Eventually (part 2)

Alex had never been one to be particularly subtle, so when he noticed me seeming more nervous and distant around him that I had been even when we first started dating months before, he flat out asked me what was wrong.

I considered lying, telling him nothing was wrong, but that wasn't fair.  I owed him at least something of the truth.  And besides, I had already told him the hardest part on that very first date.  Still, I was afraid.  I was so afraid that history was about to repeat itself.  I was so afraid.  Yet, I was so hopeful that I told him why I was afraid.

"I, I like you a lot," I said.

He smiled.  "I like you, too," he said.  "That shouldn't be a problem."

We were sitting on my couch.  He had been reading a book and I had been fiddling on my phone, but he had noticed how distracted I was, how I wasn't really paying any attention to anything.

I sighed.  "I just don't want to lose this," I said.

"Why would you lose this?" he asked, not bothering to ask what "this" was.  I appreciated that.

I looked away from him and mumbled, "Because I lost it before."

Part of me hoped he didn't hear me, but logically, I knew it would be better if he did.  I didn't want to repeat myself.  There was silence for a moment, a long moment, and then I heard his voice just say, "Tara."

I turned and looked back at him and there was a hint of tears forming in his own eyes.  "I'm not an asshole," he said.  And I almost laughed at that, because of course he wasn't.  But then, I hadn't thought my old high school buddy turned almost lover had been an asshole either, so I couldn't laugh at all.  Now it was his turn to sigh and rub his hand over his face.  When he was looking at me again, he said in all sincerity, "I hate that that ass did that to you.  I know you weren't perfect.  None of us are.  But you didn't deserve that.  Any of it.  I told you that before and I'm telling you again."  He sighed and looked down and said more softly, "Maybe I am a little bit of an ass, because selfishly, I want to be able to say something to you, but I'm afraid, too, because of what I know about how you were hurt before."

I felt my heart pounding faster.  Heat rising to my cheeks.  I was scared, so scared, but I had to know.  "What do you want to say?" I asked him.

He looked back up at me and apparently that was all the prompting he needed because he said, "I love you, Tara."

There was silence after that.  I was struck by the memory, still so fresh in my mind, of what had happened when I had last said, "I love you."  They are just words, but they mean so much.  I wasn't sure if I was ready to say it, but that he had said it first, that he was waiting.

"It's okay..." he started to assure me.

And then I blurted out, "I love you, too" and I kissed him.

He didn't let it go any further than that, not that night.  I think he knew I was still scared.  I think he was waiting for me to say it and really, fully mean it, without fear, without doubt, without this nagging sense that it was all going to come undone.

It took time.  It took many more months with dates and quite moments and him saying the words and me sometimes not saying them back.  It took some crying and some laughing and lots of holding one another close.  But eventually, it worked.  Eventually, I realized this time was for real.  And eventually, I knew that when we said "I love you", we both truly meant it.

Eventually (part 1)

After a couple months, I feel recovered enough to put myself out there, to start going on dates.  I join a couple of online dating sites.  I let acquaintances set me up on blind dates.  But every single in-person meet-up, no matter what led to it, starts with the same statement on my part.  "Just so you know, I can be kind-of an ass."

The reactions I get to that are a lot more telling than the statement itself.  I've gotten responses all the way from "Yeah, can't we all" to "Sure is a nice ass."  That latter one ended pretty quickly - didn't even get to the point of ordering dinner.  What seems most universal, though, is the deflection.  Guys don't want to hear that self-deprecation on a first date, even if they pretend they do.  Maybe the jerks take it to heart, think of ways they can use this to gain power over me later, should I ever give them the chance.  The one time I was surprised by the reaction I got, despite it being the reaction I had originally expected when I started all of this, was then the guy looked directly at me and asked, without any judgement I could discern, "What do you mean by that?"

And after so many dates where no one seemed to care, no one even asked what I meant by that statement, I launched into my whole tragic tale.  Well, to call it tragic would be a bit melodramatic, but I told him about how I was a jerk to this boy in high school, only to have the boy try to be my friend and eventually my boyfriend, only to tell me he had been playing me the whole time.  "All because I was kind-of an ass back in high school," I finished up.  "So I just wanted you to know that's who I was, but I'm trying to be better."

"Uh..."  The guy across from me just looked at me for a moment, and I looked back down, nervously averting eye contact.  "You know that guy was the ass, right?"

I looked back up at him, a bit surprised, even though I, yet again, should not have been.  "I mean, yeah," I admitted, "but I deserved it, don't you think?"

The guy sitting across from me now raised an eye brow.  "Is this some sort of test or something?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," I was genuinely unclear about what was happening now.  I had never gotten so deep into this before.

"Well then, I'll be honest.  That dude should have forgiven you when you first went for coffee and you both should have moved on.  You were not even a fraction as cruel as he was.  You were a high schooler.  High schoolers have a tendency to be asses.  But even after all those years, you felt bad, and you tried to make it right, and you gave him enough of a benefit of the doubt that you let yourself fall in love.  And he, he just, he crushed all of that.  Trying to assert dominance or some such bullshit?  You didn't deserve that.  No one deserves that kind of treatment when they've already made themselves feel bad about what they did, when they're already sorry."

I just sat there stunned until he was done with his rant.  "That's just, that's... I guess I didn't think of it that way," I said.

There was silence for a moment and then he said, much softer than before, "Would you like to do this another time?"

It took me another moment to realize he meant the date.  I felt a bit disappointed by that.  I was still reeling from his reaction to my statement, and to my story, but I didn't necessarily want this to end yet.  But he wasn't saying good-bye.  He was just saying, "See you later."  I wasn't sure what I wanted to say, so I said, "I don't know."

"I mean, if you don't want to meet up again, that's okay, too," he replied.

"Oh, no that's not what I meant," I was quick to chime in.  "I just, I kinda wanted to continue this now?"

"Oh."  He smiled softly.  "Well, if you'll forgive my outburst then, maybe we can start over."

I laughed.  "Of course I can," I said.  "But I don't think you said anything to be sorry for.  If anything, you made me feel better."

"Good," he said.  And he sounded so genuine.  "I'm glad."  Then he reached his hand across the table to shake mine.  "I'm Alex," he said.

I laughed again.  "Tara," I said as I took his hand briefly.

He smiled as he let go and returned his hands to the menu.  "My pleasure," he said.  "Now what do you suppose is good here."


Alex and I went out several more times after that.  He was nice and smart and funny.  He let me rant about things and just listened.  We had similar tastes in music, and very different tastes in movies, but it was nice.  And over time, I felt myself falling again.  Dangerously close to love, or to what I thought was love, and I couldn't help but think to back to the previous disaster, how it all had been a lie.  And Alex knew all about that because I had told him.  Was he with me now because he was doing the same thing to me or because he felt sorry for me?  In my moments of doubt and weakness, I felt it could only be one or the other.  There was no in between.

But I did really like him.  And things were going well, even if it was a lie.  And I was having fun with him, even if it was a lie.  So I let it remain as it was, afraid to say how I really felt because last time I had done that, it all came crashing down.

Eventually, Alex picked up on the fact that something was wrong.

Just

It's just a Facebook friend request.  From someone I knew in high school.  Someone to whom I was a total ass.  I was one of the popular girls:  cheerleader, drama queen, part of the in-crowd, always the life of the party.  He was a total nerd.  Chess club, drama club, straight-A student, never invited to any parties that were worth my time.  That was before, so long ago.  Before I tanked my GPA senior year and ended up having to go to a community college where no one cared how popular I had been the year before.  In fact, no one seemed to care much at all.  But I got through, got my associates degree, transferred to a four year college, studied business, learned how to put my aggressive nature to good use, while still separating it from my personal life.  And now, well, what personal life?  I mean, I guess I have friends, but nothing like in high school.  Even on Facebook, I only have a couple hundred friends.  Nothing too impressive.  And now, this nerdy kid from high school wants to be added to the count.  What reason could he possibly have for wanted to reconnect with me after all these years?  I was borderline... no, I was flat out cruel to him.  I made fun of him for being a nerd.  I even "accidentally" tripped him in the cafeteria once when he had particularly annoyed me with his know-it-all attitude.  And he had looked at me with such pain that day, when that happened, that I almost didn't laugh in my face.  Almost.  Why would he want to be my friend now, even just on Facebook?  Well I shouldn't really care one way or the other.  It's just a Facebook friend request.  So I click accept and that's that.

It's just coffee.  I can't believe he asked if I wanted to get coffee.  We went to different colleges, so far apart, but not fate or destiny or whatever the crap has brought us to the same city again and he wants to meet up and get coffee.  Maybe he has me confused with someone else.  But how would I ask about that?  Do I just type back, "You know I'm that bitch who used to be a total, well, bitch to you in high school, right?"  Well that just makes me still a bitch, right?  Bringing it up again after all these years?  Maybe I should just pretend this is normal.  That everything is fine.  But why should I care so much about any of this?  He's just a guy I used to know, someone who didn't deserve all the cruelty I slung his way.  Maybe this is a second chance to make it right.  Or maybe it's nothing at all.  After all, it's just coffee.  So I simply type back, "sure" and then suggest a place I like and ask about his availability so we can get it all set up and get it over with.

It was just a dumb crush.  That's what he told me at our coffee meet-up.  I think if I was being honest, I would have been able to figure out how he'd felt, though for the life of me, I still have no idea why.  I was so mean to him, so unjust.  How could he have liked me?  I literally asked him just that and he shrugged and asked, "How could I not?"  I reminded him of how terrible I had been, what a terrible person I was, how cruel.  "I thought girls did that when they liked you," he said.  "I eventually figured out I was wrong."  And that was when I told him how sorry I was.  I don't know why I was crying.  I just was.  And it was so stupid, so stupid that I let this get to me after all these years.  But then again, what was stupid was really that it had taken all those years.  He told me it was just a dumb crush, but that wasn't fair.  It was a crush.  It was how he felt.  And he had deserved so much better.  I told him I hoped he had found someone who was a better person that I, someone who wasn't such a screw up.  Someone kind and smart and funny.  And he told me not yet, but he was hoping, he was hoping, just hoping...

It was just a kiss.  Just one kiss.  He had stumbled over his words, and I had stumbled over mine.  He was still a nerd, but I was a little bit of one, too, I was no longer afraid to admit.  He offered to pay for the coffee, but I insisted.  It was peanuts and I didn't want to insult him, but I wanted to do something nice for him.  I knew it couldn't make up for being an ass, so long ago, but I told him I wanted to do something nice.  I admitted it was basically meaningless, that it was really just to make myself feel better.  He said, "okay."  Just, "okay".  And then he let me pay and he offered to walk me to my car, and then... it was just a kiss.  Just a peck on the cheek.  Not even a proper kiss, but it was somehow the closest I had ever felt to someone in a long time.  And I just, I just found myself asking for him number, asking if maybe he wanted to meet up again sometime.  And he said, again, "okay."  Just, "okay".  And that was all it took.

It was just a date.  A proper date this time.  Dinner and a play.  I paid for dinner and he paid for the play.  A nice restaurant, a local theater.  We ate first, at an Italian place.  Somewhere I hadn't been before but wanted to try.  And it was nice, just really nice.  He had a pleasant voice, which I either hadn't noticed or had chosen to ignore in high school.  He was really smart, which was no surprise, but he was funny, too.  I regretted I had been such a snob in high school.  Maybe I could have been his friend this whole time.  Maybe we could have been something more.  If nothing else, maybe he could have helped me get into a decent college from the start.  How different would my life have been?  And the play was nice, too.  He chose it.  He'd heard it was good, and it was.  It was just so nice, all of it.  But it was still just a date.  And I enjoyed it, and I knew I'd like to go out with him again.  But it was just so weird, and besides, it was just the one date.  I decided to just let him take the lead, let him make the next move.  I would just wait and see what happened.

It was just a phone call.  Just a simple call to set up our second date.  He called me, and asked if I'd like to go out again, and said how nice it had been to, well, to start over.  To get to know each other properly.  It felt like just a few minutes that we talked, but really it was more than an hour.  And we were going to go out again, go play min-golf.  Just from a simple phone call.

He's just a guy.  Just another guy.  I have to keep telling myself that.  I'm not falling for him out of guilt or sympathy.  I really like him.  I tell myself he's just another guy so that I can convince myself it isn't guilt drawing us together.  And I tell myself he's just another guy so that I can try to convince myself I'm not actually falling for him.  But I just, I just am.  I do like him.  I like his smile and his laugh and the clever things he says.  And he might be just a guy, but I'm just a girl, and I like guys and I like him.

It's just a phrase.  Just one simple phrase.  "I love you."  I told him I loved him.  We haven't slept together.  We don't even kiss that much, but I love him.  And part of me wishes I had just realized it back in high school, but another part of me is glad I waited until I was older that I figured it out, so maybe it would last.  It's just... it's just that he didn't say it back.  And I tell myself that's okay.  I can wait.  It will be fine.  I'm sure he'll say it eventually.  After all, it's just a phrase.

It was just, it was just a lie.  All of it was a lie.  A fight, the truth, a break-up.  It was just, so hard.  "And now you know how I felt," that was what he said.  And it was just, it was just.  He could never love me.  Of course he couldn't.  This was just a mistake.  Everything I did was a mistake.  And it was all just a lie.  He was too clever.  He had done too well.  He almost looked sorry, almost, when he told me the truth.  That he had just been leading me on.  That he wanted to hurt me like I had hurt him.  And he just did.  And that was just that.  And after all the tears and the pain and the anger, I have to admit that although it was just a lie, it was just.  And I just deserved it.

He was just a boy I used to know.  And I'm surprised he didn't unfriend me first, but here I am looking at his Facebook page, waiting to just click the button.  Just do it.  It's done.  He got what he wanted and you got what you deserve.  Just click the button and move on.  Learn from this.  Learn to be a better person.  Just remember what could have been, if you hadn't been such a bitch.  He was just a guy, a guy who deserved so much better than you.  And you're just a girl, who wants to be something better, too.

It's just something that happened.  You can just move on, go back to your job, your life, your friends.  Meet other people.  Start something new.  You can be better than this.  It's just...

"I'm just so sorry."

He just doesn't respond.  For the longest time, he doesn't message back.  It's okay if he doesn't.  I just had to try.  I had to tell him that even though you were an ass back in high school, this could have been real.  But of course he already knows that.  That was kinda the whole point.  But you just want him to know that it's okay.  That it's your fault, too, and you don't blame him.  Just let him know that you still think he's a good person, or at least has the potential to be, if he can just get past you.

"No."  His response appears.  And then he's typing more and there's just one more message.  "I'm sorry."

Just how do you respond to that?

"I forgive you.  I hope you can forgive me."

"I do.  But I don't want to see you again.  Good-bye."

"Good-bye.  I hope you can find someone who makes you happy."

Just.  It's just...  It just is.  It's just something that happened.  But it's more than that, isn't it?  It's something that has the potential to shape who I am, to make me a better person, to help me find someone who will really make me happy as well.  Eventually, I hope, it will be just that.

Untitled

How do you know if your life is well-lived?  How do you know if it will have meaning that lasts beyond your years of living?  How do you know if the story of your life will even exist, if it will be something more than untitled?

My family always taught me that it was our duty and our honor to capture the stories, the tales, the legends of those who came before us.  I was one of five children, smack dab in the middle of them all.  Like my two older brothers and my younger brother and sister, I was raised to be a scribe.  I was instructed to copy important texts and documents and stories that left a legacy behind for others who were long gone.  I was told that my life would find meaning in making the lives of others endure.

And the stories fascinated me.  There were tales of fearless warriors, willing to defy danger and risk death, slaying evil kings or fearsome dragons, getting the gold and winning the hand of someone kind and beautiful (or handsome) in marriage.  There were stories of noble paladins, drawing power from mighty dieties and smiting the evildoers, rescuing villages, saving entire lands from plague and destruction.  Such noble knights sought little if anything in return, at least in their living years.  The stories that lived beyond them, inspiring others to greatness and teaching children of their names, those were the reward they earned, the reward my family was determined to give.

There were also stories of slightly less noble but no less powerful heroes.  There are entire books dedicated to a particular sorcerer who dabbled in forces that some might call evil, but she simply called "a chaos we can bend to our wills."  Nelgaria harnessed these raw energies and made them her own.  She warped them so that they were neither evil nor good, but simply fulfilled her purpose.  She wanted others to say her name while she lived, and she wanted them to know it still after she died.  She amassed such wealth and power and renown in her day that it's strange to think now of all the books squirreled away in our archives.  We know her name.  We speak her legend.  Yet so many do not, and that is why we copy the stories down, why we transpose the songs and the tales and all the feats, true or imagined, that are attributed to her and to so many heroes of old.

To become a legend, it seems, one often requires a passage of time.  Heroes are known in their time.  They become legends long after they are gone.  We make the heroes into legends.  We make their deeds live on long after they do.  They may look down on us from wherever they go in the after life and smile, either because they are remembered or because they inspire others, but either way, it must make them glad to see what we do.

And yet, it doesn't feel like enough.  It's enough for them, perhaps.  It's enough for my family, for my siblings.  Enough for all my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents.  They are content to remember others.  More than content, they are happy and proud of the books they have written, the tomes they have authored, the words and deeds of others that they have captured with pen and parchment.  They have no legacy of their own.  The legacy of others has become their only legacy.

Their only legacy.  It might be enough for them, but it is not enough for me.  I want a legacy beyond the words and deeds of others.  I want to be known.  I want to be remembered.  Like the warrior, I want to be fearless in defying the expectations of my family.  I want to go out into the unknown and create my own, as yet untitled, story.

I want others to be inspired by me.  Like the paladin, I want to go and do good in the world.  I want to help those who cannot help themselves.  I want to show the world a better way, and I want those who would do harm to know that they will not do harm.  Not on my watch.  They will do no ill to those who do not deserve it.

And I want others to remember me.  Not some other adventurer.  Not some others story.  I want them to remember me.  I want them to know my name, like they know Nelgaria's.  Even more than they know Nelgaria's.  I don't want to write of the deeds of others.  I want others to write about me.  Hundreds of years from now, when I look down from wherever it is we go when we die, I want to smile at the memories I had and at how my memories live on in the stories that others write about me.

I want all of this.  I want all of this and so much more.  I want to be brave.  I want to be noble.  And most importantly, I want to be remembered.

The first step, the first step that's always the hardest, the first step is the first step I take away from my home.  The first step is a step away from my family, my heritage, what my legacy is supposed to be.  The first step is to simply go out there and start to make it happen.  And the first step, despite wanting to be fearless, terrifies me.

This home, this mountain where I live, it's all I've ever known.  I've read the stories of far away lands - of villages and towns and kingdoms so far away from my own little land.  But they are nothing more than stories to me.  And I want to be so much more.  I want to be a story in my time and beyond.  I have to go out there, I have to make these places real.  I have to see them and experience them.  And I know I have so much to learn.

I am not without skills.  I have an aptitude for magic.  This is not unheard of in my family, though any who have developed it in the past have mostly used it to write faster or longer or in a fancier manner.  Some have imbued the words they copy with magic, making them appear differently to those who are worthy to read them or making them last longer or making them evoke an emotion in those who read them beyond what is conveyed by the words themselves.

Parlor tricks.  That is what my family is willing to teach me.  That is all I would ever learn if I didn't teach myself more, if I didn't decide I wanted to leave this place and make an adventurer out of myself.  Parlor tricks are a start, but I can do so much more.

I could light the world on fire if I wanted to.  But I don't want to see it burn.  I want to see it illuminated.  And I want to be illuminated with it.  I want to be a star, both in fame and in brightness.  I want to shine.  I know that I can.  I just have to be brave enough to take that first step.  To get away from here.

I guess in a sense, I've already made a start.  The nice thing about having a family with a legacy of writings is that there is so much to read.  Not all the tomes are simply about what brave adventurers do.  There are plenty of writings I've been able to get my hands on that talk about HOW as well.  And the how is what I need.  I need to learn how to cast the spells, how to sense the danger, how to be successful in my quests.

I did manage to get myself a spell book.  That was the first big step before the first real step.  I have a few things written in it.  Just a start.  Once I get out of here, I will learn more.  I will learn so much more.  I will go beyond the parlor tricks to something bigger and grander.  Everyone will either want to be me or be with me.  Other heroes that are destined to become legends will stand beside me and I will stand beside them.  And we will conquer all that oppresses and restrains in the world.  We will set the people free who did not even realize they needed to be set free.  The people like me, like who I am right now, yearning for something more.  We will inspire them.  We will enlighten them.  We will save them.  Me and whoever else the "we" turns out to be.

I have my spell book.  I have my writing tools, too.  I have a few other books and parchments.  I have my wits and I have what I've learned so far in my life.  There is so little else left to do here.  So little else left to do, other than take that first real step.

My family will not understand.  If I tell them in person that I intend to go, they will protest.  They might threaten or beg.  They might punish or plead.  I don't fully know what they will do, but whatever it is, it will not be good.  It will not be a pleasant or encouraging start to the rest of my life.

So my best choice is to leave without telling them, without telling them in person anyway.  They cherish writing.  That is what we live to do as scribes is to write.  So it seems only fitting that I would leave this way of life, would leave them behind with my own writing.  I don't intend to never see them again.  I will have to make that clear.  I fully intend to return here someday.  But on that day, I will be a hero.  My family will be excited to write about me.  They will be proud of what I've become.

But they won't be proud now.  They won't be proud yet.  They will be aghast.  They will be horrified.  They will protest and try to stop me.  They won't understand.  They will think it is too dangerous.  But that's the whole point.  No one great was never remembered for shying away from danger.  Legends, in their time, did what needed to be done.  And I will be a legend, too.

So I'll write my note, and I'll leave it behind.  By the time they find it in the morning, I'll be miles away.  They might try to come after me, but they won't find me.  They won't catch me.  I won't tell them where I'm going to go.  I may not even know where I'm going to go.  I'm following my heart a bit on this one.  I'm going where the adventure leads.  Once I take that first real step, I won't really know what comes next, but I will know it's going to be great.  I'm going to be great.  I'm going to do great things.  Any my nieces and nephews and all who come after me, they'll do great by me.  Either they'll write about me, or they'll read about me and be inspired to be like me.  Either way I win.  I will be a legend.  This is how legends start:  with determination, with a note left behind for their family to read, and with a first real step.


The note I wrote and left for my parents ended up being much simpler than I originally expected, considering how long I agonized over it.  It said:

Dear mom and dad,

I know you won't understand this now, but one day you will be proud of me.  I know you always taught me to write the stories of others, but I want to make a story for myself.  I've gone to make a name for myself, to help others, and to make the world a better place.  When I return home, there will be much more to write than this.  There will be a wonderful story to preserve.

Love always,
Lin

And with that simple yet elegantly penned note left under a paperweight on the dining room table, I departed into the night, excited, nervous, and hopeful about what the future would bring my way.


When you don't yet know a lot of spells, you have to stay away from places you know are dangerous.  Fortunately, I had plenty of maps and books and tales to tell me what those places were.  Some of them I marked on the map for later, once I was stronger, better, more powerful.  For the time being, I stuck to the trails and went to the big cities, the places with lots of potential and options.

I practiced what spells I had access to and took every opportunity I could to learn more.  I found a library of magic fairly early on and spent weeks pouring over the spells.  I learned enough additional magic to defend myself and do some harm to any potential attackers.  And then I went looking for trouble.

Not a large amount of trouble, mind you, just enough trouble to get myself a bit of local renown as an adventurer.  I would hang out in the taverns, eavesdropping on conversations, listening for opportunities to offer my currently meager services to those in need.  The first quest I picked up on was for a woman who believed her maid had stolen some jewelry.  Normally I would have thought this a clique and likely not true, but the maid had disappeared before the woman had even discovered her jewelry missing, so I piped up and offered to try to hunt the potential culprit down.

It turned out to not be that hard.  The maid had simply returned to the farm she had been raised on outside of town.  It was a wonder to me that her employer had not thought to look there first, but considering the lady had said to me, "I have no idea where she could be" and stumbled a bit over the woman's last name even, she probably had no clue this is where said maid was from.

I went to the farm intending to show off my magical powers, be a bit threatening, get the jewelry back.  I did the first two, but then the former maid started crying and said she had only taken the jewelry to hawk so she could save her parents' farm.  I was still so young and naive back then, perhaps a little gullible, but I believed her.  So we made a deal.  I received a bounty of provisions from the farm:  milk, cheese, vegetables, grain, and also knowledge of the merchant to whom the maid had sold the jewelry.  In return, I promised not to tell the maid's former employer where the maid had gone or what exactly had happened to the jewelry.

But I still needed to get the jewelry back, and I knew I couldn't afford it.  I could only hope that the merchant was a bit of a swindler and that I could feel justified in stealing from him.

It turns out he was just a little bit of a swindler, trying to charge nearly double what he had paid the maid for the jewelry, but it wasn't really bad enough that I could feel justified in just stealing from him outright.  He probably should have known the jewelry was stolen when he took it in, but then again maybe he didn't.  The maid was very pretty and though her clothes were simple enough that one would not think her the type to wear such jewelry, good looks can make up for a lot when trying to convince someone you are wealthy or important.

In the end, I decided to simply tell the woman who had originally hired me where she could find her jewelry, after giving the merchant some samples of the fare from the farm in exchange for claiming he had found the jewelry.  I wasn't entirely certain the lady would believe this, but she must have believed it well enough considering she returned to the tavern beaming at me, jewelry back on her person, and paid me nearly as much as she had originally promised for my services.  "I did have to pay to get it back, after all," she stated, "which wasn't quite according to our original accord."

I didn't dare argue.  I was not yet bold enough to demand more.  All in all, I considered my first quest of significance quite a success.  How simple I was back then.  Yet even back then, I knew I was going to have to do a lot more to make a real name for myself.  I was going to have to do a LOT more in order to make my family accept my choice, to make my family proud.


The next quest I found, still from that same town, required a bit more bravery.  It wasn't a simple case of stolen jewelry.  It was a case of multiple thefts and assaults, carried out by some goblins who were apparently camped out in the woods near one of the routes into town.  I kept hearing them mentioned until I finally suggested that someone should do something about them, and maybe that someone could be me.  In response, I was warned that it was unlikely I could handle such a task alone, and though I wanted that to be untrue, I couldn't help but admit to myself that I probably needed, at the very least, someone with healing magic to go with me.  It wouldn't make much of a name for myself if I died in my first real battle.

So I wandered around town, seeking out any other adventurers like myself who might be willing to go on this quest with me.

Not finding anyone immediately, I figured returning to the library of magic where I had been previously studying my spells was as good a place as any to find someone who could keep me from getting killed on my quest.  And that, after a couple hours of wandering and waiting, was where I met William.

William was a human cleric.  Unlike me, he was trained to be a cleric, having come from a family of clerics, but he was still very novice.  He was in the library more looking for tips on combat magic that additional healing spells, having felt like he needed to defend himself.  I had at first not even thought to talk to him, for the reason that he seemed to be trying to study combat, but when I glanced more closely at the type of attack spells he was reading, I thought he might just be a holy man after all.

"You wouldn't happen to be a cleric, would you?" I had asked him.

He had jumped a little at the sound of my voice, apparently so caught up in his reading that he hadn't noticed me standing right beside me.  "Why, yes I am," he stated.  He looked at me a bit nervously.  With him seated and me standing, I wasn't that much shorter than him, but he still had to look down a bit to bring his gaze level with my eyes.  "Why do you ask?"

I smiled, feeling a bit mischevious and also quite glad.  "Have I got a deal for you," I said, hoping up to sit on another chair next to him.

As we chatted a bit more, it turned out that we were both on similar missions to claim glory for ourselves, but in distinctly different ways.  William wanted to prove to his family that he was what they wanted him to be.  I wanted to prove to my family that I could succeed in being what they hadn't wanted me to be.  But either way, we were both after recognition.  We realized we could work with that, together.  "You don't need to learn those combat spells," I assured him, pointing at his book.  "If you can make sure I'm at full capacity, I'm sure I can take those goblins out."

"I don't doubt it," he said with a small smile, and a moment too later I wondered if he had been flirting with me just a little, "but wouldn't it still be wise to have someone to draw their attacks?  I mean, neither of us can take that much of a hit, and if there are more than the three or four that have been reported..."

I nodded.  "That's a fair point," I admitted.  I sighed and rested my head on my hand, which must have been cute or something because he looked a little more nervous.  "I don't suppose you know a warrior or anything, do you?"

