantries. I have to send you along to Areksious' tower post haste. He'll get you where you need and should be."

My eyes lit up, the lips. "Right! I talked to him, or his lips."

"Arkesious?"

"No, no. His apprentice."

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

"Torvend?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you just call him that?"

"He didn't give me his name when we spoke. He also told me to throw a stick around."

She gave me a befuddled face. "I see."

She turned away from us and Pip followed. She gathered this and that from the larder. It gave me a moment to inspect the home. The walls were adorned with a scant few decorative portions of stitching or crafts, I could tell at sight which were made by Pip and which by Jenica.

More curiously were the dried herbs and spices and ingredients gathered on racks and hung from the ceiling. The colors had paled, and their shapes and appearance alerted me to the fact that they were indeed ingredients, root vegetables, and such like that. However, they were just a few degrees off. Something not quite right about them I couldn't put my finger on. I stared at them awhile, trying to place their strange crested shapes, orange and red colors.

A bay leaf? A yam? Bulb-like objects I'd peg as onions threw me off with their wiggling grey stripes that ran across the flaky violet skin. I in equal parts wished to never taste any of those, and try them in the meals they're best in.

Jenica must have spotted me staring at her preserves, as she asked if I and Fernau wanted to eat. I only had a small desire to, but Fernau was far more exuberant about it. He began to spill into how poor Dallow fed him, and how difficult their time was.

"I was just about to ask, the cuts on your faces. Anything further?"

"We were lucky enough to be able to avoid that," I explained. I felt a bit shameful that I was entirely in armor and Fernau was in nothing but cloth. More a hero than I already, delving into danger with nothing more than a pointed stick.

Pip did little more than gawk at my armor, the filigree, and reflective material catching the light in glints here and there. It wasn't the most subtle piece of equipment.

"The note was naught but a suggestion to come to visit that I might house you and then send you on your way safely. I am glad you stuck around and rooted out the corruption there in that tomb. My grandfather and grandmother and most of the townsfolk's kin are buried there."

She went here and there among the larder, stoking a fire in the kiln to begin preparing something. It smelled savory, at first. And she was collecting what appeared to be cuts of poultry, I'd have guessed. I later learned it was those roly-poly chickens, good assumption on my part if I don't say so myself.

As the cooking progressed, Jenica's home was filled with a mouth-watering scent. The walk had done more to hunger me than I expected, and I found myself waiting in relative silence with Fernau at her table. The chairs creaked under the weight of me and my armor, and I wondered with each tottering lean if it would break.

Jenica asked after me and my experience. How I had woken, what the place was like. I kept it short on detail. She made no mention of me not being from this world originally, and I assumed that was something few, if any, knew. It felt something close to awkward, to discuss the matter. I felt as though I had an air to keep up, as well as a need to keep detail to myself. Jenica was certainly being accommodating, but I couldn't tell just yet who was friend or foe.

She sat with us, across from me and next to Fernau. Pip ate from Jenica's portion of food, sitting in her lap and surprisingly making no mess. What she served, much like her ingredients, was treacherously familiar. It was a savory, homestyle meal that was warm and filling. All I could need or want in the moment. It sat better in my stomach than the rations had by a mile. The flavor profile and scents were just adjacent to normal. If I had rushed past it I'd have easily assumed it was some breakfast bowl. Starchy, chunked vegetables, scant few scraps of meat, and a slight broth to keep things wet and warm but not soggy.

Pip had a few bites and despite his mother's insistence could bear no more, and hopped off her lap to play.

I devoured the meal without thought, then took canvas of Jenica, her home, and Pip again. A bowl of this was probably a significant gift. I made my thanks explicitly clear.

I thought then, of paying Fernau and made mention of it. I fetched my coin purse from my bag.

I unfurled the cord that squeezed the leather purse shut and neither Jenica nor Fernau could hide their shock. Only the two people in the room who didn't know what they were looking at had no reaction. Me and Pip. Just as casually as I had opened the pouch up the little boy looked to the coins and then away, returning to the fantastical world he was creating with his carved wooden horse toy.

"My word," Jenica said to break the silence. "Where did you find this?"

"Where I woke up, with the rest of my gear."

"Right."

"More gold?" Fernau piped up now. His eyes were glittering and geld, swiping a coin and rubbing his thumb over it. "One of these could pay my whole debt to Dallow two times over."

"Oh, then it's yours. For all your help." I had easily one hundred coins, so why not pass one off?

He choked on his food, coughing a chunk of it across followed by the coin itself on Jenica's table which immediately had me in stitches. Seeing his eyes bulge out and hitting his chest with his fist tickled me just right. Jenica shot me a warm and smirking glance but even she was drawn in by the bounty before her.

Slowly she reached for and examined the coin Fernau had dropped, turning it over in her hand. It was old in age alone, not newly minted but in perfect shape. Only the lightest wear on it. The face was an astute-looking man in profile with a long, sharp nose, aged countenance, and bald head. She showed this end to me.

"Arkesious."

She turned it over to the tail, which was of a serpent's spined tail. "The tail of his drake, Raiamere."

I nodded, I knew one of those names. Either his apprentice was ancient, or otherwise preserved.

"One of these would pay Fernau's wage for a year or so. You could feed and house yourself well for a day on one-hundredth of this or so, a silver flat."

"A silver flat?"

