The inside of Gram's office was almost exactly how Bjorn remembered it with the book cases on the sides of the room, the desk in the center, and two chairs on the close side of the room. Gram had set up another bookcase and there were other small items scattered across the room that hadn't been there before. The main one was the egg of a snatcher spider that seemed to have been preserved somehow. If you looked close enough it was possible to see the fetus still inside the egg.

  Gram was sitting behind his desk and he looked up when Bjorn and Adriana walked into the room. His head had been bent over a piece of paper that was probably filled with reports. “Ah that's more like it, you look more like the Bjorn I knew.”

  “Thanks for that Gram. Are you finally ready to hear what I have to say?” Bjorn asked almost petulant, he was annoyed at being ignored by Gram.

  The giant of a man stood and stretched briefly and shook his head. “No, well yes I am. But I have a feeling that Duke Dornan would like to hear your story as well. This way you won't have to repeat yourself twice.”

  When Gram said the word ‘duke’ Adriana let out a little squeak. More of her being way outside her depth and comfort. Throughout her childhood she had heard stories of knights, dukes, lords, and kings. Now she was going to get to meet one she was starting to get overwhelmed.

  “That's fair, is he available to talk to us? I know he is a busy man.” Bjorn asked.

  “He should be. I sent word that you were back in town, I suspect the runner back in a few minutes. But he has stated to me multiple times that if you guys ever returned that he was to be informed immediately, and that your return was to take precedence over anything else as long as the city wasn't about to be destroyed.” Gram stated.

  Bjorn shuffled his feet slightly. “Well that might be the case, I don't know exactly.”

  Gram's jovial look fled his face as he lasered in on Bjorn. “If it might involve the destruction of the city then Duke Dornan for sure has plenty of time for both of you.” He paused for a few seconds, as if he was mulling over what to say next. Eventually he continued. “We don't have to wait for the runner, we should head to the palace. Come let's go.”

  They made their way out into the main entrance of the guard house. When they entered the room both guards posted on either side of the door snapped to attention. “When private Lilly comes back, let her know we left for the palace. If she has any correspondence for me, have her leave it on my desk.”

  They saluted and both showed their compliance. Gram didn't care and had already turned away and started walking away by the time they replied. Bjorn and Adriana followed on his heels. They made their way out into the city and headed up into the inner city. As they traveled Adriana followed in Bjorn’s shadow, she was obviously out of her depth.

  As they walked Bjorn and Gram just small talked about non important things. Eventually Adriana spoke up. “So Gram, I notice that there aren't any guards following us. You're important, why don't we have a contingent of guards?”

  Gram just laughed. “There is no need in this city for a number of reasons. The first one being that I am both respected and loved in this city. This is a two way street, the residents of Blackrock Bay know that I have their best interest in mind with all of my actions. This respect has culminated over many many years being their captain of the guard. The second one is sort of adjacent to the first reason. And that is that the city of Blackrock Bay is a fairly safe city. My guard and myself had worked hard for years to make sure that this city is one safe for people of all ages and walks of life. The final reason is because I am level 41 which makes me the second strongest fighter in this city. Meaning anyone who would try and pick a fight with me would find it rather difficult to do so.”

  Adriana’s jaw just hung loosely as she stared at Gram. “What did you just say?”

  “Oh really? You finally pushed over 40 that is quite impressive.”

  Gram just gave a chuckle. “What can I say? I had to take care of a few things over the years. The Duke still has me beat however. With that being said.” Gram’s laugh left his face once again and he narrowed his eyes on Bjorn. “I can tell you have lost a good number of levels. Care to fill me in on how that happened?”

  Bjorn was slightly thrown off at the suddenness of the question. This confirmed something that Bjorn had been thinking about for a while. He had an ability that allowed him to Identify items, there had to be other ways to do so. He just hadn’t come across any other methods to indicate that other people are able to Identify as well.

  “Did you use some sort of magic or skill on me?” Bjorn asked.

  “A skill, I will tell you about it later. We are here.” He pointed to a nondescript door in the side of the road. As they talked and walked they managed to make it up to the inner circle and were now within viewing distance of the palace. It was just as grand and impressive as Bjorn remembered. From where they stood they were fairly close to the walls of the palace so they blocked out most of the view from the street.

