Shadows Over Nothross -- Chapter 6

“So now what?”

Facyr looked slightly downtrodden. Two days after the assault on the fortresses, they were in a fairly ordinary situation – sitting by a table on the porch of an inn, sipping a little bit of beer just for show, waiting for some helpless poor man offer them a nice little map that shows exactly where all the adventure and excitement was.

The problem was, of course, that it wasn't happening all that often these days. Certainly not in a smallish elven town that had, in a single morning, turned from a frontier town to a protected part of the elven kingdom once again, having lost a major source of frequent monster raids. Aleln and Realn and a handful of other nobles were now keeping the fortress firmly in their hands and getting the realm back in the proper shape. Aleln Valntathalen, First Duke of Nothross, was now wielding his ducal power with pride, joy and especially the money – luckily, apart of grabbing the staff, Jaxtomsyn hadn't touched the riches of the vault. The town was recovering around them, and they could almost see it with their own very eyes.

Facyr thought they were getting lazy. As far has him was concerned, he was ready to pack things up. and return to Anchorfall. He sighed. “Nobody needs us.”

“Come on”, Faira said. “maybe nobody is offering us anything interesting to do, but that doesn't mean we're useless.” She smiled. “You seriously need to relax. When was the last time you really sat down and didn't think of going out killing monsters?”

Facyr thought for a while. “I don't know.” He realized something and gasped. “Yeah, I may be thinking too much of this stuff. I've not had a good vacation in years. Just endless fighting just to get myself fed.”

“Yet if I look at the bank, I think we could stay in the most luxurious restaurant in Anchorfall every day for the whole next year before our money runs out. Or before the tax man takes his share.” Faira smiled, then landed a bag full of coins on the table. “After our expenses our deducted, this is our profit from this journey – twenty-eight hundred thintain, and that doesn't even include the eternal gratitude of an elven duke. Let's, for once, just spend the money – we're not really in any hurry to get back to Anchorfall just yet, and I guess we still have a lot to chat about with our royal friends here. And Gnedrnygr is having fun with this new magic staff of his, and all of that strange and wonderful gear the magician left behind.”

“I told Jenyr we'd be back after at most two weeks stay here.”

Faira smiled mischievously. “Actually, four, as I recall telling him a few moments after you had explained him your plan.”

Facyr scratched his head, and gave Faira a smile that began as merely a smile of discovery, and ended up as a smile reserved purely for “by saying that, you've made yourself a lifelong friend of mine” kind of situations. “You planned this from the beginning, huh?”

“Well, I figured out that it would be extremely wise to stay a while, knowing how busy we'd soon get in Anchorfall with new adventure opportunities dropping from each direction – none of which quite as good as what you can find here. And now that we're in elven country, I'd like to introduce to you a quaint elven custom.”

“What's that?”

“Flyal mellellur, or the 'grove of care'.”

Facyr blushed. “You mean—”

“It's a place where you will find plenty of people who know how to cure a shy soul.”

“But it's that, you know, an elven—” Facyr croaked, his face turning deep red again.

“It's nothing like that!” Faira said. “It's a place where you can babble about your miserable novicehood to your heart's content, and people will show you how much they feel for you. I guess you can find people with similar experiences there and learn how to cope with this. It's also a place to brush up your speaking skills and shed your shyness.”

“But what if they—”

“You don't have to. Seriously. But I think in your case they can, if you really want to.”

“Oh.”

“And how about in a few days, how about we ride to Faroakhill and see the big museum there. Look, this country is full of really fascinating places.”

“So it seems.” Facyr smiled. “And isn't there that big chariot race in Furinia in a week? The one with those funny decorated chariots and all? I remember hearing about it in one of the inns when we were coming this way.”

“Oh yes, there's that. Wonderful event, I was there an year ago. And I'm definitely going to enter the air lute championship festival in Bluebrook the week after!”

“Air lute championships? You're kidding, right? No, wait, we're in Furinia and not in real world,” Facyr said with a grin.

“Sure, that's a real festival, and I believe this year's festival will be particularly popular, when a lot of real bards will show up It will be a thrill of the lifetime! Did you know that I got to the semifinals last year?!” Faira said proudly but joyfully, and smiled.

Facyr laughed. The two sagged down in their chairs and smiled at each other – and Facyr was slowly learning the art of sagging in chairs from Faira. The holiday plans were kind of hazy at the moment, but the possibilities seemed endless now, so the details could wait. Soon, they'd be having great fun every day. And only then would they need to what they normally considered great fun. Home in Anchorfall was a long way off.

The End

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