He looked even more nervous at that.  "Well, one of my oldest friends is a warrior," he stated, but with unexpected hesitation.

I had only one thought at the time as to why he would hesitate like that.  "Oldest as in you've known him a long time or oldest as in he's really old?"

William laughed at that, as if it was a joke.  "The first one," he said.  He sighed.  "We were friends from the time we were just kids, growing up here together, planning to take on the world together, like kids often do, but I haven't been in contact with him for a while.  We had... well... a bit of a falling out... over a girl."  And he blushed and looked away from me.

"Oh," I said softly, not sure what else to say.  After an awkward silence I started to ask, "Did one of you end up with..."

"She had been my girlfriend first," William said.  "I liked her a lot, but it didn't feel quite right.  And then later I realized it didn't feel quite right because she was really in love with Yarl, my friend that is.  And, it turns out, that Yarl loved her, too, even though they'd barely done anything to act on it..."

"Barely done anything?" I asked.

William sighed and looked decidedly away from me.  "They told me they kissed once," he said.  "Only once.  And I'm sure they were telling the truth.  Still, it hurt, even though I knew we would all ultimately be happier if she went with him.  So ultimately I told her it was okay, and she was so happy, and they moved away together and Yarl and I just kinda very spoke again."

"Are you now?" I asked.

He looked back at me, seeming a bit puzzled.  "Am I what?" he asked.

"Happier?" I asked.

He sighed.  "I mean, in a way," he admitted.  "It still hurts to have her choose someone else.  No one likes being rejected.  But I'm happy for them, I suppose.  Happy that they got to find love together."  He sighed again.  "I just wish I could find it, too."

Without thinking too much, I reached out and put my hand on his.  "I'm sure you'll find it," I said.

He looked really nervous at that.  He looked down at me and down at my hand and then back up on me.  "I mean, I-I hope so," he stammered, "but Lin, I wasn't trying to suggest..."

Now it was my turn to feel embarrassed.  "Oh no, of course not!" I exclaimed, quickly pulling my hand back.  I could feel my face grow red in a blush.  "I was just trying to..."  I sighed.  "I mean, I'd like to be business partners, I suppose?  Co-adventurers?  Whatever you'd call it."

William seemed to relax a little and nodded.  "Okay, yeah, good," he said.  He let out another deep breath and added.  "I'd like that too."  There was another brief moment of silence and then he said, "I suppose this would be as good a time and reason as any to try to reconnect with Yarl."

I gave a quick nod and said, "I'd think so.  As long as you're okay with it."

William nodded back.  "Yeah, I think I am."

Another short pause and then... "Would you like me to go with you to talk to him?" I asked.

He blushed slightly.  "No, I think that would just..."

"Right," I said.  Leaning away from William a bit.

William stood up from the table at that point and said, "I'll just go pay him a visit and come back here, with or without him.  Without, we'll find someone else.  With, we can show those goblins what for!"  He swung his fist in front of him in a manner that was supposed to be threatening but really just made me giggle a bit.  He blushed a bit more and said, "Well anyway... it's about a day's travel to get to Yarl's place and then a day's travel back, plus a day in between to reconcile and whatever.  I'll plan to meet you back here in three days time?"

"Sounds good to me," I said.

"Okay."  He held out his hand and I shook it briefly and firmly before releasing.  "Thanks, Lin." he said with one final nod.  "I think we're both going to make our parents proud."

I smiled up at him.  "I know we are," I said.


Things apparently went okay with Yarl because three days later, William met me in that same spot with his friend.

Yarl was burly and tall compared to me, but not any taller than William.  He had a dark beard and a scar across his nose that may have made him frightening were he not smiling when I met him.  "Thank you," was the first thing he said to me.  And before I could ask for what, he added, "Thank you for getting William to finally come an bury the hatchet."

I laughed at that without thinking.  "I really didn't do much," I said.  "I just came to him with a task and he suggested we get help from you."

"But still," Yarl said, slapping his friend on the shoulder.  "Thanks."

William was silent during this whole exchange, but when I looked at him, I saw he was smiling.  After a moment, he cleared his throat and said, "Well, shall we draw up a plan?"

Yarl gave a gruff but also kind chuckle and a slight shake of his head.  "You and your plans," he said.  "Always wanting to be prepared."

"Isn't it good to be prepared?" I asked, thinking back to how many months, years even, it had taken me to prepare myself to leave my family and come to be here at all.

"Of course," Yarl conceded in his deep voice.  "It's just..." He chuckled again.  "Well, you'll see."

And indeed I did see.  It seemed William wanted to consider every little possible thing that might go wrong.  He sketched out a rough map of where the goblins were thought to be, and then he mapped it out again, and again, each time drawing slightly different paths and routes and battle plans on it.

Finally, just when I was about to protest myself, Yarl put his hand on William's shoulder and gave a squeeze.  "Alright, Will," he said, "I think we've planned enough for one night.  Nadia will be waiting for me back at the inn.  I think it's about time we call it a night."

William's eyes darted to me, where I was standing on a stool to get a good look at the maps he had drawn, and I gave him a nod along with a small smile.  William sighed and conceded.  "Okay," he agreed.  "We'll meet up in the morning to go over anything else anyone thinks of and then we'll be on our way."

Yarl gave William's back a few pats and gave the two of us a nod.  "Aye," he agreed.  "That sounds like a good plan."  He removed his hand from William's back and I could have sworn I saw him give a wink.  "Have a good night, kids," he said.  And he walked out of the library, his heavy steps echoing until he was gone.

After he was fully gone, William let out another sigh and turned to me.  "I wasn't planning THAT much, was I?" he asked.

"Well it's been over two hours," I said.

He looked perplexed at that.  "Really?"

I nodded.  "Really?"

He seemed to get embarrassed at that, face reddening slightly.  "I'm sorry, Lin," he said.  "I didn't mean to take up your whole night."

"It's quite alright," I said.  "I want to be prepared, too, it's just..."

"It was a bit much, huh?" he asked, rubbing the back of his neck.

I laughed lightly and nodded.  "Yeah, just a bit."

He let out one last sigh and then turned to me with his own gentle smile and said, "Okay then, no more planning for the night.  Where are you staying tonight?"

I told him the name of the inn and he gave a nod.  "That's a fine place," he stated, though I already knew that from having stayed there for close to two weeks.  "Do you mind... do you mind if I buy you a drink?"

When I opened my mouth but found no sound coming out, he chuckled uncomfortably and looked away, rubbing the back of his neck again and once again turning slightly red.  "Just as friends of course," he said.  He looked back at me, seeming to calm back a bit.  "You can buy the second round if it makes it less weird."

I smiled at that and gave a nod.  "Yeah, okay," I agreed.  "Why not?"


You might think that there was going to be an answer to "why not" coming, that the two of us got drunk and ended up waking up in bed together or something like that.  But nothing like that happened.  We had a couple of drinks, listened to a bard who wasn't that great and William was a bit harsher towards than I would have expected from a cleric, and shared a few laughs.

There was a bit of serious talk, too.  I had picked up on the fact that Yarl had mentioned a Nadia that I assumed was William's former beau.  When I hesitantly asked about it, William confirmed that was indeed the case.

"Were you okay with that?" I asked.  "I mean, having her come along?  It didn't seem like you were expecting her to when we talked before."

"No, I wasn't expecting it," he admitted, "but yes, I was okay with it."  He leaned his head on his hand and smiled at me.  "I was much more okay with it than I would have expected," he said.  "I don't think I ever really loved her.  There was attraction, sure, but not love.  Not like what she and Yarl had."  He paused, glancing down and then back up at me.  "I said before that I was happy for them," he said, "but seeing them together?  I think now, I can say that and really truly mean it."

After that, things went back to being a bit casual, especially when the bard started up with an upbeat but horribly offbeat song, which prompted William to plug his ears with his fingers and groan and me to just laugh.

Despite the comfortable yet distinctly date-like feel of the whole evening, when it drew to a close, William bid me good night and returned to his home.  No sad or longing eyes, no kiss of any kind.  Just the good-bye of a friend.  Part of me was relieved he was true to his word of keeping it to just a couple drinks between friends, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that part of me was just a little disappointed, too.  I wasn't particularly attracted to William, but I did like him, and I'm not sure I would have minded seeing if the attraction might come later.  Oh well, I told myself.  There will be plenty of time to consider that after those goblins are defeated.


The next morning, Yarl, William, and I met up in our agreed upon spot.  I was somewhat surprised to find that William was content not to go over all the plans of the day before in great detail, and from the look I caught on Yarl's face, he seemed a bit surprised, too.  Yet we both accepted it happily and the three of us were soon on our way.

We knew that the goblins tended to attack early in the morning or late at night, so we guessed that they might be at least slightly nocturnal.  The hope was that perhaps we would catch them sleeping if we arrived near midday, but we were prepared for that to not be the case as well.

The plan for if they weren't sleeping was to use one of us bait, to lure the goblins out into an attack which we would then turn on them.  Yarl was, of course, the most capable of withstanding any direct assault, that was the main reason we had asked him along after all.  Yet he was also the most likely to scare the goblins away from trying to attack, what with all his muscles and tough looks.  I, on the other hand, I was the complete opposite of Yarl in many ways.  A nerdy little gnome, traveling alone.  The goblins, if they were out, would surely set upon me in an instant, completely unaware of my hidden powers and the two other adventurers I had backing me up.

I was glad that William had come up with this plan, and glad that he and Yarl were willing to let me be the bait, because it worked brilliantly.  One goblin emerged from under a bridge and threatened me.  When I refused to give him anything, he attacked me, and then it was on.  Yarl was charging at the poor surprised little goblin.  William was there to heal that almost pathetic damage the little culprit had done.  Soon there were more goblins, five of them all together, more than anyone else had yet reported seeing at once, but it turned out they were no match for the three of us.

It soon became apparent that despite his lack of magical ability, Yarl was going to be the star of this show.  He had clearly been doing this longer than I had, and probably longer than William, too.  And even if he was a bit out of practice with his recent wedded life, he was fierce.  I landed the final blow on two of the goblins and Yarl got the other three.  When all was said and done, we had one dead, three unconscious, and one more that had gained consciousness just in time to start pleading for his life.

In response to the begging, Yarl loomed over him, demanding to know if there were any more in his crew and where their hideout was.  The terrified goblin swore up and down that there were no others and promised to show us their hideout where they had been stashing all their loot.  It seemed easy, too easy, but none of us sensed the goblin was lying.  So we tied up and gagged the other three that were still alive, pilled them off the road in the woods out of sight, and under threat of death, allowed the one coherence goblin to lead us to their lair.

It turned out he told the truth about the lair, but wasn't entirely honest about there being no more goblins.  As we approached the hideout, a small mossy cave deeper in the woods, another goblin rushed out.  But she wasn't holding a weapon.  She was holding a baby.  "Glux!" she shouted.  "What happened!"

The baby in her arms started crying, and Glux glanced up at us pleadingly before turning back to the female goblin and saying, "They got us, Lone.  They stopped us from taking what we needed."

At this, I couldn't help but roll my eyes.  "Oh for the love of..." I began.  I stepped forward towards the goblin woman, who instinctively stepped backwards.  Good, I thought.  "Your crew has been robbing people on the road," I told her.  "We stopped it.  End of story."

Lone nodded as she rocked the baby whose cries were growing quieter.  "Yes, well, we're goblins, what did you expect?" she asked.

"I have the same expectations of everyone," William spoke up behind me.  "To not rob people and take what doesn't belong to them."

At this point, Glux looked over at William with a hapless grin on his face.  "Mercy?" he suggested.  It almost came out as a squeak.

William sighed.  "Well, as near as I can tell," he said, "your friend here..."

"Wife," Glux corrected.

William paused as he looked between the two of them and then nodded.  "Your wife may have been an accomplice of sorts, but it does not appear she was actively involved in any of this.  There were no reports of a woman being among your numbers and certainly no reports of a baby.  I'm willing to let her and your child go if you don't resist us turning the rest of you who are still alive into the authorities."

"Still alive!" Lone exclaimed.  "Who died?"

"Cur," Glux replied.

Yarl grunted.  "And quite the cur he was," the man mumbled.  He had been the one to land the fatal blow on the goblin.  I had been a bit surprised by that, but the goblin called Cur had appeared to be the toughest, and perhaps the leader even.  A part of me I wasn't yet ready to admit to was glad that particular goblin was dead.  Yet another part of me that I also didn't want to give words to yet was also glad that Glux, having a wife and child, was not dead.

I could have sworn I saw Lone actually start to cry a little at the news of Cur, but she recovered quickly and gave a confident nod towards the three of us.  "Do what you have to do," she said.  "As long as my baby is safe, I'll even go with you if you demand it."

It caught me completely off guard, and apparently William too as he stammered, "N-no, that won't be necessary.  You, you are free to go."

Lone took one last look at Glux and then turned and ran off into the woods.

"Are you sure that was wise?" Yarl asked once she was gone.

William glanced over at the tied up and barely standing Glux and admitted, "No, I'm not sure it was wise, but it felt right."

William then looked to me for some sort of... support?  Reassurance?  I wasn't sure, but all I could bring myself to do was shrug.  I didn't know what I was doing.  Had it been entirely up to me, would I have let that woman go?  Probably.  She did have a kid.  But if she didn't have a baby to take care of?  I wasn't so sure.  Maybe we should have just taken her and her child, too.  Turned them all in.  Let the authorities deal with it.  I sighed.  I was new to all of this.  Now was the time for making mistakes that would come back to haunt me later.  "I dunno," I said.  "It's done now I suppose."

"We could still hunt her down," Yarl pointed out.

Glux got restless at that, and I just sighed.  "No," I said.  "I say we give her a chance.  William's right that we have no evidence of her doing anything wrong.  Tempting as it is..." I glared on Glux, hoping it seemed menacing, "we shouldn't just assume that all goblins are completely irredeemable."

William let out a deep breath and nodded.  "Okay, good," he said.  Then he chuckled a little.  "A child was the one thing we didn't prepare for, but I think we handled it well.  Now let's check out what loot this gang has stashed away and wrap this up."

So that was exactly what we did.  We found a pile of loot in the cave, some of it the stolen items, some of it gold pieces, but all of the specific things we had heard people complain about having been taken from them were still there.  Yarl was able to heft most of it into his bag and William and I were able to scoop up the rest into our satchels.  I was sure there were a few items we missed, with what a mess the cave was, but now that we knew where it was, we could send people back to look for anything we had left behind.

There was a small part of me, I'll admit, that was sorely tempted to pocket some of the gold for myself.  After all, no one could really know exactly how much gold these goblins had taken, right?  But ultimately, I decided against it.  If I was in a different party, maybe.  But I was quite sure that William, and probably even Yarl, would not approve.

When we got back to where we had left the rest of the goblin gang, they were all still there.  We woke them up enough to be able to force them to walk back to down.  The three we had left were all gagged, and we decided to gag Glux as well for good measure, so there was some muffled grumbling on the way back, but nothing we couldn't easily ignore as we traveled on in our own strangely comfortable silence.


When we returned to town, the sun was starting to set and I wasn't even sure anyone would notice our entry, but I was pleasantly surprised.  As people out walking the streets or peering out from the windows of their homes noticed us, they'd stop or come out and stare at the three of us along with the four goblins we had captured.  Slowly, we had a crowd following us as we walked through town towards the justice of the peace, the authority who could deal with these pesky goblins.  When we finally arrived at the towering building in the center of town, applause was following us along with all the people.  I turned and smiled as I saw the looks of gratitude in their faces and heard the sounds of appreciation echoing from their hands.  Yarl seemed to want to just get all of those goblins into some cells, so William and I let him push the four the rest of the way in.  The two of us then turned and faced the crowd.  I looked over at William and saw he was beaming.  This must be the exact sort of thing he was hoping for, I reflected, something to help his town, to do good as a cleric, to make his family proud.

I was startled from my thoughts by the feeling of him grabbing my hand and raising it up in a sign of victory.  Given our height difference, he was definitely lowering his hand to raise mine up, but the crowd still went wild.  After a few moments, their applause died down.  Some of them wandered off back to their homes, but others came forward to thank us one on one.  A few slipped past us into the justice of the peace building, presumably going to see if they could claim their stolen goods.  That was when I remembered that William and I still had some of those stolen goods in our own bags.

"We should probably go in and make sure everything is in order," I said, turning to William, who was still holding my hand.  I found I didn't mind.

He cleared his throat and finally let go of my hand.  "Yes, of course," he agreed.  He turned back to the stragglers of the crowd and announced, "Sleep well tonight, my friends!  The town is safe from the threat of goblins once again!"

The few who were left gave some claps and whoops and then went on their way.  I looked over at William and smiled.  "I'm glad you were able to help you town."

He smiled back.  "I'm glad you were able to help me," he said.

After everything was settled with the justice of the peace and all, yes all, of the loot we had collected from the cave was turned it, it appeared our part of the mission was done.  Yarl announced that even though he felt totally beat, as in tired, he still also felt like celebrating.  "If you don't mind Nadia coming along, I think I'd like to treat us all to a round of drinks."

He was looking at William a bit nervously when he mentioned Nadia, but William just smiled.  "I think that would be wonderful, Yarl," he said.  William glanced at me for my response, and I smiled as well.  "Fine by me," I said.

Yarl gave a hearty laugh and slapped us both on the back, William standing firm against it while I had to fight to stay upright.  That just made Yarl laugh even more.  "Wonderful!" he exclaimed.  "I'll go get Nadia and meet you at the Thirsty Dog, a tribute to the one cur we have slain."

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about, but then I just groaned.  It was at the bad pun, but when William glanced over at me when Yarl was out of earshot and said, "I feel bad about the one that died, too," I decided it wasn't worth it to correct him about my feelings on the matter.

When we got to the Thirsty Dog, I was a bit relieved to see and hear that the entertainment was much better than the bard William and I had endured the night before.  And I was thrilled to discover that the other patrons of the bar recognized us as the heroes who had marched those goblins into town earlier.  We were already approached by several people thanking us before Yarl and Nadia arrived.

Despite what William had told me about being happy for Yarl and Nadia, I still expected this to be awkward.  I was pleasantly and happily surprised when it wasn't.  The three of them seemed like old friends.  I suppose that's because they were.  If anything, I felt a little awkward, like I was intruding on a group to which I didn't belong.  Before too long, I decided I was tired enough anyway to call it a night.  William looked at me with concern when I rose and announced I was going to retire to bed.  "Are you sure, Lin?" he said.  He glanced over at Yarl and then back at me and smiled.  "Yarl is fun when he's drunk and he isn't quite there yet."

I laughed.  "I'm surprised that you as a cleric encourage that sort of thing."

William shrugged.  "I'm a friend first and a cleric second," he said.

I smiled at that.  "Well then I'll leave you to take care of your friend," I said.  "Make sure he doesn't cause too much trouble."

William nodded.  "I will," he agreed.  "Good night, Lin."

"Good night," I replied.

I said good night to Nadia, too, who was a sweet and lovely woman, and waved good bye at Yarl, who was in the middle of what I would describe as a "hearty" conversation with another buff looking man at a table nearby.

As I walked out into the night to return to my own inn, I shivered a little and pulled my cloak around me more tightly, but I smiled as well.  It was late enough now that there was almost no one else out on the streets.  No more applause or cheers or words of thanks.  But that was okay.  I had gotten what I wanted.  I had gone on my first quest with and actual adventuring party.  It had been a success.  And I had received a heroes welcome.  I wasn't sure that words of my deeds would spread outside this town, but there was a chance my name would be mentioned elsewhere.  And if nothing else, it was a good sign of things to come.  I was going to be doing more of this, a lot more, and it was going to be great.


The next morning I woke with a smile on my face as the sun delicately peaked through the curtains and into my room.  It was a good day.  I wanted to go find William, ask him how the rest of the night had gone, see what was next for him and Yarl.  Maybe they would want to go on another quest, if we could find one.  I wasn't sure if Yarl would want to leave Nadia behind, but it would be polite to at least ask.  William... William I had a better feeling about, though even then I wasn't sure if he was ready to leave home.  He seemed to have a quite different relationship with his parents than I did.  His parents supported what he wanted.  Or perhaps more accurately, he wanted the same thing they did.  But I wasn't sure how far geographically that extended.

The more immediate problem was that I had never learned where William lived.  I was sure I could ask around town and find out, but I figured that would look a bit odd, considering I had come into town with him as a conquering hero just the day before.  So instead, I decided to go to the only place we had ever met during the day:  the magic library.

Fortunately, I found him there.  He was sitting in what I believed to be the same spot he was in the first time he had met.  He looked at me and smiled when I approached him and cleared my throat to get his attention.

"Hi, Lin," he said pleasantly.  "I wondered if you might come looking for me here."

"Your wondering was correct," I pointlessly confirmed.  Realizing the obviousness of my statement, I felt my cheeks grow faintly red as I hopped up on a chair beside him.  "So how was the rest of the evening?" I asked.

"It was very nice," William stated sincerely.  "I had almost forgotten how quiet Nadia is, but Yarl more than made up for it.  He's fun to watch.  He even started singing at one point."

I smiled, trying to imagine the burly man bursting into song.  "I'm sorry I missed it," I said.

William shrugged.  "Well, Yarl's singing voice isn't for everyone.  You might actually be fortunate you left when you did."

We shared a light chuckle over that and then after a brief silence I asked, "Where is Yarl now?"

"He and Nadia went back to their place," William said.  "But they said I could visit any time!"  There was a pause and then he blushed slightly and added, "They said I could bring you with, too."

I cocked my head slightly to the side, an amused grin on my face.  "They do know we aren't a couple, don't they?" I asked.

William sighed and rolled his eyes.  "I tried to tell them that, but sometimes there's no use trying to dissuade Yarl of something."

"I dunno, it seemed like he was perfectly willing to go along with all your planning for our mission," I noted.

William gave me a look I wasn't quite sure how to interpret.  Unsure?  Nervous?  Wary?  Wary was close, but still not quite right.  "Well, some conversations are easier than others," he said.

I almost felt like that was meant to be an opening to have one of those more difficult conversations, but I decided to let it pass and instead asked, "What's next for you then?"

His unreadable look shifted to one that was purely puzzled.  "What do you mean?" he asked.

"I mean, what's next for you as a cleric?  Do you want to keep adventuring?"

"I mean, yes, I would like to.  There isn't a lot of opportunity around here, though..."

I smiled.  "Well then why not go elsewhere?" I suggested.  "I agree about there not being much opportunity here.  I thought this town was plenty big, but..." I shrugged.  "The goblins was only the second quest I managed to find since coming here two weeks ago."

"Two quests in two weeks isn't too bad," William noted.

"I suppose not," I managed to give him, "but I think we can do better."

William's eyebrows raised at that.  "We?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Yeah, if you're up for it," I said.  "I figured we could set out together, see what adventure we find, maybe pick up a few others looking for action along the way.  What do you say?"

"I say that sounds great!"  William's face lit up for a moment, but then clouded slightly.  "But I have to admit, Lin, I've never been further from home than the nearest town, and there's even less action there than here.  I don't know if I'm quite ready to go yet, at least not for another week or two."

I smiled in what I hoped was a reassuring way.  I nearly reached for his hand, but realized that had been a bit awkward before, so I kept my distance as I said, "That's okay.  It took me months to work up the courage to leave my home.  I know your situation is different but still, I think I understand, at least a little."

He smiled back.  "Thanks, Lin," he said.

I nodded.  "Of course.  And in the meantime, I'll keep on the lookout for anything that might come up around here."  I took out a slip of paper and wrote the name of the inn I was staying at and my room number.  "You can find me here, when you're ready," I said.

He nodded, taking the paper from me.  "And you can find me here most days," he said, gesturing around him.  "But if you do happen to need to find me at home..."  He took out his own slip of paper and wrote his own address on it.

I was silent for a moment and then I felt like I just had to say, "I'm willing to wait a little while, but I am a little anxious to get going, to find more adventure, make a name for myself, all that..."

When I glanced up at him, he nodded once more.  "I understand," he said.  "Give me until the end of next week.  If I'm not ready by then, I will completely understand if you want to set out without me."

I smiled.  "Let's hope it doesn't come to that."

He smiled back.  "Let's."  There was a pause, and then, "Farewell for now, Lin."

"Farewell."  And I hopped down from the chair and let him return to his reading.


Unfortunately, nothing of interest came up around town over the course of the next week.  Fortunately, William showed up at my door three days prior to the deadline we had set for departing.  "I'm ready, Lin," he said simply, looking behind him I saw his adventurers gear already packed and I realized that, given what he had said about where he had gone before, I was the more experienced traveler between the two of us.  The thought was a bit disruptive, but I didn't let it get to me.  Instead, I just laughed.

"Okay, great," I said.  "I need to get my own things in order, but it shouldn't take more than an hour.  Did you want to leave today, or..."

"Might as well," William concurred.  "Before I lose my nerve."

My laughter faded completely at that.  "You know if you aren't actually ready..."

"But I am," he interrupted.  "I promise I am."

"Well, if we get out there and you change your mind..."

"I know, I can come back home," he agreed.  There was a short pause and then, "But I promise I won't, Lin.  I don't want to let myself down, but I don't want to let you down either."

"Well, worry about yourself more than me," I advised, "but fine, give me an hour and I'll meet you downstairs."

When I was ready, he was waiting, and with a nod from him, we set off.


Despite William's assertion that the closest town never had anything exciting happening in it, we still decided to pass through, as it was the only town we could arrive at before nightfall that first day.  It turned out to be quite fortunate that we did take this route because on the town's bulletin board we found a notice:  "Adventurer seeking action!  Inquire for Janzor at the Inn."

I was about to ask what inn when William informed me there was only one in town and led the way there.

When we arrived at said inn, I immediately saw why William didn't think much of this town in terms of adventuring prospects.  There was no bard, or any other entertainment, playing and only a few patrons.  There was a single halfing manning the bar, and all he was doing at the moment was wiping down a spot that certainly appeared to already be clean.

"Excuse me," I said, approaching the bartender.  "We're looking for Janzor."

His face lit up in a wide grin and he piped up, "That's me!"  In a single fluid motion, he put down the rag he had been holding, sprung over the bar, and shook my hand.  I couldn't help but laugh at the way he was smiling at me as he gave my hand a firm shake, and I heard William behind me laughing as well.

"You sure have a lot of energy," William noted, and I glanced back at the human and gave him a bit of a glare.  If I didn't know this man, I would have thought he was condescending to the halfling.  Fortunately, Janzor seemed to pay him no mind.

"Come!" Janzor exclaimed warmly, releasing my hand to make a wild gesture around the room, "Let's sit and talk!"

He led us to a table close to the bar, presumably so he could easily spring back there if any patrons needed him, which seemed rather unlikely given the state of the place, and gestured for us to sit down, which we did.

"So you saw my flyer?" he asked.

I nodded.  "Yes, indeed," I confirmed.  "And we were just wondering what sort of adventure you were seeking."

"Oh any sort!" Janzor exclaimed with a smile.  He let out a heavy sigh and let his smile drop slightly.  "This town doesn't have much in way of excitement."

"You can say that again," William grumbled.  I looked over at him, a bit puzzled at his mood.  Maybe he was just stressed knowing he was about to travel farther from home than he ever had before.

I turned back to Janzor, keeping a cheery smile on my face and asked, "So what is your skill set?"

He grinned even wider as he stood up on his chair and held out a coin purse.  I was puzzled for a moment until I realized that the coin purse was mine.  My immediately reaction was to take this item of mine back by force and storm right out of there, but Janzor was holding it out to me, so that seemed like a bit of overkill.  Apparently he was just trying to display his skills?  "How did you...?" I began reaching out to take it back from him.

"While we were shaking hands," Janzor noted as he dropped my belonging back into my hand.  He glanced over at William.  "Neither of you noticed, I take it?"

At that, William must have realized what had just happened because he stood quickly, nearly knocking over his chair, and declared in a booming voice that almost sounded more like Yarl, "Now see here!  You can't just go around stealing other people's things to show off your skills."

Janzor seemed a bit taken aback by that.  "But I gave it back," he protested.  "And even if you hadn't been seeking my skills, I would have just slipped it back to her before you left."  His eyes shifted to me, clearly begging for help.

I sighed and placed my hand on William's hip, which was all I could easily reach at the moment.  "It's okay, William.  He didn't mean any harm."