  Adriana wasn’t saying much as she took in the city. It made sense as the biggest house she had seen before this was Bjorn and Meira’s which was nowhere near as impressive as many of the buildings that they passed. Even though they had done a good job on building their home and making it feel lived in, it was still just a wooden house that was larger than normal. They were passing Mansions, Libraries, Stores, fountains, and statues. All expertly builded and carved out of stone.

  Gram knocked twice quickly. Without waiting for a response Gram pushed the door open and crouched to step inside the house. To Bjorn’s surprise it looked like they entered someone’s home. That feeling was reinforced as they followed Gram back into the kitchen of the house. There were three people sitting at a table in the corner eating off a plate in the center of the table as they talked. They were all wearing nondescript peasant clothes.

  “Gram.” They all said bowing their heads slightly in deference to the man.

  “Evening.” Was all Gram said back as he grabbed the shelving unit that was their pantry and gave a slight tug. The pantry just swung open as if it were on hinges revealing a lit hallway leading downwards. He squeezed his considerable bulk through the opening and began walking down the hallway. Bjorn and Adriana followed after. They paused briefly unsure of what to do with the shelves when the door slowly started to swing close of its own accord.

  They had to rush slightly to catch up with the walking boulder but soon they were right on Gram’s heels. The hallway led downwards for a bit and they had to stop at the bottom. Gram pulled a wand out of a bag on his hip and waved it over the hallway. The process took roughly 20 seconds as the tip of the wand glowed with a soft white light. Finally he took the 2 and a half foot wooden stick and put it back into the bag he pulled it from. The bag had to be no larger than 1 foot tall so Bjorn was fairly certain that it was a bag of holding or a portable pocket.

  They walked forward roughly another 20 feet and Gram put his hand into a recess in the wall before they continued on wards. “What was that about?” Bjorn asked.

  “Oh the hallway is warded, you need to have a wand that is specially enchanted and attuned to these wards to disable them temporarily. They reactivate after a minute of being deactivated or you can reactivate them by touching the button in that alcove back there.” Gram said as he walked on wards. “You have to wave the wand in a special way to deactivate them, and don’t worry if you ever need to get through the tunnel from this side; the button also deactivates the wards.”

  The tunnel began to make its way upwards heading closer to the surface again. They were down there for no longer than 5 minutes before the tunnel came to an end. Before them was a wall of wooden planks. Placing his hands on two separate sides of the planks he pushed in with his index fingers on both spots. They pushed into the wood and a soft click could be heard. From there the wall in front of Gram moved outwards and then began to slide quietly into the wall.

  They stepped through into an elaborately decorated room. It had paintings, and tapestries hanging on the wood covered walls. It appeared to be an interior room as there were no windows leading out of the room, there were two doors leading out of the room however.

  The room was large and it had 2 tables each a widely different size. The first one was almost disgustingly large, it had to be at least 15 feet long and 10 feet wide. Its surface was a black smooth surface of some kind of wood. The other table was of a more manageable size and more the size that could seat 6 maybe 8 people around it.

  What was odd was that there were no chairs surrounding the large table. What it did have though was wood built into the frame of the table that sat about a foot and a half around the outside of the table. It was close enough that it couldn’t be a bench, besides the sides of the table were filled in with even more wood.

  There was also another area to the room that housed several comfy looking couches and chairs. The entire room was lit by 3 different large chandeliers that let off a glinting light, making the room look almost magical as the lights danced across the walls. Finally Bjorn’s eyes settled on a chair that was shorter than the rest of the chairs in the seating area. Sitting on the chair was Duke Dornan himself.

  Once Adriana had stepped into the room there was a soft swhooshing sound as the wooden wall slowly and silently slid closed. The gnome duke got out of his chair and spread his arms wide. “Bjorn my friend it is good to see you again.” Dornan said as he moved forward to meet Bjorn and Gram heading over to meet the gnome.

  There was a soft smile on Bjorn’s face. “It is good to see you again.” Bjorn started to give a slight bow in deference to the gnome who had earned his trust.

  “No no.” Dornan said, waving away Bjorn’s bow. “None of that, you bow to no one in my city as long as I am in control here.”

