Dialysis Book: Chapter 25: My Kingdom for a Spear

I woke up early, for an adventurer.  That was to say, I woke up at the crack of nine and hopped out of my less impressive bed.  The forest air flowed into the room from the broad, open door leading to the balcony.

Common adventurers shared a communal sleeping hall on the second floor of the residential wing.  Most adventurers declined to stay here, instead finding other rooms either in town or with other adventurers like Madox who rented the actual rooms in the guild.  There was nothing wrong here, everything was clean and the handful of people who stayed spaced themselves out given the large number of unoccupied beds, but it was a barracks.  I’d probably look for an inn tomorrow.

I certainly had the gold for it.

Still it was pretty.  The landscaping you could see from here was immaculate.  There were gardens, trees, and more fountains than I could name.  I’d been to gardens before, but this one screamed of an ancient heritage.

From the balcony I could see dozens of elves looking at groups of artfully planted trees.  They stood there, unmoving, for several minutes while I drank my tava juice and enjoyed the breeze.

“How long are they going to stay there,” asked Shade, who slept on the balcony.  “They have been here since at least sunrise.”

“Probably till about noon,’ said Spivy, she had her costume back on.  A fresh one.  I glanced over at the sun, which was barely over the horizon.

“They are just standing there for six hours,” I asked.

“What else would they do,” said Spivy.  “It isn’t that much time for them.”

When I thought about it, she was right.  That was the equivalent of about a half hour looking at an amazing garden.  I just did that while drinking my tava juice.  Elves lived for at least ten times a human lifespan, that changed how they did things.

They ate normally though.

I got to the dining hall and it was mostly empty.  Some of the adventurers had filed back in but it wasn’t a quest day.  As such, when they got back most of them got drunk, by themselves.  Going out as a group wasn’t a normal thing, but when it was done they did it proper.

I was still picking out splinters on occasion.

There was a slight change to the breakfast menu, and a new sign.  A huge poster of some random human who looked vaguely familiar holding a double handful of homefries.  The sign read ‘get your Heywoods here’, and all the elves were congregated there.

Several waved at me as I passed by.  Many did not. They had the dead eyed stare of predators as Pentacost finished another batch of Heywoods.

“Hello Max,” said an elven woman.  I recognized her as Vicky after a moment.  The problem with elves is that they were fair skinned and many of them shared similar skin tones.  In other words, if they weren’t wearing their equipment it was hard to tell them apart.  Vicky was more of a strawberry blonde, and that helped.

“Hey Vicky,” I replied.

Vicilatious smiled, “You do remember a little, do you remember how limber I was?”

“Not offhand, but I love to learn,” I replied.

An elven male rolled his eyes and walked over. “Max.”

This elf never really removed all of his gear, and because of that figuring out his identity was much easier.  The broad shoulder and straight up and down ears helped.  Elves had a variety of lengths and angles to their ears.

“Quatax,” I replied.

“Vicky, we are going to the art show this morning, and the concert this evening,” said Quatax.  “Besides, what you want to do with him can be done at night.”

She frowned, but shrugged and glanced over at the heywood stand before walking over.  Quatax looked over at me, he was trying to look down but elves as a rule were shorter than people and despite his broad shoulders Quatax was only about five foot eight.  I had a good six inches on him.

His eyes lingered on Vicky for a moment longer than I expected.

“Should I tell Vicky no?” I said as she grabbed a tray of heywoods, plopping one into her mouth and adopting an expression that really made me not want to do that.

Quatax shook his head and looked at me more seriously for a moment, “Be pretty hypocritical for me to complain, I’m still picking out fur from the party.  Maybe in a hundred years or so I’d have a complaint, but you’ll be dead by then.”

“I sure hope so,” I replied, causing Quatax to look shocked, then chuckle.

“You are a sprig, Max,” said Quatax as Vicky walked back over and looked at us both.

“Are you two plotting something,” said Vicky observing both of us closely, “In any case,  Max, if you are free tonight, I have a game I’d like to play.  Have you ever tried the ‘innocent elven maiden in the forest’?”

“No, but it sounds like fun,” I said, hopefully.  Then I remembered someone else.  “What about Aria?”