William gave me a wary look, but with a huff he sat back down and crossed his arms as Janzor and I continued to talk.

"Not to presume too much," I said, "but I take it you're a rogue?"

"Oh yes!" Janzor lit up again, sitting back down in his seat.  "The best in town!"  He paused and added with a laugh, "Which isn't saying much, but well, I'd like the chance to prove I'm the best in the region."  A sly grin crossed his face during the next pause.  "Any maybe pick up some nice loot along the way?"

I smiled back at him.  "It sounds like your desires align quite nicely with ours."  I glanced back at William who gave a shrug and when I continued to stare at him, a sign and a nod.

I looked back at Janzor, still smiling.  "If you'd like to join us," I said, "We were planning to set out again tomorrow morning.  But will that be enough time for you to find someone to take care of the bar while we're gone?"

"Oh!  It's not mine," Janzor piped up.  "It belongs to my sister.  I'm just helping out.  She'll be able to manage without me."

"Well if you're sure..." I said.

Janzor nodded confidently.  "Quite," he said.

"Well then," I said, "We will see you down here at dawn and set on our way."

"Most excellent!" Janzor exclaimed, clearly very excited.

"And in the meantime, we'll need two rooms for the night."

Janzor nodded.  "Of course of course.  And on the house, of course!"

Janzor offered us drinks as well, but William clearly just wanted to go to bed, so we declined.  We chatted for just a bit longer about where we were from and where we thought of going next and then Janzor excused himself to go check on the couple of other customers in the bar.

William and I took that as our time to retire to bed.  As we climbed the stairs to our rooms I turned to him and asked, "What was all of that about?  You got so huffy."

"He stole from you," William said simply, as if that fully explained his sour attitude.

"He gave it back," I said.

William sighed.  "I know," he acknowldgeded, "it's just..."  He sighed again.  "Maybe I'm just looking for excuses, but I don't really trust people who are... deceptive about what they're doing."

"I don't think he was too deceptive," I said.  "He was very open about it all right after it was done."

William frowned a bit, but nodded.  We had reached our rooms now and stood outside them before going in.  "Okay, Lin," he said, "I'll trust your judgement."  I gave him a smile and started to slide the key into the key hole when he said, "Oh and Lin?"  I turned back and looked at him, and he was smiling.  "Thanks for getting him to join us.  If it had just been me there..." He sighed again.  "I think it's just sinking in that I'm really leaving home.  I'm really doing it.  Maybe a part of me doesn't fully want to."

"You can still go back," I said.  "I'll be fine."

He shook his head as he continued to smile.  "No," he said.  "I'll be fine.  I'll want to do this, I really do.  Just, thanks for being patient with me."

I smiled back.  "Of course," I said, and we both retired to our separate rooms for the night.


The next morning when we came down to the inn's common room, Janzor was all packed up and ready to go and practically bouncing.  "You sure seem excited," I said with a smile.

"Of course!" Janzor replied happily.  "I'm ready for adventure."

I continued to smile.  "Is there anyone you'd like to say good-bye to first?" I asked.

"Took care of all of that last night," he said.  "My family knows I've been seeking a job as an adventurer for a while now and my sister," he gestured towards the bar where I saw a female halfling polishing glasses that appeared to already be perfectly clean, "is all set up to take over working the bar."  He paused for a moment and then added, "the only thing we may still want to do is stop by the stable.  This may seem like a 'one horse town', but my uncle owns the local stable and I know he has a lot more than one horse up for sale currently.  I would think he'd even give us a friends and family discount?"

"Do any of your other family members own establishments here?" I asked with a light-hearted laugh.

"Well, my parents own a bakery and my cousin is a partial owner with the blacksmith."

I glanced back at William, who had supposedly been to this town before, but he just shrugged.

"Oh, it's a more recent development," Janzor offered, apparently gauging what I had been silently questioning William about since William had mentioned the night before that he was from the next town over.  "My grandma died a few months ago and left us all large sums of money.  My uncle bought the stable, the parents a bakery, my cousin bought into the blacksmith where he is an apprentice, and well, my sister bought this place."  He gestured around him merrily.

"And what about you?" I heard William question from behind me.  "What did you buy?"

"Oh, well, I helped my sister with a portion for this bar," Janzor said, getting much quieter than he had been before.  "She didn't have quite enough on her own and I had nothing in town I wanted so..." He gave a shrug.  His smile had faded slightly, but then he brightened again and added, "I'm sure I'll make it all up and then some when we become adventurers!"

"So you gave a part of your inheritance to your sister as a gift?" William asked.

"Essentially," Janzor said with a nod.  "I mean, she gave me a share of the profits at first, but this place is still working to get on its feet, really, or back on its feet perhaps?  The old owners didn't have a very good reputation."  He sighed.  "Anyway, I don't need the money and this was something she cared about, so..." He just shrugged again.

"That's... that's very kind of you," William said.

Janzor grinned up at him.  "See, I'm not all bad!" he exclaimed, and when I glanced back at William, I saw the human blushing a bit, perhaps after guilt over the fact that Janzor had sensed the cleric hadn't totally liked him the night before.  "Now come on!  I'll show you to the stables."

As he led us out he called out over his shoulder, "Good-bye, sis!"

The woman at the bar smiled at us.  "Good-bye, Janzor!  Don't forget to send back messages when you're able!"

Janzor glanced back at her to give a nod and we were on our way.


Janzor was right about his uncle offering us a discount at the stable.  I was also surprised to see how nervous William was around the horses.  "I've never ridden before," he said.  "Well, I guess when I was a kid, but that was with someone else at the reigns."

"That's okay!" Janzor piped up brightly.  "I can teach you!  Or one of my uncle's assistants can."

"I haven't ridden before either," I admitted, "but I'm sure I can figure it out."

"Well if you'd like, the two of us can ride together," Janzor offered and then he blushed slightly and added, "unless you'd rather ride with William."

I shrugged.  "Either way is fine," I said.  "It probably does make sense to only have two horses between the three of us, since you and I are so light."

Janzor nodded.  "Yes, it does," he said.  "If you're okay with sharing a mount, you and I could take one of the miniature horses, easy to get on and off.  And William, you'd want a full size.  If you'd like, one of the stable hands can help teach you how to ride while Lin and I work out some details here.  It's not too hard."

William gave me a look as if to ask me if that was really okay and I nodded with a smile and said, "Go ahead."

When William had gone to talk about to someone about a basic riding lesson, Janzor turned to me and asked, "So the two of you really aren't together then?"

I just laughed to hide my unease at the question.  "No, not like that," I said.  "You gave us two separate rooms last night remember?"

"I know," Janzor said, "it's just... you seemed."  He shrugged.  "Oh well, I guess I just misread the whole thing."  And he gave me a sly grin that told me I had to say something more right then and there.

"I can't say I'm really interested in pursuing any kind of romance right now," I said.  "I want to focus on doing good, helping people, gaining more power."

"O-of course," Janzor stammered.  "I wasn't trying to be forward or anything.  I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"It's okay," I told him.  "Better to get it out of the way now.  But no, I'm not interested in William in that way and I'm not interested in you that way either.  Sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, my being so blunt."

"No no," Janzor reassured me.  "It's good to know, right away, like you said."  Then his mood brightened again from the more serious tone in which we had been speaking.  "Now lets go pick out a horse!" he exclaimed.


A couple hours later, we had our horses saddled up.  I rode with Janzor on a small brown miniature horse and William seemed more or less at ease on his larger black steed.  We set out for adventure, not knowing when or how it might strike, but excited nonetheless.


It turned out adventure first struck our second evening out on the rode, when a small band of multi-racial thugs tried to ambush our camp.  Luckily for us, none of us were even asleep yet.  Unluckily for them, none of us were even asleep yet AND we actually had some clue what we were doing, unlike the thugs.  They weren't even as much of a problem to depose as the goblins.

After the fight was over, we had four unconscious thugs on our hands and a question that Janzor was the first to ask, "What do we do now?"

"We sleep and we take watch and in the morning, we make them walk behind us to the next town," William said.

"And where is the next town?" Janzor wanted to know.  For someone who had been wanting to go off and be an adventurer, he knew remarkably little about the area outside his small village.

"About another half day's journey down the road," I said, having memorized the map of the immediate area at least.  "We can drop these ruffians off with the authorities and then check to see if there are any other quests to be had."

Janzor smiled.  "Good plan, Lin!" he said.

"Yes, good plan," William agreed with a bit of a snort.

"Oh!" Janzor exclaimed.  "That was just... that was your plan wasn't it, William?"

William gave a curt nod and Janzor seemed a bit embarrassed.  "I didn't mean to steal your thunder, I just..." He trailed off and then exclaimed, a bit too loudly perhaps, "a good plan all around!"

I saw William smile faintly in the firelight.  Even though it was clear Janzor was not his favorite person ever, the cleric was starting to warm up to the rogue at least a little, especially after seeing Janzor use his weapons to incapacitate, but not kill, our foes.  "I will take the first watch," William offered.

"I can take second," Janzor volunteered.  He turned to me.  "Lin, you okay with taking third?"

"Fine by me," I said with a shrug, and moved to my sleeping bag to retire for the night.  And the night passed uneventfully.


When we got to the next town, the authorities were happy to have the thugs delivered to them, yet slightly confused because they hadn't yet heard any reports of robberies in the area.  "They must have been unlucky enough to make us their first targets," I suggested.

"Unlucky indeed!" Janzor exclaimed happily.

William smiled and chuckled.  I had been afraid William would have a hard time with traveling so far from home, but he seemed to be adjusting well.  I liked to think that having me with him, someone he had met in his hometown, even if we had been there together very briefly, helped a little bit.  He could refer to things from his home and I would have at least some vague idea of what he was talking about.  I think it helped.


Next after dropping off the prisoners, we checked the town's announcement board.  Nothing immediately caught our attention as a potential quest, so we decided to check into an inn and try our luck searching out any missions there.

Janzor seemed very interested in talking to the bartender, but mostly about his promotions and general approach for running the bar.  After the pleasantries went on for longer than I would have expected, we did manage to ask if the man had heard of anyone needing help around town, and he told us he had heard about a few odd happenings here and there - people complaining of their horses being spooked late at night, things being misplaced and sometimes showing up in another person's home, with the other person not knowing where the strange item found in their home came from and turning it into the town hall where it was later claimed.  "Odd things like that," the barkeep said.  "But I'm not sure if there's much adventure in it."

"Sounds more like a mystery," I noted.  "But it could be some sort of ghost or spirit playing pranks on people."

William nodded.  "I've read about such things," he said.

"Me, too," I said.  "Written about them as well."  When William's eyes lit up and he seemed about to ask me what I had witnessed, I quickly noted, "but nothing I ever saw in person."

"Well, since you two are magic users, maybe you'd like to do some investigation into it?" Janzor suggested.  Then he turned back to the bartender.  "I'm interested in hearing a bit more about the bar!  Where do you get your mead?  Do you make it here or buy it from elsewhere?"

I would rather have liked to ask the bartender a few more questions, but as Janzor seemed so intent on talking about non-quest related things, I instead nudged William's leg and encouraged him to join me in scoping out the rest of the bar.  "Blasted halfling isn't even interested in our first real lead," I heard the man mumble, and I couldn't help but smile because I somewhat agreed, yet I figured we could find out plenty from the other residents of the town, maybe even get some first hand accounts of these alleged strange happenings.

Talking to other bar patrons did not disappoint us.  Those who were a few drinks in, just enough to be tipsy but not enough to have lost it completely, were definitely of the most help.  We heard stories about horses spooking at nothing, a child's doll briefly moving all on its own, and entire sets of silverware going missing and showing up in a very trustworthy neighbor's house who would have never dreamed of taking a single copper from another.  It all did seem to point to some sort of spirit to me, so we next started asking about when the various phenomenon had happened.  Most stories were within the past two months, but one person gave an account going back three months.

"So perhaps we should look into someone who died here maybe 3-4 months ago?" I suggested.

"Possibly even a bit longer," William advised.  "Could be the spirit was dormant or disturbed.  We may want to consider someone dead longer, but some sort of event that happened 3-4 months ago."

I nodded in agreement, and off to the graveyard we went.

It was very late at night now, and quite dark and a bit cold.  William had a lantern with him that we lit once we got off the lighted streets.  I shivered as a brisk wind blew about and I drew my cloak closer around me.  "We could do this tomorrow," William suggested, glancing down at my nervously.

I looked back up at him, trying to read if he was scared for me or for himself.  Not being quite able to tell, I decided to answer honestly.  "I'd rather do it now," I said, "the more information we can get sooner, the better."

William smirked a little as he said, "And maybe Janzor won't have to do any work at all."

I laughed, trying to make light of it.  "Who knows," I said, "maybe he'll find more useful information from the bartender after all."

"Yeah, like the man's mead recipe," William grumbled.

I was tempted to tell William not to give Janzor such a hard time, after all the halfling had been very helpful with the thugs we had encountered, but I wasn't totally happy with the seeming lack of interest in anything that couldn't directly be stabbed or stolen from myself, so I decided to let it pass.

"I think this is it," I said instead as we pulled up to a fenced yard behind a rather dark looking temple.

We wandered around together, looking at various graves, trying to pick out the ones that looked a bit on the newer side, when suddenly I stopped.  "William," I said, looking down.  "One of the people we talked to mentioned toys being moved around on their own, right?"

"Yes," William confirmed.

I pointed.  There in front of me, with a death date of four months prior, was the grave of an eight-year-old child.


We were quiet when we went back to the inn.  We had a few other possible names from tombstones, but somehow we knew, we both just knew, that it was the child.  I had been prepared to fight a ghost or banish a spirit, but what do you do with that specter is just a kid?  Neither of us knew and neither of us offered any ideas.

By the time we got back to the inn, Janzor was sampling some of the establishment's brew as he sat at a table talking in hushed tones with a couple of rather ordinary looking human men.  The halfling looked up when we approached.  "Lin!  William!" he called.  Once we walked over he said, "These two were just telling me more about the strange stuff happening around town."

"It's true," one of the men said.  "Just the other day, our dog started bounding around acting all strange.  Like not, angry or anything, almost like he was playing, but there was nothing there.  He did something similar a few weeks earlier, but it seemed more pronounced this time."

The other man nodded and looked up at us, or at least up at William.  "And I already told you about my horses," he said.

I sighed and, not knowing what else to say and figuring we had to figure this out somehow, "Do either of you know the family of Nathaniel Star?"

The horse man looked puzzled but gave a nod.  "Yes," he said.  "They live near the edge of town.  I'm just a bit further out than them.  But you know, Nathaniel died a few months back..."

"Yes, I do know," I said simply.  I sighed and pressed on.  "Have they seemed, well I mean, how have they seemed since his death?"

"Sad," the dog man said instantly.  "Really, really sad.  I mean, they lost their son.  Their only son."

"And are they still sad?" I asked, hating myself, but knowing I had to know.  "Are they as sad as they were at the start?"

"Well, no, I mean, they seem a little better," the man with the dog conceded.  "But I still wouldn't talk to them about it."  Then he seemed to get a bit upset.  "I mean, who are you people anyway?"

I felt my heart beat faster.  I wanted to shout at him people who might be able to put the boy's spirit to rest!  But instead I just said, "I'm Carlin, and that's William, and you've met Janzor.  We just want to try to figure out if there's anything strange going on in this town and if we can help."

"And you think the Stars have something to do with it?" the frustrated dog man asked.

"I mean, I suppose they might," the horse man spoke up.  "They withdrew a lot when Nate died.  I didn't see them at all for nearly a month afterwards.  They used to come by my place a lot, though Nate was a little scared of the horses.  But I can't imagine they'd try to do anything to spook them now, just because Nate had been slightly nervous around them."

"And they certainly wouldn't do anything weird to my dog," the other man said.  "Nate loved that thing."

I couldn't help but smile.  I was right.  I knew I was right, but that didn't make it any better or any easier.  "Of course," I said, softly, trying very hard not to offend anyone further than I already had.  "I'll leave you in peace then.  I'm sorry if I upset you."

The man with the horses looked at me a bit quizzically.  "No, it's alright," he said.  "Good-night, I guess?"

I nodded back.  "Good night."  And I turned to Janzor, who also looked quite puzzled, though slightly less so than the two locals.  "We'll see you in the morning," I said to Janzor, and started to walk towards the bar to request rooms.  I heard William's footsteps follow behind me and could have sworn I heard one of the men asked Janzor Are those two a couple?  And Janzor playfully reply A couple of what?  I just rolled my eyes and ignored it.

When I got to the bar, I hopped up on a stool and said, "I don't suppose you have three rooms available?  Or a room with three beds?"

"I've got a room with two beds and a couch," the bartender said, same one Janzor had been talking to a couple hours ago when we left.

"That's perfect," I said, taking out my coin purse.  As I paid for the room, I glanced back at William with a grin and said, "Janzor can take the couch."  He just smiled and chuckled a bit.  "If you don't mind showing the halfing to the room when he's done down here," I said.

"Oh, that's right, he was with you!" the barkeeper said brightly.  "In that case, I'd be happy to give you a discount."

I raised my eyebrow suspiciously.  "Really?"

The bartender nodded.  "Of course!" he said.  "Janzor is a bright fellow and gave me some great tips on the brewing process that I'm anxious to try out."

"He did?" William asked.

The bartender seemed almost started to see him there.  "Oh yes!" he agreed.  "In fact, if you'd like I'll give you a 25% discount on two rooms!  It won't be much more than the single room."

"Okay, I think that will be fine," I agreed.  It wasn't lost on my that "won't be much more" still meant "something more", but if I made Janzor sleep on the couch now, I was going to feel a bit guilty.  And I certainly didn't want to sleep on some lumpy couch myself, but didn't want to make William sleep on it either.

"I'll give you two this one," he said, handing me a key, and quite a bit of the coin I had originally tried to pay for the single large room, "and the other for Janzor.  He can pay for his own.  I know he's good for it."

"This room does have two beds in it, right?" William asked as I took the key.

"Y-yes of course," the barkeep stammered.  "I wouldn't assume."

I didn't look back at William, but I heard him give a bit of a grunt, not to harsh, just a sound of appreciation maybe?  And then I heard the sound of his retreating footsteps.  I thanked the bartender once more and hurried on after the cleric.

"That was certainly unexpected," William mumbled.

I laughed.  "I wouldn't put too much thought into it," I said.  "After all, he clearly had extra rooms and the total he's making now is still more than if we had just gotten the one room at full price."

William stopped walking at that and just said, "huh."  And then he burst out laughing.  He calmed down a bit and looked down at me.  "If you realized that, why did you agree?"

I shrugged.  "For one thing, now you don't have to worry about sharing a room with Janzor, and for another, it turned out that I had to pay less at least."

William chuckled again, and gave me a light pat on the shoulder.  "You're something else, Lin," he said.

"Something good," I said without really thinking.

He shook his head but smiled.  "Of course," he agreed.  "Now let's go get some rest.  I fear tomorrow might be a bit difficult."


Turned out William had some sense of honor or something that led him to want to make the next day less difficult for me.  When I woke up, he was already gone, and I found a note by the beside that said, "Went to talk to the Stars.  Fill Janzor in and I'll be back soon."

I sighed as I picked up the piece of paper.  It was true that there probably wasn't much point in more than one of use going to talk to the grieving family, unless we thought they were going to attack us in the middle of town or something, which I thought seemed unlikely and apparently William did, too.  Still, I didn't really like that William had made this decision on his own.  I'd have to talk to him about it when he got back.


When I got downstairs, I was further embarrassed to see that Janzor was already up and appeared to have finished breakfast, despite having gone to bed however long after I did.  Had I really been that tired that I slept in alter than both William and Janzor.  I obviously did.  I tried not to let it get to me as I walked over to the halfling with a thin smile on my face.

"Good morning, Janzor," I said, trying to sound bright.  "Have you seen William yet this morning?"

Janzor gave a curt nod.  "He was leaving just as I came down," he said.  "Told me you would fill me in on things and we'd meet up later."

"Yes, he asked me to do just that," I said, and then I told him about the trip to the graveyard and noted how it tied in with what the men last night had said.

Janzor's eyes grew wide with the realization of what I was saying.  "A ghost child?" he asked, and I nodded sadly to confirm.  "Wow, that's..." he actually shivered.  "That's not the kind of thing I was expecting."  He took a deep breath and then let it out with a firm nod.  "Well, if that's what we have to deal with, that's what we have to deal with."  He gripped the mug he had been clutching tighter and looked over at me nervously.  "We won't have to like... kill him... again... though, will we?"

What a strange world we live in where a halfling rogue not wanting to re-kill a child's ghost made my heart grow warmer.  "I hope not," I said.  "I hope there's a way to bring him peacefully to rest.  But we should be prepared for violence nonetheless.  Based on what I've heard, ghosts are not for the faint of heart.  They gave display a horrifying visage, and have the potential to possess their attackers as well."

"Even the ghost of a child?!" Janzor exclaimed, a bit louder than I would have liked as I saw the one other early morning patron of the inn glance over at us.

"Even the ghost of a child," I confirmed as calmly as possible.  Janzor didn't seem to know what else to say to that, so after I ordered some breakfast of my own, we just sat there in silence, waiting for William to return.


When William returned, he appeared somber, as I had fully expected him to be, but not quite as visibly shaken as I had feared.  "I don't think they did anything to bring him back," he said simply.  "I can usually tell when someone's flat out lying, and I didn't really ask them anything that would have required them to do that, but still..."  He shrugged.  "I don't think the father even believes his son is back.  The mother, she seemed a bit... calmer, I suppose.  Spoke of slowly coming to peace with the whole thing.  Could be she's sensed things, but I don't think either of them tried to bring him back."

"So why is he back then?" I asked.  "From what I've read, ghosts usually don't just spring from nothing, and how much unfinished business could an eight-year-old have had?"

"You mean besides the rest of his life?" Janzor piped up, though barely above a whisper.

I turned to the halfling and frowned, but he wasn't wrong.  William apparently agreed.  "That's not a bad point," he noted.  "I've never heard of a ghost so young, though.  And sad to say, I have heard of plenty of children dying back home."

"So what do we do?" Janzor asked softly.  It was the calmest and quietest I'd seen him yet.

"We try to find him," I said, frowning still.  "We reason with him if we can.  I remember reading about a spell to banish spirits.  More of a ritual.  It would take some time and supplies, but we could do it if he agrees.  Otherwise..." I sighed.  "We'll have to go with a more traditional approach of dealing with a ghost."

"Which would be?"  Janzor was really going to make me say it.

"We fight him," I said.

The rest of the table was quiet, but what else was there to say?  We knew what we had to do.


I spent the rest of the day reading, re-reading, and intensely studying the ritual I had found in one of the handful of books I had brought with me from home.  It wasn't especially complex, but the components were a bit more expensive than I would have liked.  A part of me I didn't dare speak of to William and Janzor hoped the ghost would be more aggressive so that we could dispatch him without having to sink what to us would seem like a small fortune into sending him back to his eternal slumber peacefully.  I really wish I hadn't had that inkling within my soul.  Maybe then I wouldn't have felt quite so guilty about what was to follow.


It was two days before we found the spirit, and it was outside the home of the man with the dog.  We heard a whisper, "Here, doggie doggie," and when I simply spoke the child's name upon hearing the voice, the specter appeared.

At first he seemed timid and scared, like you'd expect a child who didn't know they were dead to be, but the more soothingly we tried to speak to him, but more angry he seemed to become.  He started shouting at us that we were going to send him away, that he didn't want to go away, that he wanted to stay right here.  For a while, I thought he might just pout, be throwing a tantrum, we could still talk him down.

But then I made the mistake of glancing away from the boy, nervous that others would hear and see what was happening, and that we when he charged Janzor.

In an instant, he was inside Janzor's body and the halfing rogue was rushing forward to stab me.  I somehow moved out of the way, but that only resulted in him stabbing William instead.

As William healed himself, I cast thunderwave to push the Nathaniel-possessed Janzor away.  When he tried to get close again, I used chill touch, which seemed to sufficiently alarm him.  I saw wide eyes then, Janzor's but yet those of a child.  Still he didn't back down, not completely.

William joined in the attack as well, deciding it was best to dispatch the threat quickly and deal with healing later.  I never asked him afterwards if he found it easier because it gave him a rare chance to attack the rogue he hadn't thought all that much of.  I wouldn't dare ask such a thing, though I know even for me, it was easier to attack a fellow party member than to think about the fact that I was really attacking the ghost of a child.

When Janzor was knocked unconscious, the spirit reemerged.  By now we had drawn a bit of a crowd, though none of them had dared to intervene in what seemed to be an inter-party conflict.  When the ghost came out of Janzor's unconscious form, I heard a collective gasp behind me.  The only thing I had to be thankful for in that moment was that it was not followed by any shouts of recognition, no "That's my boy!" or anything of the like.  At least Nathaniel's parents seemed not to have come to see, and no one else was pointing out who the spirit appeared to be.

William and I were exhausted by the end, but finally the spirit was crushed to the ground.  Just as I was about to land the final blow, he looked up at me, something I rarely see anyone do given my short stature, and I saw his lips move, though no words came out.  Were he not a child, I might have thought the words he was trying to say were, "Fuck you."  But I can't imagine that, not of one so young, not of one who missed out on their whole life, so instead I pretended the words were, "Thank you."  Thank you for freeing me from my struggle.  Thank you for finally sending me to my rest.

When it was done, there was silence behind us, but a man stood in front of us.  The man from the bar.  The man whose yard we had been near when we started this all.  "You should go," he said softly but firmly.  "You should leave this town now and not come back."

I very nearly protested, very nearly said to the man the words I had decided to pretend I didn't see the spirit say, but just as I opened my mouth, I felt a hand on my shoulder.  "Lin," William said gently.

I looked up at him, and I saw the tears starting to form in his eyes.

"Okay," I said to William, rather than to the man with the dog.  "Let's go."

So William healed up Janzor, who didn't even bother to ask what had happened while he was out, and the three of us shuffled our way back to the inn to collect our belongings and go.  It was fully night by the time we left the town, but none of us even suggested staying there another night.  We had done what needed to be done, but we did not receive the heroes welcome we had known when we fought the goblins, nor the surprised but sincere thanks when we brought the thugs to the authorities.  Now, we just felt disdain, both from the town and from within our selves.  We knew, or at least I knew, that we had done nothing wrong.  Yet it felt like we had.  And I felt all the worse because I part of me was glad we hadn't had to spend a bunch of gold to do it.  After all, anyone who was there to see us banish a child probably would have thought less of us either way.


I don't think anyone slept well that night.  I certainly didn't feel prepared for any further adventure the next morning.  But we trudged on, and thankfully there were no random encounters to be had on the road.  We did see a few animals here and there, but friendly sorts - deer and rabbits.  There was even an owl I saw fly overhead, strangely out during the day.

"It's probably someone's pet," Janzor suggested, as he must have seen ahead of him on our mount looking to the sky, though he probably couldn't see the quizzical look on my face, nor the smile that I dared allow myself when he spoke.

"Maybe I should get one of those," I suggested.

I heard William scoff behind me and I just smiled more.  "I thought you were a wizard, not a ranger or a druid," he said.

"I'm surprised you don't know of the summon familiar ritual," I noted.  "I haven't learned it yet, but I know of it.  Perhaps I'll study it next."

"What would you name your owl?" Janzor asked.

I grinned as I thought of an idea that I really hoped would further lighten the mood after the rough night we'd had.  "Hooters," I said.

Janzor immediately burst into such uproarious laughter that he nearly drowned out the obvious groan I heard from William behind me.  The laughter also seemed to startle our horse slightly, which allowed William to trot on ahead of us and give me a look as he past.  But he couldn't hold the glare too long, and just before he passed to the front of us, I saw that smirk turn to a smile instead.  I smiled back, knowing in that moment that we were going to be okay.


And we were okay, the three of us, for quite a while.  We cleared a whole tribe of kobolds out of a cave.  We saved a town from an ogre.  Somewhere in the middle, I had followed through on my threat to summon an owl as a familiar and call him Hooters.