  Bjorn straightened up, to his surprise however Dornan continued moving forward with his arms spread and wrapped Bjorn’s legs in a hug. It was almost adorable as the duke came up to Bjorn’s waist, it was like being hugged by a 5 year old, only he had a surprising strength in him for the size of the man.

  When the duke was done with his hug he took a step back standing next to Gram. The scene was comical, as Duke Dornan maybe just barely broke 3 feet tall, while Gram easily broke 8 feet and was closing in on 9. Their statures could not be any more different. Dornan looked almost puny compared to the massive hulking slab of muscle that was Gram.

  Remembering his manners Bjorn spoke. “Duke Dornan, this is my travel companion Adriana.”

  She had been hiding behind Bjorn almost as if she was trying not to get noticed. Bjorn however was not having any of that, he grabbed her by her wrist and pulled her over so that she was more or less standing next to Bjorn. She was standing slightly behind him still but it wasn’t nearly as bad.

  A frown crossed Duke Dornan’s face. “I see. I expected to see the rest of your party with you. At the very least your lovely girlfriend Meira. Did you have some sort of falling out?”

  Bjorn looked up at Gram. “I haven’t told him anything yet. Not that you have told me much about what has happened to you since we last saw each other. I figured it would be best if you told him, as well as giving me details.” Gram said.

  The gnome frowned as he looked up at his captain of the guard. “Tell me what?” He then looked at Bjorn, really looked at Bjorn. It wasn’t on his face, it was in his eyes and in his posture. The man was hurting, he had been beaten down by the years since he last saw him. Bjorn looked as if he had aged a decade even though it had only been 3 years. “Come, let’s sit. I want to hear your story.”

  “But sir, I have some important information about a potential threat here.”

  “Shush. I haven’t heard about a threat here, if there is one it can wait a while longer. Speak, I have a feeling like this threat has something to do with what happened to your friends. I will have your tale, the more you can share the better.” Dornan said as he corralled his guests into seats in the sitting area. Gram took the freakishly large chair right next to the Duke’s chair while Bjorn and Adriana sat on a couch directly across from the pair.

  Bjorn took in a deep breath and let it out. This would be the first time he had fully told this part of his life to anyone. He began to speak. “When we all left this city we headed west going towards Vanta…”

  It took a little over an hour and a half, almost 2 hours for him to tell Dornan and Gram the entire story of what had happened to him since he had left Blackrock Bay the first time. For the most part Bjorn held nothing back in the telling of the story, there were a few things that he left out though. Such as the bag of holding that had belonged to the founder of the city, as well as his synergy. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust the pair, it was that he had left it out often enough that he didn’t think to add it.

  As he told his story he was flooded with emotions. First he felt the loss and sadness of when Tayla, Rickie, and Alaric all had died by the hands of the mauler. Then he felt the hopelessness again as he described their burial. After that the hope, warmth, and happiness he had felt while building their home and life together. Finally he felt the sadness but rage at what had been taken from him.

  Gram, Dornan, and Adriana were good listeners as the story unfolded, they didn’t interrupt to ask questions or even looked bored throughout the telling. They laughed at the silly moments Bjorn detailed, grew sullen at the description of the deaths of Alaric, Rickie, and Tayla, and finally their faces went stony at the description of what happened to Meira. Bjorn held nothing back as he relayed what happened in detail.

  As Bjorn spoke Adriana watched him closely. She knew that Meira and Bjorn had been adventurers before, but she hadn’t heard details of what had happened. This was her first time hearing about how Meira and Bjorn’s friends died. She knew the names as both talked about them often enough, and she knew that they were dead, but that was pretty much everything she knew. As he spoke she put her hand comfortingly on Bjorn’s leg to help him understand that he was not alone. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care as he ignored the gesture.

  “You have my condolences.” Duke Dornan said once Bjorn had finished speaking. “You have had to endure troubles and pains that no man should have to endure. My heart bleeds for your losses, they were truly wonderful people and didn’t deserve what happened to them. Unfortunately we live in a hard world, anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.”

  “I am glad that I insisted that you wait to tell me your story until we both were with Dornan. I can’t imagine you having to share that twice.”