Both elves looked at each other and shrugged.  Quatax said, “You are crazy.  I haven’t seen her back yet, but if I do I’ll send her over.”

Vicky shrugged.  “Hey, tell her if she comes I will be going first,” said Vicky, who then looked at me, “And you’ll probably need to hit the alchemist.”

I looked a question over at Quatax.

“Stamina potions, you poor man,” said Quatax with a mad grin as he walked off.  “A sprig.”

Best vacation ever.

Vicky watched Quatax walk away and then snorted.  “We shall see.”

Several more elves walked over, gathering with Quatax.  Several of them eyed me, but didn’t say much.  The social dynamic was somewhat interesting with the male elves standing closer to Quatax than Americans would generally tolerate, and the two other female elves standing next to Vicky.  They both glanced at me as she whispered something.

One deflated, and might have replied with ‘next’.

Before I could figure out what she meant, several of the male elves approached me.

“Do the pose,” yelled one and I looked over.  He was standing like the human in the heywood poster.  Not wanting to offend, I adopted the same pose and the elves cheered.

“Hey wood, Hey wood.”  The elves left the dining hall, with Vicky waving at me as they went until Quatax pulled her away.

“They are strange,” said Shade looking over at the homefry stand.  It was cleared out.

“I think that is supposed to be a poster of Heywood,” I said looking at it.  If it was, the artist at least partially based it off of me, with the new blond hair.  I had inadvertently been made the posterboy for the heywoods the elves craved.

I walked to a different counter and grabbed food for myself and Shade.  Shade was trying to drink out of a large bowl of communal soup so I tapped him on the head with a finger and then put a bowl of the soup on his tray.

He looked wounded to his core, and I’d quite possibly killed him.

“Am I a bad dog?” said Shade, suitably chastised.  He looked so saddened by the attack, by me, his loving master, that he might have died of sheer and overwhelming negative emotions.  In one quick motion, I’d ruined his whole life, and any chance he’d ever had at happiness.

“I tapped you on the head,” I said.  One finger never hurt on Earth, and now he was far tougher but the message was the same.  “You are just upset that I caught you.”

“I could have gotten away with it,” said Shade sneakily.

“Don’t drink from the serving table, especially when I’ll just buy you some with your money,” I said.

“I like stealing,” said Shade, padding up next to me and sniffing around for his next tray item.  “Stealing food and getting treats from a friend makes them taste better.”

“I know,” I said, ladling out some companion chow for good nutrition.  Shade’s ears went flat.

“You don’t have to eat anything nutritious if you don't steal anything nutritious,” said Shade.

“This isn’t just nutritious, it is good boy chow,” I said.

“What,” asked Shade, examining the healthy food uncertainty.

“Yup, this is what good boys eat, you want to be a good boy, don’t you,” I asked.

“I am a good boy, give it to me,” said Shade,  hopping up and down.

I grabbed some greens and then paid for everything.  Our feasts cost just under thirty coppers.  Given we had even more money than last time when I considered this a steal, I was ready to go out on town.

Bloated and full we left using the north entrance towards the nearby shopping area.  We weren’t in a hurry, and that was fine because no one else was either.  Elves were either hurrying to get something done, or being as lazy as possible.  There was no inbetween.  It was a few hours before noon, and none of them could be bothered to do much of anything when no quests were being handed out.  Apparently, there was a batch ready for tomorrow.

Spivy hopped onto my back and ran into my hood.  I inhaled, and waited for the rotting stink that didn’t come.

“Did you get a better disguise,” I asked.

“Yeah, I scrapped this one so it will last longer,” said Spivy.

“Does this mean no snack,” said Shade.

Spivy waved her hand and a squirbit chunk flew through the air.  Shade effortlessly caught it then swayed slightly.

“Are you okay,” asked Spivy.

“My tummy feels strange,” said Shade unhappily.  “It is usually very cooperative with eating.”

“We just left a very large breakfast.  You should probably hold off on feeding him anything else for at least an hour,” I offered as Shade reinforced his constitution.  I let the dog walk slowly after me as I walked over to a large branch that went over the road.