Not long after that, we were even hired to try to hunt down a lost family heirloom.  That one took the longest and was the most interesting by far.  It required some late nights of research before we could even really get started, nights of William and I digging through old reports and scrolls and books, long after Janzor had gotten tired and gone to bed.  Then we were on to the action the rogue rather enjoyed, sneaking around some old tunnels, "persuading" a grumpy and strong but seemingly rather old orc to tell us what he knew, pick-pocketing him on the way out just to make sure there wasn't something else he was hiding.  (Some gold pieces turned out to be all he was hiding and although William would have preferred we give them back, Janzor and I voted against him and he begrudingly took his share which I still think he might have returned to the orc later.)  Then it was on to the main event - trekking out to the hideout where the orc told us we could find a great many lost things.  Carefully listening at every door, avoiding traps, finding even more treasure than we had expected.  I got a new and more powerful staff, Janzor found some nice new armor with only a little bit of blood on it, and William found a ring that made his healing spells better.  And we did succeed in recovering the heirloom, though with the goods we found, I would have considered it a success even if we hadn't.

Riding back into town after that adventure felt like a return to the start.  Even though there weren't throngs of people cheering, there was a very happy family, very glad that we had recovered what they thought had been lost forever.  It did dawn on me afterwards that we were helping a family that was already quite well-off, when there were plenty of others in the town that might need a more basic sort of help.  I would never tell William or Janzor or anyone else I've adventured with about it, but I might have anonymously donated some of the unclaimed treasure we recovered from the hideout to a local charity that was set up to help the less fortunate of the town with food, clothing, and even small business loans.

We did a few more odd jobs and minor quests around that town before moving on.  We had stayed there for almost three months, longer than I had stayed in any one place since leaving home.  It had gotten to the point where that place had almost started to feel like a new home, but as I left the town and the feeling didn't totally fade, I decided it must be Janzor and William that made me feel at home, rather than any one place.  With the two of them, I had found acceptance and support for doing what I most desired.  And though I knew my biological family loved me in their own way, they had never given me what Janzor and William had.  I didn't expect it to get much better than that, and yet somehow it did.


Our next big mission was to rescue a noblewoman who had been kidnapped.  She was the daughter of an elvish duke and duchess and had been taken less than a week before we arrived in town.  At first, there had been suspicion that we ourselves might have had something to do with her disappearance, but William was trustworthy, persuasive, and honest, so instead of being sent before a judge, we were sent to try to rescue her.

They didn't give us a lot to go on.  It turned out these elves were a bit stuck up and though they didn't have explicit enemies they would name, they didn't really seem to have friends either.  They had been given a ransom demand, but they had refused to pay it unless the captors first showed themselves and the "princess" as they erroneously referred to their daughter.  The captors were apparently just as stubborn as the duke and duchess, which had placed the whole thing at an impasse.

I tried to ask if the duke or duchess recognized the handwriting or the phrasing used in the ransom note, but of course they didn't, so we resorted to asking around at the nearby villages instead.  The duke and duchess along with their "princess" who was not technically a princess lived on a large estate in the center of four distinct small villages.  It was a the third of those villages that we got a lead.

"Nope, doesn't look familiar," the owner of the general supply store said nervously wringing his hands together and looking away much too quickly.

I exchanged a look with both William and Janzor, quickly confirming this was so obviously a lie that we had all caught it as such.  "And what exactly doesn't look familiar about it?" I asked, looking back at the shopkeep.  "Maybe you should look again."

When the owner looked back, I saw Janzor casually take out and start sharpening his blade out of the corner of my eye.  Though William was certainly becoming more accepting of Janzor, I hoped he didn't notice, but as my sight shifting to my human companion, he seemed to be trying to be somewhat menacing as well.  Apparently the way my eyes had shifted between my two more physically imposing companions and back to the store owner did wonders because he didn't even protest again as he threw up his hands and exclaimed.  "I recognize it, okay!  The paper, the writing, all of it.  I sell that same parchment here, for goodness sake.  And the handwriting..."  He sighed.  "One of the guys who works here.  A dwarf.  Young for a dwarf, but still old enough to know better, that's for sure.  He must be involved somehow.  That's definitely his handwriting, and he always mixes up e's and i's like that."  He pointed to to the word "grieve" misspelled as "greive".  The store owner sighed.  "I didn't want to turn him in, okay?  He's practically a kid.  Only in his 40s.  He doesn't know any better."

"That's not an excuse for kidnapping someone," William said.

"At least it was someone annoying and worth a lot of money," the owner grumbled.

"What was that?" William questioned.

The man grew red but chose not to repeat himself.  "I- I can tell you where the kid lives," he said, "but I doubt he'll be there.  He hasn't shown up to work in a week."

"And you didn't think that was suspicious with the princess disappearing?" I wanted to know.

The man actually rolled his eyes at that.  "First of all, she isn't technically a princess," he said, as if I didn't already know that myself, "and second of all, I didn't care."

At that, Janzor slammed his blade down, temporarily embedding it into the wooden counter.  "And I don't care about your dumb store!" he exclaimed.  And then he turned and marched out.

"We will still be needing that address," I said to the store owner.

The man muttered something I couldn't understand and got out a slip of parchment and a pen on which he wrote down what I needed to know.  "Just don't tell them this came from me," he said.

As we left the shop, William surprised me by saying, "You know, I think Janzor's starting to grow on me."

I shook off my surprise with a laugh.  "Only when he's threatening shady shopkeepers though, huh?"

William shrugged.  "I dunno," he said.  "I can work with chaotic good more generally if I need to."

I reflected briefly on whether "chaotic good" matched with my own assessment of Janzor, but interrupted my own thoughts when we caught up with the halfling himself.

"Sorry about that," our rogue said sheepishly.  "It just bugs me that that guy wouldn't care, even if it was a stuck up family he didn't think much of, they didn't do anything wrong!  They don't deserve to have their daughter taken from them!"

"I agree," William said, giving Janzor a reassuring pat on the shoulder.  "Now let's go talk to the family of the man who likely did the taking."


The parents of our prime suspect seemed nervous before we even tried to be intimidating, so I led our little group in attempting to take a more sympathetic approach instead.  Fortunately, William picked up on what I was trying to do before I upset them too badly and came to my rescue, leading the conversation in the direction of how "we just wanted to help" and "it isn't too late for your son to do the right thing."  Eventually, it was the father who broke down crying and told us about a place he always liked to take his children when they were very young.  It was rather secluded and difficult to find.  The perfect place to take a kidnapping victim.

He also told us that his son never missed a Sunday evening dinner with the family.  There had already been one Sunday since the "princess" went missing and his son had still come to dinner.  He was certain he would be there for dinner again in two days.  If we hid outside, we could follow him back to the hideout afterwards.  We left him after that with his tears and his wife's comforting presence, hoping that neither of them opted to instead tip their son off that we were on to him.  It was a risk, trusting the parents of our most likely culprit, but they were either genuine or remarkably good liars, and I figured that either way, it was in our best interest to just roll with it.

And rolling with it worked out pretty well, at least in terms of being able to follow the dwarf, whose name was Lyle, we learned, to the hideout.  What went less well was discovering that there was apparently a small army in on this.  We watched Lyle return to a cave flanked by two guards, who were shortly replaced by two more, and then yet another man came out from the cave they were guarding to engage in small talk with one of the new guards.  That meant there were at least six of these captors, and they all appeared well-armed with an air of proficiency about them despite being, we had thought, commoners.

"Is this some sort of uprising or something?" Janzor whispered from the hiding spot he had picked for us.

"I don't know," William whispered back, "but I don't feel prepared to take on six of more of these guys."

"So what do you suggest?" I asked.

"Divide and conquer," he replied.

"I could try casting message to distract one of them," I said, "but that could easily result in him just alerting everyone."

"No, I don't think we want something as overtly magical as that.  Maybe..."

He was interrupted by a sound to our left.  We both turned to look, our gaze passing by Janzor in the process, Janzor whose arm was just returning from a throwing position.  He shrugged when I looked down at him feeling slightly annoyed.  "What?" he asked with a shrug.

I glanced back towards William.  "What was that you were saying earlier about chaotic good?" I asked in a whisper, preferring Janzor not hear, but not really caring that much.

William just smiled.  "That I could work with it," he said.  "Look!"

I followed William's gaze back to the guards and saw that one of them was pointing in the direction of the rock or whatever it was that Janzor had thrown while the other went walking off by himself into the woods.  I could sense Janzor's mischevious grin without even having to look at him.  "One down," he whispered.

"We still have to actually down him," I whispered back.

"Well then let's get going," Janzor supplied, darting off shockingly fast for how quietly he was moving.  William and I followed more slowly behind.


We managed to take that first guard out fairly silently, though he did manage to resist my command to stay silent at the very end, which resulting in his calling out for the other guard who had been guarding the entrance to the cave.  Taking these guys out one by one was a piece of cake, though, and with two of them bound and gagged, we crept up to the cave to see how many more we would need to deal with.

It was dark inside the cave, but with my dark vision, I managed to spot three of them, all looking like three we had seen previously.  The only previously observed individual I didn't notice was Lyle.  Maybe we had seen everyone.  I could only hope.  I held up three fingers to my less visually inclined companions and gave a motion that I hoped conveyed they idea of simply going for it followed by a shrug.  William nodded and apparently decided to lead the way, marching boldly into the cave in a manner that I was surprised to find reminded me of Yarl.  I followed closely behind while Janzor remained in the shadows.  Even in rushing in like this, the rogue preferred to stay as hidden as possible, which only made sense.

William landed the first blow with his hammer and I followed quickly behind with burning hands.  It hit all three of them, and I was very pleased with myself, though I think Janzor may actually have been a bit disappointed that one of the three (the one William had initially targeted) was already knocked out by the time he popped out from the shadows to incapacitate the second.  The third guy simply dropped his sword and held his arms up in a nervous surrender.  "Th-the boss is with the prisoner," he stammered.  "I can take you to him if you don't hurt me."

"Don't hurt me," I heard Janzor grumble as he got out the last of his rope to tie up the two unconscious men.

It dawned on me that despite appearances, these guys weren't that tough after all.  We had never been in any real danger in this fight.  We probably would have been able to take all five at once after all.  But better safe than sorry, I figured.  There would probably be other opportunities for a more interesting encounter.  In fact, unknown to me, a more interesting encounter was just waiting for us deeper in the cave.


As we cautiously crept deeper into the cave, I suddenly heard something and gestured as silently as possible for my companions to stop and listen.  I could already see an opening up ahead, though in the dim lighting it was likely neither of those accompanying me noticed it with their lack of darkvision.  Voices seemed to be coming from that opening, which I tried to indicate by pointing up ahead and tugging on my ear, very close to my companions so they could at least see that.  Janzor nodded and sneaked just a little closer with me and William following closely behind.

"I promise you, they'll pay," I heard a pleasant but also exhausting female voice say.

"They why haven't they yet?" a much gruffer male voice asked.

"I don't know," the female voice admitted.  "But I swear they will.  I wouldn't have agreed to this whole thing if I didn't think my own parents would give in to the ransom demand."

"We didn't even ask for that much," the male voice continued.  "Not nearly as much as she's offering...."

"Now now dear," a more ragged but still vaguely feminine voice put in.  "Leave me out of this little dispute."

"But you are offering to pay, right?" the male voice said.

"Over my dead body!" the first female voice exclaimed.

"That's the idea," the ragged voice said.  "Only not yet."

"I just want the money," the male voice said.

"And I just want to girl," the ragged voice said.

"And I just want both of you to stop talking about me as if I'm not here."  There was a pause and then the direction of the voice seemed to shift slightly (perhaps she was addressing the ragged one more directly?) as it said, "And I am certainly not going with you to be murdered!  I'm not powerless here, you know."

"That's why I want you, dear," the ragged voice said with a remarkable amount of calm and composure.  "And besides, your death will only be temporary."

"That's necromancy," I heard William whisper beside me.  "That is not okay."  As if he had to point out that he, as a good cleric, would not be okay with necromancy.

That needless comment was about to get us into a whole lot of trouble, because the next thing I heard was the male voice asking, "Did you hear something?"

"Oh probably," the ragged voice said, starting to sound... bored?  "Maybe you should go check it out."

If I ever heard a ploy to get rid of someone, that was it, and yet the male voice replied with, "Yeah, maybe I will."

"Don't you dare..." the female voice began, but it was already too late, because I saw emerging from that opening in the wall a male dwarf appearing to be about my age.  I wasn't caught totally unaware, as I could see him and knew from his words that he was coming our way, but the lack of darkvision on the part of my companions certainly wasn't doing them in favors and presence of darkvision in dwarves certainly wasn't doing us any favors as the dwarf I now recognized as Lyle shouted loud enough that the guards in the front of the cave surely would have heard had they been conscious, "Hey there is someone here!"  And he rushed at us.

Lyle was definitely more formidable than his minions, yet he still didn't seem like anything two of the three of us couldn't handle, so I cast one quick poison spray as I ran past him to the opening within the cave, much too curious to pass up the opportunity to see the other two figures who must have been looking there.

What I saw there was both shocking and not.  I had already figured out from the eavesdropping that this whole "kidnapping" had apparently been some sort of ploy by the precious "princess" to get her hands on some coin that she had agreed to share with her "kidnappers".  And apparently when the ransom was not paid, the head of said "kidnappers" went looking elsewhere for a way to get the promised coin.  That was obviously where the ragged voice had come in.  What I was not prepared for in the slightest was what appeared to be the source of the ragged voice.

"Don't come any closer, or the girl gets it," the ragged voice said.  The voice was coming from what appeared to be a human, except her skin was so wrinkled it looked as if she must have been twice her current size at one point, which was already nearly as large as Yarl.  Her long seemingly white hair was down to nearly the cave floor.  Her nose was almost as large as half of her face.  And she held a glistening dagger at the throat of the hapless elvish princess.  The dagger should not have been glistening, we were deep in a cave with very little light at all.  Yet it seemed to produce a light all its own.  The haggard yet powerful woman grinned, and her shockingly white teeth were reflected in the light eminating from the blad.

"It's magical, of course," the witch-like woman said.  "When someone is at my mercy, such as this 'princess' here, one slice will instantly end their life.  And that would be a shame if I had to do that now, because then I'd have to bring her back and kill her a second time, and I wouldn't be able to keep my word about bringing her back after her sacrifice.  Just too expensive to do that twice."

"She's crazy!" the princess shouted, terror clearly present in her eyes.  Gone was the confidence she had been able to at least fake just a few moments ago.

I was half tempted to cast thunderwave on the witch, hoping to push her away from the girl, but there was too much risk in the spell not landing.  I had never seen a human looking this ancient and yet this strong.  I knew neither who she was nor what she was, and as much as I was tempted to test her to find out something more about her, I could not bring myself to risk the elf's life in the process.

"Okay, okay," I said, stowing my staff on my back to show I did not intend to attack.  "If you'll just let her go..."

"Ha!" the witch let with a booming voice.  "You're as dumb as the dwarf, dear.  And I had expected so much from you!"  And with that, both she and the girl she was holding disappeared.

My companions ran up to join me seconds too late.  "Where did the other two go?" Janzor demanded.

"They disappeared," I said.

"Might still be here if they just turned invisible," William suggested.

I shook my head.  "No, I think it was blink," I said.  "I really wish I had more than a passing knowledge of that spell."

"Both of them though?" William asked.

"Well, the witch for sure," I said.  "I don't think the elf would have cast it willingly, if she could cast it at all.  It must be some more powerful version I don't know about that lets you take someone with you.  Or maybe she banished the girl and cast blink on herself."

"I think banishment only lasts a minute, and you can't move during it," William said.

"Could the witch have moved the girl while she was banished?" I asked.

"I don't think it works like that," William said.  "But it's all too high level for me."

We stood there for a moment, I at the spot where the elf and the probably human woman had been, and William seeming to follow my gaze as well.  Finally, Janzor practically shouted, "What are you two even talking about?"

"Just give it a minute," William said.

"More like 30 seconds," I said.

We waited.  We waited definitely more than a minute.  Nothing happened.

"Well that sucks," William said.

I would have laughed had I not felt so scared.  Why was I scared?  This was an adventure.  It should be exciting.  Maybe it was because this was my first time encountering something that I was no where close to understanding.

"Okay, what just happened?" Janzor asked.

"I don't know," I replied.  "The elf princess was here.  She apparently arranged her kidnapping herself."

"Yeah, I figured that one out on my own," Janzor assured me, sounding somewhat annoyed that I had even felt the need to state the obvious.

"Well the other voice, the raspy voice," I said, "belonged to some ancient looking human, but like still super strong and powerful.  Maybe super strong and powerful because she was so old.  She had this knife she claimed was magical and she was going to kill the elf if I came closer but then they both just disappeared."

"And we were trying to figure out how and to where," William said.

"I can tell you where," Janzor said, sounding even more annoyed.  "Not here!"

"Obviously," I said, trying to keep a neutral expression.

"So what now?" William asked.

"I don't know!" Janzor exclaimed.  "Aren't you supposed to be the leader."

"I'm okay with Lin being the leader on this one," William said.

"Why not me?" Janzor asked.

"Well, for one thing you just admitted you didn't know what to do next," William pointed out.  "And for another, even if you did pretend to know what was going on, you're not a magic user and there seems to be some pretty powerful magic going on here, so..."

I heard Janzor exhale a frustrated breath, heard a little popped of his jaw opening as if he was going to say something, but he apparently thought better of us, because no words were heard.  It was silent for a moment and then I glanced to each side of me, to notice both men were looking helplessly my way.  "What?" I asked.  "I don't know what's going on either!"

"So then what, we're just going to give up?" William asked.  "Go back to the girl's parents and tell them she can't be retrieved."

I sighed and rolled my eyes.  "No of course not," I said.  "Just... let's go back to town and I'll look through my books and whatever other books I can find and see if I can find anything about whatever that human-like witch-like creature was."

William gave a nod.  "That's as good a plan as any.  Janzor?"

Janzor sighed.  "Yeah, okay fine," he said, not sounding too happy at the idea of having to do research.  Janzor never liked research unless it had to do with business practices or brewing processes.  "What should we do with all these unconscious dwarves?"

"They're all nicely tied up and disarmed, right?" I asked.

Janzor nodded.

"Then leave them here for now," I suggested.  "We can tell the authorities where to find them when we get back to town."

No one objected to that plan, so I turned and led the way out of the cave.  I wasn't quite sure how I had become the leader of the group, other than by being the only one to see the witch creature, but I allowed myself a little smile to cross my lips.  I was frustrated at losing sight of the princess and the witch, but I was more than a little excited at the thought of hunting them down as well.


In first two days of research, we found nothing.  I poured over the books I had and William sought out some region records from a town archive, but nothing in the past 100 years made any mention of anyone like this haggard yet strangely lovely hag we had encountered.

It was on the third day that we had a breakthrough, and it didn't come from us bookworms.  It came from the antsy Janzor, who had decided to stroll around town seeking out information from people rather than archives.

"I've learned something!" the halfling announced rather importantly as he burst into the room where William and I were holed up for our studying.

The excitement in his voice was palatable.  "What is it?" I asked.

In way of answering, Janzor hurried over to us and slammed a piece of parchment down on the table.  My eyes grew wide as I took it in.  "That's her!" I exclaimed, picking up the sheet and looking it over.  "Her hair is a bit longer now and her nose a bit bigger but that's definitely who I saw."  I looked up from the page to Janzor.  "Where did you get this?"

"I had this ancient elf draw it for me," he said.  "From memory."  A pause.  "From a memory of 300 years ago."

My jaw dropped.  "300 years!?"

"That's what the guy said," he concurred.  "Seems no one else in town we've talked to, or I've talked to anyway, is old enough to remember, but this dude did."  Janzor's expression got more serious.  "Probably because it was his daughter who was taken 300 years ago."

"What happened?" William asked softly.

Janzor's glee was notably absent and he avoided eye contact as he spoke.  He must have known we were going to ask these questions, and yet he didn't seem all that excited to answer them.  "The girl disappeared in the night and no one could find her," he said.  "She was gone for weeks.  And then this ancient looking woman," he gestured to the drawing I still held, "just brought her back one day.  The girl was unconscious, but her father was so thrilled to have her alive that he didn't even question how that had come to be.  He thanked the old woman, offered to pay her, but she refused and then she simply vanished.  His daughter eventually woke up, but she was... changed."  Janzor sighed.  "The man checked, and he didn't want to know but he knew he had to know, that was what he told me..."

Janzor trailed off and there was silence for a moment until I finally prompted, "Janzor?"

"She was undead," he said so softly I could barely hear.  Then a bit louder, "it was like she was still mostly her, but she was undead, and her heart..."  He sighed again.  "He said it was like her very heart had changed.  And part of her wanted to be evil but part of her wanted to fight against it all.  Her father said she told him all that she could remember about what had happened, enough for the town to assemble a group to go try to find the witch's lair, because the girl had confirmed that the woman who returned her had been the woman who took her to begin with, and so her father set off.  And... and they found it, or at least they found where his daughter had been sacrificed, but there was no sign of the witch anywhere.  So the man returned home only to find that his daughter was dead.  It appeared she had killed herself, not wanting to deal with it all anymore."

When Janzor finished recounting the story, he finally looked back up with us and there were obvious tears in his eyes, though he wasn't quite crying, not yet.  "We can't let that happen again," he said softly.  "We just can't."

I placed my hand on his shoulder and smiled.  This was the most concern I had ever seen Janzor display for a stranger.  Something in the old elf's story must have touched him deeply.  "And we won't," I assured him, with a confidence I forced myself to believe.

"Where was the ritual site?" William asked.

Silently, Janzor took out another parchment, this one looking very old, nearly crumbling, and handed it over.  It was a map, with a circle around a seemingly random spot about 50 miles from town.

"You should have led with that," William grumbled, but when I looked up at him with pleading in my eyes, he sighed and said, "Well, we'd better get going if we're going to follow up on this today."

Janzor smiled sadly and nodded.  "I am sorry I wasted time with the whole story," he admitted.  "It just seemed... important."

I smiled back, resisting the urge to point out he could have told us the whole backstory on the way to the spot marked on the map.  "It's okay," I said instead.  "You're right, stories are important."  And then we set out to make our own.


We had to set up camp about two-thirds of the way to our destination.  We set up a watch rotation, which also included my owl, Hooters, who could rouse me at a moment's notice if trouble arose.  There was some trouble during the second watch, but just some hungry wolves.  Nothing we couldn't easily handle.

The next day was a different matter.  We made our way towards the spot marked on the map and as we approached, I knew something was off.  I sensed something arcane and powerful, but I couldn't put my finger on it.  In a hushed tone, I asked William if he could sense it, too.  He nodded, but still had a look of grim determination on his face.  Janzor just looked worried.

As we cautiously pressed onward, we came to a clearing.  Perhaps "clearing" is the wrong term.  It was a slight opening in the woods, but it led to an area that was strangely darker than the shadows cast by the trees.  And there in the middle of this opening of supernatural darkness, there was a tall stone slab.  On the slab, bound and gagged, was a elvish woman, the same woman I had seen in the cave.  But the hag who had taken her was no where to be seen.  The woman clearly noticed us, as she started rolling a bit from side to side, pushing against her bonds, and making muffled noises through the gag.  Though I could see her atop the stone, I could tell it was too high up for me to reach for untying her, so I pointed towards her and simply said, "William."

The human cleric man a strange grunting noise, almost as if I had aroused him from some sort of stupor.  I was sure he could see the elf.  It wasn't that dark, but it also seemed as if perhaps he hadn't.  Either way, he saw her now, and he stepped forward to release her.

As he got closer, her eyes seemed to grow wider.  Janzor crept closer as well, head turning from side to side apparently looking for danger.  I hung back, telepathically checking in with Hooters to see if he saw anything from above.  Nothing.  It seemed like we were going to break her free.  But it was just too easy, and I knew it.

That's why I wasn't at all surprised that, as soon as William got to the altar and removed the gag from the elf's mouth, she immediately shouted, "Watch out!"

Fire erupted around Janzor, William, and the elf.  Janzor somehow managed to roll away, but William and the elf screamed out in pain.  A fortunate side-effect of the blaze, I noticed as it died away, was that it had burned the elf's bonds away.  She leaped from the slab, gasping in pain, but standing.  "Do any of you see my wand?" she shouted.

So she was a magic user, too.  Strange that her parents hadn't mentioned that.  Strange that her parents really hadn't told us much of anything about her, aside from her name and that she was their precious little princess.  Well, this precious little princess seemed ready to fight, if only she could find her focus.

As I let my eyes dart around the clearing, searching not only for the unlikely to be found wand but als for the hag, whom I was sure was the source of the attack, I soon heard the elf's voice say, "Thank-you" and I looked back to see William handing her a wand, though I had no idea where it had come from.  I didn't have any more time to ponder that because as soon as the exchange happened, the hag reappeared before us, and I saw a bolt of lightning fly out from her hands and crash into William and the elf, whose name I knew to be called Tina even though we hadn't yet been formerly introduced.

Based on where I had last seen Janzor, he should have been in the line of attack as well, but he was no longer there.  I hoped he had darted around to the other side of the stone slab and was preparing to make a sneak attack.

Meanwhile, of the two who were in the line of fire, only William seemed to be hit.  Tina by some miraculous feat jumped back up onto the slab she had just been tied up on, avoiding the blast.  William was not so lucky.  I saw him fall backwards into the spot where Tina had just been standing and he didn't get back up.

"Hell no, hag!" Tina shouted, and a spell of her own that I didn't recognize burst from the unfamiliar wand.  The hag grunted when it hit, but seemed otherwise unfazed.  I stood there just long enough to catch side of Janzor doing what I had hoped and darting out from behind the slab to stab the witch firmly in the side.  That, I was pleased to hear, she did react to more painfully.

I, meanwhile, knew that despite what further damage I could inflict, it was probably more wise to heal our healer.  Thankfully, I had a low-level potion I could force down his throat to at least get him back on his feet, so I did just that.  I felt like a weight had been lifted off my chest when he opened his eyes again, sat up, and pressed his hands to his own chest, at which point a light of holy energy shown around him, restoring him back to a health that was unlikely to be taken away in a single blow.

"Thanks, Lin," he said, just in time for me to feel myself be pushed back away from him.  When I looked up, the hag was pointing her hands towards me, apparently having cast another spell I wasn't totally familiar with but seemed like some weaker version of a thunder wave (having easily pushed me, but not appearing to do any damage).  That was when I saw her falter just a bit, her left leg buckling slightly.  I noticed that her hair that had been a brilliant white had faded slightly since I last saw her and now was closer to a dull gray.

"I don't think so, bitch!" Tina shouted.  Man, that princess had a mouth on her, and apparently the power to back it up as a flash was emitted from her own wand.  Unfortunately, that witch seemed to phase out slightly as the spell went right through her and instead hit a tree that instantly erupted into flame.

The nameless witch allowed herself a slight curl of a smile, which was replaced with a snarl as soon as Janzor reminded her of his presence with a stab to her side.  As she screamed and clutched the wound, William swung his own weapon and hit her in the side of the head, which then gave me a chance to try out one in combat the newest spell I'd taught myself:  Shatter.

As I raised my staff, I focused on the spot the witch was standing, and when I brought my focus back down, an ear-piercing, well, shatter erupted in the area.  Fortunately, I specialize in protecting my allies from the devastating harm that my spells can inflict, so I carefully warped the sound around Janzor, William, and Tina so that it only hit the witch.  And hit her it did, she screamed out in additional agony, her hands raised to her ears as she dropped to her knees.  But she wasn't dead yet, and she glared up at Tina with a look of pure hatred as the elf towered over her and pointed her wand once more.

"You don't deserve to live," the elf panted out.  I hadn't realized how heavily she had been breathing, but I saw it now.  She was about to drop herself, though she was still standing.  She had been away from home for weeks, possibly minutes away from being slain on an altar when we arrived, and now the witch who had done it to her appeared to be at her mercy.  I watched in quiet reverence as Tina let fly four bolts of fire from her wand.  One missed, but the other three hit their mark, and the witch cried out for the final time in agony as she crumpled to the ground.

After a moment, Janzor knelt down to feel for a pulse.  "She's dead," he said.

Tina started laughing and tears, presumably of joy, rolled down her face, and then she collapsed off the stone platform, caught by a stunned William, as her eyes fluttered shut into temporary unconsciousness.


When Tina opened her eyes again, she immediately gasped, sat up, and looked around at us nervously.  We had moved out of that depressingly spooking sacrificial clearing zone and into the brighter part of the woods.  The witch's body was slumped over Williams horse while Janzor held the leads to both mounts.  "Where am I?" Tina asked.

"Not tied to some stupid altar," I said.