  Dornan slammed his fist down on the armrest of the chair and it shook briefly at the force of the blow. “Our power is limited to just this city. Unfortunately I don’t have the pull that I once had in Escar, our new queen seemed to be rather disappointed at our handling of the Snatcher Spider infestation. She seems to have it in her mind that I was the one to blame for it. Many of the nobles of Escar have turned their backs on me. However the power that I have in this city is absolute, you shall have the full resources of Blackrock Bay at your disposal at rooting these brigands out while you are here.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Thank you, this is more than I deserve.” Bjorn said, the answer was more than he was expecting.

  “That is nonsense.” Gram said. “This city's continued existence as well as The Duke’s and my life are because of the 5 of you. The least, the absolute least we could do is help track down their killers.” He paused for a second and chewed on his lip in thought. “This power you speak of though troubles me. I know of the Grove Elf Kingdom you speak of. It was destroyed years and years ago. I wasn’t aware that there were ruins left over from the time of Ifathhona. If my memory serves correct they worshiped both the forest, the ents, the dryads, and the spriggans.

  “That sounds right.” Dornan picked up the narrative. “What we should do is set the scholars combing our libraries to find information about these elves. As far as I know no one really knows the reason why Ifathhona fell. There is no doubt in my mind however that the temple you found housed some of their treasures. They were known to only share their treasures with those they deemed worthy. If this Kairon managed to get his hands on one of these lost treasures it could be dangerous.”

  “With that being said. Do you mind if I take a look at your hand?” Gram asked.

  “Not at all. Speaking of which, how did you manage to regain your arm?” Bjorn asked.

  Gram answered distractedly as he studied the intricate wood of the hand. “It was a simple task. That doesn’t mean that it was easy. There are potions and magics that are able to reattach limbs or even regrow them. All we had to do was find one of those ways. The high wizard of Escar made the trip out to Blackrock Bay and as a favor to the queen reattached my arm. I had to go with a single arm for only around 2 months. Does it hurt when I do this?”

  Gram took one of his fingernails and pushed it into the chestnut wood it sank into the wood. He looked up at Bjorn to see if there was a reaction. Bjorn just shrugged. “It hurts a little, but not terribly. I can feel the warmth of your hand against my hand, just it feels a little off, it’s hard to explain.”

  Duke Dornan’s eyes glowed a yellowish green color briefly before he made a ‘hmmm’ sound. “I have never heard of a blood root spriggan before. It is probably a rare variant of the creatures. What I want to know is how it has been affecting you since it has become attached to your body. I do see that as it grows in power it will continue to feed off of your body and slowly start to consume it.”

  “How are you able to see that?” Bjorn asked.

  “I have a spell that allows me to identify items. It gives me details about it as well as descriptions of them. It uses up some of my mana but it is well worth it. Why do you ask?” Dornan said.

  “I have an ability that does the exact same thing. It gives me information about items when I use the ability. Its description is a little lackluster at times and I find myself disappointed at the response I get. How rare are skills and spells that can identify items?”

  “I guess now is as good a time as ever.” Gram said. “I wouldn’t say that being able to identify items is all that rare of a skill or spell to have. There are many different ways to identify items. One of which is by magical spells, there is 1 generic spell that I know of that gives basic information about items identified, and past that there are different spells in each basic spell school that give more detailed information.”

  “That is what I know of as well. Another way is through skills, these are more nebulous and harder to say if they are better or worse than spells. One thing that is consistent though is that given even skill levels you can and will learn more and more information about the properties both magical and mundane about the item you are identifying. I personally know about two such different skills.” Dornan said.

  Gram took up the narrative. “You obviously already know about inborn abilities that can identify items. There are two other main ways to identify the properties of an item. The first one is by gaining something called lore. It is like a skill but at the same time it is nothing like most skills you know. As you gain levels in your lore you are able to identify more and more properties of items. Almost everyone should gain some level of lore however, as it is able to interact with all other ways and help provide more detailed descriptions as well as help you learn more about the properties of the item.”

  “Which brings us to the last way to identify items. That is through talents. Almost every crafting profession has somewhere on its tree a way to identify items. This identify usually can give basic information about any item but it does better and gives more detailed information about items that pertain to its specific profession.”