They didn’t have street crossings here, because of the insane traffic.  Instead they had branches over the roads that were just thick enough that one person could have easily crossed it.  Elves were walking in both directions simultaneously which just didn’t seem safe.

Shade didn’t have much of a problem.  Four legs, and a low center of gravity would have been good enough, but he had that climbing core, climbing claws, and a much better grasp of his essence than I did.

In other words, he walked on the bottom of the branch over the traffic, at least for a bit.  I saw a particularly large reindeer run under the bridge and he was suddenly on top.  I heard something clatter to the street below only to find Shade cringing next to me.

“Those deer aim for you,” said Shade.  “He jumped.”

“Great,” I muttered, stepping onto the branch following another elf.  We were the only ones on the branch for the first half, and both of us were going the same direction so everything went smoothly despite the relative thinness of the branch.  I walked in the center, earring a firm tisk from the elf.

Long eared jerk.

The problem happened when I got to the halfway part and a group of elves came in from both sides.  That meant I couldn’t just turn around, and the branch was much thinner than I thought was necessary to actually let people pass.

Then the first two elves crossed, and they both held out their hands.  The elves grabbed each other's arms and used that as a support to move around each other.  Doing that made it possible for both to get around.  I stuck out my hand similarly and the southbound elf took it without comment.

The trick was to use almost no pressure, but just by knowing where the other person was it was relatively simple to cross over.  I did that again with the next elf and figured out what I needed to do.

So when I stuck out my hand for the third elf and he slapped it away, I was momentarily taken aback.  I looked up at the long eared elf’s face, and his expression was that of total revulsion.

“Sir,” I said flatly, extending my hand so we could move past each other.

“I will not touch a lo-tai,” said the elf, as he attempted to shuffle past me.  The problem was that I was broader than an elf, so two elves might have made it past each other with some degree of dignity.  He couldn’t make it past me without some rather vigorous contortions.

But he had a better idea.

He simply walked on the side of the branch briefly, using his essence and his boots to avoid dealing with me at all.  Then I realized that most of the elves who used these branches were using boots designed to adhere to the branch using a climbing core.  They weren’t majestic otherworldly creatures, they were cheating.

Like Shade, but he was a dog so that was fine.

Grumbling, I stepped past the elf and prepared to continue down the branch when I heard a noise behind me.  An elf rushed down the branch, quickly moving past the other elves until he got to me.  I got my head whipped around just as he hopped over me, which in and of itself wouldn’t have been a problem.

However as he sailed over my head, red and yellow cape fluttering in the wind, I noticed a smirk as he landed directly in front of me  causing the branch to bounce up and down.  If I had the elven boots, I would have been fine but I was wearing normal boots and that caused my precarious balance to falter.  One moment I was standing on the bridge, the next I was falling from well over twenty feet up.

I jerked my hand around, grabbing at the branch and I even felt the edge of the climbing skill as Shade projected it to me but there wasn’t enough time to get my essence ready for that much of an effort.  I snatched at nothing and fell towards the street below and the oncoming traffic.

Landing with a whump, the bright flash of both of my shields failed causing the nearby traffic to momentarily start.  That flash was nothing compared to my flash spell, but it was enough to disrupt traffic and I heard several vehicles smash into each other.

Then again, I’d been hearing that the whole time I was on the bridge.

I was staring at a wave of traffic.  The sidewalk was tantalizingly close, yet not quite close enough.  I was sunk so I did the only thing I could think of.

I generated the biggest, brightest yellow light I could manage as I ran off to the side.  That might not have worked for regular, earth cars, because the light was in the middle of nowhere, but every vehicle on the road here was powered by an animal.

Those animals had been trained to stop on yellow.  I was a human traffic light, and got off the street before I caused a major accident.

“We should probably bail,” said Spivy, tasting the word.  “I mean run, get out here.  Why bail?”

“Bail out,” I said, understanding.  The elves on, well… everywhere were pointing at me as I turned the corner and switched into another set of clothes.   I ran down a larger branch into a garden at maximum speed, but when I broke everyone’s line of sight I stopped and looked at the neary display which was showing bonsai trees.

An elven law enforcement officer ran past me, and for a moment I thought my disguise worked.  Then he stopped.