She actually smiled at that, despite all that had apparently happened.  "And I'm grateful," she said, "but who are all of you?"  Her eyes landed on me.  "You were at the cave," she said.

"Yes, your parents hired us to come rescue you," I told her.

She scoffed.  "Figures they would hire a group of mid-tier adventurers rather that just pay the ransom," she said.  I swear she rolled her eyes.

"Mid-tier?" Janzor questioned, sounding somewhat offended.  On behalf of all of us, I appreciated his mild outrage.  Sure, we were still relatively new to this, but I would have placed us above "mid-tier" as well.

"I mean no offense by it," she said, actually frowning a little.  "I'm just... I come from a very magical family."

"Yeah, a family which told us nothing about being magical," I pointed out.

"Why did you kidnap yourself anyway?" was what William wanted to know.

Tina sighed, sitting up a bit straighter with a grunt.  "I just wanted to get away," she said.  "I suppose I could have just run away, but the whole kidnapping act seemed like a way to get some cash at the start of my new life."

"Why didn't you just take it?" Janzor asked.  Of course he did.

"I would have if I could have," she admitted.  "But I'm not that great with locks."

"I am," Janzor and I both said simultaneously.  When the halfling looked at me suspiciously, I shrugged and said, "I know knock."  Then the look on his face revealed that meant nothing to him, I instead said, "I recently learned a magical spell that can unlock just about anything."

I turned back to Tina when I heard her chuckle.  She was regarding me kindly, I thought.  "It does help to know the right spells," she said.

"Yeah," I agreed.  "That thing with the bolts of fire looked pretty sweet."

"Scorching Ray?" she asked.  I shrugged.  Sounded right.  "I could probably teach you if you're interested," she said.

I must have accidentally revealed just how interested I was because her smile grew wider as she said, "Maybe we can learn from each other."

I was about to respond that I'd like that when William interrupted us by clearing his throat and saying, "I'm sorry, what is happening here?"

"I think Tina is joining our party," I said, no longer bothering to try to hide my grin.

"Uh, she lied to her parents and tried to extort them for money," William pointed out.

"So?" Janzor questioned.  "I get the sense her parents were kinda assholes."

Tina laughed again.  "That would not be inaccurate," she said.

"Yeah, but..." William began.

I sighed and let my smile fade slightly.  "Yeah, but William does have a bit of a point," I admitted.  "I don't suppose there is any chance you could talk to your parents?"

"Or maybe at least tell them you're safe before we all run off?" Janzor suggested.  And then added more softly, maybe hoping William wouldn't hear even though I'm sure he did, "And get us some of that reward money to split?"

Tina cocked her head a bit as she looked over at Janzor.  Clearly his remark had been missed by no one, as Tina said, "I suppose it won't be as much as the ransom would have been, but you did help save me and we all deserve something for that."

"But you wouldn't have even needed saving if you hadn't tried to deceive everyone in the first place!" William exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air.  We all just blankly stared at him until he sighed and said, "Okay fine.  If the rest of you want to do this, that's just fine.  I'll give my share of the money back to one of the towns or something.  Everything is fine!"

He stormed off as Tina stood up.  She looked at me and asked, "Is he always like that?"

"He is more or less the moral compass of the group," I admitted.

"I suppose one of us has to be," Janzor grumbled.  "As long as it isn't me."

Tina laughed again.  I had to admit, I did like her laugh.  "I like you," she said, looking at Janzor who noticeably blushed when she addressed him.  "You're cute."  She looked at me and said, "I think I rather like all of you."  And finally, she gestured towards where William had stormed off.  "Even him," she said.

I smiled.  "Yeah, I guess I can't speak for Janzor, but I like William, too."

Tina nodded and started to walk shakily in the direction that William had gone, so I did too, with Janzor bringing up the horses and the rear.  Tina walked beside me as she said, "So the human is William, the halfling is Janzor, and you apparently already know my name.  What's yours?"

"I'm Lin," I said, reaching a hand up towards her.

She took my hand and shook it with a smile.  Her skin was almost eerily soft.  "Nice to meet you, Lin," she said.  "I can tell we're going to be good friends."

I smiled as I released myself from her grip.  We certainly were a strange bunch, it seemed, but I hoped she was more than right and that all of us were and would be friends.


William's grumbling on our way back to town was not that unexpected, but was somewhat unexpected was that Tina eventually threw up her hands and said, "Okay, fine!  I'll tell my parents I'm leaving to be an adventurer.  They'll be pissed, but if it will get you to shut up, it'll be worth it?"

William did seem satiated, based on the cautious smile that seemed to fall over his face.  I took a few quick steps forward to give him an approving pat on the lower back.  He responded by looking down at me with a slight smirk and saying quietly, "I still don't know if we should accept the reward for this one."

I glanced back at Tina, but she didn't seem to have heard him.  "We did stop a terrible witch," I pointed out in an equally hushed tone.  "Even if the whole thing started with dishonesty, it did have a noble ending, I'd say."

William sighed.  "Yeah, I suppose," he begrudgingly agreed.  Then he frowned and looked away from me as he said, "I just wish you had backed me up a little more back there."

"William, what was I supposed to do?" I said louder than I intended, a bit upset myself at his statement.  "I agreed Tina should have talked to her parents rather than tricking them into thinking she was in danger and then really getting herself in danger.  But I'm not going to lie and say I don't think we deserve anything for helping her out of that real danger.  I'm not going to agree with you against my better judgement just because it's you.  That wouldn't be right in either of our books."

He looked back at me then.  He opened his mouth as if to speak but then closed it again.  This look of what almost seemed like guilt flitted across his face and then with another sigh he said, "You're right, Lin.  I'm sorry."

"Right about which part?" I asked, feeling unable to resist.

He laughed.  "All of it," he admitted.  "Everything you've said."  He glanced back over his shoulder and then returned to his hushed tone as he said, "Except maybe the letting Tina come with us part.  I don't really know if I can work with her."

I rolled by eyes at that, not caring if he noticed.  "You felt the same way about Janzor," I pointed out.  "And you're starting to warm up to him."

Before William could respond to that, a voice piped up from right behind us, "Someone say my name?"

I nearly jumped as I glanced back to see Janzor right behind us, leading the smaller of our two horses.  Apparently he had given Tina the other lead.  She was just a couple of steps further back.  I laughed at the sight on Janzor's mischievious grin and said, "Just talking about what a rogue you are."

Janzor laughed back.  "The best rogue!" he exclaimed proudly.

William grumbled something that I didn't quite catch and didn't ask about.  Janzor must have heard it because he laughed more and said, "You know it!"  I didn't ask even then.  I knew better than to press the luck of our strong yet fragile party.  Besides, we still had the whole Tina joining us thing to deal with.


Tina's parents were beyond thrilled to have their daughter back, and beyond shocked to see the body of the old hag we had carried with us.  In death, the woman had wrinkled and visibly faded, but was still clearly there.  "I'd heard stories," Tina's father said, "of this witch that would appear every 300 years to feed on a young maiden in order to keep herself alive, but I never thought it was true.  And I certainly would never have guessed she was the one who took Tina."

I saw William open his mouth to protest, but I gave him a glare and a slight shake of his head and he closed his mouth again.

Janzor not so subtly brought up the topic of payment and the duke and duchess handed over to us what they had promised.  Since Janzor had asked about it, he was the one they handed it to, though I think William and both kept a careful eye on him to make sure he didn't do anything sneaky with it.  All I noticed was that he appeared to give a slight nod to Tina, and then we were gone.

We had arranged with Tina to meet us at the inn where we were staying within three days if she was going to join us.  If she wasn't there by mid-day that third day, we were leaving without her.

I'm pretty sure William not-so-secretly hoped she wouldn't show up.  She disappointed him.  She showed up on the second day.

It wasn't lost on me, when she walked in as we were eating lunch, that her eyes were slightly red, as if she had been crying.  I don't know if either of the men noticed it.  If they did, they said nothing, and I said nothing as well.  She smiled in an almost sad way as she saw us and said in a soft voice, "I'm ready."

She had seemed so strong and powerful before, stronger and more powerful than any of us, even though we were the ones who had freed her, but now she just seemed like another person.  Another ordinary soul trying to find their place in the world and trying to make their mark upon it.  Maybe she would fit in with us pretty well after all.


It seemed that with Tina in tow, things got much more exciting.  Mostly because with a fourth party member who was also a good rank above us in power, we could take on much more interesting challenges.  We headed to bigger cities and regions where more evil forces had been known to operate.

Our very first lead on adventure culminated with fighting a hydra in a swamp.  A three headed beast - one head for each of us damage dealers and William certainly earning the gold we were later paid by keeping us all alive.

A letter mission put our survival skills to the test.  Janzor proved himself more than capable of following a trail that led us up a freezing mountain where we had to fight first goblins, and then orcs, and then finally giants along the mountain pass.  Eventually we were able to retrieve the snow ruby that was supposedly necessary to commune with the god that would lift a curse on the village that had hired us.  That was where I was reminded that not all the dangerous and prestigous quests come from those bigger cities, but it didn't hurt that there was a bigger city near by where the villages could spread the word about our escapades.

Perhaps the strangest quest was the one where we went through an old brewery-turned-dungeon that Janzor seemed especially excited about.  That one was full of traps and strange riddles.  Janzor tended to notice the traps, which was good for us.  William and I did the best with the riddles.  Tina was critically helpful when we ended the quest fighting a creature none of us could name but which we nonetheless took out at the end.  (Her critical help is meant literally; she landed a critical hit to end that fiend's existence.)

What was perhaps the best of all, though, was how well Tina ended up fitting in.  Despite her clear differences in philosophy from William, she was able to have rather meaningful conversations with him about their different outlooks on life.  There was more than one night when one of them was supposed to be keeping first watch, but I overheard both of them talking to one another as I drifted off to sleep.

Her camaraderie with Janzor was much easier and more obvious.  The two were of a like mind when it came to doing what had to be done even if it wasn't strictly within the confines of the law.  And they both had a discerning palette when it came to mead, apparently.

And her friendship with me seemed easy as well.  At least it was easy for me.  She was a sorcerer, a natural in her magical abilities, but she was still able to teach me a lot about what she knew, and I shared a few things with her as well.  She was especially amused by Hooters.  Though she seemed to have no interest in summoning a familiar of her own, she smiled whenever I called him near.

All in all, those next six months or so were good.  Very good.  We got along better than could have been imagined, helped a lot of people, earned more gold than I would have expected, and, most importantly to me, started to get our names out there.  I almost started to wonder if it might be enough for a trip back home, to tell my parents of what I had become, of the good I was doing.  Almost, I thought.  Not quite yet.  Just a few more quests, a few more monsters, a few more missions.

I figured things would just keep getting better.  We were strong.  We were successful.  And it even seemed like we were becoming friends, all of us.  I had started out seeking greatness for myself, but now I felt we were destined to find that greatness together.  The stories they would write could still star me, I would be okay with that, but the others were an important part of that as well.  We were a great team, and we were only getting better.


"We need a name," I said as we continued to walk down the road shortly after taking out some pesky owl bears.

"A name?" Janzor laughed.  "A name for what?"

"For our group.  For the four of us," I said.

"That's not a bad idea," Tina said.

"What would you suggest?" William asked.  Six months ago I would have assumed he was asking only me.  Now he had come around to the point where he could have easily been asking any of us or all of us.

Still, I took the opportunity to assume he was mostly addressing me and with a sly grin suggested, "How about 'Lin's Legends'."

"Hey!" Janzor immediately protested.  "Why would we put only your name in the title!"

"Janzor dear, I think she was joking," Tina said, reaching down to pat his head in a manner that may have seemed condescending, but we all knew was more just because she couldn't reach his shoulder as easily to reassure him.

"Oh," Janzor said softly, turning slightly red in embarrassment.

We were all silent for a moment and then William said, "What about 'The Good Squad.'"

I laughed at that, feeling comfortable doing so, given my glance at William revealed a sly grin on the human's face.  "How about something that doesn't sound like it was made up by a child?" I suggested.

"Besides," Tina put in mischeiveously, "not all of us are good."

"Maybe not all the time," William agreed.  "But no ones good all of the time, and as the most good among us, I officially declare all of you at least half as good as I am."

I laughed again.  I seemed to do that a lot around these fools.  "Now wait a minute here," I said.  "Are we still talking about alignments."

When I saw William shrug, I had half a mind to smack him, but fortunately Tina had the same thought and did it for me.

There was another moment of silence and then Tina said, "Seriously, a name for our group is a good idea.  We just have come up with something that is good without literally having the word "Good" in it."

"The Golden Boys," Janzor suggests.

"Why not go out and have it be 'The Platinum Boys'," William suggests.

"In case you haven't noticed, not all of us are boys," Tina noted.

"Boys can be a gender-neutral term," Janzor claimed.

"No it can't," the other three of us said in unison.

Janzor laughed.  "Okay, okay," he said.  "Let's not make this the 'Gang up on Janzor Chorus.'"

I stopped walking, cocked my head, and looked at him as the others stopped their motion as well.

"No, we are not calling ourselves that," Janzor said with a laugh.  "We don't want any one person's name in the title, right?"

"Fine," I fake-whined.  "How about the 'Witch Slayers'.  It's a callback to the first combat we had all together."

Tina sighed.  "I'd prefer to forget about that," she lamented, and I couldn't help but notice she gave William a little glance.  "Yet it is the best we've come up with so far."

"We'll workshop it," William suggested.  "Maybe sleep will bring some better ideas."

The mention of sleep made me think of something poetic.  "Dreamers of Destiny," I mumbled as I started walking again.

"What was that?" Tina asked.

I glanced back at her.  "Oh, 'Dreams of Destiny'," I repeated, feeling a bit embarrassed that anyone had actually heard.  Yet I did say it out loud.

"It sounds more like a band of bards than anything," Tina noted.  "But I do prefer it to 'Witch Slayers'."

"I'm not sure I do," I admitted.  "We're more than Dreamers, after all."

"We're the Drivers of Destiny," William suggested.

And I couldn't help but smile and nod.  "Yeah, we are, aren't we?" I said.  "Every one of us.  We took destiny into our own hands.  We're making something of ourselves, and this world."

"The Drivers of Destiny!" Janzor exclaimed.  "I like it."  And then a beat.  "Well, if it will help us gain more fame at least."

"That's the whole point, after all," I said with a laugh.

"Or at least part of it," William noted.

"True," Tina and I said together.  We exchanged a glance and a smile and then continued on in silence.

The Drivers of Destiny.  I couldn't help but think it was super cheesy, to the point where I wasn't sure I could bring myself to refer to ourselves as such to anyone outside our party, but yet it had a nice ring to it.  And it captured perfectly what I had wanted when I left my family, now over a year ago.  I did want to drive my own destiny.  And I was.  And I was still convinced it was going to be wonderful.


As we continued to take on missions and quests after declaring ourselves "The Drivers of Destiny", we opted not to lead with that as our name, but we did start referring to it when we completed any tasks that others had hired us to do.  Particularly if it was something thought to be especially important or challenging, one of us would say something like, "We are the drivers of our own destiny, after all."  More often than not, it ended up being me who would say it, despite my original embarrassment over the title that I myself had come up with.  Sometimes you just have to own something, no matter how lame or cheesy you might secretly feel it to be.

And slowly, it seemed to catch on, just a little.  Or rather, we finally entered a town where someone had heard of our group by the name.  "You're those 'Drivers of Destiny' folks, aren't you," the pretty elvish woman said, pointing at each of us as she sat across from us in the bar.  She appeared to be older than Tina, but with elves, that could mean any where from a few years to a hundred years older.  I had a hard time telling.

"Yup, where would you like us to drive you today?" Janzor piped up happily.  For the past week he had been workshopping what he would say the first time someone actually called us by our name, and he seemed very proud of himself for having an occasion to use what he had come up with so soon.

The woman laughed.  "I'd like you to drive me to wherever it is that I can reclaim my inheritance from my jerk of a brother.  I'll even give you 5% of it all."

"And how much would that be?" Janzor asked.  Despite continuing to insist he wasn't in this just for gold, he did seem to light up at the mention of it.

"10,000 gold pieces," the woman said.

I figured she must have meant that was the entire fortune.  So 5% of that would be...

Before I could even do the math, William, of all people, decided to ask, "Is that the whole fortune, or...?"

She shook her head.  "No, that would be the 5%," she said very matter of factly.

I did a double take at that.  I think the whole rest of the table did as well.

"Holy - " Janzor started.  I saw Tina quickly place a hand over his mouth before he could say more.

"I think we'd like to discuss this proposition first," I said, feeling my heart pounding in my chest.  "Would you excuse us for a moment?"

The elvish woman, whose name we still had not received, smiled kindly.  "Of course," she said, rising from the table.  "Take all the time you need."  Though the look that flashed briefly across her face after she left was one that indicated she wasn't sure why we needed to discuss anything at all.

Tina removed her hand from Janzor's face and he completed his thought with, "shit that's a lot of gold."

"Yeah, I'm concerned it might be too much," I said.

Janzor looked at my quizzically.  "How can it be too much gold?" he asked.

"Who pays that much to retrieve their inheritance?" William asked.  "Heck, who pays that much for anything.  There's gotta be something really rough about this one."

"Or she just really doesn't need that much money," Tina suggested with a shrug.  "As someone who comes from a loaded family, I can tell you that at a certain point, there isn't much difference between the amount of gold you have and the next highest increment."

I hesitated to say what I said next, but I felt I had to.  "And yet, your parents wouldn't pay what seemed like a fairly reasonable ransom given their means," I noted.

"That was more a matter of principle," she claimed.

"And this isn't?" William asked.

"Well, on one hand it could be," I agreed.  "But on the other hand, I suppose there's a difference between paying a hefty sum to the person who wronged you and paying a hefty sum to the people who are going to make it right."

"Though Tina's parents paid us even less than they would have had to pay the ransomers," Janzor grumbled.

"I suppose it's the same here," I observed.  "She has a choice between losing out on all..." I paused to make sure that math was really right.  Yup it sure was.  "200,000 gold pieces," I continued as I shook my head, "and getting the other 190,000 with 10,000 paid to some adventures, yeah, I guess it's a reasonable ask."  Though a gnawing part of me was still saying even though she could have easily offered us 1,000 gold and we probably would have done it without thinking twice.

"So is it settled then?" Tina asked, looking at each of us in turn.  "Are we taking the job?"

"Heck yeah!" Janzor exclaimed immediately, plenty loud that I'm sure our potential employer heard him, though I didn't bother to look and see if she had.

William gave a solemn nod.  "Okay, I'm in," he agreed.

Tina looked at me.  "Lin?" she asked.  She seemed a bit surprised I hadn't already confirmed.  "Your logic is sound, I'd say.  Are you on board?"

A part of me still wanted to ask but did she really need to offer us that much?  Yet as I looked around the table at the hopeful looks of my party, no, our party, I didn't find I had the heart to question this further.  At least not without more information.  "Okay, I'm in," I agreed, gaining another little whoop from Janzor.  "As long as nothing she has to tell us about this sounds too fish," I quickly added.

Tina nodded.  "That's fair," she said.  Then she frowned a little and added, "Though I suppose if there was anything particularly fishy or disturbing, she might not even tell us about it."

William looked more solemn at that thought as well.  "We'll just have to cross that bridge when and if we come to it."

"Heck yeah we will!" a very excited Janzor exclaimed, practically bouncing in his seat.

I couldn't help but smile.  "Okay then," I said.  "Let's call her back over."

I turned and gestured to the elf who had moved to the bar several tables away and was casually glancing over at us.  As she came back to the table, I said, "Okay, we're tentatively in, as long as nothing you're about to say is outside our area of expertise.  So tell us everything we need to know about this jerk brother of yours."


We learned that the jerk brother's name was Sudamar and that the elf we were addressing was Radelia.  Sudamar was older than her, and a male, so he thought that meant he was entitled to everything, even though their father's will had clearly indicated that the inheritance was to be split 50-50.  Rather than arrive for the distribution as planned, Sudamar had bribed an official (who was now in jail, thankfully) and taken all the money and run.  Radelia had some vague idea of where he had gone, but she admitted she was in no position to take her money back by force as she had an unfortunate condition that left her both physically weak and unable to use magic.  Sudamar, on the other hand, had no such limitation and was quite a powerful sorcerer.

"But not too powerful for you all, I'm sure," Radelia assured us.  "I'm quite confident he doesn't know any spells more powerful than cone of cold, and I'm not even certain he has the power to cast that more than one per day."

An elf who was "quite a powerful sorcerer" and yet whose sister who had just described him as "quite a powerful sorcerer" was now trying to downplay his powers set off some vague alarm bells in my head.  I glanced over to Tina to see if she had any sort of reaction to that, but she didn't appear to and was looking only at Radelia, so I decided it must just be something I didn't understand well enough.  Or perhaps Radelia was just speaking as she was from the perspective of a non-magic user.  Still... "I don't suppose you know any other spells he might know?" I asked.

She shook her head.  "I'm sorry, not really," she admitted.  And alarm bells went off in my head again as I wondered then how can you possibly know he doesn't know something more powerful.  But then she reassured me some by saying, "I'm sure his master would know, though.  Sudamar was never much for learning, as his gifts came quite naturally, but he did train with Cryan, who lives in the tower outside of town.  Cryan would know more than I do."

We got a few more details and thanked her for her time before setting out to visit the sorcerer in the tower.

Turns out sorcerers as not all that trusting of people they don't know.  Cryan put us through a bit of a trial before he would speak to us, having us battle some weird stone golem things and then asking us cryptic questions and making us solve riddles.  He seemed the most wary of William, but eventually he agreed to talk to us.

"Sudamar is a promising young lad," Cryan told us.  "It's a shame he decided to go off on his own after his father passed away.  But I suppose it makes sense if he was tasked with taking care of the old estate."

"He was what now?" I asked.

Cryan looked confused.  "His father owned a mansion before he passed.  Lots of servants and such, but it still needs an overseer.  Sudamar was left with the task."

"His sister did not tell us that," Tina pointed out with a smirk.

Cryan's confusion only grew.  "Why were you talking to Radelia?" he wanted to know.

"She hired us to reclaim her share of her father's fortune," I told him.

"Implying what exactly?" Cryan asked, his brow furrowed.

"Explicitly stating that Sudamar stole her share," I stated.

Cryan shook his head.  "That does not sound like Sudamar at all," he said.  "Sure, the lad is greedy, I won't deny that.  But he always had a sense of fairness about him.  And he certainly wouldn't betray his own sister."

"Well something very strange is going on then," William stated.

"I don't suppose you know how much their father was worth?" I asked Cryan.  "Like how much their inheritance would have been."

"I can't say I know exact numbers," Cryan confessed.  "But he was quite wealthy.  I would not be surprised if he left the two of them combined upwards of 300,000 gold pieces."

"Well, at least she wasn't exaggerating about that," I conceded.

"I admit I don't know Radelia as well as I know Sudamar," Cryan said, "but she always struck me as very good natured as well.  And she always admired her older brother.  If the two of them are at odds, something very strange is going on indeed."

Silence fell over the room for a moment until I spoke again.  "Where do we find this mansion?" I asked.

With a nod, Cryan got out a map so he could mark where we needed to go.


The nice thing about having a quest that leads you to a mansion is that you can see the thing a literal mile away.  The terrifying thing about having a question that leads you to a mansion is that it's so huge there's no good way to approach it.  Janzor scouted ahead once the giant building came into view, but he could only get close enough to determine that there was no possible approach that wouldn't leave us vulnerable to attack.

"Maybe we shouldn't approach as adventurers then," I suggested.

"Well then what would we approach as?" William asked.

I glanced at Tina and said, "Not to be racist or anything, but it's my understanding that noble elves like to nob knob with other noble elves."

Tina shrugged.  "Might be a little racist," she said, "but it's also true.  Honesty, I kinda think Radelia only talked to us because I was with you."

"So you're coming to visit," I suggested.  "You've come to pay your respects to the new Lord Sudamar at the death of his father.  We're your retinue."

Tina frowned slightly as she thought.  "I'm not sure he'll believe a noble would come to visit him with such a small retinue," she admitted.  But then she shrugged and forced a smile.  "Eh, why not, I don't have anything better."

"We could always sleep on it," William suggested.  "See if we come up with something better in the morning.  This isn't an especially time sensitive mission given it's just a retrieval of money."

Despite the lack of time sensitivity, I found myself feeling that the sooner we got this over with, the better.  Yet William was right.  It surely wouldn't hurt to sleep on it and see if we could come up with a better plan.  So we settled down for the night.  Janzor tended to the horses, I read my books, and William and Tina talked in hushed tones only occasionally interrupted by one of them laughing happily by the fire.  As I looked over at the two of them and saw the smiles on their faces despite the oddness of the mission we found ourselves in, I couldn't help but wonder if William was starting to find that love he had wished to find.  I was happy for him, I told myself.  He deserved to love and be loved, even if it was an unlikely match like Tina.


When morning came, we found none of us had a better plan than the noble-elf visitor gambit, so we prepared ourselves to go with that.

Even though this whole thing had been my idea, I was still somewhat surprised when it seemed to actually work.  We approached the house without incident and had a servant open the door for us.  Though he looked puzzled at first, when Tina announced herself, using her true full name and title, the servants eyes lit up almost as if in recognition.  He invited us in and sent another to inquire after the master of the house.

To say that Sudamar was regal when he appeared would be an understatement.  He had golden rings on most of his fingers and was wearing a cloak of what appeared to be fine velvet.  He had a somber expression but a certain warmth to his voice as he spoke.  "Lady Martaina," he said, addressing Tina.  "It is an honor for you to visit my home."

Tina actually looked a bit nervous as he spoke.  Perhaps because she knew that despite being a noble herself, her station was still below his?  It was a bit overboard the way he addressed her, but we all remained calm.

"I only wish it had been under better circumstances," Tina said after taking a moment to collect herself.  I had never heard her sound so... pompous before.  It was an odd chance from the light-hearted and mischevious elf I had gotten to know and become friends with over the past months.  Even after all that time, it dawned on me for the first time just how badly she must have wanted to get away from her old way of life, the old life she was pretending in this moment to still be a part of.  "I was traveling nearby when I heard word of the loss of your father.  I am so very sorry for you loss."

Sudamar let out a sigh and gave a nod.  "Yes, it is quite a shame to have lost such a wonderful man, but we must endure."  He paused for a moment and then asked, "Is there anything I can do for you my lady?"

"In fact there is," Tina spoke.  "If it is not too much of an imposition, I would appreciate a place for me and my servants to stay today and this evening before we continue on our way."

Sudamar nodded again.  "Of course," he said quite cordially.  "This place is much too big for me alone.  Please, stay a while.  I can have a servant show you to some rooms."

"That would be lovely, thank you," Tina said with a slight curtsy.

Sudamar gave a bow and then turned to go.  A servant immediately stepped forward and offered to show us to our rooms.


After the servant had gone, we all met up in Tina's room, which was much larger than the other room that the three of us "servants" were going to share.

"I can hardly believe that worked," Tina said.  "I'm rather shocked he'd even heard of me."  She looked a bit embarrassed.  "And I'm ashamed now that I hadn't heard of this family before, considering how ridiculously wealthy, connected, and knoweldgable they seem to be."

"You didn't want to be a part of that," William said.  "It's understandable that you wouldn't have known them."

Tina looked up at him with a small smile that I thought was meant to express some degree of gratitude.  Then she turned to me.  "Well, what now?" she asked.  "This was your plan after all."

"I guess we look around," I said with a shrug.  "As much as we can anyway.  See what we're up against.  Try to figure out how to address the... situation."

"Or, we could just still a ton of stuff and hope it adds up to enough to make Radelia happy and earn us our reward," Janzor suggested with a sly grin.

I couldn't help but laugh.  "And how would we carry it all?  You don't happen to have a bag of holding do you?"

Janzor's grin faded into a playful pout.  "Well you're just no fun at all, are you?" he said.

"This isn't supposed to be fun," William told us, spoiling the apparent seriousness he was going for with laughter.  "We're here on a mission!"

"Yeah, a mission to help one entitled elf get her share of the fortune back from another entitled elf," Janzor said.  Then he looked at Tina and said, "No offense."

Tina rolled her eyes, but didn't bother trying to wipe the smile off her face.  "Oh none taken," she said.  "So how do we want to do this?"


