A Weapon Too Free

The Decision

Tock.

"I think I've got most of it written down."

Tick.

Essendra nodded.

"I know this must have been very hard for you, but thank you for persevering. I can't promise that the Guild will be able to do much about it, but we're going to do our best."

Tock.

Essendra stared at the clock. She'd spent most of the morning recounting the disaster here in the back office of the Adventurers' Guild. Reliving it had been rough.

Adminstrator Yellin coughed.

"This seems like a suitable time to stop. When you feel you're ready, please provide a list of what the three of you were carrying. We'll send messages to nearby guilds with a warning to be on the look out for those things. If the thieves try to sell them on there, we'll find out."

Tick.

"I'm just glad their arrows missed you when you were falling. I can't imagine what it must have been like, hanging there and not knowing if they would it you."

Essendra said nothing. The hidden dungeon and everything in it had been left out of her account. The dragon, the orcs, but most importantly the gaudy mace. She wasn't ready to reveal its existence to anyone. Not yet.

She had reached Paloxhal just before dawn. She'd rinsed the worst of the blood off in a stream near the bluffs, but she still had looked enough of a fright that the gate guards had challenged her. They'd relented once they'd had chance to see she wasn't any kind of monster and hurried her inside the city walls. Before reporting to the Guild she had made a detour to her lodgings and hidden the mace under her bed.

Tock.

"I'd like to help with the search," she said. "They can't have got far since last night."

Yellin gave her a sympathetic look. He was a small and neat man who looked as though he minimised his exposure to the outdoors. A musty office surrounded by paperwork seemed like his natural environment. 

"You... don't know? You were asleep for an entire day. There was a lot of Fatigue to recover from. The scouts we sent out already found your comrades," he paused. "Neither of them made it."

Gadja too? Essendra had tried to convince herself that the axe-woman had managed to get away somehow. Confirmation of Gadja's death didn't hit her as hard as she had as she would have guessed. Maybe I'm just numb.

Tick.

Essendra looked to the side and caught a glance of herself in a mirror. She was still wearing her gambeson and it was stained with blood and dirt. Cuts on her hands and face hadn't had time to heal fully. She usually wore her hair in a tight bun at the back of her head but somewhere down the line she'd lost the barrette and her hair was down around her shoulders. It reminded her too much of how she used to look.

"You're welcome to stay in one of the guest rooms here in the Guild for another night or two if you wish. Or you might prefer your own bed."

There was a secret under that bed. Essendra was nervous about leaving it there unguarded. If she hadn't been so Fatigued when the Guild had offered her one of its rooms, she wouldn't have left it unattended for even one night.

"I'm not sure."

Tock.

Adventurers' Guilds tended to accumulate unusual furnishings and decorations. Trophies from the field, bequests, donations from retiring adventurers; they mounted up and had to be kept somewhere. Yellan was overlooked by the stuffed and mounted head of a Nightmare. Its glass-eyed stare was making Essendra uncomfortable.