“I think this is the human,” said the officer as a second elf ran into view.

“He was described as a human wearing a blue shirt, he’s wearing a green shirt,” said the other elf.

“Blue, green, he could have changed shirts,” said the officer, grabbing my arm in a painful grip.  “And he’s right here.”

“It isn’t like anyone can tell the difference, what were you doing,” asked the second officer.

“I like trees,” I said, gesturing at the display as I pulled against the elf.  Despite being inches taller and much heavier than the elf, he was clearly much stronger than me.  Maybe if I played dumb?

“Everyone likes trees,” said the elf.  “He seems dim witted, that’s the kind of intelligence you’d expect from someone who fell into traffic.”

Shit.

“Officer, I saw the human running that way,” said Shade.

“Is that a talking mutant doat,” asked one officer.

“That’s just like the fortune teller told me,” said the second.  He immediately sprinted where Shade pointed him.

“Freaking fortune teller,” grumbled the first elf and he ran off as well.

I watched them run off and then turned 90 degrees and headed down an alley.  “This place is terrible for a vacation.”

“Agreed,” said Shade.  “I think I smelled that elf, should we go find him.”

I considered that, but I was on vacation.  Quests for vengeance did not go well with a mai-tai.  Instead we found a place serving the local equivalent of mimosas, a drink worthy of revenge.  Shade even got one, which I was pretty sure made me a bad pet owner, but he was a companion now and they had looser dietary restrictions.

Plus the elven restaurant had never heard of bottomless mimosas but at 8 coppers each, a silver bought a lot of alcohol.  After we had our fill, we left to begin our journey for equipment.  At least I did.

“Thank you for carrying me,” groaned Shade.

“It's fine,” I replied, holding the dog over my shoulders.

“I should not have drank that much,” said Shade.

“You had one,” I replied as I looked around for signs about where we were going.  “And I finished it.”

“You are a good friend,” said Shade, and I scratched his side.

“Well, that might be but I’m not a good navigator,” I replied.

I was standing in a garden.  Dominus had three kinds of areas.  You were either in one of the big structures, on a road or standing in a garden.  There were literally plants everywhere in the elven city, and once you got even slightly away from the roads the plants got thick.

The plazas were filled with gardens and massive, to my American eyes.  I suspected these played the same roles as city blocks did in a human city, with each plaza being more or less self contained to some extent.  The trees were not continuously inhabited.  You could find sections fifty feet across that were just wood, with massive shops or homes on either side.  As such, the plazas were larger than football fields and unevenly shaped.

I was standing in a garden next to a fountain, surrounded by more fountains, surrounded by more gardens.  The shops were on multiple levels, connected by oddly grown branches so that there was no single first story, just stores at various levels of elevation.  Then there were paths leading out of this plaza to other gardens, which were also up and down depending on the local conditions.  It was a green nightmare from which I’d like to awaken.  Worst of all, multiple different plazas all looked nearly the same so the virtually indistinguishable shop I was traveling to might not even be in this specific plaza.

The elves were out in force in the plaza I was in.  The elves who were not otherwise occupied with business were out here doing elf stuff.  Mostly that seemed to be looking at trees, or frolicking for lack of a better word.  Elven children were out under the watchful eyes of elven parents mostly throwing things at other things or doing dangerous looking acrobatics off of the branches.

Jumping down from a second story branch to the soft grass was not considered troubling to the elves who were watching the children.

Also, all the off duty reindeer seemed to congregate in the gardens.  They stayed in the gardens, wandering the entire area without bothering anyone.  One walked right up to me and sniffed several times before walking away to join a small herd.

“I think that one tried to kill me yesterday,” I said.

“Probably, just don’t use your light ability here,” said Spivy and I mentally checked to make sure I wasn’t.

In all, it seemed pretty idyllic and gave off a vibe that was not something you got in a human city.  Darven, for all of its oddities, ultimately had a very human feel to it.  That led me to believe I could manage in any city.  Dominus did not have a human vibe to it, I felt keenly out of place here especially in the more elven areas, which was most of the city.  Further, I was also far enough away from the adventurer’s guild that I was in an elven area and everyone was giving me the side eye.

