Bold Words

Day 5: Experience - Key - Magic

 “C’mon, are you gonna take the deal or what?” I said, putting my hands on my hips in hopes that it’d make me look more intimidating. This shopkeeper must have thought that I was some inexperienced brat. I knew I looked young, probably younger than nineteen, but I had a hellova lot of experience for my age. I’d been to the market more times than I could count with my master and I’d learned the tricks of the trade.

I watched the shopkeeper closely as he counted over the gold coins and the animal pelts I gave to him. Clearly it was a good deal—better than he actually needed for what was being traded for. I glanced away from the storekeeper, momentarily eyeing the small tent and the items that hung about. Pelts hung in the tent, but none of them were as high of quality as the ones I was wearing or what O brought in. Swords, daggers, knives, blades on chains, warhammers… the place was a warriors heaven on top of all the magical items any magician could bare from the easiest mushrooms to find near Druid villages to the rarest scales of the lizards folk. I jumped, hearing the rattle of coins on the shopkeeper’s belt. I looked back at him. “Seriously, do we got a deal?”

“Two more pelts and we have deal,” the shopkeeper said, placing the fox skin down on his work table.

“Two more pelts? You know the quality of those? You know how much work went into them? I’m not giving you—“

“Two more pelts or no deal,” the shopkeeper said as he stood from his workbench. He towered over me, and I wasn’t small to begin with. I’m human, not a gnome—but this guy—he was as thick as a thousand year old tree trunk and as tall as one too. Obviously this guy was of Giant decent or on the smaller end of a full-blood giant. He had a big, round belly, but his arms were muscular and bulky, undoubtedly from working with metal (and possibly beating people to a pulp to rob them of their best shit. That’s basically what he was doing right now).

My jaw tensed as I quickly glanced at the silver keys on the desk. Shit, I really needed those. I bit his lip, procrastinating on making the deal as long as I could. I was being cheated and this guy knew it. If I tried just a little bit more, I could get a better deal, but the longer I looked at the shopkeeper, the less daring I started to feel. “Fine deal. Just take it. You know while you’re at it, why don’t you take the armor off my back while you’re at it?” I said, rolling his eyes with a growl.

Big mistake.

“Take ‘em off,” the shopkeeper’s deep voice growled.

My eyes widened. He couldn’t have possibly thought I was being serious just then! But the big lug was moving towards me. Good thing that along with being the size of a tree, he was just about as fast as one. I nabbed the silver ring of keys off the end of the table before I bolted from the tent. All I heard behind me was deep grunting, obscenities, and threats and I didn’t dare look back. Once I left the forest and came to the towns, I was never really sure what people all were. For all I know, that giant was mixed with a medusa and the moment I looked back was the moment I became someone’s new garden ornament.

“Go, go, go, go, go!” I said, running past my party as I left the tent in my dust. I barely turned half way to glance at them before I continued to run forward. My wolf picked up, chasing after me immediately. My party looked at one another, pursing their lips before they finally started to follow. Apparently they didn’t want to be caught up in the nasty giant I just left behind. They’d understand if I told them he was trying to rob me blind.

“I thought you said you were good at this!” Banend yelled over the clanging of his metal. The sheath of his sword repetitively smacked into the gold and bright silver colored armor that he wore.

“I am,” I shouted back, not daring to look over my shoulder.

“Then why are we running?” Cital asked, running at his side.

“Turns out he was a hard sell,” I said, “Harder than I thought.” I wanted to keep it short and sweet knowing these guys already didn’t’ trust me. “We got the keys and that’s all that matters.”

“What’d it cost you?” Oston snorted a laugh.

“I said it’s not important, so let’s just focus,” I repeated before I just stopped responding. We ran for only a little while longer before our quick stepped turned into a more sustainable pace. I had only been traveling with this group of adventurers for a little less than two weeks and I knew just what they thought of me—some ranger brat who lived in the middle of the woods. Uncivilized, trained by some old guy who hated civilization. I could only imagine what they said about me behind my back—especially given they all thought they were from higher parts of society than me.

Banend was some big shot paladin. He had a holier than though attitude about him and he had previously insisted on being the one to go in and talk to the shopkeeper. He more than likely could have sweet talked the guy into giving them the keys for a little less than a turkey leg—or a fish—whatever it was they were carrying around that was the cheapest and easiest thing to get. As long as it was for the holy mission… he’s just a charming bastard and he’s good at everything he does.

Cital was the proverbial elf that Banend needed to compliment his team. She was a younger elf druid, just a few hundred years, but she still had all this knowledge that only her people would have. Most of the time, she just had to grace the town shops with her presence and they bowed down to her old, mystical wisdom.  

Oston was some philanthropist of a gnome and a wizard on top of that. Anything he wanted, he could buy—assuming he had the money on him. He swears he left most of it at home and whenever we got there, he’d pay us back for everything we covered him for, but I’m pretty sure we’re lying.

But for some reason, Banend believes that no one lies if they’re on a holy mission so he believes just about everything that comes out of Oston’s mouth.

Then there’s Ardunn, who I can’t stand—you know those lizard people I was talking about before? Well he’s a highbred of one of them. A human with scales like the lizards, giving him armor like skin. He had their claws, teeth, and he could shoot acid from his mouth. Look, I wasn’t racist—I had a good reason to hate his kind. It just seemed like no one else in this group understood that hatred, so I kept it to myself.

Night fell before we stopped and set up camp. Oston built a fire as Cital helped set up the tents while Banend, Ardunn, and I went to catch some fish for dinner. We were closing in on the on the tower now that we had the keys and it was only a few days journey from where we were at—assuming our map was correct and we kept a good pace.

There’d been rumors floating around the eastern district that bad things started happening shortly after that tower was built. Villages on that side of the coast started to see shadow people form and at first it was just creepy, but over the last few weeks, things have escalated from objects just being moved, to things going missing, and last week deaths started to happen. They weren’t normal deaths either. The bodies were marked up with weird text in red, it was some ancient elvlish language that glowed dimly on the skin. The victims’ eyes and tongues were pulled out while the ears and fingers were cut off from each body found. Most jarring thing yet is they were each found sitting at a table somewhere they were familiar at and a smile was plastered across their dead faces. The villages believe that it’s magic and it’s coming from this tower and Banend took it upon himself to figure out what was happening, collect a group, investigate, and put an end to the evil.

I’m not so sure I believe that’s what’s going on.