We ultimately decided we could snoop around in the name of trying to seek out amenities to please our mistress.  It also gave us a chance to chat with the servants, some of whom seemed remarkably nervous.  That was something I tried to work with, but I wasn't particularly charismatic, and the most I got out of one of them was that it was sometimes hard working for Sudamar.

Later that evening, I begrudgingly returned to Tina's room to meet up with the others.  I was disappointed I hadn't found out more, but when I opened the door, a smile returned to my face when I saw the looks on the faces of the other three.  "What?" I asked as I closed the door.

"Janzor has news," William stated, seeming excited.

"You bet I do!" Janzor exclaimed.

"Well, will you tell us now?" Tina asked.

"Of course!" Janzor assured her.  "I was just waiting for Lin!"

I stepped up to join the rest of the party and gestured for Janzor to share.

"Alright," he said, "so get this - one of two things is happening here.  Either Sudamar is just straight up crazy, or he's being haunted by the ghost of his father."

My smile faded from my face.  The only other ghost I had ever faced was that little boy.  It had been awful.  Why would Janzor be excited about this?  And then it dawned on me.  He had missed most of that fight.  He had actually been disappointed he missed most of that fight.  He probably wanted another chance to take on a spirit.  And he probably figured that if William and I had been able to do it mostly alone, it would be easy with the four of us.  He probably wasn't thinking about the fact that the spirit we fought before had been a literal child and not a hundreds of years old elvish master.

Apparently, and to my surprise, Tina's reaction was more on par with Janzor's as well.  "Ooooh, spooky," she said, wiggling her fingers and laughing a bit as Janzor joined in.

I exchanged a look with William.  He, too, did not seem happy about the news.  "This is... not ideal," he said simply.

Tina looked over at him with a puzzled expression.  "What's the big deal?" she asked.  "We can take a ghost.  One ghost?  No problem."

"We probably can," I admitted.  "But what if it's not just a ghost.  What if there's something more going on here still?"  I didn't want to admit the thought of fighting another ghost bothered me so much.  At least the look William had given told me I wasn't alone.

Tina just shrugged.  "If there is, then we'll deal with it.  But at least we know something now."  She smiled at me and William, apparently noticing both of us seemed a bit down.  "Come on, guys," she said.  "We've got this.  This isn't going to be so bad.  The ghost thing could actually explain a lot.  Maybe the old man was upset at his daughter and didn't have time to change his will before he died.  Maybe he's putting Sudamar up to this.  Maybe Sudamar doesn't even want to cut his sister out.  Maybe we can reason with him."

"Maybe," I said softly, not very convinced.  I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Tina trying to look reassuring.

"Lin, it will be okay," she said.  "Worst case, we have to fight a powerful wizard AND a ghost.  But I don't really think Sudamar is that powerful, and I don't think a ghost should be all that troubling."

I wasn't sure what to say to that.  Tina did know more about magic than I did.  I was learning a lot, getting really good, but she had gotten a head start and would always be better.  I trusted her.  And more importantly, I trusted us.  "Okay," I agreed with a nod.  Then I looked up at the rest of the party.  "Well, my idea got us in here.  Who has an idea for how we bring up to Sudamar the idea that we know his dead father might not actually be quite so dead and gone after all?"


We decided to let Tina see what she could to casually lead Sudamar to admit that he believed his father to still be alive.  "Good luck," I told her with a frown before we headed down to dinner.

"Thanks," she replied.  "I think I'm going to need it."

Sudamar had invited us to dinner via servant earlier in the day, and when we arrived at the table, I at least was somewhat surprised to see quite a lavish feast laid out before us.  It also was not lost on me that the head place at the table remained open while Sudamar himself stood beside the seat immediately to the right.  At first I thought perhaps he was offering that seat to Tina, but when he gestured to her indicating the seat across from him, I suddenly realized that getting this belief out of him might not be that hard after all.  For why else would he leave the head seat empty and yet still with a full plate of food before it unless he thought his father was going to be dining with us this evening?

"It's to honor his memory," Sudamar said after we had all sat down.  It unnerved me how it seemed he had read my mind and answered my question without any of us asking it.  He gestured to the empty seat at the head of the table.  "My father has only been gone for two months now," he said, "and I must continue to honor his memory and remember the loss, and the void I hope to fill."

Tina gave him a soft smile, though I could practically feel her pulse racing.  "It must be very difficult," she said, "having to go on without him."

"It is," Sudamar admitted, "though not as difficult as you might think.  Sometimes, I feel as if he is still here, keeping watch over me."

William and I exchanged a look of caution.  When I looked at Janzor, it seemed like he was almost ready to pounce.  I shook my head at him ever so slightly and he seemed to force himself to relax at least a little.

"That must be very comforting," Tina said after finishing the sip of soup she had taken as Sudamar was speaking.

"Yes and no," the nobleman said.  "It is comforting to think he may not be entirely gone, yet it does add quite a lot of pressure."

"How so?" Tina asked.

He looked at her questioningly.  "Always worrying about whether or not he approves of what I'm doing?  Surely you can relate to the weight that a demanding parent puts on one."  He sighed and said more softly, "Sometimes I wish I didn't still feel like he was watching me.  Then, perhaps, things would be different."

"How so?" Tina asked again.  I noticed her blush a bit, perhaps embarrassed that she hadn't thought of a way to ask the question differently this time.  Sudamar did not seem to notice or care as he continued.

"Well for one thing," he said, "I probably would be here with my sister instead of all alone."

"Oh?" Tina prompted.  I felt my own heart beat faster as well.

Sudamar nodded, and though I was quite a ways down the table, I thought I caught the glimmer of a tear in his eye.  "I would have preferred to let her have her share of the fortune, but I just couldn't.... not with all the pressure and the expectation that I would continue my father's legacy and do great things.  How could I hope to live up to his greatness if I had to start with half of what he had?"

"Perhaps..." Tina began softly.  But she didn't get to finish.  She was interrupted by a shocking outburst.

"Shut up!" Sudamar shouted, suddenly turning to face the empty chair.  "She's..." But then he trailed off and looked back to a very startled Tina, whose fear, I'm quite sure, would have been reflected in my own face as well.

"I'm very sorry," Sudamar said much more gently.  "Forgive my outburst."

"Of course," Tina said so graciously, barely stumbling over her words at all.  "And forgive me for asking this, but, are you okay?"

He stared at her for what felt like a minute.  None of us moved.  I'm not even sure I breathed.  And then he broke down and started to cry.  Head in his hands, he was rocking slowly back and forth.  "No," he sobbed.  "No, I'm not!"

"Fool!" a voice boomed from across the room.  We all sat straight up with a start as an elderly elvish man appeared in the once empty chair at the end of the table.  "You weak and pitiful fool.  How can I ever hope to have you carry on my legacy when I truly do pass on if you can't even carry on my legacy in the presence of these few strangers?"

"I'm sorry, Father!" Sudamar groaned, continuing to cry.  "I'm so, so sorry!"

"Don't be sorry!" the elder elf demanded as he stood.  "Learn from your mistakes!  Watch and learn!"  And then he raised his hands and everything went black.  To say I was startled would be a vast understatement.  I had never been so thoroughly in the dark in my entire life.  Having dark vision, I didn't even really understand what darkness was.  But this was darkness.  This was like closing my eyes and having absolutely nothing there.  It was all I could do to stand from the table and try to orient myself in the direction of the man without falling over in my shock.

Though I couldn't see, I did my best to let bolts of fire fly in the direction I had seen the man, using the spell Tina had taught me, the spell she had used to undo that witch when we first met.  I saw the bolts fly through the air, and saw one of them illuminate the man's face before striking into it.  That was something, at least.

I heard Tina herself start to cast something, but her voice was suddenly caught off, whether by a silence spell or banishment or some other terrible act, I did not know.  I heard soft footsteps hurrying towards where the man had been and could only guess those would belong to Janzor.  With his keen senses and rogue-like nature, perhaps he could use the darkness to his advantage, I thought.

Before I could try to cast my next spell, I was greeted with a warm flash of light hovering over the center of the table and then falling down onto it.  I glanced over from where the light had come and saw William was holding out his hands, having just cast light.  The look of utter terror on his face did nothing to allay my own fears.  As I looked back towards the man at least claiming to be Sudamar's father, I saw Janzor pull his dagger from the man's side just in time to be knocked back by what looked to me like thunderwave.  I responded by hurling another three bolts of fire into the sorcerer's chest.  This time two hit, but he seemed hardly bothered by them at all despite how solidly they landed.

I glanced over to where Tina had been only to see that she was gone.  Just, not there anymore.  I hoped that was of her own doing, though the way her voice had suddenly cut out when she was trying to cast before made me fear we would not be that fortunate.  I only hoped we would be lucky or blessed or whatever enough that she would return soon.

William was running to Janzor to heal him and as soon as he did so, this master of the house cast again, this time filling the room with fire.  I watched in horror as even his son was struck and I felt the life being literally burned out of me.  I somehow managed to just barely stay conscious as I moved close enough to summon my own flames and cast burning hands at this man.  I felt him resist me, but he still took some damage, for all the good it did.  Now that I was close to him, all he had to do was take too large steps forward to touch me.  I felt the life draining out of me and back into him, and then everything was darkness again.

When I opened my eyes, I didn't know how much time had passed, but I saw William hovering over me, looking very afraid.  "Get up, Lin!" he ordered.  "We have to keep fighting."  As soon as he'd said it, I heard a roar of anger from Tina and a powerful bolt of energy unlike anything I'd ever seen come out of her wand before erupted into our villian's chest.  I watched as he stumbled backwards a few steps, looking somewhat frazzled.  He was bleeding from several stab wounds in his side and I couldn't help but feel a twinge of pride for Janzor holding his own against this powerful magician.

I did as William commanded.  I got up, and I kept fighting.  William and Tina and I kept fighting.  Somewhat shockingly, Sudamar was fighting too.  Not against us, but against his father, screaming and raging and firing spells somewhat wildly but directed at the man who was challenging us.  It wasn't much, it seemed, but it was just enough to finally bring him to his knees.

"Why, son?" the man asked weakly once we had brought him down and held his fate in our hands.

"Because you're not the father I thought I knew!" Sudamar shouted with the most confidence I had heard him use since we met him that morning.  "And I don't want to be your son!"  And with that, he knocked him across the head, apparently delivering just enough of a blow to knock the old man unconscious.  Then he turned to all of us and said with tears in his eyes, "I'm so sorry!  I'm so, so sorry!"

It was only then that it dawned on me that Janzor had stopped fighting, and I glanced back to the corner where a crumpled halfling body lay.  William was already kneeling before the rogue, trembling.  Tina was running over and as if in some sort of daze, I followed behind her.  "He's going to be okay?" I asked as I approached, already noticing that the halfling wasn't breathing.

"I'm sorry!" Sudamar continued to sob behind us.  "I'm so, so very sorry!"


We buried Janzor on the grounds of the estate.  I didn't ask what had happened, how the halfling had gone down, why he had been unable to get up again.  It didn't matter.  He was gone.  It didn't matter how it had happened.  For perhaps the first time in my life, I had no words.  There were no stories powerful enough to capture how I felt that day.  Though we had defeated the crazed man who had once been Sudamar and Radelia's father, freeing Sudamar from his grasp and allowing the two siblings a bittersweet reunion, we had lost one of our own in the process.  We could never again call ourselves the "Drivers of Destiny", it seemed.  Instead we had become the victims of fate.  But those words and those thoughts came later.  That night, that first night after Janzor had died, all I had were tears.  And I cried myself to sleep.

It I was messed up by the first loss of a party member, William seemed to have it 10 times worse.  We didn't leave town for several days after that, but every evening, I would watch him wander off in the direction of the manor where we had fought and just as I was getting ready for bed, trying to find some comfort and warmth in the wrongly cozy sheets our inn provided, I would see him out the window marching sadly back into town.  I knew where he had been.  He had gone to a place I couldn't bear to visit after that first day.  He had been to the grave of our rogue.


Finally after a week of moping around, Tina was the one who called us together and said, "Okay, enough is enough.  We have to move on.  There's still more out there for us.  There are still people who need our help."

"I can't, Tina," William protested sadly, not even looking at her.  "I just can't."

"You have to," Tina said.

He looked up at her at that.  I looked up, too.  There was such a fire and a passion in her eyes that I almost didn't notice when her tears started to fall.  "We have to keep going," she said more softly.  "It's the best way to honor his memory."

"The best way to tell his story," I practically whispered.  Tina looked over at me with a sad smile, and I gave her a nod.  "Janzor won't be forgotten," I said.  "He won't be lost in some ancient, untitled tome.  We can go on for him.  We can honor his memory and tell his story to everyone we meet."

Tina's smile grew more genuine and the tears gathering in her eyes didn't seem quite so sad when I looked at them.  I turned to William to see his reaction, but there seemed to be none.  His eyes were not hopeful like Tina's had become.  His stare was vacant and empty.  The silence seemed to last an eternity and then finally he said in a whisper, "Okay.  For Janzor."

"For Janzor," Tina agreed softly, reaching across the table to place a hand on William's shoulder.  There was nothing more to say after that.  We left early the next morning.


The first night on the road, I had trouble sleeping.  It was so strange without the gentle snoring of Janzor nearby.  I let my tears silently fall at that thought and after what must have been an hour finally started to drift off.  Before I felt sleep fully take me however, I was awakened by heaving sobs.

"William, it's going to be okay," I heard Tina say.  I didn't open my eyes, I just laid there an listen.

"How can it possibly be okay?" William asked between choking breaths.  "I let him die!"

"You didn't let him die," Tina said.  "You saved Lin.  You tried to save him, too."

"Yes, I know," William agreed.  And then came the confession.  "But I knew I would only be able to save one of them, and I chose to save Lin."

"William..." the feminine voice comforted.

"I chose to save Lin!" William practically shouted.

"Shhh.  You'll wake her up," Tina said softly, apparently not realizing I was already awake.

"I'm sorry," William said more softly.  "I don't want her to know.  I don't want her to feel like I feel.  I just... this sucks."

"You had to know that one day, someone you adventured with would die," Tina said.  Then I heard her sigh heavily and say, "I'm sorry, William.  That doesn't help, I know.  Just..." She sighed again.  "try to get some sleep.  Please."

I heard a shakier sigh, presumably from William.  "Okay, okay," he muttered.  "I'll try."  And then something I almost found more shocking than the revelation that William had saved me to the loss of Janzor.  "I love you, Tina."

Her voice was soft and genuine as she replied, "I love you, too."

I couldn't sleep at all that night.  In that moment, I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to sleep again.


As I laid there under the night sky, listening to the sounds of nature, I thought of Janzor's family.  Who would tell Janzor's sister and parents and uncle that he was gone?  We hadn't talked about that at all.  They deserved to know.  They deserved to hear of how he went out fighting.  I knew from the numerous wounds I saw inflicted upon that sorcerer that Janzor had certainly held his own before his life was taken from him.  They deserved to know of his strength.  Part of me wished I had seen how it happened, how his final moments unfolded, so that I could tell them more.  Yet another part of me was so glad I had been unconscious myself.

And as soon as I thought of that, that relief of not having to see it happen, I felt absolutely awful.  Because if I hadn't been unconscious.  If I hadn't been knocking on death's door myself, then William wouldn't have had to choose who to save.  He would have revived Janzor before it was too late, and the halfling would still be alive with us.  He would be laughing and smiling and enjoying the idea of the small fortune we had earned.  And we had earned a small fortune.  Everything we had been promised we were given.  If only we had been promised that all of us would make it out alive and safe.

I thought of my own family, then, of the things they must be wondering.  Our group was not famous enough for word to have made its way back to them, I thought.  They wouldn't know where I was or what I was doing of even that I was still alive.  They might be worried, or they might still be angry.  And if I did die, who would tell them?  Who would tell them the things I had done?  I hadn't yet achieved the level of greatness I had desired, but I had still done great things.  If I were to die, I at least wanted my family to know about that.  I at least wanted to show them that it hadn't all been in vain.

And it hadn't all been in vain, right?  If we hadn't come here, taken this quest, someone else would have.  Maybe more people would have died.  But then again, maybe not...

I couldn't think about it anymore.  I didn't want to think about it anymore.  The sun was starting to come up.  As the sounds of night faded, and in the stillness before the sounds of day arrived, I could hear the gentle breathing of William and very faint high pitched humming that I came to know as the sound that Tina made when she meditated.  She must have been up most of the night, too, I realized.  Elves didn't need to sleep as much if they chose to meditate.  I wondered briefly what thoughts haunted her.  She had seen Janzor die.  She had been conscious.  She had watched William have to make that terrible choice, the choice that was clearly eating him up inside, and yet she loved him.  She had said as much last night.

As quietly as I could, I got up to take a walk before daybreak.


I took Hooters with me and walked some ways into the woods.  I had never felt very connected with nature, but somehow, it felt right now to be off the road, to be close to the trees and the grass and the dirt.  To see the things that were growing and alive.  I don't know if it was comforting, but it was something to do.

When I returned back to camp about an hour later, Tina was preparing breakfast and William was folding up his bedroll.  I saw mine was already folded up and placed by our steeds.  Tina looked up when I approached.  She gave me a smile that was clearly attempting to be happy, but all I saw was sadness with a hint of hope for a better day than yesterday.  "Good morning, Lin," she said softly.  I was grateful she didn't ask how I slept or where I had gone.  Instead she asked, "Would you like some porridge?"

I did my best to return her smile, accepted the food, and sat beside the road to eat.  William joined after, and we all ate in silence.  They didn't know I had heard them last night.  They couldn't possibly.  And I didn't think it would do them any good to tell them I had.


It was another three days on the road with restless sleep (but at least enough sleep to recharge somewhat) before I knew what I had to do.  Tina was helping William move on.  But I was only holding him back.  Every time I caught him looking at me, which was much more often than he used to, I saw this look of simultaneous relief and despair.  I was sure it had been there before and I just hadn't noticed, but now I did notice.  Hearing the exchange, knowing more of what had happened, or at least what William perceived to have happened, I knew without a doubt why he looked at me that way.

He was glad I was alive.  Glad I was safe and still traveling with them.  But at the same time, every time he looked at me, he thought of who he couldn't save.  I was grounding him in the past, in the memory of Janzor.  And as much as I liked William and wanted to stay with him and Tina, I knew that I couldn't.  More than anything, I wanted to help him feel better, and I couldn't do that by staying.

So on that fourth night, I returned, in a way, to my roots, back to how I had left home.  Back to the way I had set out on this whole grand adventure to begin with.  I wrote a note explaining what I had to do, putting into writing the things that I could not bear to say aloud.  And then as quietly as I could, I gathered my things and I left.

I don't know how William and Tina reacted to finding me gone.  I probably never will.  All I left them was the note:

Dear William and Tina,

You've been the best friends that I've ever had, and that's why I hope with all my heart that you understand that I cannot stay.  I set out a year ago to make a name for myself, to help others, and to make the world a better place.  I truly believe I've begun to do all of those things, but I've found that I want more.  I want others to be able to do those things as well, and to feel good about doing them.  We can no longer do that together.  I know that having me remain causes you pain, though I know also that you would never admit it to me.  So tell yourselves I'm wrong, if that's what you have to do, but know that I am leaving so you can have a better life and a future together and with others who will join you along the way.  Know also that I will continue to honor the memory of the one we lost.  I will make sure his story is told, as much as I can, and I know that the two of you will do the same.  Please don't seek me out, but should we ever cross paths again, know that it will be as friends, even if our adventuring together is at an end.

Love always,
Lin

As I looked the letter over before leaving, I knew there was so much more I could say, but none of it would make things any better, and some of it should have already been said months ago if it was going to be said at all.  Sometimes even when you're trying to be heartfelt and honest, there are some truths that are better left untold, and some truths you still can't admit, even to yourself.


It was strange being on my own alone again after so long with others.  It wasn't quite the same as when I had left home before though.  This time, I at least had Hooters the owl as well as the miniature horse Janzor had gotten from his uncle.  I had Hooters fly on ahead and alert me if anything seemed amiss.  There was a time or two that he noticed a larger band of folks who looked like they might be up to no good, but whom were too many in number for me to take alone.  Those were the times I regrettably had to duck off the side of the road into cover until the potential danger passed.

But then there were also the handful of times that Hooters alerted me to something I could do something about.  There was a lone vagabond trying to steal his way to well-being, whom I scared off, but then had Hooters catch up with to drop some bread into the man's hands.  There was a small band of wanna-be thugs that were easy enough to handle.  Humans, all of them, and little more than children.  I had a brief moment, while dealing with them, that I remembered the quest that first led William, Janzor, and I to Tina, how her co-conspirators who had "kidnapped" her had been so young in terms of dwarven years.  But for dwarves, young was 40, and for elves, young was 100.  These humans were probably 18.  Eighteen.  I had been so young at eighteen, more than half my life ago.  I could barely even remember it now, when I had first started training to be a scribe, to write down the stories, to copy the tales that others had written, to preserve the tales that needed to be told.

That night, I thought about it more - my past and my future.  I didn't want to forget how it had started, where I had come from, what I was still going to do.  That was the night I started to write down this story.


It was only a few days after that, when I cam to the next large town, that I was given another opportunity to not be alone any longer.  It was so serendipitous, I would say it was fate, had I not still been angry at the concept of fate at the time.  I walked into the first inn I saw, intending to get a room for the night.  And instead, I overheard a voice say, "I really wish we had a wizard..."

I turned around to see a small group of what must have been adventurers gathered around a table.  "I just don't think we have enough magical ability to proceed," one of them was saying.  "A fighter, a paladin, and a bard.  They'd laugh in our face."

I turned away from the bar and walked towards them as another one of them said, "We can always try to find a wizard along the way."

I cleared my throat as I stopped before them and they all looked at me, more than a bit confused.  I took out my staff and held it dramatically beside me as I said with the warmest smile I could muster, "Or you could just find one right here."  I must have done okay, because the entire table smiled back at me.

They wanted to know what spells I knew, how long I had been adventuring, what sorts of quests I had gone on in the past.  I answered their questions as honestly as I felt I could.  As much as I did want to honor Janzor's memory, I figured talking about how my previous party's rogue had recently died would not do much to instill confidence and trust in this new party's potential newest party member.  So instead, I told them about my proficiency with fire, the usefulness of my familiar owl, my ability to protect myself from physical attacks with mage armor and shield.  I talked about defeating a ghost (not mentioning it had been a child) and a witch (not mentioning the fake kidnapping that had led to that encounter) and bandits and thugs and owlbears and giants.  And I told them I had done it all in a little over a year.

To say they seemed impressed would be an understatement.  They didn't ask me what had happened to my party or what had brought me here.  They seemed to believe what I was saying and to want me to join them.  As I sat there with them, taking in their wide eyes and hopeful faces, I wondered briefly if this was at all like how Tina felt, when she joined our party.  She had clearly been a step above us in terms of skill, and I don't think I'm being boastful to say I was a step above those looking at me.  I felt proud, but I didn't feel like I had any right to lord anything over them.  They each had their own strength, I could see it already, and I knew they could do great things as I had, perhaps some great things they had even already done, and I had a chance to help that happen.  Of course I agreed to join them on their quest.


It turned out their quest was to go in search of a fabled dagger.  I tried my best to hide the emotions that swelled up inside of me at the sound of it, emotions coming unbidden from thinking about how much Janzor would have loved this quest.  The dagger had a golden handle inlaid with jewels, they told me, and the sharpest and strongest steel.  It was imbued with magic by a wizard long ago.  The exact nature of the magic was not known, but it was such that some feared it falling into the wrong hands.  Legend went that an entire town, this town we were now in, but a version of it from long ago, had turned on the wizard and locked him away somewhere he could not escape, along with his dagger.  Now, centuries had passed, and the town had never been as prosperous as it was back in the day when that wizard took care of its people.  Finally, the towns people had decided they should retrieve the dagger and, if by some miracle he was still alive, the wizard who had made it.  But of course, everyone was too afraid of what they might find to set out on such a quest.  That was where this party came in.  They were willing to go on the quest, but feared they may encounter strange wizardly things on the way.  Which was why they wanted a wizard to come with them.  Which was why they wanted me.

I felt a bit nervous after they finished, looking at me expectantly.  Chances seemed good that the wizard of the legend would not be there.  The party told me that most seemed to remember him having been a half-elf, meaning he would certainly be long dead.  Even if he had been a full-blooded elf, chances were he would also be dead.  Even elves have to eat, after all.  And if he had found his way out, he was surely long gone or else he would have returned to the town by now.  It had been literally hundreds of years.  Yet, I still felt strangely on edge by the whole thing.  It didn't seem like that dangerous of a quest, yet the town was afraid.  And that was what made me nervous.  I feared there was something somewhere lurking in the backs of peoples minds, some forgotten danger that was not brought to the light, but yet lingered to tell people why they should fear retrieving this dagger.  I decided it was best not to voice any of this, though.  The party seemed cautiously optimistic that this would be a great success if only I would join them.  And I certainly didn't want to let them down.  So of course I agreed to set out with them first thing in the morning.

It would be a two day journey to get to where the dagger had supposedly been hidden away.  There would be some arcane locks guarding the way.  I told them I could use knock to get through those, wondering how the original wizard hadn't simply done the same, but figuring there were stronger safeguards deeper in the dungeon.  They assured me that they burning a spell like that would probably not be necessary, as the paladin's family had been the keeper of the words that would disspell the locks, so if they were still in place, we should be able to get in easily.  Again I felt a slight sense of disease, thinking that the words to remove the locks were remembered, but certain details of the wizard himself were not.  This concern I did raise, but the others shrugged it off.  "Stories are weird like that sometimes," the bard said.  I wanted to protest that yes, stories can be strange, but this was a story we were living in.  Yet how calm they seemed made me think better of it.  I still kept my eyes peeled and every so often would check to see if I noticed anything strange or magical.  I wasn't good at detecting magical energies in any spell-like way, but I could sometimes pick up on things in a more mundane manner.  On our entire journey, we encountered no such magical energies.

We did encounter a pack of wolves the last night before we arrived at our destination, but those were dispatched easily, and gave me a good chance to see the rest of the party in action before I simply lit all the wolves on fire.  Not too bad was how I would describe their performance.  I felt somewhat reassured that this quest was going to go smoothly.  It certainly couldn't go any worse than the last one I had been on, I only allowed myself to think for a moment.  I would not allow that.  I would not allow any of these fellow adventurers, essentially strangers though they were, to die while I was with them.  I made that silent promise to myself.

The next day, we came to the dungeon.  The words of the paladin's family did indeed get us through the arcane locks, which I was rather surprised to find still in tact after centuries.  Must have been a very special form of long-term magic.  After that, there was an ordinary lock keeping shut a large iron door.  It was rusted over, but still secure.  Yet not for long.  It turned out knock came in handy after all.

As we entered the dungeon, the smell that awaited us could only be described as decay and death.  We each coughed, though the paladin the most of all.  It had a sense of evil about it, which I figured explained why she, the paladin, was the most affected.  Yet it wasn't strong, not quite overpowering.  We were able to continue on after collecting ourselves.  I put up my mage armor then, just in case something should happen.

On the way through the dungeon, not much did happen.  There were some traps that we narrowly avoided (thanks to the fighter, I'll admit, not thanks to me, including one time when he triggered one but just sucked up the damage to protect the rest of us and then received a fine heal by the paladin).  It seemed like we weren't going to encounter anything living and really, we didn't.  We ended up encountering something dead instead.

We found the final chamber.  We saw the dagger just sitting there.  And as the paladin cautiously approached it, the specter appeared.  I stumbled back at first, a terrible sense of deju vu striking me as he appeared.  He looked physically frail, if you can describe a translucent figure as frail, yet had a vague sense of power to him as well.  My heart beat faster at what was to come.

The first thing he did was let his face melt into a horrifying image.  I was not caught totally off guard by this, since I knew now there was a ghost, but the rest of the party was.  While they recovered, I found myself, strangely, less afraid.  This was just a ghost, I realized.  It was an ordinary ghost.  He had not clung to his earthly powers and he wasn't a still living sorcerer whom we had only thought to be a ghost.  He wasn't going to kill anyone today.  No one was going to be joining him.  I fired bolts of power at him and he almost even seemed to stumble back.  I smirked as I resisted his attempt to possess me.  I knew we were going to win.  It wasn't even going to be a challenge.