“Do they think you stole something,” asked Shade.

“No, and I know you haven’t because I’m still holding you,” I said.

Shade sighed.

“Alright, Spivy, where is the shop?”

“Oh, I thought you said how hard could it be to find a shop,” said Spivy, hopping out of my hood in her squirbit costume.

“Of course, coach, where is the spear shop,” I asked, grating my teeth.

“I thought you said, and I quote, I can find a shop, there will be a sign,” said Spivy.

“There are no signs,” I said, looking around at the twelve identical shops.  Several looked like at one point they might have had signs, but those signs had been grown over by the trees and no one had bothered to replace them.  “How do the elves manage this?”

“Because most of their shops have been there for centuries,” said Spivy looking around, “So they just know where they are.”

“Do you know where this spear maker’s shop is,” I asked patiently.

“I do, but you need to figure this out on your own, I won’t always be here to help you,” said Spivy maliciously.

“Are we at least in the right garden,” I groaned.

“Possibly, possibly not,” replied Spivy mischievously.  “Remember, you are looking for Krieg, the legendary elven spear maker.  He probably doesn’t want to be found by you.”

“This is why I don’t talk to small animals,” I grumbled.  Shade whined.  “I only talk to good bois.”

“Phew,” said Shade as he started sniffing.  “Well, I can smell that only a few of those shops deal with metal.”

“That’s at least something,” I said and walked over to the first shop.  Elven shops liked large windows, but didn’t use glass of any sort.  Instead there was a large wooden awning that could be opened or closed.  As I approached an elven girl of perhaps one hundred and fifty, a mere slip of a thing, glanced up at me and frowned.

“We don’t have anything for your kind,” she said before I even opened my mouth.

“You normally would,” I asked.

She frowned, “If I decided a good was insufficient quality for an elf, this one might sell to a human, if she felt like it.  But right now there is so little felt grass in town there are no goods at all so this one sits and watches the garden grow.”

“Where is the spear shop and I’ll leave you to watch grass grow,” I replied flatly.

She considered, torn between being unhelpful and getting rid of me.  I squeezed Shade and my  beloved doggo released a noxious attack.  My eyes teared up, I was at ground zero.  The elf made her decision.

“Down that path and up a floor,” she gasped out, her long ears drooping.  She looked green, well, greener than before.  Elven cosmetics featured a lot of earth tones and green was within the acceptable shades they were allowed to use.

“See, I knew you would figure it out,” said Spivy.

“That makes one of us,” I grumped as we made it to the correct plaza, which was even bigger than the last one.  The scope of Dominus was challenging.  There were eighteen separate shops here, on several different branches going around the garden in a chaotic pattern.

“The address was Garden of Farring, Fireblossom Branch, three,” I said looking at the statue in the middle of the garden.  It had been cleaned ‘recently’ and a small sign at the statue’s feet read Farring.

More correctly, it said F-A-weeds-mud-more weeds-maybe L-worn rock-G.

“They named the garden after that elf,” asked Shade.

“How long ago,” I groaned.

“Two thousand years,” said Spivy looking at the statue, “Takes a long time for stone to erode like that from just rain.”

“I hate this place,” I muttered.  “So what the hell are fireblossoms?”

“The flowers on that branch are all fireblossoms,” said Shade gesturing with his nose towards a branch that had a bright orange flower that ran the whole length.  Each of the five branches in this garden that were connected to doors all were blessed with a single type of vibrant flower.

I looked at the branch and there were five doors on it, “So the middle one?”

“I am a dog, I do not know how to count,” said Shade.

Spivy laughed.

I sat Shade down in the garden and started up the branch.  The branches leading to shops were wide enough to fit a cart on, and snaked easily up the length of the massive tree the garden was next to.  I was on the longest branch, there were others but they only hit one or two of the houses.  There were several empty doors where no branches reached.

“When a branch dies off, everyone just moves to another tree,” said Spivy patiently.  “They have druids, so successful businesses can pay to have a branch maintained or restored, so there is lots of speculation when a branch dies.”

“Great,” I muttered and looked into an empty house.  I didn’t know what kind of shop it was, but the tree was already working at closing up the hole.  My initial concern was that the house could have been used by monsters, but that clearly wasn’t the case.

