Grumph readied a retort then swallowed it. She made a sound point. He’d been looking at magic as somehow different from the other pursuits he’d undertaken in his life, but there was no reason it should be. If he applied hard work and constant drilling, he could improve at it. Perhaps this was even the method needed to overcome his lack of understanding on the final spell.
“Good point,” Grumph admitted, pulling himself out of his sitting position and reopening his book. He marched over to a part of the demolished arena that had once held practice dummies. A few remained, battered and broken, but still somewhat recognizable as humanoid in shape.
With a few flicked gestures and a mumbled word, Grumph hurled a bolt of magical cold right into one dummy’s center of mass, engulfing part of it in a sheet of ice. He then stepped to the side, took aim, and repeated the feat once more. Gabrielle was right: one improved through practice.
And Grumph had catching up to do.
16.
The Keening Wyvern was an actual restaurant, not an inn with a bar and kitchen attached. It stood three stories tall and offered private rooms for dining, drinking, or whatever else one might care to indulge in. It was crafted from thick, dark wood that seemed to glow in the light of the candles that illuminated the rooms. The tables were set with actual tablecloths, rough though they were, and silverware was laid out next to the plates in an orderly fashion, the way one might expect at a formal occasion.
A place such as this could have never survived in Maplebark. Only the mayor would be able to afford it regularly, and he had his own dining hall that was of comparable splendor. No, this was the sort of establishment that was only able to thrive in a town with lots of adventurers funneling through, dropping their gold as easily as they dropped the indigenous creatures they happened to encounter in the wild.
Grumph, Thistle, Gabrielle, and Eric all took in the sights of the restaurant as they entered, making note of various bits that interested them. It was quite impressive and served to make them wish they had clothing slightly more suited to its grandeur instead of the dusty traveling clothes they were adorned in.
If the woman working the front took issue with their garb, she kept it well hidden. She led them up the polished staircase to the third floor then down the sprawling hallway toward an open door. Already seated in the room were Sierva, a human male with copper-colored hair, and a dwarf with a large club strapped to his back. Though they’d shed their armor, Sierva’s companions were easily recognizable from the tournament.
Sierva rose upon spotting her friend, offering a wide smile. “Thistle, glad to see you once more. Please, won’t all of you join us?”
The group obliged, sitting in chairs across from the other three and getting comfortable. In the time it took them to get settled, the woman who had led them up slipped away, shutting the door softly behind her.
“Well then,” Sierva said once everyone was seated. “I believe we should start with introductions. I am Sierva, as Thistle knows, and these are my companions: Galdrin and Chuff. Galdrin is the tall one, and Chuff has the beard.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Galdrin greeted. His voice was more measured than it had been the previous day, which was understandable since he was no longer rallying troops against a demon attack.
“Greetin’s,” Chuff said. He sounded much the same, but that was par for the course. Conventional dwarven behavior tended to present its broad emotional range in subtle, understated ways. To an untrained observer, dwarves might consistently sound the same, but to a fellow dwarf, there was a symphony of feelings hidden amongst the inflections of words and twitches of the eyes.
“Likewise,” Thistle replied. “My companions are Grumph, Gabrielle, and Eric.” As he spoke each person’s name, they raised their hands in a half-wave, half-greeting gesture. “We’re journeying to see King Liadon, since we have a summons from him.” Thistle knew he was offering information they hadn’t asked for, but he was determined to cement their story with as many people as he could, no matter how inconsequential they might be.
“Liadon is fond of tasking adventurers with dangerous work,” Galdrin noted, giving his head a slight shake. “May I ask what you did to earn such an honor?”
“We killed a brood of kobolds that were harassing a town, saving a royal merchant in the process. The summons was his reward to us.” This time, it was Eric who spoke. Before the meeting, it had been agreed that they would seem suspicious if only Thistle seemed to know about their story. Spreading out the details would help their facade.
“Kobolds? Do yerself a favor, when you gat to the kingdom, lead with the demon slayin’,” Chuff advised. “If you go in wit a kobold summons, ye’ll get nothin’ but cellars full o’ rats for the first month.” Despite the dwarf’s strange dialect, most of the table was able to put together his meaning.
“We thank you for your advice,” Thistle replied. “And since you’ve broached the subject we’re all here to discuss, shall we talk about demons?”
The mood of the room quickly shifted. Gone was the flippancy and polite humor; in its place hung a cloud of severity. Sierva leaned forward, setting her elbows on the table and resting her chin atop her knuckles.
“I want to know everything you’ve seen so far. Leave out no details concerning the demons, for even the smallest one could be the clue we seek.”
“Pardon me, but I believe we came here for an information exchange, not a giveaway,” Thistle pointed out.
“You have my word that we will tell you what we know after, but I want your memories pure. There is a chance my information could taint your recollections, so I beg you to trust my promise and speak first.”
Thistle weighed his options. He liked Sierva and she’d shown him nothing but reasons to give her the benefit of the doubt. Still, his minion experience hollered in the back of his mind, urging him to remember that words are often forgotten, and promises easily broken. To trust was foolish, and worse, dangerous. But he needed what they knew. In the last two places they’d stopped, there had been demon attacks. Whether it was coincidence, or they were occurring all over the kingdom, it would be foolish to presume these beasts would be the last his party would meet. Better forearmed with all the knowledge they could muster. Besides, under it all, he got a feeling from Sierva that put him at ease. Whether it was intuition, or the legendary paladin capacity for sensing goodness, he didn’t know; he just decided to take a gamble and trust it.
“Very well,” Thistle said at last. “We will tell you everything we encountered at the goblin camp where we were captured, as well as what we each experienced at yesterday’s tournament.” He turned to Gabrielle, who sat next to him, and gave a subtle nod of his head. Gabrielle cleared her throat once, adjusted her position in the chair, and began to speak.
“After the goblins took us, we were stripped of our weapons and put into cages…”
By the time the story chain had passed through Gabrielle, Eric, Grumph, and looped back to Thistle, dinner had been served and largely consumed. Sierva’s party had clearly spared no expense, ordering several platters of various grilled meats, ample bowls of vegetables, and even bottles of wine. It made the tale-telling go much more pleasantly, and as Thistle finished his story of being stuck in a demon’s throat, the rest of the table listened with full bellies and open ears.
“Sounds like quite a harrowing experience,” Sierva said. “I commend you for keeping your head. If not for the distraction you provided, we might have lost many more adventurers before that monster was slain.”