Okay, it was a little bit of a challenge, but not much.  He did succeed in possessing the paladin, so we had that to deal with.  But after we took her down, the bard healed her back up enough to continue fighting and the ghost was quickly dispatched after that.  Not even worth much of a narrative.  The paladin was pretty shaken up by the realization that she had had that terrible and, she felt, evil ghost inside of her.  I shrugged and said, "Eh, it happens."

They all gave me a look that seemed to say, "Really?"  I just laughed.  It felt strangely good to be the one who knew the most, or at least could pretend to know the most.  I missed William and Tina already, but I knew I couldn't go back to them.  It wouldn't be right.

We retrieved the impressive looking dagger, which the paladin tucked safely away in her bag, and headed back towards town.  The whole quest through the dungeon itself had taken less than a day.  As we walked, the paladin would take the dagger out from time to time to examine it.  We had already examined it before and not been able to tell quite what was so special about it.  But if nothing else, it had sentimental value for the town to which it would return.  It was a symbol of hope, that something could be better.

The next day, as we continued our walk back to these brave adventurers' home, I decided to ask a favor, particularly of the bard.  "I don't think I can stay with all of you," I told him.  "I have other things I must do.  One of those is share the story of someone I knew, someone I lost not long ago:  a halfling rogue named Janzor."  And as we walked, I told the bard Janzor's story, the story of my first lasting adventuring party, a party that had lasted until not long ago, and a party whose memory I thought should live on.  And this time at least, I was telling it all more in honor of Janzor than in honor of myself.

The whole group was quiet as I spoke, and when I was done, I looked over at the bard and I could swear I saw a tear in his eye.  "Yes, of course I'll tell that story," he said.  "I don't think I'll even have to embelish it much, if at all."

I smiled, one of those sad, but hopeful smiles.  "Thank-you," I said.

We continued the rest of the way in relative silence.  We were close enough to the town that we didn't stop that night and arrived in the middle of the night.  In the morning, these heroes would announce their victory to the town.  In the morning, there would be cheers and celebration.  In the morning, I would be gone.  This felt like perhaps the one time when I didn't need to glory for myself.  The glory belonged to those adventurers, whose names I don't even remember anymore, and the future glory, at least for that one town of legends, belonged to Janzor.


I continued on alone, or at least devoid of non-animal company, for some time after that.  I would stop here and there and help with what little quests I could.  It was somewhat similar to when I had first started out, and yet quite different at the same time.  Then, I had been alone because I hadn't found others yet.  Now, I was alone because I had.  I was also much more powerful now than when I had started out.  I had learned so much in a year, seen so much, experienced so much.

I started to come to the realization that I was doing pretty well for myself.  It was still quite difficult, sometimes, to be a sole adventurer.  I couldn't do anything too risky, because there was no one else to heal me or help me were I to fall, but I still felt like I could do quite a lot, especially when I found a way to make certain encounters one on one.

In one town near the sea, I heard fearful whispers about a pirate captain who liked to terrorize the villagers.  From what I gathered, he was not particularly powerful or strong or cunning.  It was that he preyed on those who were weak.  He took what he could simply because he could.  No one felt brave enough to stand up to him, even though I knew that if the town as a whole joined together, they could drive him out.  Yet I wasn't sure that would really defeat him.  He could come back against them with more force, more crew gotten by cruel means, and the town would fold again.  They weren't ready to be heroes themselves, I realized from overhearing them talk.  They needed another hero first to show them how it was done.

So I waited in town for days, and when this pirate, who went by the name of Lurit, returned, I sought him out.  Quietly at first, I followed him to the tavern I heard he loved the most.  I tried my best to channel a bit of my inner rogue, a bit of Janzor, as I sat and scoped him out.  I waited for him to get drunk while I remained sober, and then I challenged him to a duel.

I walked confidently over to his table and when he finally stopped his drunken guffawing long enough to notice me, he gave me a raised eyebrow and I spoke.  "Lurit the Pirate Captain," I said, "you have tormented this down long enough.  I challenge you to single combat, to a duel, for the health and safety of this village."

He laughed in my face at first.  "The tiny halfling!" he exclaimed, not even realizing I was a gnome, or else not caring, or else trying to upset me.  "She challenges me to a duel!  What a joke!"

"If it's a joke, then it will be no problem for you," I suggested with a smirk.

He laughed.  "A funny joke indeed!"  His voice somehow boomed and slurred at the same time.  "We'll settle it at dawn then?"

My smile grew more genuine as I said, "Or we could just settle it now."

He was taken aback at that, leaned back (I almost thought he would fall out of his chair), and then be burst out laughing again, a deep but drunken guffaw.  And then he rose, and almost fell back down, but managed to remain standing as he announced to the room, "Here ye one and all!  This here wench has challenged me to a dual!  To commence immediately within minutes!  Come witness the fearsome Lurit take out the likes of..." He trailed off as he looked down at me tipsily.  "Now what was your name, missy?" he asked.

I decided to shout myself, addressing the room as I spoke.  "Carlin Garrick!" I called out.  "The one who will reclaim this town from the likes or Lurit the lousy pirate."  I grinned up at him and said.  "If I win, you'll never set foot here again."

He grinned right back and said, "and if you win, you'll come sail with me and be my wench."

I shuddered at the thought, but I had no real fear of it actually happening.  I wasn't convinced either end of this bargain would be honored, but at the very least, it was a symbolic gesture, so I said, "Deal."  And held out my hand.

He let out one last gruff and deep chuckle and agreed, "Deal!" as he bent down to shake my hand.  Then he stood all the way back up and shouted, "To the streets!"  He stumbled through the crowd that was staring at us and out the door and into the town.  I couldn't help but smile as I followed him.  It almost seemed like this was going to be too easy.

Lurit neither surprised nor disappointed me.  He was a showman, who shouted boisterously and drew quite the crowd.  All the better, as the entire town seemed to be gathered to watch me take him out.  They seemed nervous.  But they didn't need to be. 

In the first round, he barely seemed able to stand, yet alone attack me.  I hit him with magic missile, just to test the waters, so to speak.  He seemed to take that damage without much thought, so I figured it was time to bring out the big guns.

Second round, he managed to stumble close enough to attack, and I felt his blade slice my side, but it seemed like little more than a minor annoyance.  I took the hit, and responded with thunderwave to push him back.  He didn't seem to particularly appreciate that, and who would, but for his next attack, he chose to keep his distance and hurl his dagger at me instead.  I deflected it easily by putting up a shield of energy around myself, not letting it show on my face how close the blade really was to hitting me, but I now had no fear.  I could protect myself, and I could easily take this man out.  I raised my hands and shot out four bright bolts of scorching ray at the man.  I did it again in the next round, as he continued to try in vain to hit me back, and then one last time.

As I hurled volley after volley of bright firey spheres at the man, I thought of Tina, of the fact that she had taught me this spell, of how powerful she had seemed when she first used it, of how powerful I felt when I had mastered it, and of how she had smiled when I claimed the full power of the spell for myself.  I never asked Tina for confirmation, but I suspected that was the first time she had taught magic to someone else.  Before Lurit fell to the ground from the impact of the final bolt I flung at him he cried out, "I don't think this fight was fair!"  And then he passed out.  He was right about the fight not being fair, I suppose.  I had the knowledge and the memories of past friends fueling my flames.  He seemed to have little more than alcohol and false bravado.

I smiled to myself and smiled even broader when the crowd around me erupted into cheering even more boisterous than Lurit had been.  I waved and grinned and then winced in pain as I felt the cut in my side.  I drew my hand back down, and some of the applause lessened, though there was still joyful cheering all around.  The next thing I knew, a kind old man was by my side.  He was a gnome, and that reminded me of home.  I smiled at him, expecting him to share some kind words or gentle thanks.

Instead, he reached his hands out towards my wound, and I felt myself being healed.  I hadn't realized he was a cleric, but I figured that's just what he was.  His healing power felt so much like William's it was startling.  Granted, William was one of only two people who had cast a healing spell on me before that, but the other (the paladin whose name I still can't remember) had felt distinctly different.  This felt familiar, and I realized that this man reminding me of a home in more way than one.

After I was healed, that was when he looked me in the eyes, smiled, and said, "That was either very brave or very foolish."

My smile grew softer as I looked at him and shrugged, not lacking any sort of pain when I did so.  "Couldn't it be a little of both?" I suggested.

There seemed to be a twinkle in his eye as he chuckled and admitted.  "Yes, I suppose that's true."  Then he held out his hand to me and said, "My name is Tanfan Braward."  As I shook it he said, "And you, Carlin Garrick, appear to be a long way from home."

My heart skipped a beat when he said my name and I nearly asked how he knew it before I remembered I had shouted it in the tavern for everyone to hear.  So instead, I tried to hide my surprise with another smile and simply said, "Yes, I suppose I am."

He nodded.  "I am as well," he said.  He glanced around at the crowd, much of which had dispersed, some of which was hovering over the unconscious pirate, some of which seemed to be (to my delight) chasing off some of the rest of his pirate crew.  "Do you have time to hear a story?" he asked.

I glanced over to make sure Lurit was still unconscious, and when I saw that he very obviously was, I nodded and said, "Yes, I've done all I needed to do for tonight."

The old man chuckled and gestured back towards the tavern I had come from not long ago.  "Well in that case, let me buy you a drink," he offered, and I was happy to oblige.

Tanfan, it turned out, was not unlike me in his youth.  He hadn't been a scribe, but he had been the son of a fisherman, and it had been expected that he would follow in his father's footsteps, as his father had followed in his grandfather's footsteps, and so on.  Magic didn't run in their family, so no one had expected him to become the wizard-cleric that he was today.  For it turned out that Tanfan was both a healer and a damage dealer.  I had never considered being both, learning how to heal myself, started to wonder if I should, but then Tanfan himself interrupted my thoughts by saying, "In retrospect, I wish I had gone all one or the other, that I had been more trusting of others, more willing to seek their help."  He paused and looked at me carefully.  "Do you understand what I'm saying?"

I nodded.  Of course I understood.  "Yes," I said.  "And I have and I will, I just need a little more time alone."

"To become a hero?" he asked.

"Maybe," I admitted.  "But also to not get in the way of anyone else becoming one."

He was silent for a moment.  He looked at me with concern and then said softly, "So you've lost someone."

"Yes," I admitted.  And then I felt guilt overtake me, but I said anyway, "And not even the person I cared about the most.  Though I suppose I lost him in a different way."

Tanfan nodded, though he couldn't possibly have understood what I was talking about, could he?  Still, he reached his rugged hand across the table and placed it on top of my soft skin.  "We all lose someone.  Loss is a part of life, child," he said.  "It just makes the gains all the more poinent."

It was like something from a tome I had read, long ago, though I couldn't place it or say for sure if he was quoting something or speaking from the heart.  Either way it was true.  So I nodded.  "Yes," I said again, "and I am willing to risk it again, just not yet.  I feel like there is more I have to do still."

"Then find your own way," he urged me.  "Just don't always try to do it on your own."

We were silent for a moment longer as we finished our mead and then he stood and said, "I should get home.  But you take care of yourself, Carlin Garrick."

I nodded.  "And you as well, Tanfan Braward."

He smiled.  "If you ever find yourself back this way, don't be afraid to look for me," he said.  "Here at the bar, they'll know how to find me."  With that, he turned and he left.  And then he was gone.

My sleep that night was... interesting.  I had a mix of dreams, some good and some bad.  In some I was almost screaming at the pain and the loss.  In others, I was so gleeful that my laughter almost turned to tears.  In the morning, I felt more prepared for whatever came next than I had in weeks.  I might still not be back to feeling like I was a Driver of Destiny.  But I wasn't totally a victim of fate either.  I felt that even if somethings might be set, there was still a power in what I made of them, of what names and meanings and titles I chose to place on them.  So when I set out the next day, after being well provided for by a grateful town, I felt something I hadn't really felt since Janzor had died.  I felt just a glimmer of hope.


After that day, after that talk with Tanfan, I decided to try.  I decided to gradually start easing my way into the idea of joining another party on a more permanent basis.  I did this by seeking out groups I could join temporarily, and every one that I did, I told them of my old group, and of Janzor, before I left.  Some of them, I know, didn't even care.  There were those groups that were just happy to have a wizard helping them and they bid me farewell politely, but I was pretty sure they would forget my name and the name of Janzor just as quickly as I forgot their names.

There were some parties, though, that seemed to care more.  It was often those with a bard, or with a member who was particularly devoted to their god.  They seemed to think more of stories and their power.  Those were the ones I appreciated the most.  And strangely, their concern led me to what seemed like a new discovery, yet one that had been lurking in my mind for years.  I knew I was made for adventure, but there was power to be had by those who told of the adventures as well.  I had known this, of course.  This was why I wanted to be known, I wanted others to think of me and spread my name so that I would become known.  I wanted to have that power.  What I had kept myself from realizing consciously, though, despite being told it nearly every day of my life growing up, was that those who shared the stories had a real power, too.

Ultimately, in terms of a lasting impact, it didn't matter as much what I did as what others said about me.  In a moment, my actions were the most important thing.  But in terms of leaving a legacy, what others said or thought about me was so much more important.  And if they didn't get it right, or if they actively chose to get it wrong, that could destroy all that I had worked for.

It was a somewhat troubling thought, to think that others could have such power over me.  But I realized, too, that there was a way to counter this, a way that was somewhat contrary to how I had been raised, but was true nonetheless.  I had to spread the stories, as I had been doing, but I finally thought more about how I was spreading them and why it was so important.  I wasn't just choosing a single origin point for my story and letting it grow from there.  If I were to do that, it would be a huge risk.  That origin point, the bard I had first told Janzor's story to, despite the best of intentions, could get things wrong.  Or others could warp and twist the story along the way.  Instead, I needed to tell as many different people as I could, if I wanted the story to really get out there.  I needed to encourage people to tell my story in their own way.  People might all have their own way of expressing things, but with many different forms of the story being told, the truth would become more plain.  The overlaps, the things all the stories had in common, those would be the most powerful and the most true.

From all of this, it filled me with such joy the first time I approached a party and had one of them say, "You aren't Carlin, the wizard that used to adventure with Janzor the rogue, are you?"  The group had heard the story.  They had heard of Janzor going out in a blaze of glory, as went the story they were told.  And they had heard even more about me.  They had heard of goblins defeated and a princess rescued and entire towns saved.  They had even heard of what I could do alone, what I had did alone against a fearsome pirate (the part about him being drunk at the time had been lost in this particular version of the story - who knows how) and they were very excited to have me join them on their quest.

I was so happy that they remembered me that this time, for the first time since William and Tina and Janzor, I made a point to remember their names.  After our quest was done, after we had retrieved a stolen artifact from a den of thieves, I wrote down the names of my fellow adventurers, to be sure I wouldn't forget.  The druid, able to shift into fearsome beasts and yet also able to bestow healing and calm upon the party, drawing upon the powers of nature, was the elf named Terron.  The ranger half-elf, outcast from her home and journeying through the wilds until she had encountered the druid, so I was told, also had a sense of oneness with nature, hunting only what needed to be hunted, seeking comfort in both the calm and the chaos that the natural world had to offer her, was named Isilfarrel, or Isil for short.  And the monk, more powerful with fists alone that I had seen many to be with a sword and shield, master of the martial arts and devotee of a strangely divine power that fueled her devotion, was the tiefling who was somewhat dark and yet was named Bright.  I was told and saw that the druid, Terron, had been alone at first, having left his druidic circle, somehow, despite all he was meant to be as a druid, not quite feeling at home there.  He had met Isil not long after and they had fallen in love so completely that they didn't even have to tell me they were a couple, it was written all over their faces in the way they looked at one another.  Bright they had met last.  Being a tiefling, she also felt like an outcast as the other two had, and she fit right in.

It was their status as outcasts that seemed to draw them together, that gave their own story strength and power.  I couldn't help but feel a bit odd stepping into that.  Ultimately, I wasn't an outcast.  I was the most like Terron, not feeling quite right in the place that was meant to be my home, but unlike him, I still intended to go back one day, to show all the great things I had done, to feel the embrace and love of family once again.  Terron had put all of that behind him and fully and completely embraced his new family of Isil and Bright.  And they were a family, and I was simply a guest, a much honored guest, in their home.  So I did my duty and helped them with their quest and when they asked me if I would continue on with them, I read between the lines and knew it would be better if I didn't, so I told them no, I still had other places to do.  I nearly told them that I would pass along their own story if they would pass along mine, but I knew they would pass along mine either way, and a strange and quiet part of me decided these were the kind of people who didn't think they wanted glory, and might even ask me to not tell others about them.  But I knew they too deserved for their story to be told, which is why I'm telling it now.

The sense of rightness I felt about that whole situation kept me going for days after that, until I encountered a situation that should not have been that strange, and yet felt just as wrong as that previous adventure had felt right.


I came upon a group of adventurers on the road.  There was a paladin and a ranger and one other that seemed to be a magic user but I wasn't sure if they were a sorcerer, wizard, or warlock.  They were fighting a group of goblins and as I approached, I had initially intended to join in.  But when I got closer, I could tell that something was not right.  These goblins did not seem fearsome and determined.  They seemed scared.  They also seemed like they didn't really know how to fight.

There were a lot of goblins.  I counted at least 10, and those who were still conscious were trembling.  And then I let my gaze wander past the semi-circle this frightened goblins were forming and saw a female goblin clutching tightly the hand of a young goblin boy standing beside her, also trembling.  And with a start, I realized I recognized that female goblin.  Hoping I could do this before any of those actively engaged in combat became aware of my presence, I cast message and whispered to her, "Lone?"

She started, presumably at the sound of my voice whispering in my ear.  She looked all around and then she saw me, and her eyes seemed to light up in recognition as well and I heard her whisper back in a voice that only I could hear.  "Yes."

And then I was shouting so all could hear, "Stop!"

At the sound of my voice, the adventurers turned and the goblins all dropped their weapons.

"What are you doing?" I demanded stepping forward purposefully.

"Fighting goblins," the paladin said.

"Why?" I asked.

The paladin looked positively puzzled at that.  "Because, because they're goblins," he said.  "They're evil."

"Um, how do you know?" I asked.

"Well..." That was all the paladin managed to say.

"Look back there at your evil goblins," I demanded, pointing.

The party turned back around.  The goblins were all backing away, their weapons still on the ground.

"What did they do to initiate the combat?" I asked the party.

The adventuring group was silent for a moment and then the ranger said quietly.  "They, they didn't.  We started it."

"Garrett!" the paladin roared, and the ranger flinched.

In that moment, I saw the scene even more fully.  Goblins traveling along, trying to find a home, trying to find somewhere they could belong and be safe.  An adventuring party, wanting to do something heroic, led by their fearless and perhaps foolhardy paladin, who thought the entire world was in black and white.  Humans good.  Goblins bad.  When someone like that sees a pack of goblins, just minding their own business, they must think there is no way they are just minding their own business.

"Lone," I said.  And the party looked very confused, but the goblin named Lone cautiously stepped forward, bringing her son with her.  "Lone, what have you done since we let you go two years ago?" I asked.

The adventurers finally realized I was addressing one of the goblins and quietly turned back around.

"I survived," she said.  "I found friends.  We're trying, we're trying to be good.  To survive without taking.  We thought, we thought finally we had done enough that we could travel openly and peacefully."  She looked down at her feet and muttered.  "But we were wrong."

"No," I said.  "You weren't wrong.  They were."  And I gestured to the adventurers.

"Now look here!" the paladin began to protest.  But I stared him down and he fell silent.

After a moment I said, directly to him, "Not all goblins are evil and not all paladins are good."  I said the last several words very slowly and deliberately, wanting the totality of my implication to sink in.  He didn't physically shiver, but I imagine he did on the inside.

There was silence again, and then the magic user sighed and said, "Matthias, let's just go."

The paladin, Matthias looked like he wanted to protest, but his gaze turned to his other two companions.  The ranger, Garrett, looking totally ashamed, and the magic user, whose name I would never learn, looked dejected but ready to just be done with this.  Finally Matthias let out a heavy sigh and exclaimed, "Fine!"  Then he turned back to the goblins and pointed his sword at them declaring, "But if I ever see your likes again, there will be hell to pay!"

"Yes," I agreed, "there will be hell to pay if the noble paladin is again found attacking the defenseless."

Matthias wanted to protest.  He so clearly wanted to protest, but his companions were already wandering away and he now had to rush to catch up to them.  The sight of him trailing behind them brought a small smile to my face, and then I turned back to face this goblin horde before me.  I saw one of the goblins, apparently a medic of sorts, already tending to the wounded.  One of their group seemed to be beyond help, dead and lifeless, but the others were slowly coming to.

Lone slowly stepped forward and said softly, "Thank you."

I reached out a hand to place on her shoulder and she only flinched a little before letting my hand settle there.  "You're welcome," I said.  "I, I've learned a lot since I saw you before."  I smiled softly and spoke more quietly as I said, "It seems like you have, too."

Lone nodded and as I withdrew my hand she looked up at me with wide eyes and asked, "What happened to Glux?"

"We turned him in to the authorities," I answered truthfully.  "He is in jail, but still alive, last I knew."

Lone looked down and nodded, but of course she looked sad.

"He broke the law," I said.  "Even if you felt you were forced to do so, he was robbing and hurting people."

"I know," Lone admitted.  "He was doing the things we thought goblins were meant to do."

"And now?" I prompted.

She looked up again and smiled a soft and sad smile.  "Now we're trying to find a better way," she stated.

I nodded.  "Not everyone is going to be accepting of that," I noted.

She scoffed and let out a grunt at that.  "Clearly," she said.

"But I can be," I told her.  She looked at me with wide eyes and I smiled again.  "I'd be happy to escort your group to where you're headed," I said.  "As long as its not to some dank hideout from which you can attack innocent bystanders."

Lone laughed.  I had never heard a goblin laugh before.  It was... strange to say the least, but not unpleasant.  "No, we're trying a better way," she said.  "We want to be farmers, and we heard about an old abandoned farmstead not far from here.  Rumored to be haunted, but when you're goblins, you take what you can."

"As long as it doesn't belong to someone else," I noted.

Lone nodded.  "Yes, of course," she said.  She sighed.  "I'm still somewhat new to the trying to be good thing," she admitted.

"Well, at least you're trying," I said.  And then I let my eyes fall to her son.  "And maybe it will get better in the future," I suggested.

Lone just nodded one more time.  I looked around at the rest of her group, some wounded, some hobbling, all still shaken, one dead.  I regretted I hadn't arrived in time to stop that senseless death, but at least I had arrived.  If you had told me two years ago that one of my adventures would involve saving goblins and escorting them to a farm I would have laughed in your face at the ridiculous joke you were apparently trying to tell.  And yet, here I was, doing just that.

The world is not black and white, I told myself.  Things don't always have a clear title or a label of "good" or "evil".  People, and goblins too, can exist in shades of gray.  And sometimes the most powerful way to do something to bring that to light is to do just that:  speak about it, act on it, and bring it to light.


Thankfully, it turned out the farm wasn't haunted at all, at least not that I could sense.  Perhaps there had been a spirit here once, but it had long since moved on.  I was glad for that.  I was pretty sure that with the sheer number of goblins fighting alongside me, I would have been able to take out any but the most powerful of ghosts, but I knew also that it would not have been without significant casualties on the goblins' part, and that was not something I wanted to be a part of.

I stayed for two weeks to help them get settled.  They had collected various seeds along the way and were anxious to plant them and see what would grow.  One or two of their party were hunters and another one or two were knowledgeable about plants and berries, so until the farm took off, they would be able to hold their own and survive.

The biggest fear was that another group of adventurers would find them, assume they were up to no good, and wipe them out.  I feared for their continued safety after I left, but Lone told me it wouldn't be right to keep me here forever.  "Our life spans are short," she said, "and it might only be a fraction of your life, but it would be forever to us, and that wouldn't be right.  There are better things for you to do."

I honestly wasn't sure about better.  Showing others that not all goblins were bad seemed like a pretty big deal.  Yet, there were other things I could be doing.  And maybe if I went out and added this story to the tales I told, maybe word would spread that these goblins were good.  Maybe in a few years, they could even start selling what they produced on this farm.  Maybe one day they could live in peace.  Maybe... maybe that glimmer of hope was all they really had.  But maybe it was enough.

So I did leave, eventually, but not before helping them put up a sign that said, "Second Chance Farm, endorsed by Carlin Garrick, Driver of Destiny."

It was the first time I had openly referred to myself as a Driver of Destiny in the present tense since Janzor had died.  So many things, these days, were judged as "since Janzor had died", but it seemed like more and more streaks of not doing something or not accepting something "since Janzor had died" were being broken.  And that was a good thing.  As I looked at the sign one last time before turning away, I thought that William would be proud.  He would be proud that his words to Lone so long ago, about holding everyone to the same standards, had apparently been taken to heart.  William had not believed Lone's original band of goblins were bad because they were goblins, but because they were doing bad things.  And now, they were trying, with all their hearts, to do good things.  A part of me wished William could see this.  And now, with the sign behind me, I thought that maybe, there was a small sliver of a chance that he would.


I tried to look at everything I encountered differently after that, in a more open minded way.  And I wasn't afraid to tell people when I thought they were handling things poorly.  I had never really been afraid, per se, just less openly vocal at times.  I wasn't sure my family would even recognize me anymore.  The somewhat shy nervous girl who had taken months to work up the courage to leave home was gone now.  Not only did I know no what was best for myself, but I had no qualms about speaking up when others seemed afraid to stand up for themselves, or when those in power didn't seem to know what they were doing.  I didn't try to be aggressive, though I'm sure that sometimes I came off that way.  I just tried to be honest.

When I saw a young tiefling boy being struck for stealing an apple, I offered to pay for the food he could not afford himself.  The boy was clearly terrified, and even when I removed the grip of the merchant with one hand while paying with the other, the child still flinched in an apparent fear that I was going to hurt him as well.  And as he ran off with his now paid for apple, I glared at the gruff looking dwarf running the stall as I said, "Maybe helping those in need would be more effective than hurting them further."

When I saw a young mother trying to keep her veritable brood of children in check while her oblivious companion (presumably her husband) ignored them all to laugh heartily at some crude joke and stare not too subtly at another woman passing by, I couldn't help but walk up to him and say, "Maybe you should show more appreciation and concern for what you have."  The woman looked at me with a bit of shame, but a glimmer of gratitude as well and the man looked stunned.  I did my best to keep an eye on him, to make sure he wouldn't get angry or do something cruel.  I waited in that town for days, just to make sure there was nothing bad I saw happen, but I knew I had done the right thing.

When I saw an old man being teased by little boys, I asked them if they had ever asked to hear his stories, and when they just snickered, I went up to the man and asked him myself.  His name was Phando and he had lived a rather simple life, but he had had an impact on the world.  He had been a blacksmith, making armor and weapons, before he grew old and his hands began to shake.  Now, he sat and thought about how things had been.  I thanked him for his stories and when I left, I went to the town's blacksmith and asked if he knew Phando.  Turned out, the current blacksmith had once been Phando's apprentice.  I asked when he had last visited Phando, and he said it had been a while.  I said that I hoped he would pay the old man a visit, show him he was still loved and remembered, that his legacy lived on in the young strong hands that crafted steal and iron today.

The story of Phando having trained his apprentice inspired me, and revealed to me additional ways that I would make an impact on the world.

When I saw a fellow wizard pouring over her spellbook in a tavern, looking concerned and a little confused, I came over and offered to help.  She was a gnome, too.  And we talked, I learned that she was the same age I had been when I set out from my home.  She would not yet consider herself an adventurer, though she had done a few small tasks for people around town using her growing magical abilities.  She just wanted to help people.  She had purer intentions that I did, not caring about fame and glory at all.  It was different, but it was nice, and just thinking about the excitement she had about the idea of helping others, the same level of excitement I felt when others remembered my name, it made me smile.  I wanted to remember her name.  I wanted to remember everything about her.

Her name was Phila, and she had perhaps the purest smile and most genuine laugh of anyone I had ever known.  I helped her better understand the spells she was learning.  We talked not just about the words and the gestures, but the meaning behind them, the history (or what I knew of it) of the spells.  She had a real thirst for learning and a passion for applying what was in books to the real world.  Even though we were very different, she was so much like me in the way she longed to do something more that just read and copy.  She wanted what she did to be real.