“That takes about fifty years,” said Spivy.

“How do they function,” I grumbled.

“Over a very long time,” replied Spivy, looking down over the garden.  I tracked her gaze and spotted two elven children talking to Shade.  He started playing with them, proving that racism had nothing on dogs.

When I walked up to the door of the spear shop, I initially thought it was closed.  The wooden awning that should have been open to show the interior was closed and there were no sounds of crafting going in inside.  Still, people were walking in and out of other shops so I tried to open the door.

The door opened silently, and I was staring at the inside of a high quality showroom.  A human shop would have a bell, but I suspected the elf just didn’t need one.  The interior of this hollow in the tree was covered in a white stucco that was supposed to have healing properties to the wood while preventing growth.  There were hooks cut into the stucco at all spots displaying a dozen extremely high quality spears.  The only one that looked out of place was the rather plain spear prominently displayed right over the counter.

The back of the shop was the work area and a lone elf was using a pole turner to straighten out a spear shaft.  There was a small, mana powered forge behind him glowing hotly.  There was a bright red glowing core mounted into the top of it that was connected to two smaller green cores through a series of pulsing veins

“This one welcomes you to his shop,” said a voice in elvish.  Their language was melodious, and quite beautiful.  I’d been listening to it so much that I could pick out a few words, if I tried really hard.

However it was much easier to use the language shard.

“Hello,” I said walking to the back.

The very long eared elf stared at me for a moment, “Get out.”

“I'd like to buy a spear,” I said, plowing on.

“Oh,” replied the elf, turning to fully face me as he stood up, “Get out.”

“You sell to the adventurer’s guild, they sent me,” I continued.

“Are you the adventurer’s guild,” replied the elf.

“I work for them,” I said.

“That’s a no, this one sells to them, if they want to waste my work on the likes of you that’s their business, this one don’t sell to lo-tai,” said the elf.  “Now leave.”

“I just want to buy a spear, I have coins,” I said, thrusting out several gold coins onto the counter.

“You aren’t going to leave are you,” said the elf looking more annoyed.

“This one will not,” I replied hotly.  The elf’s ears flattened as he realized I was mocking him.

The elf glanced down at the coins and sneered before replying in the human language, “I am an artist, your coins are not worth anything here.”

“You sell to the adventurer’s guild,” I growled.

“I’m not making them art,” replied the elf, grabbing a spear off the wall.  It was an impressive looking thing, with a faintly green steel tip and a slot for a core.  I stopped being impressed when he thrust it at me, stopping with the tip of the blade poking my sternum in a display of skill.  He’d stopped just before he cut me.

Then I felt a warm trickle down my chest.

“You stabbed me,” I said.

“Yes, now get out,” said the elf as I pushed my essence into the wound.  It sealed right up, the cut being very shallow but still.

“You want to trade goods,” I spat, “I have felt grass.”

The elf prepared to hotly retort, but stopped short.  Felt grass was in a limited supply due to all the monsters moving through the forest.  “What else?”

“Some pieces of gnarly wood,” I continued, pulling out several chunks of wood from the forest and sitting them on the counter.  “And some goblin war doat teeth.”

The elf looked like he was about to throw me out, physically, but when I mentioned the monster teeth he stopped.  “Been fighting goblins.”

“Yup,” I said, pulling out the bugbear token.  “I even killed a warlock.”

The elf sighed, stepping back a pace and looking at the coin.  “I’m not going to sell you a spear.”

“I could just leave the money here,” I said.

The elf frowned and pointed his spear elsewhere, “That just paying with extra steps.  I don’t want a human’s money.”

“Why not,” I asked.

“Because the king strongly discourages us from assisting humans on account of you being a lower tier species,” said the elven spear maker.

I frowned at him, “That’s a dick move.”

“Yeah, well, father is a dick.  He’s not required to be rational.” said the elf who glanced down at his spear and put it away.  “Did you really kill a bugbear?”

“Yeah,” I said, leaving the token on the counter as I stepped back.  The elf’s shoulders bowed slightly and he stepped over to look at it.