  “As you no doubt have found out.” Gram picked up where Dornan left off. “We have only talked about items, all of these methods can work on people, buildings, as well as objects. I can see your mind working, there are ways to obscure the information people are able to ascertain as well. The two most constant are talents and skill levels. Every other way is a more temporary solution.”

  Bjorn kind of figured all of this but it was helpful to get a more comprehensive breakdown of the ability to identify items. “That is helpful, thank you. Do you happen to know where I could get one of these lore books?”

  “Yeah, I have copies of the first two volumes of the lore books. Just warning you they can get a little dry. But anyways getting back to the matter at hand. How has your body been affected by this creature that seems to have latched itself onto your body?”

  Bjorn shifted slightly uncomfortably. “There hasn’t been much to say about it. Since it got attached to my body I haven’t really felt it, or even thought about it. I can still feel through the wood as if it was a part of my nervous system and was able to react to my every thought and wish. I haven’t noticed any major spreading of the wood through my body. At first I felt a slight draining sensation in my arm but now I don’t notice it. It also apparently is siphoning away some of my natural health regeneration.”

  “Fascinating.” Dornan said as he too began to scrutinize the wood that was his new hand. “I wonder what would happen if we removed the wood. If you want we can try and remove the creature. By my guess it is a parasite feeding off of its host.”

  “We already tried that. When it first burrowed its way into my arm Adriana and I tried to cut it away. Once the wood was cut free of my arm nothing happened. The wood slowly grew back over a week roughly. Once it regrew to the size and shape of my old hand it stopped growing.”

  “Do you want me to also have our scholars look into spriggans as well?” Gram asked.

  Dornan just nodded his assent. “Spriggans are creatures that are shrouded in mystery. What I do know however is that they are often times more bestial creatures that are humanoid and are often lacking any discernible intelligence. They are almost always fully made out of wood and are vicious trying to kill every living thing that they come across. It could be for nourishment, I think it is because they are malicious creatures that hate the living. They are like a tumor that grows in old woods.”

  “Lovely.” Bjorn said sarcastically.

  “Quite.” Dornan said chewing on the end of his finger as he thought. “If you want I can also have my court alchemist take a look at your hand. He is a very skilled alchemist, he might be able to find a way to either kill off the creature or slow its growth, giving you more time to find a solution before the hand consumes your body.”

  “I would greatly appreciate that.”

  “Of course. Now the next order of business, I would like to see this magical core that you were able to retrieve from the mauler if you are willing.”

  Instead of answering Bjorn reached into his bag of holding and pulled out the core that he had retrieved from the mauler all those years ago. He didn’t know exactly why they had held onto it. After years of looking into the orb both he and Meira determined that there wasn’t much they could use the magical core for. The most it could do was make them some money if they found the right buyer. But for some reason each time they talked about selling the damn thing they couldn’t make themselves do it. It came out of the creature that killed their family after all.

  He held the orb out for Gram or Dornan to take from his hands. “Here you go, Meira and I never could come up with something to do with it. Maybe it was because we lacked the proper skills to utilize the core. Maybe it is just a useless inert lump of junk.”

  It was the gnome who reached out and took the orb from Bjorn. It made sense Gram tended to be more of the physical fighter while Dornan, being the professed mage, dealt more in the mystical. He held it up to his eye, then the light. The grapefruit sized orb looked the exact same as it had on the day Bjorn pulled it from the corpse of the mauler. He set the orb down on the small end table that sat by the edge of the couch and began casting spells. Each time either magical energies seeped out of his fingers and flowed over the orb or his eyes, ears, and nose took on different colors as his senses were enhanced.

  Finally he leaned back into the chair his fingers steepled in front of his face. He had a contemplative look on his face. He held this look for long moments before Adriana finally contributed to this conversation. “What did you find my Duke?”

  “Hmmm?” He said distractedly before his eyes focused on the group in front of him again. “Oh yes, and you don’t have to call me Duke, you are friends of Bjorn. Please just call me Dornan.”

  This brought a blush to her face as she sank back into her seat trying to look small.

  The gnome unperturbed by the reaction started to speak. “I am an adept nearing a master in earth magic and even I can’t seem to divine much about this orb. I know for a fact that this core wasn’t naturally occurring. That could mean many different things though. Mainly that either it was totally fabricated by someone or they took some sort of core or orb from another beast or natural treasure and corrupted it somehow. This thing perplexes me. If it was alright with you I would like to give this core to my Enchanter and see what he can make of it.”