She was so grateful for my assistance and said multiple times that she didn't know how she could ever repay me.  I told her that all I wanted was for her to tell others who had helped teach her once she became a great an powerful wizard in her own right.  I also took pleasure simply in her company, in being able to help her learn, in seeing the excitement on her face when things clicked.  I didn't tell her any of that, though.  I just enjoyed it in my own silent way.  It was somewhat unusual for me to not be telling another person all that I thought about the way they were acting.  I guess it's harder to tell someone that they inspire you, especially when you're the one who is supposed to be teaching them, than it is to try to correct them when they're doing something you think is stupid or wrong.

And Phila was truly inspiring, though I never did tell her.  She was dedicated to the magical arts.  She didn't let it get her down when she got something wrong.  She was much more patient than I typically was, though I did find it easier to be patient around her, given how good natured she was and how hard she was so clearly trying.  And her hard work paid off.  She seemed to grow more confident and powerful every day, and I knew even just a week in that it would not be long before she didn't need me and could easily set out on her own.

After nearly two months helping Phila with her training, as well as with the odd job around town that others asked the two of us to complete, I figured she was well equipped to get started in her adventures and that it was time for me to move on.  I very nearly asked her to come with me, but it just didn't feel right, somehow.  As much as I liked Phila, it didn't seem like this was yet where I was meant to be.  I didn't feel right bringing her along on what was going to be the final chapter in this part of my journey, for I knew there was at least one more thing I still had to do before I could rejoin another party on any permanent basis.

So Phila and I parted ways, going in opposite directions.  I traveled back in the general direction of where all my journeys had began and Phila oriented herself towards the road I had come in on a month earlier.  There were some words unsaid between us, but they were clearly words neither of us wanted to say.  Sometimes the best thing to say was still nothing at all.  So Phila gave me a gentle kiss on the check, thanked me for all I had done together, and promised that if fate ever brought us together again, she would be thrilled to fight alongside me in any battle we may face.  I waved good-bye as she left, cherishing her bright smile and hoping against all hope that no harm would ever come to it.  When she was out of sight, I smiled myself, and touched the spot where she had given me her kiss of friendship.  It wouldn't be fate if we met again, I thought.  It would be destiny.

You make your own destiny, though.  And there was one more thing I was destined to do, one more task to complete for Janzor, before I could fully move on from the Drivers of Destiny to whatever adventure was next.

And so, after another month of travel, I returned to where a large portion of it began.  It was late and the moon was high in the sky when I practically crept into Janzor's hometown, not knowing if they even knew he was gone, but knowing that by the morning, I would have to ensure that they did.

Part of me hoped they would already know.  Maybe William and Tina had already been here.  I hadn't exactly been hurrying to get back, though my overall travels since parting ways with the human and the elf had been roughly in this direction.  It was possible they had beaten me here to tell Janzor's family what had become of him.  But I think despite my guilty hopes, I knew that they had not been here, that Janzor's relatives were still in the dark, still clung to the idea that he was out there saving the world and earning fame, fortune, and glory.  In the morning, I would crush that all for the sake of the truth and legend.  But not tonight.  Tonight, I would sleep alone.  I found a quiet alley with a tree just outside of it.  I tied my mount to the tree, then ventured back into the alley where I unfurled my bedroll, and I slept completely alone and strangely peacefully, despite knowing that tomorrow would bring to me quite possibly the most difficult task I would have to undertake yet.


When I opened my eyes the next morning, I was more than a little startled to see a young human boy looking down on me.  For a moment, I thought I was seeing a literal ghost.  Even after well over a year, I still remembered what the ghost of the child Nathaniel had looked like, and this boy looked so similar to me, it was uncanny.  But after I blinked a few times, I came to realize that they weren't that similar after all.  The hair and the eyes were different, and this boy was actually alive.  I supposed I was simply in a state of mind that was drifting to the past, to things that were and things that might have been.  I then realized I had been quiet for quite some time, looking up at this child who was still just staring blankly down at me.  "Are okay?" I asked him, though I was sure that I was in quite a state that it would not have been odd for me to ask him the same thing.

He looked at me and nodded.  And then he asked, "Did you have a horse?"

I felt puzzled.  What an odd question.  But I said slowly, "Yes..."

"I think it's wandering off," he said.  And then he turned and jogged out of the alley.

I cursed quietly under my breath and started to get up from my bedroll.  My back and neck were sore from sleeping on the hard surface of the alleyway.  I managed to call on Hooters to go look ahead and see how far my miniature horse had gotten.  The answer was quite a ways down the street.  I had Hooters keep an eye on him as I got myself together as best as I could.  By the time I emerged from the alley, the horse was several blocks away, but still in sight of my owl, so I followed along after.  It was not long until my stalking after the horse reached an area of town that felt vaguely familiar.  And I realized that this horse was going home.

I don't know if Janzor's uncle would have recognized me if I had come alone.  I rather doubt it.  But he seemed to recognize the horse instantly.  Hooters conveyed to me that the uncle was up feeding the other animals when the horse wandered in, at which point the man's face lit up in recognition.  I felt my heart drop as I realized Janzor's uncle must think this meant Janzor was nearby.  I cursed fate and myself for making me have this conversation before I was even fully awake, but what choice did I really have?  This man deserved to know what had happened, and maybe if I could get it out with the uncle, it would be a little easier with Janzor's sister and parents and... Uggg.  This was perhaps the worst moment of my life, as I walked up to the little stable to a happy looking halfing I was about to drop into despair.  But I had come here to tell him the truth.  He deserved that much.  They all did.

As I approached, he looked up at me and smiled and I felt as if my world had shattered around me.  "Good morning!" he said brightly.  "What can I do for you...."  And then his smile grew wider as he seemed to recognize me.  "You were with Janzor, right?  About 18 months ago or so?"  He patted my mount.  "This was the horse I gave the two of you."  This was the point at which he must have realized that I was not smiling.  That I was just about as far from smiling as a facial expression could get.  Because then his eyes faded and his smile fell.  He took a step towards me, worry and fear and realization sweeping over his face.  "What is it?" he asked in a rushed voice.  "What's wrong?"

I burst out crying.  And this wasn't how it was supposed to go, but before I knew it, he, the man who had lost his nephew, was comforting me.  "I'm sorry," I sobbed.  "I'm so, so sorry."

The uncle, whose name I couldn't remember, perhaps I had never known it, he was crying, too.  He knew what had happened, but he didn't know all that had happened, and he wanted to know.  "Come in side," he managed between shared sobs.  "Tell me everything."


The man made me some tea and we sipped in in silence for a minute or so before I began.  I started from the start, from meeting Janzor.  I told of many of the great things he had done and the laughs we had shared and how he had brought such a lighthearted spark to the party.  "He wasn't against doing what needed to be done," I said.  "Yet ultimately, he was good.  He was so, so good."  And then I told the story of how he had died, as best as I could.  I wasn't a bard, I wasn't used to writing the stories, just to copying them down, but I did my best to do justice to the story of Janzor's death.  I described the determination I knew he must have had, I drew attention to the many wounds inflicted on the evil sorcerer who had been his undoing, and I made to efforts to veil my sheer devastation at the realization that, after the battle had been won, Janzor's life had been lost.  I somehow managed to cry less with the words than I had just thinking about them.  There were still tears running down my cheeks, but I wasn't openly bawling.  Janzor's uncle was a whole other story.

When I looked up at him when I was done, I saw him shaking and I heard him moaning.  I watched as he fought to wipe the tears away, and even tried to force a little smile, but it didn't work.  He couldn't stop crying, not yet, and I didn't really want him to have to.  So I sat in my own silent tears and sipped my tea.  It tasted a bit saltier than before, and I realized I must have cried into it a little bit.  I didn't care.  It almost seemed better that way.

After what might have been a few minutes or might have been an hour, the uncle calmed himself.  "He was always such a brave boy," he said, wiping the last of his tears away.  "I, I'm proud of him.  And I... I want to thank you... thank you for coming back here to tell us.  That couldn't have been easy."

I didn't know what to say to that.  No, it couldn't have been easy, but how could it even begin to compare to the pain of losing someone you had known for their entire life?  I had known Janzor for less than two years, and I still felt the pain of his loss.  I couldn't even imagine what this man was going through, what Janzor's sister and parents and the rest of his family would be going through.  Even though I had more or less calmed myself, I nearly started crying again at the thought of having to tell them.

It felt as if the uncle must have drilled into my thoughts, or at least a portion of them, because when I looked up, he was looking at me solemnly and said, "I'm the first one you've told, aren't I?"

I nodded and looked back down at my tea.  A moment passed and then I jumped a bit in my seat as I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I looked up and to my right to see Janzor's uncle looking at me with a melancholy little smile.  "You did good," he said quietly.  "They'll appreciate hearing it from you as well."

He went back to his seat and we finished our tea and then I left.  And I left the horse behind.  I wasn't going to come back to it.  That horse belonged with Janzor's uncle now.  For all I knew, it was the last physical thing he might have to remind him of his nephew.  I wasn't going to take that away from him.


As I approached the bar where we had met Janzor, a whole new wave of nausea and fear swept over me.  The sun was shining bright, apparently completely unaware of the dark news I had to deliver now to someone even closer to Janzor than his uncle had been.  When we had been on the road, Janzor had spoken of his sister often.  I knew that her name was Belri and that she was a strong independent woman who had inspired Janzor to do what he wanted to do with his life in the same way she had chosen to do what she wanted to do by opening the bar.  She was about 5 years older than him, and he had always looked up to her.  And now, he would never look up to her again.

As I entered the bar, a small bell tinkled over the door, and Belri looked up from polishing glasses and it struck me that this was the same state she had been in when I left her 18 months ago, except now she wasn't bubbly and excited as she had been for Janzor, but neither was she sad.  She simply was.  And she looked at me and I just stood there and then she said what I had never expected to hear because I was expecting to have to tell it to her.  "He's dead, isn't he?" she said.

As I felt tears welling up in my eyes, I simply nodded and I said, "Yes" so quietly I'm not even sure that she heard.  And then she calmly set the glass down on the counter, walked over to me, and was, like her uncle, giving me a hug, almost as if she was trying to comfort me when I had been expecting to comfort her.  I couldn't believe this family, hugging the person who had come to tell them their loved one was gone.  And I cried again.  And we cried together.

After we had calmed down, Belri told me she had suspected for some time that something wasn't right.  I had forgotten she had asked Janzor to send her messages, but he had not forgotten.  She had been getting little notes or packages every month or two for about a year.  They weren't terribly consistent.  Once it was three or four months, and then she got two messages nearly back to back, though it was clear they had been written months apart.  But now, it had been more than six months since she had received anything.  And the last message she had received had been about how they were going to get paid a fortune to get an even bigger fortune back from a wicked and ungrateful brother of the elf who had hired them.  When no more messages came after that, she had assumed the worst, and now me being there confirmed it was right.  It still hurt, she told me, but she had accepted it months ago, that he was quite likely gone.  She hadn't told her parents.  She hadn't told her uncle.

"But I'll tell them now," she said quietly.

"I already talked to your uncle," I said.  "My horse wandered back there and I, I had to."

She smiled that same melancholy smile I had seen on her uncle and nodded.  "Yeah, that seems about right," she said.  And she looked right at me as she said, "Thank you, Lin.  Thank you for everything you did for my brother.  He spoke of you quite fondly in his letters.  It sounded like you sometimes had to defend him against William, and he really appreciated it a lot, even if he never told you."

"He didn't tell me," I admitted, "but I'm glad to know that, that I did something good for him."

She reached out and placed a hand on mine as she said with tears threatening to spill out of her eyes again, "You did so much good for him.  I won't pretend I'm not sad and angry that he's gone, but I'm glad he went out doing what he loved, what he had wanted his whole life to do.  Our parents, they will be proud, too."  She sighed and looked down as she said mostly to herself, "I will have to tell them what happened."  And she looked back up at me and said, "That's not something I would ask you to do.  What you've already told me, it's more than enough.  You don't owe me and my family anything more than that."

There were, yet again, no words to say in response to that, so we just sat in silence.  After a moment, Belri withdrew her hand, and after some other moment, she stood and went back to the bar.  My back was to her as I took out my bag, containing my share of the gold we had been given.  With Janzor dead, William, Tina, and I had each taken 3,333 gp.  2500 gp should have been Janzor's.  I counted out his portion slowly, deliberately, and put the several hundred gp that remained back in my larger bag.

I walked back to the bar and placed a bag with the 2500 gp on the counter.  When Belri looked up at me, I said, "There is this more that I owe you.  This is Janzor's share for taking out the sorcerer.  You and your family should have it."

"I don't..." Belri began.

But I interrupted her, wanting to get this done before I started to try again.  "Please," was all I said.

She forced herself to smile, another sad smile, trying to be hopeful but not quite finding a way to accomplish that.  She gave me one final nod and said softly, "Okay."  And with that, I left the bar and I left the town, wanting desperately to find something, anything, that would bring me joy after that gut-wrenching experience.


A few weeks after that, I heard about a harvest festival that was allegedly happening soon in Phandalin.  I figured that was as good a distraction as any, so I set off to see if there was something I could gain from such an event.  It took a long time to approach that city, days of travel, and as I walked, I thought back on all the past year and a half had brought me.  And I realized, finally, that Janzor would not want me to be sad.  Janzor would want me to continue on, to seek my fame and glory and to help people as I desired to do.  So with a lighter heart than I had had before, I approached Phandalin, and when I saw a carriage with a half-elf woman and her companions, I decided to be friendly and see if maybe there might be for me here another group, new friends, and perhaps a party that could last.


It was on the road into town that I met the first of them, a noblewoman bard named Westera.  She had others with her, an apprentice of sorts and two servants it seemed.  I wondered briefly if perhaps I had made a mistake in letting Phila go her own way, if perhaps I should have encouraged her to continue on with me, or if we at least could have arranged to regroup after I had done what needed to be done with Janzor's family.  But I couldn't dwell on such things.  Westera seemed pleasant enough, and I was tired of walking after having grown accustomed to having a mount for so long previously.  So I was more than happy to accept when she offered to let me ride in her wagon to town.

Somehow, though, we didn't end up going to town.  We ended up with three other women going to collect a giant pumpkin from a nearby farm.  And when I say giant, I mean enormous.  The other three were a druid named Kithri, a barbarian named Bobbie, and a paladin named Merla.  Given my most recent encounter with a paladin who seemed to think it was okay to murder goblins who did nothing wrong, I was a bit wary of teaming up with a paladin at first.  But of course, those thoughts were just as wrong as that other paladin's thoughts about the goblins.  Merla turned out to be a very entertaining woman who certainly thought for herself and would not allow herself to be tied down into stereotypes.  Really, all three of the women seemed brave and determined and willing to do what had to be done rather than sticking rigidly to guidelines that only existed for the sake of being guidelines.

When things got difficult was when we got to the pumpkin farm and found the man who ran it dead in his home.  I really wanted to know what had happened, but even though Kithri could speak to the plants that were holding him down, apparently he had died too long ago for them to be able to remember how it had happened.  Perhaps the plants themselves were to blame.  But likely, there was some other force at work.  Search as I did, I could find nothing about what had really happened in that house.  I wondered briefly if Tina or even William would have been able to tell more, but I didn't have much time to reflect, as Bobbie, who had remained outside by the giant pumpkin, was now shouting for our assistance.

Rats.  Annoying creatures.  They were trying to eat the giant pumpkin that had been designated, no, destined for the harvest festival!  They seemed like such a pitiful foe for my first foray back into real combat with a real party that might become my permanent party, but we do what we can with what we've got.  So I lit several of the lights on fire, carefully avoiding the pumpkin, the cart it was on, and my new friends.  I did have to wrap the flames around Kithri, but it wasn't a big deal.  I'm an evocation wizard for a reason.  It must have been impressive enough because Westera wrote a song about it a few days later.  But I guess that's getting ahead of things a little bit.

We managed to drive the rats away and started escorting the pumpkin towards the town, but we hadn't gotten far when I felt a sort of panic.  What was I doing?  Was I really ready to jump back into things with this new party?  And what really had happened to that farmer?  Telling the rest of the group that I would meet them in town later, and mostly intending to actually do so, I parted ways and went back to the farmhouse to take a look around.

There was still no evidence I could find of what had happened to the farmer.  I'm not totally proud of what I did next, but think of it as a tribute to a rogue.  I may have cast knock and opened the safe I found in his place to see if I could find anything of interest there.  And I may have taken the 25 gp that were kept there.  Dead men don't need money after all.  Their families might, but this man clearly had no family around.  It made his death even sadder, but I figured there must be something that could be done with that gold.  If nothing else, I do think Janzor would have approved of making something of the situation, even if William certainly would not have.  But then William would not have.  Even though I was the one who had left, I still missed William, and Tina, too.  I sighed as I pocketed the gold, gold that I'm not quite sure I even should have taken, and slowly made my way back out of the farmhouse and returned to the road where I had met the adventures who might yet become my next group of friends.

It turned out I missed quite a bit of action, parting ways with that other party when I had.  It turns out that when they got the pumpkin back to town, it had come to life and started attacking them.  And then there was something with skeletons outside a graveyard.  I saw the remains of the battle with the skeletons when I approached the town, and I heard about the pumpkin battle after I arrived.  I was disappointed, I found, that I had missed out on all the excitement as a result of not being sure this was really where I was supposed to be.  I took it as a sign that this was, in fact, right where I was supposed to be.

So I met up with the rest of the group the next day.  Well, kind-of with the rest of the group.  Sadly, Merla had to go to attend to business with this wizard she was working for, and a new adventurer had appeared in the meantime.  When I learned she was a rogue, my heart must have skipped a beat, thinking of Janzor.  It wasn't like this was the first rogue I had meant since he died, but it was the first rogue who would be part of a party I might actually stick with.  I truly hoped she would hold her own, like he had, and that I would not be losing another friend, unlike I had before.

I didn't have much more time to reflect on this as we were all soon met with another strange and unexpected challenge:  having to fight these giant shadow beasts that just appeared in the town.  I had never seen such a thing before, right in the middle of such a large city.  Out in the far reaches, sure, but right in the middle of the down?  We defeated them, though they certainly put up quite a fight compared to those dumb rats, and then some cocky voice just kinda laughed at us from the heavens.  Apparently some sort of trickster demigod had come out to play.

It was utterly ridiculous.  I wanted to show that "being" a piece of my mind.  But I suppose demigods are a little too powerful even for me.  Still, I wanted to try to protect the town, to keep it safe.  This guy Sildar who was apparently in charge didn't seem too worried.  Unbelievable.  I was practically fuming when Westera managed to talk me down.  Amazing skill she had there, being able to calm me down.  It certainly helped, too, when later in the festival she sang a song that was a tribute to my greatness.  Sure, it helped her win the talent show the town held, even over my story telling and disappearing act supported by Hooters, but I think it was worth it having her "win" for the sake of getting my name out there.

The whole festival was one great big contest.  At first I had thought it was unbelievable that they would just go on with the festival with a demigod teasing them from who knows where.  But I eventually got into it (and then that song by Westera happened) and I ended up winning third place at the overall festival challenge, which gained me a magical ring that could always point the direction to the nearest inn.  Not too bad for a traveler like me, though I was starting to feel more and more like I would not be traveling alone going forward.

Before I could get a chance to think about that too much more, I felt a strange tugging, almost as if my soul were being guided in a certain direction.  It may not have been unlike the stories of souls being pulled towards the light when people die, except I was quite sure I was still very much alive.  Still, both curious and simply feeling unable to resist, I followed the tugging and found what appeared to be a fortune teller's tent.  Strangely, no one else around me seemed to even be looking at it.  I figured worst case, this was another trick from that annoying demigod, and maybe I could confront him and ask him to leave, and best case, something interesting might happen, so with a shrug I entered the tent.

Before me, there sad an elderly lady that looked exactly as I would have imaged a fortune teller to appear.  She smiled at me in a sly and yet not unfriendly manner and gestured to the magic ball that sat on the table before us.  "Carlin Garrick," she said.

"Oh, so you've heard of me," I said brightly, trying to hide my nervousness.

She just chuckled and continued to keep her arm outstretched, inviting.  "Come, sit, I'll tell you the future."

I had no idea if this was really a thing she could do or not, but after asking how much this would cost and being told it would free, I figured what did I have to lose and I sat down.

Before me in the ball, bright colors swirled, and I felt a vague familiarity of reading about spells that hypnotized with colors like this.  And then, from out of that swirl of color, I saw a vision that I could never have even imagined.  There was a figure, flying high above the ground, but not with a spell, it seemed, rather with metal wings.  This person was shooting lights from their hands, not too unusual, but they were firing upon a group (an army?) of people wearing strange armor that I could only describe as looking futuristic.

As the vision faded, I ignored the pounding in my chest, that gut reaction brought on by such a startling display, and looked up at the woman to say, "For me to even begin to believe that might be real, I'm going to need you to tell me something about my past."

She started to talk about the "Drivers of Destiny."  I scoffed and rolled my eyes.  "Anyone could know about that," I told her.  So then, she told me instead of the conversation I had overheard between William and Tina.  Of the reason I had left.  I was quiet then.  I had never told that part of the story to anyone.  Only William and Tina themselves would have had even a glimmer of why I had really left, and even they would not have known the full story.  I had no more words to say, so I simply turned and left the tent.  And when I turned back, it was gone.  It sent a shiver through me.

I found Kithri and asked her what she could detect, knowing druids had a oneness with magic and nature that might help identify what this had been.  She did sense the magic of the fortune teller, though neither of us could see the tent.  And I was simultaneously relieved and troubled to learn it was divination magic, not illusion magic as I had wondered if it might be.  All signs were pointing to the vision I had seen, as strange as it was, being true.  But I couldn't possibly know what to make of it, so I did my best to push it aside and enjoy the rest of the festival.

After the festival, I asked Westera if perhaps I could join her wherever she was going, figuring the others might follow as well.  She was tasked with patrolling the roads in the area, which seemed like a fine quest to me for getting even further back in the swing of things.  We agreed to meet in the inn the next morning, and in the meantime, I was invited (after I asked) to stay with Kithri at the farm where she slept, with Kat coming along too for good measure.

Apparently during the night, Kithri received a message to be delivered to Bobbie, so we took a little detour on the way back to the inn and met with Bobbie.  Close to an hour later, after we had revealed the message that was hidden and then decrypted what turned out to be not only physically hidden by also encrypted, we had a new mission.  We were all going to meet up with this guy named Wrex in Neverwinter and help follow up on a bit of a mystery he had been pursuing for Bobbie involved a fearsome beast who had killed the army she was fighting alongside, as well as many of the foes she had been fighting against.  I regretted a bit that we were jumping so fully into the fray, but I figured it might be good for me, to get back to real serious action instead of simply patrolling the roads.  It would all work out for the best, at least I hoped it would.

And so we all set out:  myself as the gnome wizard, Kat the rogue, Kithri the halfling druid, Westera the half-elf bard, and Bobbie the very tall human barbarian.  Things were calm for a while, but the quiet was rudely interrupted on our first day by arrows flying at our horses.  The all too familiar occurrence of bandits on the road had found us out.  This was a large group of them, too, certainly one of the larger groups I had encountered.  Their numbers, however, were no match for our power.  We fought to defend ourselves and to keep our journey going.  I would never say I enjoy killing, but sometimes it's necessary, and we ended up killing all who attacked us but one, the strongest, the leader.

Westera tried to interrogate him, but he spat in her face.  He said they were just after our gold.  Of course they were.  Many people were only interested in money.  I felt a slight tinge of guilt over the money I had taken from the slain farmer, but at least I hadn't killed him to get it.  And then Hooters shared with me something strange and interesting:  he had just noticed Kat slipping a pouch from off of the bandit leader, right under the eyes of Kithri and Westera, and the rogue hadn't said a thing.

"What did you find, Kat?" I asked her, walking over to join the others, as I had been examining the other bodies.

She looked straight at me, and I kid you not, she said, "Leaves."  Had I not been told the truth by Hooters, I would have thought she was just making a joke and hadn't found anything.  But I knew she was lying.  I knew she had taken something.  And I couldn't help but think back to meeting Janzor, when he had stolen from me to prove his skill, but then immediately given my pouch back before I even noticed it had been missing.  William had been angry enough even at that.  I could not even begin to imagine how outraged he would be at Kat's behavior.  And it turned out, I was pretty outraged, too.

I don't remember exactly what I said to her, but I know it was very loud and angry.  Something about how the rogue I had known before was a good person and what she had just done was not good.  It wasn't the stealing, it was the lying.  It was the hiding it.  Somewhat hypocritical, I know, given the 25 gold in my own bag that I hadn't told anyone about.  But I also hadn't been caught stealing right in front of the party, and stealing from a foe we had vanquished together, nonetheless.  That wasn't okay.  That wasn't okay at all.  So I railed at her, and wondered, already if I had made a mistake in joining with this group of people.

Kat told us that she hadn't taken the money for herself, that she wanted to give it away, to help orphans in the city of Neverwinter where we were headed.  She had grown up as an orphan there herself, living on the streets, doing what she had to do to survive.  And now that she could take care of herself and earn a living, even if it was by stealing from scumbags like that jerk who had ambushed us, she was going to take the opportunity to give back, to offer others the opportunities she had been lacking in her youth.

I did feel for her and her story, but again, the taking wasn't the point.  That wasn't what I was angry about.  It was the lying.  The slight solace found even in that was that the rest of the group didn't seem particularly pleased with what Kat had done either, though I certainly seemed to be the angriest.  Kithri asked me if I was okay and I told her about Janzor, about meeting him and how what Kat had done had been like a parallel to him, but had diverged in her lying despite being seen as opposed to his honesty despite not being seen.  It made me feel a little better to admit it.

I went to apologize to Kat, tried to at least.  She was still a bit rude about the whole thing, didn't seem to know how to be gracious, didn't seem to truly understand what I was saying to her or how big of a deal me apologizing at all should have been.  She gave me a hug at the end of it, a very awkward hug that I couldn't bring myself to return, but it was something at least, even if it didn't seem like the right something given the situation.

Still, I couldn't let it get to me too much.  I wasn't going to just bail on these people.  Not now.  Not after I had decided to give this a shot.  And besides, Kithri was kind and had remarkable powers as a druid and Westera was brave and confident and a bard who was willing to sing about me and while Bobbie was quiet, she certainly had a strength and determination about her as well.  Three out of four seeming to fit perfectly together wasn't bad, and who knew.  Maybe Kat would surprise me yet, just like Tina had surprised William and, despite their differences, became not only his friend but his lover as well.

We traveled on for another day after that, and the second night, we were faced with our second encounter on the road.  I cursed under my breath when I realized, too late, what was happening.  It started during the first watch, which I was taking, though neither Hooters nor I noticed it.  There were these three magical hounds that appeared, thought not exactly where they actually were.  They had displacement powers, meaning they warped space around them and were just off from where we observed them to be.  Fortunately for us, I had recently mastered the warping of time, and was able to put a slow effect on two of them, making their attacks less effective and their defenses weaker.  They were still a pain and a half to hit, but fire is pretty powerful as an area of affect spell, and the blasts I had learned from Tina as well as the magic missiles I had mastered so long ago (for which I didn't even need to know exactly where my foe was as the missiles homed in on them so beautifully) went a long way too.

After the battle, Westera seemed quite a bit worse for the wear, and my breath hitched in my throat a bit as I realized she could have died, I might have lost one of my new potential friends already.  But that was silly.  She wouldn't have died.  She could have healed herself if needed, and even if she had not been able to do so before she went down, Kithri probably had some druidic healing powers.  I did find myself wishing that Merla had been there, though.  It was not only about the healing, either.  Despite only knowing her very briefly, and only having fought alongside her once, I missed the unusual and playful paladin.

I fell back asleep that night reflecting on what little I really knew about my traveling companions, and yet how combat seemed to bring us closer together, in that we had to trust one another or else we would die.  It wasn't the most pleasant thought, but it was powerful and strangely comforting as I drifted off to sleep.  Though I certainly hoped no more encounters would come our way before we reached Neverwinter, I knew now after seeing my companions fight numerous times that we would be able to handle whatever came our way, and it would only make us stronger together.

Despite forcing myself to think of things in this positive manner, I was still relieved when the third day of our journey passed uneventfully.  At the conclusion of that three day journey, we finally crested a hill and saw the expanse of Neverwinter glimmering before us.  We weren't quite sure what we would find, but I think we all hoped that if we found it together, and fought alongside one another and could learn to trust one another fully, everything would be fine, maybe even more than fine.  Perhaps, we would become legends together, and the story they would write about us would not be untitled.