“Yeah, that’s a bugbear token, my name’s Krieg by the way.”

“Max,” I replied.  “Why did you switch to human.”

“You butcher my language and mock my pattern of speech,” said Krieg.

“Sorry, you were being a dick,” I said.

“Well, at least my message was coming across,” said Krieg.

I shook my head and the elf grinned maliciously.

“Being an dick to the lower born is just an advantage of having longer ears, just ask your fairy,” asked Krieg.

“Um,” I began until Spivy stood up and removed the squirbit head.

“That didn’t last long,” she said.

“The story of the magic squirbit is about a fairy that helped an elven adventurer,” said Krieg who looked over at me, “A long time ago.”

“You don’t care about a fairy being here,” I asked.

“Why would I?” said Krieg, setting the token down.  “Other System Lords banned the creatures.  The Elven System lord didn’t care about them, the only reason father dislikes them is because mother is so ambivalent towards them he decided to stake a position to oppose her.”

“But you don’t care,” I asked.

“Not particularly, fairies were never that big a concern in my book and my nephew might have survived if he’d had one with him that fateful day,” said Krieg.

“What happened?” I asked.

“A short while ago, fairies were banned and my nephew had to give his up,” said Krieg.  “That was about the time when you started to see bugbears.  Prior to the departure of the fairies, you never saw them and now they are in every goblin warren.”

“A short while ago?  That was like 80 years,” I said.

“A short while,” replied Spivy and Krieg nodded.

“One forgets how impatient humans can be,” said Krieg, sitting down.  “My nephew was attempting to clear a goblin warren and was slain by a bugbear.  Before he left, his fairy warned him to be extra careful, but my nephew was determined to be a great elven adventurer.  That was his focus, and no one could get through to him but his fairy.  My sister always believed that if the fairy had accompanied him, my nephew would have survived.”

“Fairies are good at spotting when you are in a difficult situation and offering advice on how to get out of it,” I said.

“Yes,” said the elf, looking at me.  “I’ve spent the last several decades attempting to kill goblins where I could and I’ve never found a bugbear, and you just walk in needing a spear after having killed one.”

“That’s what adventurers do, we kill monsters and save people,” I said.

“People,” asked the elf.

“All people,” I replied and the elf looked at me for a long moment before sitting the token down.

He suddenly looked old and defeated. It was as if he was a hundred miles, or perhaps a hundred years away remembering something from the times before my great grandfather.  Krieg walked over to his counter and reached up for the plain spear there.  It looked sturdy, but non-descript compared to the many ornate spears in the chamber.

“This was to be my nephews, I built it specifically for him, a young adventurer,” said Krieg, handing me the spear.  “So I want you to use it to kill as many goblins as you can in your short life.”

“I do like killing goblins,” I said, then gestured towards Spivy.  “What about her?”

“I don’t care what a squirbit does,” said Krieg.  “Now get out, this one demands it.”

With that, the old elf walked back to the workshop and started working on another spear.  I stepped out of the shop and only the branch after taking the spear into my inventory.

“Nice,” said Spivy.  “That's a Krieg original, made for his family.  It doesn’t look impressive but it is extremely solid and the spear head is made for holding an essence charge.”

“So I can throw it,” I asked.

“Yes, and if you put a weapon core in it of the correct type you will be able to recall it back to your hand,” said Spivy.

“What kind of core,” I asked as we started down the branch towards where Shade was still playing with several children and a very ugly cat.

“Weapon core, sort of like a class core but for weapons,” said Spivy.  “You need to have a shardsmith make one for you.  They are a bit out of my skill range and somewhat expensive.”

“What are the options,” I asked.

“Elemental Air, possibly Lightning depending on how quickly you want it to come back,” said Spivy.  “Of course, you could put a spear core in there and it would reduce the essence cost of all of your attacks.”

“Shame I can’t put two cores in at once,” I said.

“That’s insane,” replied Spivy.

“Or give a spear core elemental aspects,” I continued.

“Why not,” asked Spivy.  “That’s what everyone else does so their weapon evolves with them.  It is more a question of what do you want to do first.”

The possibilities were endless.

“Best vacation ever,” I said.  “Let’s hit a shardsmith.”