She nodded and set the coin back before the farmboy to her left. "Pip, fetch Mama's purse, please?"

He tottered off to get it while Fernau finally got a hold of himself.

"I can have it?" He asked clearly and passionately, a pair of fingertips on the face of the coin.

"Of course."

Instantly, soon as I hissed the 's' of 'course', he snapped an overjoyed reply. No hunt of mealy-mouthed back and forth, faux uncertainty, or anything else. Plan, direct, and very welcome. "Thanks. You won't regret it."

It felt good to give and to have a positive impact on at least someone's life. It was heartening.

Pip returned and Fernau stowed his treasure close by his heart. Jenica spilled a sparse few coins of her own onto the table. Well-worn, soft looking, and faded silver squares with nondescript markings. And a far larger pile of brownish-grey copper coins. These were wider but thinner than my gold and the silver squares both.

"Could you count them for us, Pip?" Jenica asked. He wasn't so sure, but tip-toed by the table and mumbled figures under his breath. The silvers were easy, he declared a proud, "Three!" before moving onto the rounds.

"This is considered significant savings for a widower outside of a city. A land owner like Dallow would have a fair bit more on hand, but not likely a gold coin."

I was following along and was not certain why she was telling me all this. Foolishly I opened my mouth to ask just as it dawned on me. She was trying to instruct me in the ways of average commerce so I wouldn't be swindled. As she continued I got the notion that this pouch of coins was more burden than boon. And, that Jenica was more than just a housewife.

She told me more about what is to be expected price-wise. Fernau was slow to join in, he didn't know why she was doing it evidently and joined in naming the prices of things off-handedly and without purpose. Jenica was too sweet to shush him.

"After you visit the tower, I recommend the city of Goatsroad to the south, you can exchange some of those coins for lesser denominations. I would not walk in with more than one or two lest you draw undue attention."

The mention of the city perked Fernau’s ears up. “Goatsroad? That’s where Elida lives now.”

Fernau's elation at being paid only multiplied when he sprung into describing his lost lady love. He was spurred on by comments and reminiscing from Jenica too. It was a strange sight, Fernau dipping into poetic language he didn't have the tongue for or knowledge of. The word "beautiful" was so worn thin that its meaning for me never recovered. There was an innocence I'd not really encountered in the modern world. Waiting months, years, on a woman he'd only spoken to via letters since she left for the city.

His eyes were practically twinkling. "This will be good. This jaunt down to Goatsroad. We'll turn things around."

"Have you ever been to the city?" I asked of Jenica, only giving Fernau a small grin to confirm his excitement.

"I have in the past," a wistful smile of remembrance danced across her features. A glimmer of youth that highlighted the early signs of age by her eyes. "I would buy ingredients for draughts and potions there."

"Oh, alchemy?"

"Alchemy is a different field. I studied potion craft under Arkesious' apprentice."

"Areksious' apprentice's apprentice."

"Just so," she grinned.

"Why doesn't he use his own name?"

"Who can say? I suspect you can ask him. I suppose some enjoy living in the shadow of others."

"He didn't mention you."

"Hmph."

"Done!" Pip exclaimed suddenly. Counted them all finally!

Jenica gave us detailed, overly detailed, instructions. I was thankful for every word. Same as Fernau, the area was unexplored territory to me. I was beginning to be thankful for my companion, going on such a venture alone would be far more formidable.

Jenice spent quite a while on the tale of a grove. She didn't make it sound dangerous or stressful but did speak of it with a cautious reverence and told us to take care and be respectful of the life there.

Before departing Jenica passed onto me a long, old cloak. Its unassuming brown shae contrasted the sterling of my armor. The concealment was good. I wasn't in a position to abandon this equipment just yet. Though, it made me quite the target. If distant villagers could peg me as the Sleepy Hero, who else could?

I looked down at myself and found that it obstructed none of my movements while keeping my front, back and shoulders protected from the elements and discerning eyes. I looked like the silent and gruff wanderer in a Western. I wondered if I could be so ruggedly heroic and live up to that depiction.

Off to pay Fernau’s debt we went, leaving many thanks and goodbyes with Jenica and Pip.

I wish I could say Dallow's exchange with Fernau was cathartic, storybook, or even gratifying. The portly boar of a man couldn't even give Fernau that. He took the money begrudgingly and complained the whole way. Having to get Fernau change for the coin was a major hold-up.

He made the suggestion that he wouldn't accept the payment as he didn't want to trade off so many of his own silver flats. In response, I put my hand on my sword's hilt and gave him a stern look. that was enough to dissuade him. I wasn't sure if I should have, but the annoying, gruff, bumbling disposition got to me. And that was the final straw.

I felt bad about being threatening in the moment, but those thoughts got stuffed down when I saw the cramped, dank conditions Fernau was made to sleep in. He had precious few objects to carry with him. Chief among them being a bundle of letters from his girl and a locket of his mother's.

It’s just past noon when me and Fernau have our things and are at the edge of town. We pause a moment. For him, no family and no friends, there is no one to turn his head back to say goodbye to. Onward to the Goatsroad. For me, it’s the same. Stranger in a strange place. But, I had a friend beside me. And that was a better gift than the armor or weapons.

I cast him and smile. “If we can reach that tower by dusk I’ll be a happy man.”

“And then onward.”

“Elida?”

“Elida.”