  “Of course, that would be perfectly fine with me. If he destroys it or corrupts it in any way then no big deal. It’s not like I was doing anything really with it anyways.”

  Gram placed his hand gently on the back of Dornan’s arm. The gesture looked both nonchalant and practiced at the same time. “I am sorry, but there is business I have to attend to. On top of that the evening is getting late. If you both don’t have anywhere to stay I beseech you to stay here for as long as you are in Blackrock Bay.”

  “We would be honored.” Adriana said quickly. She obviously wanted to stay in the palace and she had to cut Bjorn off before he objected to resting. He had work to do with finding Kairon’s crew and he didn’t want to rest.

  “Very well. Steven!” Dornan called out.

  As soon as the name was spoken one of the two doors opened and a well dressed servant stepped into the room. “Yes my lord?” He said with a bow.

  “I would like for you to provide rooms for our guests tonight. I want these rooms to be made available for these folks as long as they are here. They are free to come and go as they wish. Making sure that the guards posted at the gates are made aware of this. Please see to it. “

  “Yes my lord.” Steven said as he bowed deeper. “If you would follow me please.” He said and waited.

  Bjorn looked apprehensive. “Don’t worry.” Gram said. “I will spread the word and start my guard searching discreetly for your men. They are a very rag tag group, it would be hard for them to hide here without someone seeing them. I will either meet you in the morning or send word of what we have found so far.”

  This seemed to mollify Bjorn. He began to walk towards the door following Adriana. He stopped at the door and looked back at the giant and the midget. “Thank you for all of this. Words cannot describe to you how much this means to me.”

  “Farewell Friend.” Gram said as Bjorn walked out of the room following after the servant.

  They followed the servant through several different hallways until they got to a set of stairs. They took the set of stairs and found themselves in the grand entrance hall, carpeted in a thick red carpet. Adriana looked around in wonder at the size of the room, which was surprisingly warm for how large it was. She only got a moment before she had to rush to follow after Bjorn and Steven.

  They followed Steven through the main entrance. It led from the front door to a large open room with two large open doors. As they approached it looked like a ballroom or something of the sort. They didn’t go into the room, instead right before they got to the door they turned to the side and took one of the two mirrored stairwells up to the second floor.

  From there the second floor branched off into three separate hallways. They took the center one heading back towards the main gate of the palace. At the very end of the hall there were three doors. Steven bowed, stopping before the doors. “You may take any of these rooms.”

  Bjorn nodded and walked forward picking the door in the middle. At the same time Adriana moved over to the room to the right. “Very well, is there anything else that you need?”

  “No, I think I am good.” Bjorn said.

  “Maybe a little something to eat?” Adriana asked. “If it isn’t an inconvenience.”

  “Not at all. I will send someone. If you require anything else there is a rope next to your doors that you can pull to summon one of us. Have a good evening.” He said as he bowed, making his way back down the hall.

  Bjorn made his way into the room and closed it behind himself. He surveyed the room. It was a lavish room, well set of rooms. It consisted of a bedroom and a sitting room. The bedroom was filled with a massive bed as well as several end tables and oddly enough 2 chairs. The other room was filled with bookcases, a liquor cabinet filled with wines, meads, and something else he didn’t recognize, couches, several chairs, and a desk.

  Bjorn made his way into the bedroom and dropped his bag of holding. It felt good, even though it wasn’t a problem for him to carry the bag, and with its weight reducing properties it wasn’t hard to carry it, it still felt nice to remove the extra weight. He stood there stretching for a bit releasing his tensed up muscles when a knock came from his door.

  With a sigh Bjorn made his way over to the door. When he opened it he saw Adriana standing there looking a little sheepish. She had a large bowl of soup and a loaf of bread on a platter. “May I come in?”

  “Of course.” Bjorn replied, stepping out of the way to let her into the room.

  She shuffled into the room and looked around briefly. She walked over to the desk and set down her load. Grabbing one of the smaller bowls on the platter she began filling it from the large bowl. “Would you like some?”

  “Sure.”

  Once she finished filling one she filled a second one. Next she started cutting slices of bread off of the loaf of bread. She handed a bowl and a slice of bread to Bjorn before grabbing hers and sitting down in the sitting area her feet propped up under herself to create a small table with her legs. She sat the bowl down and began ripping into the food. Bjorn joined in albeit a little slower than she did. The soup was some kind of rich broth filled with carrots, potatoes, some kind of meat, and another root that he didn’t recognize. The bread was some sort of sourdough. The entire meal was quite good for a late night meal.

  “It’s like I am living in a fairy tale.” Adriana said.

  “In what way?”

  “Look at us. Just last night we were sleeping on the cold hard ground of the winter. Sure we have tents that keep us warm, but it still wasn’t the most comfortable. Now we met a giant, then we got to have a meeting with a Duke, who was very nice to us, who are just peasants. And now we are staying in the palace. How isn’t this like a fairy tale?”

  “Because in fairy tales people’s wives don’t get brutally murdered before their very eyes. Because in fairy tales people don’t have to slog through the woods to hunt down their murders. Because in fairy tales we aren’t the ones who get covered in mud, blood, and guts of the guilty. This isn’t a fairy tale, this is real life. You weren’t there for it, but everything that you described as a fairy tale had to be earned through blood, sweat, and tears. Many good people died and even more will never recover for us to earn the right to deal with what you call a fairy tale.”

  Adriana was quiet for a time as she took in what Bjorn was talking about. “You're right, I am sorry I didn’t take into account what you had to give up for us to be here. But you have to admit our change in living situation is quite nice, if not a little mystical.”

  “Not mystical but it is pleasant. Don’t get used to it, we are going to be here only until we find out what happened to Kairon’s crew. We can’t get complacent.”

  “I know.” She was quiet as she finished crewing on the crust of her bread. “How can you talk to the Duke so cavalierly? He is a duke, he deserves more respect and deference than you give him.”

  “I don’t know what you have been told or how you were raised, but kings, lords, and dukes are only people. Just like you and me. They are no better than you or I. There are times and places where you should respect their station in life but that doesn’t make them more. All it does is give them power that they can use if they wish.”

  Bjorn paused to drink the last of the broth from the bowl. “Back on earth there are plenty of stories where the people in power get put on a pedestal. Many people think they are too good, or too amazing to be treated like real people. This makes it so that people treat them differently. They don’t treat them as if they are people, but an icon. This makes their lives very lonely as they are devoid of real friends. They deserve to have people care for them and treat them as if they are human.”

  “But he isn’t human. He is a gnome.”

  Bjorn sighed. “I know that. It is an expression, a turn of phrase. Basically it just means that he isn’t anything special and should be treated the same that I would treat any other peasant that I come across in the street.”

  “Oh. I guess that makes sense.” She was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t know what happened to you and Meira before you showed up at Leefside. I am sorry you had to deal with that.”

  Bjorn just shrugged. “Our friends who died were good, amazing people. It sucks that they died, but it isn’t anything that I haven’t dealt with before. I miss them, their deaths were horrible, but continuing to let their deaths affect me would be stupid. ‘Time heals all wounds.’ That is another saying back on earth. I don’t believe it. Time doesn’t heal the wound, it just makes it hurt less.”

  “They sounded like they were fantastic people.”

  “They were.” Silence fell between the pair as both of their thoughts went to different places. Bjorn's reminiscing on the past and his friends, Adriana’s to the hardships that Bjorn has had to deal with in his few years in the Eld. He has lived on this planet less than half the time she has and yet he has had to deal with more than she had.

  “Well.” Bjorn said, breaking the silence. “I think I am going to try and get some sleep in.”

  Adriana got the hint and got to her feet. She made her way to the door and paused with the door open. “Bjorn. I am sorry for what you have had to endure. I promise you this world isn’t as terrible and beak as you have had to deal with.”

  “I know. For every terrible thing I’ve dealt with, there has been two good memories. This world is a wondrous place, it just had the capacity for terrible things to happen. Good night Adriana.”

  She nodded and made her way out of the door. Bjorn sat there for long hours his mind wandering through the good and the bad he has had to deal with in this world. Finally he got up and made his way to bed.